New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday ordered all of New York state except essential workers to stay home in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.
NY we are pulling for you.
I imagine NJ, CT and PA will follow suit, if they haven’t already
Does anyone know if this includes airports and flight out of JFK? Is this likely to be put in place in New Jersey? Hotels and workers for travelers in New York?
Scary times for anyone away from home.
Here in PA Gov Wolf is doing the same but is being rundown by the Repukes.
I cannot not wrap my head around how economically devastating this outbreak is going to be to this entire country. I don’t know what we are going to do when millions of hungry people have no money to buy food. Never mind keep a roof over their heads.
Before long, this will happen in every state. What’s more, the states that postpone this for the longest time will seriously regret their postponement. This needs to be done and only fools try to postpone the inevitable.
Saw part of the presser with Gov. Murphy of NJ yesterday. I can’t imagine he won’t follow suit. Jersey’s just too close to NY to ignore what we do altogether.
I was sent home from the job on Weds. being told by my employer we’re going back on April 1. I’m waiting to get a text as to whether that still holds true.
I’m still finding it cognitively and emotionally hard to wrap my head around the magnitude and nature of this crisis, it’s that vast and unprecedented, at least in most of our lifetimes.
We’re pretty well-stocked and won’t need to venture out more than once or twice a week for essentials, mostly produce, dairy, bread, etc., the sorts of things you can’t really stock up on. I suppose that now’s a good time to get some powdered milk, eggs and pancake mix, and start a vegetable garden (perfect timing for that with the coming of spring).
Got all the meds and supplies we might, tp, soap, toothpaste, etc. Otherwise we’ll head out only for fresh air and exercise, as far away from others as possible. I prefer trail running and there are a bunch around here, so I’m good there. Gotta think about laundry though, as we don’t have our own machines.
Stay healthy everyone!
3 Rules for the Trump Pandemic
One: Don’t trust the president.
By Paul Krugman March 19, 2020
So Donald Trump is now calling Covid-19 the “Chinese virus.” Of course he is: Racism and blaming other people for his own failures are the defining features of his presidency. But if we’re going to give it a nickname, much better to refer to it as the “Trump pandemic.”
True, the virus didn’t originate here. But the U.S. response to the threat has been catastrophically slow and inadequate, and the buck stops with Trump, who minimized the threat and discouraged action until just a few days ago.
Compare, for example, America’s handling of the coronavirus with that of South Korea. Both countries reported their first case on Jan. 20. But Korea moved quickly to implement widespread testing; it has used the data from that testing to guide social distancing and other containment measures; and the disease appears to be on the wane there.
In the U.S., by contrast, testing has barely begun — we’ve tested only 60,000 people compared with South Korea’s 290,000, even though we have six times its population, and the number of cases here appears to be skyrocketing.
The details of our failure are complex, but they all flow ultimately from Trump’s minimization of the threat: He was asserting that Covid-19 was no worse than the flu just last week (although true to form, he’s now claiming to have known all along that a pandemic was coming).
Why did Trump and his team deny and delay? All the evidence suggests that he didn’t want to do or say anything that might drive down stock prices, which he seems to regard as the key measure of his success. That’s presumably why as late as Feb. 25 Larry Kudlow, the administration’s chief economist, declared that the U.S. had “contained” the coronavirus, and that the economy was “holding up nicely.”
Well, that was a bad bet. Since then, the stock market has more or less given up all its gains under the Trump presidency. More important, the economy is clearly in free-fall. So what should we do now?
I’ll leave health policy to the experts. On economic policy, I’d suggest three principles. First, focus on hardship, not G.D.P. Second, stop worrying about incentives to work. Third, don’t trust Trump.
On the first point: Many of the job losses we’ll experience over the next few months will be not just unavoidable but actually desirable. We want workers who are or might be sick to stay home, to “flatten the curve” of the virus’s spread. We want to partly or wholly close large business establishments, like auto plants, that could act as human petri dishes. We want to close restaurants, bars and nonessential retail establishments.
