Hmmm…
Gov. Inslee says ‘mandatory measures’ under consideration to combat coronavirus in Washington
Since the novel coronavirus emerged as a threat in Washington, officials have sought to keep people here from infecting each other by offering advice, health care and other assistance. What they haven’t yet done to slow the spread of the virus is tell residents what they can and can’t do.
That could change at some point, however.
Officials are considering mandatory measures for social distancing as part of the state’s effort to combat the outbreak, Gov. Jay Inslee said Sunday.
Barb, my oldest daughter, her spouse, and I, all in Bellevue, have been doing our part for the last week. We have been working from home and minimizing contact outside our homes. We are also prepared for several more weeks as needed.
We live in interesting times.
In other words, avoid mass transit, carpooling, high density housing, and “open floor plan” office spaces and schools, places that tolerate public defecation and urination, and high density urban cores.
Huh. It’s almost like Dems DEMAND policies that encourage the spreading of plague and pestilence, and then wonder why plague and disease crop up in their districts…
Nah, must be coincidence.
There is the possibility that it is already too late. What if we tamp it down now only to have it re-infect again?
Perhaps the solution is permanent social distancing or just a lot more localism coupled with online shopping, homeschooling, telecommuting, teleconferencing, …
Here’s what I have going on:
– My company has banned employees from going into our Seattle tower unless there is specific business critical physical interaction involved. Everyone is on work-from-home virtual work.
– My wife’s company has similarly gone 100% virtual.
– My son’s private school has gone virtual teaching for the next two weeks, at least.
– My daughter’s school hasn’t gone only-virtual yet, but her school is a private 1-on-1 tuition school that has done virtual teaching before for weather reasons.
– My kid’s (and mine) scout troop has gone to virtual meetings. Simultaneous interaction with the Issaquah School District refusing to accept BSA insurance unless specifically quoted in the policy is a separately a barrier that will be soon overcome by the Maple Valley community taking over the old fire station that they will offer to the various Scout programs. But… main scoutmaster’s wife’s office confirms contact with the COVID-19 virus, so wheeee….
“Mandatory measures”. As Obama henchman Rahm Emanuel stated more than a decade ago, “never let a crisis go to waste”. We are going to see a LOT
of “mandatory measures” being implemented under “emergency” conditions that
would NEVER fly if the heaving teeming masses of ignorant people weren’t being driven to the edge of insanity by the fear being promulgated by the media.
This virus was MANUFACTURED….and so is the FEAR we are seeing.
My girlfriend and I are already doing this, since we have regular contact with several high risk individuals as per known COVID-19 mortality rates (elderly and immunocompromised). I’ve been self isolating with the exception of taking the dogs to the dog park for exercise and to pick up more supplies with a WFH attitude since it’s permitted.
It was yesterday that some of the scientifically oriented smartest people I know yesterday admitted that the only change in their lifestyle they’ve made is not going to work. Instead of working from an office, they’re working from a coffee shop or restaurant. To quote the exact statement he shared encouraging get togethers, “We have free WiFi and plenty of space to have meetings or small group get-togethers so you can get off zoom for a minute. Love you, tech workers. Code something awesome (or whatever you do with computers).”
I understand that at the end of this all, we will want those services to still exist. But when you consider that perspective that this is the current behavior of individuals – smart individuals, not just the general populous – mandatory measures makes a ton of sense when an enormous part of the population is too f**king stupid to practice common sense and good practices without being forced to.
It seems that our officials are ‘too’ slow to act. It is past time to panic and we should mandate shutdown now – if we do not then we will be Italy within 7-14 days and will shutdown then after a lot more fatalities.
We should permanently move to an online world. We’re already seeing steps being taken in that direction. We need more, along with a crash effort to remote a lot more jobs and a push to localize our social interactions.
NO. Totally online means totally outsourcable to the lowest cost place. We just need much smaller cities and less movement between them an across borders. We already don’t spend enough time outside our bubble of home-car-work-car-home.
That, of course, is true, but the real problem is commoditization whatever form that takes.
Chet, do you have any data for your assertion that it is “past time to panic”? I know the left wants us to panic as a way to get the economy to crash, but that doesn’t mean sane people should pay any attention.
I’ve just been looking at the exponential growth of this virus in other countries. For example, we are roughly 11 days behind Italy on the growth curve. And our numbers are increasing each day. In 7-14 days I expect that we will be at the same place.
I hope that I’m wrong.