Coronavirus

I'm guessing those ^ numbers have much to do occupation, namely a larger percentage blacks and Latinos have jobs that don't allow working from home.

If what I see in my area of town is representative, they also have more multigenerational households, which includes friends as well family.

 

I would be curious about how many were rich, middle class, or poor with no health insurance? Age is also a factor, although people of all ages get sick, the deaths hit the oldest the worse. Which is different from the 1918 Kansas Flu that killed healthy people with overactive immune responses.

 

Oh yeah, I remember that.

 

sending good vibes, hope he gets over it soon and with no side affects

 

We have someone here who has been sick for about a week and my boss finally made him go get tested. He is 28 years. Their were a few employees here that were complaining about him because they were/are concerned about him possibly having it. WHen he was told to go get tested he got pissed off and said he had no insurance and could not afford the $175 cost for a rapid test. Long story short myself and a fellow employee gave him the money to pay for it.....

He was negative...

The qustion is how many people dont get tested for that reason?
He said that he does not have hearth care because he does not go to the dr because he thinks they are all stupid and only want your money. Wither or not i agree with that is beside the point. Lets say he did have it, how many people could he have infected? he could have died..

 

I've heard MANY people make broad generalizations such as
"People with health insurance, can go to the doctor, they can have the operation."

Having health insurance is definitely better than not having it.
But--speaking from personal experience--a $6,000.00 deductible and a 20% copay can be expensive for many people. Also the insurance companies pay 80% of what they see as standard charges; any discrepancies are charged to the patient,*

$6K + $10K (20% of $50K) + $Misc = A lot of $$$ for many people.


* After procedures requiring a hospital visit, especially in-patient, we have always received several bills for what the insurance wouldn't cover. The anesthesiologist, assisting surgeon, hospital gown inspector, etc.

 

Reading stuff like this makes me totally fine with paying higher taxes. If I have even minor symptoms I can go get tested and not pay anything. Should I get it and wind up in the hospital I'll get covid sick pay and don't have to worry about massive hospital bills (I think I'd be charged something like $20 per day I'm staying at the hospital).
Being able to be tested should not be dependent on your monetary situation, and hospitalization should not put you in massive debt. That's just wrong. My own personal opinion of course.

 

I agree, with all this shit going on I think testing should be free. But its not for whatever reason (all about the money in my opinion)

 

During war time we have war profiteering; we most certainly have pandemic profiteering. The jump in profits would be, at least should be, easy to find in public companies that have to show their finances. Private companies can keep the numbers secret.

Vaccinations (plural = optimistic) and other relatively easy to administer treatments will be major profits for some companies.

Medical research isn't cheap. The pharmaceutical companies have to get the money from somewhere. The other companies have to make enough of a profit to make staying in business worth the effort.

Determining reasonable profit and excessive profit, who gets to do it, how it's accomplished, what to do about profiteering, etc is extremely difficult. As it should be. We shouldn't act on knee jerk reactions, and shouldn't automatically accept information provided by the companies.

 

I wonder if there is a correlation between race and income? (i.e. that there are more poorer Latinos) and whether the ability to pay for health insurance plays a larger role in this?

In more Oz related news - we recorded zero new cases countrywide today. This is a huge step for us. At least in Sydney (where I live) a lot of things have returned to "normal", though there still seems to be a lot of people working from home and indoor public spaces have limits on people. Our state government did fairly strict lockdowns but once through our first peak, have gradually eased restrictions, with the understanding that they ramped up health and tracking services to handle future outbreaks. We are almost at the point of all internal borders (between states) being open again.

 

I have been working the whole time. We did spread everyone apart to 2 meters in the offices. No one has had it here which is interesting. 120 people.
The numbers are going up again here in the UK, but deaths are way lower. Sweden has been interesting to watch since this started. Their numbers are up but deaths low.

We are in lockdown once again. I had to cancel two trips to the USA this year. First one was in May and now December. Miss my kids.

Anyhow, I've been away from here to long. Lovely to see everyone is still going strong.

 

Numbers were always going to go up with fall/winter. Here's hoping deaths stay low for both of us (And with a new president, will drop for the US).
After summer we started going back to the office twice a week which I thought was a bad idea and made clear to my bosses. Last week since cases started going up not just countrywide but also in the city I work, it was decided to go back to working fully from home.
New recommendations have come out here in Sweden now to avoid going to stores, malls, museums etc. unless it's necessary visits. Swedes generally follow recommendations from authorities (And I read recently that travel now has dropped about 14% so it seems to work) so I'm hopeful cases eventually will slow down and drop.

 

My dad lives in Missouri (right outside of St. Louis) in an assisted living facility (long story), their are roughly 70 people that are in there. They all get tested every Tuesday. He only goes outside to smoke, other than that he stays in his room. He has a private room and does not have to share a room with anyone. My sister called me Tuesday night and said that he had tested positive. So now he is upstairs (the quarantine area). She asked me to call him and see how he is because he told her that he was fine, and she didnt believe him. She told me that I know him better than she does. So I called we talked for a few minutes and I learned he is scared and feels like ass. I text him everyday, only because i know he gets winded very easily so i dont want to talk the wind out of him so to speak. As of last night, He feels like pure ass

"This fucking shit is way worse than when i had pneumonia when i was 40 something, Im living in the bathroom. That way i can shit and puke at the same time. I cant fucking breathe. This shit sucks. And I aint eating or anything. just dont want to"

That was pretty much what he said. Talked to my sister this morning and she said that if things did not start to get better today then they were going to take him to the hospital. The only reason they have not yet is due to he keeps saying that he dont need to go yet and he will let them know when he needs to. Guess i know where i get my stubbornness from.

 

I hope your father’s health turns around quickly and that he is able to recover outside of the hospital, or have a short visit for supportive care. I’m sure it must be hard for you to be so far away at a time like this! Hugs!