Corona virus

[Krice]

It has not changed a lot in my case. I live in a small village in middle of Finland which is pretty much the last place it's going to hit. We have one confirmed death, but there will be more. I think Finland is a bit different than many other countries, because we have strong social distancing already, which I think has become a joke even. Where I live we have not run out of anything, not even toilet paper. At least not yet. I'm not afraid to get corona even though I'm not sure how it's going to affect me. Corona has already revealed interesting things about the modern society, we were certainly not ready for this and didn't act soon enough to stop traveling which in many countries was the main way of spreading. It's simply too easy to travel around the world (if you are wealthy enough to do that) and catch viruses.

[mouser]

I think the panic is going to be worse than the virus itself. A lot of people in affected areas is rejecting to access some basic services because they don't want to risk it and get exposed to the virus. Also, lots of people losing their jobs in places where mandatory lockdowns are being enforced. It is going to be worse than the Great Depression.

[Skeletor]

I expect:

- countries with low IQ / blacks / guns / individualism (welcome to burgerland, matter of days before it surpasses china in number of cases) to face enormous social unrest, with armies deployed on streets and riots; stay tuned on bestgore for some exciting videos (imagine katrina looters x100 the intensity and violence, adom / caves of qud style with retrofuturistic tribes and so on);

- Bill and Melissa Gate Foundation to announce they have a vaccine in 2-3 weeks from now once mass panic will be reached and make a fuckton of money selling it to governments; anyone questioning whether they had it in the first place will be tagged as domestic conspiratard;

- Trump to lead the trend in populistic helicopter money measures which will make everyone happy and likely get him reelected in Nov 2020 at the cost of a major world recession;

- stock prices will not necessarily drop or raise but I expect volatility.

[Krice]

They say that in countries with problems in the way society works those problems will become more visible. I guess USA is one of those countries. It's almost interesting to see what happens, although I'm kind of full of this situation already. There is too much panic, and restrictions should have been applied earlier, in many places it's too late already.

In many countries jobs will be there waiting for people to return, so in that sense I think the economy panic is hot air.

[mouser]

In many countries jobs will be there waiting for people to return, so in that sense I think the economy panic is hot air.

Try losing your job for 5 months in certain places. Even if you are guaranteed a job at month six, making it through those 5 months is a problem. Specially if you have kids or pets or other big responsibilities.

[Krice]

Try losing your job for 5 months in certain places.

I've been unemployed since last summer and in five months or so I didn't even get any money, because we had something called "active model", don't ask. But I like money so I have saved it and began to spend it more wisely. Well, also in Finland no one really dies if they don't have job or money, that's why we have that heavy tax rate. I think it's similar in many european countries. USA is different, because people can get kicked out from their job and their homes just like that. It's so uncivilized and crude. Maybe this will wake up people to improve their life by changing the way their society works.

[mouser]

There is much world out of the Western civ.

Welfare for all at Western levels is not sustainable in most of the world. Socializing it would not work because there are no resources to beign with, much less resources to spare during a crisis. A lot of Westerns forget that just because they have resources to spare, it does not mean everybody else has.

If you shut down the flour factory in order to avoid infection, people starves necause there is no flour production going on. I suppose some government will think they can print money in order to trick the market and purchase flour from somewhere else, but that only works so far. Specially if your new providers are in distress themselves.

[Krice]

Welfare for all at Western levels is not sustainable in most of the world.

What do you mean by "most"? And why isn't it. I think "western" is misleading, because it's more about politics of how to protect your own people. We have seen different ways how to approach this problem, some of them have been much better than others. Also, it's becoming very clear that in those countries who didn't care this virus is going to hit hard.

[Krice]

Even now when everything isn't over yet it's obvious that the whole world should have taken action way before some countries did, because it is possible to slow down and cut infection chains before they get anywhere. I'm sure this has to change in a way that when something like this hits it's possible to stop things like tourism right at that moment.

[Skeletor]

Probably UK's initial plan to just keep indoors the 60+ would have done the trick since without them the ICU would be more than enough in most countries.
It's very highly contagious but symtpoms are mild; unfortunately permanent solutions are being taken for a temporary problem and one big one will be the upcoming recession (which I believe will be sparked, but not determined by this virus). Meanwhile some people here won't mind getting paid by their governemnt to stay home, learn to code, play roguelikes.
Even work at home arrangements aren't too bad. Away from all the shitty colleagues and their chit chat, no commute, no neon lights, no slow computers and so on. Would be good if after the virus humanity will realize that working at home is actually better in most cases and the trend had to continue (happier staff, less expenses, less liabilities, etc).

[Troubler]

The virus has given me some free time, but I've not been very productive with it.
Though I have been strangely optimistic. The change has snapped me out of some bad habits.

[Krice]

I think we are planning to close the border in north between Finland and Sweden, because swedes have not really taken this seriously yet and there are infected swedes crossing the border. We have an open border situation with Sweden (in north), everyone just travels between Finland and Sweden for whatever reason. The way Sweden is handling this is.. weird. But it's what they are anyway, swedes have big problems in their politics, society etc. which is going to explode in the future.