What’s funny?

Even if 40k people aren't packing a stadium I would take it.

By August it seems realistic that lots of things will be back to normal (restaurants, etc.) but not packing 80,000 people into an NFL stadium.

I think there are enough of us that would buy tickets at a discount to pack a stadium.

Bill Gates is plugging money into building factories for seven promising coronavirus vaccine candidates, even though it will mean wasting billions of dollars.

On Thursday's episode of "The Daily Show," the Microsoft billionaire told the host Trevor Noah that his philanthropic organization, the Gates Foundation, could mobilize faster than governments to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

"Because our foundation has such deep expertise in infectious diseases, we've thought about the epidemic, we did fund some things to be more prepared, like a vaccine effort," Gates said. "Our early money can accelerate things."

Gates said he was picking the top seven vaccine candidates and building manufacturing capacity for them. "Even though we'll end up picking at most two of them, we're going to fund factories for all seven, just so that we don't waste time in serially saying, 'OK, which vaccine works?' and then building the factory," he said.

Gates said that simultaneously testing and building manufacturing capacity is essential to the quick development of a vaccine, which Gates thinks could take about 18 months.

Maybe. I guess I would have taken this more seriously if he hadn't recently said that everything would be open and business as usual by Easter.

Here's the problem. I doubt that August will be much different than Easter would be. At some point someone is going to have to make a tough call. And we're going to have to hope that The People go along with it. It can't just be that people are locked in their homes for an indefinite period. And we can't simply have an economic lockdown for months on end. The idea of a "non-essential" business is nonsense. If you feed your family by selling art, that's an essential business.

But I think we've already let the horse out of the barn. The whole thing has become politicized. Someone needs to be able to stand up and say, "If we could all just hide until the virus is gone and then come right back and start everything like normal, we would certainly do that. It's just not possible. What Dr. Fauci is suggesting may be the best medical advice. But it won't work. It's no less a fantasy than saying we should have Space-X send everyone to Mars until the virus is gone. That may be difficult to hear, but it's the truth." I don't think Trump can or will say that. And even if he does, half the country won't listen.

The snap decisions that have been made are going to inform this all the way through. If Trump were to say the shutdown is over, many governors will say it isn't. And even if everyone agreed, people will still be dying and many will be screaming that the government doesn't care.

They've got us looking suspiciously at our neighbors as if they're enemy soldiers out to shoot us down. Now they're telling us to snitch on each other and some people are cheering that on.

Everyone has the right to feed their family. You're using cops to prevent me from doing that. What's next? Oh, the government is going to take care of us? Everyone knows it can't. Pretty soon if a person can't ply his trade he's going to have to look to take what belongs to someone else. Pritzker has billions and Lightfoot is still collecting her pay.

It's a fucking mess.

Here's the problem. I doubt that August will be much different than Easter would be. At some point someone is going to have to make a tough call. And we're going to have to hope that The People go along with it. It can't just be that people are locked in their homes for an indefinite period. And we can't simply have an economic lockdown for months on end. The idea of a "non-essential" business is nonsense. If you feed your family by selling art, that's an essential business.

The major difference between Easter and August is that in August we're 4 months closer to and potentially only 4 months away from a vaccine---that seems optimistic; but could be we'll at least have medical providers/first-responders/LE/troops being vaccinated late 2020/first days of 2021. It'll take longer to roll out to the rest of the country/planet.

If you're the folks in charge, who likely have known since day one the truth that the restrictions won't lift until a vaccine's available, what do you do:

tell the people from the get-go that this thing is OOC and the only way to contain it enough to allow a return to normal everyday life is with a vaccine and that a vaccine will take 12 to 18 months to develop and roll out nationwide.

Or do you dole out false hope as the time between our awful here-and-now and vaccine-fueled-freedom narrows.

March: " Hang in there, it'll be over in April, in the meantime, have fun creating Zoom backgrounds and hanging out with the family"

April: "Keep on keeping on, May looks good for a return to normal, here's a 1200$ check to tide you over til then"

May: ???


Telling people in August that this won't lift until 2021 is more palatable to the people than telling us that in March or April.

What’s funny?

I don't think that's unreasonable, I'd expect it to be so.

I won't be there, they could open everything up next week but I'm gonna lay low for awhile. Work, grocery store, home depot..that's about it. We've been laying low and will continue to do so. I don't think you'll see sell out crowds at sporting event this year..not even the NFL. I don't even think we'll be going to any bars or restaurants for a few months.

Here's the problem. I doubt that August will be much different than Easter would be. At some point someone is going to have to make a tough call. And we're going to have to hope that The People go along with it. It can't just be that people are locked in their homes for an indefinite period. And we can't simply have an economic lockdown for months on end. The idea of a "non-essential" business is nonsense. If you feed your family by selling art, that's an essential business.

