Coronavirus Updates, Important Information, and Ancedotal Experience

Yes.

Turn around on insurance claims has slowed to a snails pace, so they are asking all the docs in the practice to take a 50% pay cut until shit normalizes.

Ishad said:

Turn around on insurance claims has slowed to a snails pace, so they are asking all the docs in the practice to take a 50% pay cut until shit normalizes.

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We're going to have to start extending zero-cost working capital to hospitals and just cut out insurance. The consumables and overtime alone are going to be insane and no one's going to keep up on billing.

PA Governor has ordered all non-life-sustaining business to close. It will be enforced this time. Philly is not excluded.

ver_21 said:

PA Governor has ordered all non-life-sustaining business to close. It will be enforced this time. Philly is not excluded

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We're walking a dangerous line with this.

"It will be enforced this time" is particularly ominous.

I don't think the American populace will put up with this for too long. Sure, we're mostly all willing to take a slight hit for the greater good. But I doubt many Americans are willing to commit economic suicide on a grand scale on direct orders from their 'superiors'. That's just not a very American thing to do.

The ivory tower types need to be careful they don't try to go too far with this for too long.

AngryGerbil said:

We're walking a dangerous line with this.

"It will be enforced this time" is particularly ominous.

I don't think the American populace will put up with this for too long. Sure, we're mostly all willing to take a slight hit for the greater good. But I doubt many Americans are willing to commit economic suicide on a grand scale on direct orders from their 'superiors'. That's just not a very American thing to do.

The ivory tower types need to be careful they don't try to go too far with this for too long.

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It's hard to imagine politicians being so clueless about the country and citizens they are charged with leading that they believed a voluntary quarantine would just work. So they instituted half measure after half measure and kept shifting the goal posts as people shifted where they were congregating until we found ourselves here. And now they HAVE to go all in otherwise they gambled with American jobs and livelihoods for absolutely no reason. And going all in is unlikely to work as well, because we need a cure fast as a full shutdown is unsustainable.

Once again we as citizens are tasked with sacrificing freedoms, bearing the brunt of economic meltdown and expected to accept the failings of government. All while test kits apparently could have been in production all this time and the mass shutdowns completely avoided had our government just done its fucking job. I honestly can't tell if this is incompetence, or if this is political protection of corporate interests because money talks and greed has no remorse. It's probably a mix of both.

The American people have been failed, and heads should roll. But something tells me people are going to toe party lines and fuel the bottomless chasm that partisan politics has become. After all our President is nothing more than a talking head TV personality with no political experience who thinks he's doing a good job with this unmitigated disaster. And the entire democratic party is filled with cowards who prefer fear mongering and hand-wringing to policy creation and actual political reform. We have no good options.

In the past 72 hours the following people I know have let it be known they have been laid off:

Retail. Customer service. Optometrist. Lawyer. Production Designer. Teacher. Seafood Importer. Accountant. Cameraman. Surveyor/GIS analyst. Dentist. Office Products Distributor. Insurance adjuster.

These are not some random people I heard about, these are all people I personally know...who have been in my house. I've seen some as recently as last weekend for one of our now-on-hiatus movie nights!

These are people who had stable incomes, people who have mortgages and expenses. The best off are the couple who were living with one set of parents as they built a nest egg for a big downpayment on a new house. The worst don't know how they will be able to make ends meet without going into immediate credit card debt.

Yes it is important to slow the progress of a disease that could kill a lot of people, but not at the cost of eradicating society.

AngryGerbil said:

The ivory tower types need to be careful they don't try to go too far with this for too long.

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Yeah I don't see how this can go for much longer than the rest of March. Also, what the heck is the "all clear" going to be?

ver_21 said:

Yeah I don't see how this can go for much longer than the rest of March. Also, what the heck is the "all clear" going to be?

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This is my concern. What is the all clear? They've framed this in a way that we even need to focus on keeping the curve down over 6-18 months, or eradicate the virus completely. So with that when is this going to end? We know the virus isn't going to be gone by the end of March, and I highly doubt we will have hit peak cases by then. The economy can't sustain this for months and months.

Qhue said:

In the past 72 hours the following people I know have let it be known they have been laid off:

Retail. Customer service. Optometrist. Lawyer. Production Designer. Teacher. Seafood Importer. Accountant. Cameraman. Surveyor/GIS analyst. Dentist. Office Products Distributor. Insurance adjuster.

These are not some random people I heard about, these are all people I personally know...who have been in my house. I've seen some as recently as last weekend for one of our now-on-hiatus movie nights!

These are people who had stable incomes, people who have mortgages and expenses. The best off are the couple who were living with one set of parents as they built a nest egg for a big downpayment on a new house. The worst don't know how they will be able to make ends meet without going into immediate credit card debt.

Yes it is important to slow the progress of a disease that could kill a lot of people, but not at the cost of eradicating society.

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How was a teacher laid off? They have contracts unless it was a college professor I guess, I don't know if they have contracts.

My wife is a teacher, she has a contract, she's being paid, even doing lesson plans from home to send out to her kids.

Arative said:

How was a teacher laid off? They have contracts unless it was a college professor I guess, I don't know if they have contracts.

My wife is a teacher, she has a contract, she's being paid, even doing lesson plans from home to send out to her kids.

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She's a Perceptor (what Harvard calls their adjuncts because Harvard). I was most shocked by the seafood business until they reminded me that all their fish is sourced from Canada and elsewhere and is no longer coming in. You would think they could find a way to pivot and make use of locally produced fish, but apparently not. Same sort of thing with the office supplies distributor. Surely an enterprising company could pivot their warehouses and fleet of delivery vehicles to transport and distribute something else... but nope they just shut down instead.

Qhue said:

Surely an enterprising company could pivot their warehouses and fleet of delivery vehicles to transport and distribute something else...

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Someone else was already transporting that stuff, and that stuff is no longer being made or sold any more.