Coronavirus:

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The Plague Doctor Cometh

The plague in this thread seems to be politics.

Indeed......

[HONDO74]

Many of my airport buddies are also quite conservative, as in not very accepting of government largesse - except at the airport, where your tax dollars pave my runways!

That's true for just about everybody I talk to...government needs to cut spending, but don't touch my Social Security, don't touch Medicare, don't touch the ACA, hey, our Interstate needs to be repaved, we need more cops, the school's looking a bit rundown, the hospital needs to be expanded...

Oh, and taxes are way too high...those need to be slashed.

Social Security.
Workers and employers pay for Social Security. Workers pay 6.2 percent of their earnings up to a cap, which is $127,200 a year in 2017. (The cap on taxable earnings usually rises each year with average wages.) Employers pay a matching amount for a combined contribution of 12.4 percent of earnings.

Now we get to withdraw it with interest,

Medicare.
Medicare is funded by the Social Security Administration. Which means it's funded by taxpayers: We all pay 1.45% of our earnings into FICA - Federal Insurance Contributions Act - which go toward Medicare. Employers pay another 1.45%, bringing the total to 2.9%.

Highways
Are supposed to be funded by the gas tax. If they haven't used the money for something else.
The tax on gas in California is 47.3 cents per gallon.
If they switch over to electric cars how will they pay for it.

Schools
are funded by property taxes.

We built a new high school in my town. It;s the first time I voted to increase my taxes.

Sales taxes keep going up. Taxes can exceed the income of those on fixed income.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Social Security.
Workers and employers pay for Social Security. Workers pay 6.2 percent of their earnings up to a cap, which is $127,200 a year in 2017. (The cap on taxable earnings usually rises each year with average wages.) Employers pay a matching amount for a combined contribution of 12.4 percent of earnings.

Now we get to withdraw it with interest

You do; I don't

Highways
Are supposed to be funded by the gas tax. If they haven't used the money for something else.
The tax on gas in California is 47.3 cents per gallon.
If they switch over to electric cars how will they pay for it.

They'll put a tax on use of the charging stations......or worse, they will just pro-rate it pegged to a state average distance driven.

Taxes can exceed the income of those on fixed income.

Almost everyone is on fixed income except for those that are on a broken income....

[HONDO74]

Social Security.
Workers and employers pay for Social Security. Workers pay 6.2 percent of their earnings up to a cap, which is $127,200 a year in 2017. (The cap on taxable earnings usually rises each year with average wages.) Employers pay a matching amount for a combined contribution of 12.4 percent of earnings.

Now we get to withdraw it with interest

You do; I don't

[quote]

Somehow I find it hard to believe that if you and your employer contributed to social security on your behalf and that you would not receive compensation from social security. There is something missing when you say (You do; I don't)

Maybe you get a nice pension from the government if this was a government agency that you were employed by.

Maybe the government put money into a pension account for you and you didn't contribute. ?

Or maybe you or your employer put money into a 401k ?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Somehow I find it hard to believe that if you and your employer contributed to social security on your behalf and that you would not receive compensation from social security. There is something missing when you say (You do; I don't)

Maybe you get a nice pension from the government if this was a government agency that you were employed by.

As I have noted in the past here, I was an old time Gov't employee; those after '84 and current ones are sort of screwed..... I also set up the equivalent of a 401k decades ago and max'd that out yearly not counting on anything other than myself for purposes of retirement.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[Roy]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wuhan-china-coronavirus-bans-eating-wild-animals-breeding-wet-markets/

[HONDO74]

Wuhan to test entire 11m population as new cases raise fears of second coronavirus wave
https://news.yahoo.com/wuhan-test-entir ... 18140.html

Officials in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus outbreak began, have ordered a citywide nucleic acid test for Covid-19 over a 10-day period after a resurgence of infections over the weekend.

[HONDO74]

New York might have avoided becoming the US epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak if Gov. Cuomo hadn't reportedly dismissed shelter-at-home advice
https://news.yahoo.com/york-might-avoid ... 19474.html

San Francisco Mayor London Breed reportedly shared a copy of the region's shelter-in-place order with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in mid-March, according to a new ProPublica report.

When de Blasio shared the order's text with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the governor reportedly derided it and said that the term "shelter in place" sounded "like it was a response to a nuclear apocalypse."

Cuomo eventually locked down the state of New York on March 22, but the delay is likely a contributing factor as to why the state has become the US epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Sweden appears to have greater than a 10% mortality rate of diagnosed cases.............rest of Scandinavia seems to be doing far better

[webenda]

Corona Virus Fallout: The Work Paradigm Turns

People pivoted and found ways to work remotely.

In December of 2019, Zoom had 10 million monthly meeting participants, and in April of 2020 that number went up to 300 million monthly meeting participants. That might boost the company into the billion dollar range. Zoom Revenue 2019: 350 million USD.

There are clearly many businesses that can’t function with a work from home scenario but home schooling has taken on a new meaning. At the college level, the California State University system has announced that their 23 campuses will remain virtual throughout the fall, and many other school systems are likely going to take a similar approach, including primary schools.

Facebook, Capital One, Amazon, Microsoft, Zillow and others, have announced that they’ll extend their work-from-home programs. CEOs and top executives participated in a Bay Area Council survey, which reported that almost a fifth of companies are planning to transition to full remote-work policies and 89% are planning at least partial remote-work policies.

Twitter and Square have announced a Work From Home Forever option.

Virtual Doctor Visits are already here:=> http://www.teledoc.com

[HONDO74]

Health impact of coronavirus lockdown 'may be worse than disease itself'
https://inews.co.uk/news/health/health- ... ng-2846227

The toll the coronavirus lockdown is taking on Scotland's health is likely to be worse than the impact of the disease itself, one of the nation's leading public health experts has warned.

Professor Linda Bauld said she suspected the long term consequences of confining people at home for such an extended period would be “far greater” than the challenge posed by the virus.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Twitter and Square have announced a Work From Home Forever option.

MC announced work from home for the rest of the year.

All this works for jobs that are shuffle the piles of "paper" from one desk to the next, but there are jobs that do require being on site.

[webenda]

But there are jobs that do require being on site.

Like those who work in hospitals? Teledoc is already here. Can telesurgery be far behind?

What with autonomous delivery trucks and robotic equipment movers, there will be no need for the doctor or the patient to go to the hospital. The new surgery robots will deliver themselves. They will only need someone to open the door for them.

Does robotic telesurgery have a future?=> https://www.medicaldesignandoutsourcing ... -corindus/
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/ ... statectomy

I have been to warehouses where a human entered the part number into his computer and than turned around and removed the part from a vertical carousal shelving system. The human can be replaced. => https://youtu.be/cLVCGEmkJs0
https://youtu.be/rnBAdnNIIXk

[HONDO74]

But there are jobs that do require being on site.

Like those who work in hospitals? Teledoc is already here. Can telesurgery be far behind?

What with autonomous delivery trucks and robotic equipment movers, there will be no need for the doctor or the patient to go to the hospital. The new surgery robots will deliver themselves. They will only need someone to open the door for them.

Does robotic telesurgery have a future?=> https://www.medicaldesignandoutsourcing ... -corindus/
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/ ... statectomy

Maybe like in the movie Elysium.
Elysium is technologically advanced, with devices such as Med-Bays that can cure all diseases, reverse the aging process, and regenerate body parts.