it unfortunate that health care people and our seniors will be Guinea Pigs for the rest of us, but by the time I get vaccinated, we will know way more than we do now.
It actually works out well, I think. Whatever the risks of an adverse reaction, they should be considerably lower than the risk of dying for a NH patient. Almost 10% of NH patients have died, there is no way that the odds of dying from vaccination remotely approach that number. And if the vaccine protects these patients, we can potentially reduce 40% of the deaths by vaccinating less than 0.5% of the population. In fact, because mortality rate is so much higher for older people, we should be able to reduce deaths by 90% or more long before those first 100 million people are vaccinated.
But in the short term...we are about to exceed 3000 deaths today, for the first time. And with daily cases still exceeding 200,000, I don't see how average number of deaths/day can fall below 3000 before the end of the year.
Take a stab at answering the questions posed by this small business owner in LA.
My guess is that the film company brings in far more money for the economy than a restaurant does. Is it fair that the film should be allowed to have outdoor dining when there's a blanket banning of that for all restaurants? No. Would I personally allow it? No. But you could make the argument that the benefit/risk ratio--where benefit is money brought in, and risk is number of deaths from spread of the virus--is higher for the film company than for the restaurant.
In fact, I don't know what other reasoning could be driving that decision. I really don't think it's because the film company is owned by someone who is close friends with Newsom, who granted this as a favor. I could be wrong, but I imagine Newsom was persuaded by the number of jobs that the film company provides.
Look at it this way, Chris. Newsom has two other alternatives. He could bar the film company from having communal meals, also. That would remove the hypocritical element, but that restaurant owner, and so many others like her, would still be just as angry, and just as much in economic peril. Or he could allow outdoor dining, risking that that will increase the spread of the virus.
I will concede we don't have the data to say with any confidence how much it will increase the spread. But keep in mind that even if small business owners like that woman go to great lengths to make the environment as potentially safe as possible, you're still going to have individual customers who won't. As long as businesses are open, and people are allowed to congregate, social distancing and other rules are going to be broken by some people. Not because they necessarily don't believe in these rules, and intentionally want to flout them, but because people aren't perfect, we're all used to living in a different way, and it can be very hard to maintain a different style.
I recently went into a small store for the first time in eight months. After all that time, I really enjoyed just being around people again, and I saw how easy it was to let down my guard. A very small place like that could build up a significant concentration of virus in the air if an infectious person came in, and while the odds that someone like that would be there while i was might be fairly low, anyone working. there most of the day would be at risk, and therefore could potentially infect anyone who came in there.
I went in there with the aim of buying what I needed as quickly as possible, and getting out, and still I had to fight the desire to linger. It had just been so long since I had been in such an environment.