Now, there will surely be additional, unnecessary job losses caused by a plunge in consumer and business spending, which is why we should be engaged in substantial overall stimulus. But policy can’t and shouldn’t prevent widespread temporary job loss.
What policy can do is reduce the hardship facing those who are temporarily out of work. That means that we need to spend much more on programs like paid sick leave, unemployment benefits, food stamps and Medicaid that aid Americans in distress, who need far more help than they’ll get from an across-the-board cash drop. This spending would also provide stimulus, but that’s a secondary concern.
Which brings me to my second point. The usual suspects are already objecting that helping Americans in need reduces their incentive to work. That’s a lousy argument even in good times, but it’s absurd in the face of a pandemic. And state governments that have been trying, with encouragement from the Trump administration, to reduce public assistance by imposing work requirements should suspend all such requirements, immediately.
Finally, about Trump: Over the past few days state TV, I mean Fox News, and right-wing pundits have abruptly pivoted from dismissing Covid-19 as a liberal hoax to demanding an end to all criticism of the president in a time of national emergency. This should come as no surprise.
But this is where the history of the Trump pandemic — all those wasted weeks when we did nothing because Donald Trump didn’t want to hear anything that might hurt him politically — becomes relevant. It shows that even when American lives are at risk, this administration’s policy is all about Trump, about what he thinks will make him look good, never mind the national interest.
What this means is that as Congress allocates money to reduce the economic pain from Covid-19, it shouldn’t give Trump any discretion over how the money is spent. For example, while it may be necessary to provide funds for some business bailouts, Congress must specify the rules for who gets those funds and under what conditions. Otherwise you know what will happen: Trump will abuse any discretion to reward his friends and punish his enemies. That’s just who he is.
Dealing with the coronavirus would be hard in the best of circumstances. It will be especially hard when we know that we can’t trust either the judgment or the motives of the man who should be leading the response. But you go into a pandemic with the president you have, not the president you wish you had.
Chart on that tweet
I’m hoping upon hope to the Universe we don’t have a run on banks from people scared that their own money supply will run out.
I’ve thought all along the Gov. Cuomo was a slightly more palatable version of every other NY governor, not any better or worse. But this crisis has proven me wrong, he has really stepped up. I don’t know how this all is going to end, but at least I am satisfied with the job one politician is doing.
Do you know airports and airlines are still operating? How about cabs?
I’m expecting to hear the same news from Gov. Wolf (PA) any time now. Wow. Shits getting too real. Be safe everyone:heart:
Cabs zooming around as usual.
Don’t know about airports.
The ban doesn’t go into effect until Sunday but I would imagine that cabs will be allowed to operate because they are letting mass transit continue to run.
Did Donnie talk/lie today? The markets are sinking again.
I just spoke to relatives and family friends in Israel, where I’m originally from, and despite having lots of cases and a few hard ones no one as yet has died, to a large extent, I’m told, due to the country’s superb health care system and the government’s professional reaction to it.
I’m no Bibi fan, at all, can’t wait till his exit, and in many ways he’s even more of a monster than Trump, but he’s not incompetent the way that Trump is. Our reaction has been more akin to China in the early stages, Iran and Italy, and it all starts from the top.
America, if you want to save yourself, depose this monster!
Some flights are still going. My brother’s Columbian wife got the word that their president announced plans to close their borders starting Saturday. Her mother needs care as she’s got multiple chronic conditions so they decided she’d go down and tough it out with her. Well, they had to scramble to find a flight (online booking system kept crashing and they were on a three hour wait for the phone service) but did get one flying out today. He posted a couple of hours ago that she was boarded and on her her way to Houston for her first transfer (second will be in Panama). If all goes well and things aren’t canceled along the way she’ll get there before the cutoff tomorrow.
So for now, yes but don’t bet on the long haul…
Word going out is that Chicago will go on lockdown later today.