But I think we've already let the horse out of the barn. The whole thing has become politicized. Someone needs to be able to stand up and say, "If we could all just hide until the virus is gone and then come right back and start everything like normal, we would certainly do that. It's just not possible. What Dr. Fauci is suggesting may be the best medical advice. But it won't work. It's no less a fantasy than saying we should have Space-X send everyone to Mars until the virus is gone. That may be difficult to hear, but it's the truth." I don't think Trump can or will say that. And even if he does, half the country won't listen.

The snap decisions that have been made are going to inform this all the way through. If Trump were to say the shutdown is over, many governors will say it isn't. And even if everyone agreed, people will still be dying and many will be screaming that the government doesn't care.

They've got us looking suspiciously at our neighbors as if they're enemy soldiers out to shoot us down. Now they're telling us to snitch on each other and some people are cheering that on.

Everyone has the right to feed their family. You're using cops to prevent me from doing that. What's next? Oh, the government is going to take care of us? Everyone knows it can't. Pretty soon if a person can't ply his trade he's going to have to look to take what belongs to someone else. Pritzker has billions and Lightfoot is still collecting her pay.

It's a fucking mess.

If Opening Day were tomorrow, Id be there.

Agreed on most of this. I think it will be a slow progression back to normalcy. August seems like a realistic time for MOST things to be back to normal (ie. restaurants, stores, etc.), but I think large scale events with 20,000+ people are going to take a lot longer to return.

Well yeah, it's the Sox. You could maintain 30' between each other.. I'm talking about every other MLB stadium and NFL team.

Speculation based on what other countries have done and the specter of der google having been brought inside the C19 inner-circle early on and working on technology solutions to deal with COVID-19

1) More available tests for coronravirus with faster turn-around time is the first hurdle to any attempt at even an incremental ramp up in economic activity/returning to normal. The good news: that is already happening.

2) More information/data about

(i) are previously exposed individuals immune to re-exposure to C19? The answer so far appears to be yes...at least for some period after exposure;

(ii) how long does that exposure immunity last? Immunity/vaccines generally don't last forever. Hence we get updated vaccinations for various things over time. The question scientists are looking into and building datasets on is "once a body's exposed to coronavirus and a body develops antibodies to fend off the virus, how long do those antibodies persist?"


3) Once more and faster testing for corona is available and they've developed reasonable parameters for how long to expect exposure immunity to last and we're on the downside of the initial outbreak curve, they aren't going to just let everyone go back to work/school/play....

4) Expect that if you wanna be among the first to be allowed to be out and about going to work (perhaps in June more likely July or August) that you'll be required to install tracking software on your mobile device. Google already has all this data; they'll just repackage it as a COVID-19 app and add some additional authentication, reporting and tracking features. You'll be given authorization to be at, say, a work location between certain hours and then expected to return home and remain there until your next scheduled work shift, with side trips for grocery/pharmacy/other essentials. They'll prolly also use it to enforce/schedule stepped commuting.

5) This is all pure speculation but if they are going to try the above good chance they try it in the coming Summer months, due to the combination of having faster testing + being on the down-slope of the outbreak curve + warmer weather + millions already exposed.

6) If/when they adopt the above system, expect newly exposed individuals to be quarantined in locations and ways other than simply being told to remain in their own homes. Perhaps via an electronic tethering system, maybe tied to mobile devices. At least this is what other countries dealing with corona have found to be effective. Or you roll up to a testing drive thru--say on your way downtown to go to work, and you test positive: you're immediately whisked away and quarantined somewhere you can't infect other people. I don't see this being a routine thing, but it's something other countries have done.

169% speculation, IMO, YMMV, Yadda, yadda, yadda

There is no commonsense way to "open" the country back up. People are still going to be dying from the effects of the coronavirus. You just have to level with people and explain the economic consequences and also be able to live with the political ones. Reality is, your title doesn't mean shit if we don't have a country. History will judge you kindly because of your honesty.

Sure there is a way to open the country back up using common sense.And as far as "honesty" goes that is true. We've had illnesses before this where people have gotten very ill and many died. It is really too bad that the Democrat Party and most of the media will not agree to help dealing with this crisis and instead are fanning the fears of the American people and attacking Trump in pretty much everything that he does or is even thinking about.

Hawk, do you believe the virus votes democrat?

...You just have to level with people and explain the economic consequences and also be able to live with the political ones. Reality is, your title doesn't mean shit if we don't have a country. History will judge you kindly because of your honesty.