Dad Writes
  • Home | Dad Writes
  • What's Your Story?
  • Fun is Good!
  • Blog
  • Subscribe

Covid Diary 24: The Reset Button

7/11/2021

2 Comments

 
Picture
 
Ignoring the rest of the world, a break for working stiffs, and our surprise when normal things happen…

  1. Maybe 2020 was a giant reset button for Americans who were forced off the treadmill and took some time to rethink their priorities. People retired, moved, decided to change careers, reconsidered how they were spending their time… With all the underlying changes that the pandemic has brought, this one might be the hardest to measure, but the most significant in the long term.

  2. Already this year, more people have died from Covid than in all of 2020, and it’s going to get much worse before we can get vaccines into another 7 billion arms. Of course, most of us will be unaware of the carnage because it won’t happen in the United States. Now that pretty much everyone who wants a shot has gotten one here, we can go back to ignoring the rest of the world.

  3. The U.S. economy crashed in 2020, import and export patterns went sideways, manufacturers dropped product lines and picked up new ones, family buying habits took a U-turn, unemployment skyrocketed and the number of Baby Boomers who decided to retire doubled from a year earlier. Prices soared for everything from toilet paper to hand sanitizer to free weights and freezers, if you could find them, while the price of gasoline and airline tickets plunged.  Now the economy is roaring back and we’re seeing a million different disruptions on the upside. None of this should be a surprise, but millions of people say they are shocked nonetheless.

  4. I know everyone is saying unemployment benefits are keeping people on the sidelines, and that might be true for many people, but I know recruiters who can’t fill $100,000+ jobs with serious benefits, so that whole “unemployment benefits” argument looks more like a simplistic political statement than an economic conclusion. And, by the way, what exactly is wrong with working stiffs getting a break for a change?

  5. It’s pretty clear that the Centers for Disease Control, state/local governments, businesses and other organizations made a ton of mistakes in responding to the pandemic. It’s also pretty clear that nobody is going to learn from their mistakes, mostly because it’s easier to just point fingers at someone else and ignore the lessons until the next crisis hits. And the next. And the next.

  6. Now that everyone is offering gift cards and lottery tickets for getting the vaccines, I’m regretting my decision to take the jab when it first became available. I don’t know if it’s safe to go back for another dose or two, or ten, but an extra fifty bucks is mighty tempting right now.  

  7. We didn't get 70% of the country vaccinated by July 4, but not because we couldn’t mobilize to get doses in arms by then. Nope, we just let rumors and politics get in the way, so we’ll end up with a ton of avoidable costs, deaths and other disruptions. We’re very unlikely to see a repeat of last year’s debacle, but it’s still an unforced error.

  8. It’s an ill wind, as they say, and I’m already nostalgic for some of the ways my life improved in the past year.  For the first time in forever, I got through a year without catching a cold. I like being back among people, but it turns out they carry a ton of germs.


Unfortunately, we’ll probably have more entries in our Covid log this year and you'll want to follow the trail. Just click here to subscribe and you won’t miss a thing.


2 Comments
Larry Clark
7/11/2021 11:53:46 am

I'm still waiting for someone smart enough to run the numbers that can better show the relationship between COVID-19 and the workforce...

- Over 600,000 Americans died from COVID-19. The makes a small dent in the demand for goods and services. A while a lot of those deaths were older Americans, some were also in the workforce.

-- There have been over 33 million reported cases of COVID-19 in the US. Some sources put the workforce at about 61% of the population. If we remove the deaths, that may leaves us with 32,400,000 "survivors", and 61% of those gives us 19,760,000 workforce survivors. Those numbers are probably skewed lower since COVID-19 infections appear to be fewer in younger, pre-workforce people.

-- So now we bring in Long COVID. From the New Scientist 23 JUNE 2021: "...it is thought that about 14 per cent of people who catch covid-19 end up with lasting symptoms – which is some 25 million people worldwide. This could be a big underestimate, though, because less than 10 per cent of infections are thought to be detected..."

So now I sort of stumble into the possibility that 2,770,000 Americans in the workforce have or are currently experiencing Long COVID -- On the low side of the estimate above.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25033403-600-long-covid-do-i-have-it-how-long-will-it-last-and-can-we-treat-it/

We're just starting to figure out what Long COVID might be, but you can bet that the bureaucrats who have the job of determining what actually constitutes a COVID short term or long term disability are way behind the power curve.

And we'll be dealing with the effects of COVID-19 for the rest of the century.

All of my numbers above are from pretty crude calculation. But If someone thinks they can blame workforce recruiting shortfalls on the unemployment benefits -- well, we'll see in a month or two the results from states that pulled the plug.

Reply
David Brimm
7/14/2021 03:28:37 pm

Stay healthy IronMan.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Who writes this stuff?

    Dadwrites oozes from the warped mind of Michael Rosenbaum, an award-winning author who spends most of his time these days as a start-up business mentor, book coach, photographer and, mostly, a grandfather. All views are his alone, largely due to the fact that he can’t find anyone who agrees with him. 

    Archives

    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018

    Categories

    All
    Aging Gracelessly
    Coronavirus
    Dadstuff
    Holidays
    Humorish
    Lessons Learned
    Life=Biz=Life=Biz
    Stories From Life
    Why Is That?

    RSS Feed

Website by RyTech, LLC
  • Home | Dad Writes
  • What's Your Story?
  • Fun is Good!
  • Blog
  • Subscribe