That's when I think we will see this "lockdown" ease up, finally. May 15th, give or take a week or two at most, for every state in the US as well as every other country currently afficted with it. This is purely speculative and mostly unresearched, so I'd love to see other opinions.
In the past couple of weeks a few of the blue-er US states have banded together with their emergency response policies as a sort of pushback against whatever Trump decides to call for; because this is somehow all political. Washington, Oregon and California have combined into one of these fledgling nation-states, along with a few of the New England states.
I was listening to (Oregon) Governor Brown's press conference last week - with the clickbait headline of her "Introducing the Framework of Reopening Oregon" (here, with YT comments conveniently turned off):
She stated she, Insley and Newsome - the triumvirate rulers of the great nation state of Pacifica (not her words) - would wait another month and then look at the numbers to see if the "curve" is indeed "flattened". If the numbers look good, they would then allow so-called nonessential businesses to start reopening. Notably, their criteria for good numbers would involve not only more comprehensive testing but also "surveillance testing" - which Brown didn't really elaborate upon but what I suspect will involve more of that lovely phone contact tracing that we all feel so good about.
With some people starting to rattle their cages with protests growing, I'm seeing this dialog repeat itself to varying extents across the country and the world. And I'm seeing the same sort of lockstep formation of policy as I saw with the implementaion of the shutdowns a month ago. How can a virus that cannot even be accurately diagnosed be so darn predictable?
The unanimously approved CARES act allows for 260 billion tax dollars to go towards unemployment relief in the form of an *extra* $600/wk starting April 5th - in addition to normal UI benefits - for everyone who has filed for unemployment as a result of Covid19. Another 280 billion or so went toward the $1,200/person one-time payments. I believe this is precisely why most of the protestors we see now are the more belligerent, politically motivated citizens rather than desperate, economically motivated ones who may be more inclined to carry pitchforks than pickets.
Even though most brick-and-mortar small business owners, the self-employed contractors, the homeless, and the undocumented (California notwithstanding) are still getting completely decimated by these lockdowns; they are the vocal minority of the affected, as most are likely still sitting fat and happy with their stimulus checks.
But the Fed was predicting at the end of March that the numbers of unemployed directly attributable to Covid 19 would go as high as 47 million, and I think that they are right on the button with this one: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/cor...-unemployment-rate-of-32percent-fed-says.html
How long is that 260 billion going to carry us? 47 million * 2,400/mo = 112 billion a month. 260/112 comes out to 2.3 months, or about 9 1/2 weeks - the typical lifespan of a superficial relationship. That's when the money will run out, and when the public will finally realize that they were just getting screwed.
Of course TPTB won't let it go that far, because revolutions are messy. So I will call their bluff and predict that this virus - at least this strain of it - will magically disappear by the middle of May.
Sorry for another long post. I have Mars retrograde. In Cancer. Rising. So this is all really driving me nuts
TL;DR: I think the lockdowns will end by the middle of next month. What do you think?
In the past couple of weeks a few of the blue-er US states have banded together with their emergency response policies as a sort of pushback against whatever Trump decides to call for; because this is somehow all political. Washington, Oregon and California have combined into one of these fledgling nation-states, along with a few of the New England states.
I was listening to (Oregon) Governor Brown's press conference last week - with the clickbait headline of her "Introducing the Framework of Reopening Oregon" (here, with YT comments conveniently turned off):
She stated she, Insley and Newsome - the triumvirate rulers of the great nation state of Pacifica (not her words) - would wait another month and then look at the numbers to see if the "curve" is indeed "flattened". If the numbers look good, they would then allow so-called nonessential businesses to start reopening. Notably, their criteria for good numbers would involve not only more comprehensive testing but also "surveillance testing" - which Brown didn't really elaborate upon but what I suspect will involve more of that lovely phone contact tracing that we all feel so good about.
With some people starting to rattle their cages with protests growing, I'm seeing this dialog repeat itself to varying extents across the country and the world. And I'm seeing the same sort of lockstep formation of policy as I saw with the implementaion of the shutdowns a month ago. How can a virus that cannot even be accurately diagnosed be so darn predictable?
The unanimously approved CARES act allows for 260 billion tax dollars to go towards unemployment relief in the form of an *extra* $600/wk starting April 5th - in addition to normal UI benefits - for everyone who has filed for unemployment as a result of Covid19. Another 280 billion or so went toward the $1,200/person one-time payments. I believe this is precisely why most of the protestors we see now are the more belligerent, politically motivated citizens rather than desperate, economically motivated ones who may be more inclined to carry pitchforks than pickets.
Even though most brick-and-mortar small business owners, the self-employed contractors, the homeless, and the undocumented (California notwithstanding) are still getting completely decimated by these lockdowns; they are the vocal minority of the affected, as most are likely still sitting fat and happy with their stimulus checks.
But the Fed was predicting at the end of March that the numbers of unemployed directly attributable to Covid 19 would go as high as 47 million, and I think that they are right on the button with this one: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/cor...-unemployment-rate-of-32percent-fed-says.html
How long is that 260 billion going to carry us? 47 million * 2,400/mo = 112 billion a month. 260/112 comes out to 2.3 months, or about 9 1/2 weeks - the typical lifespan of a superficial relationship. That's when the money will run out, and when the public will finally realize that they were just getting screwed.
Of course TPTB won't let it go that far, because revolutions are messy. So I will call their bluff and predict that this virus - at least this strain of it - will magically disappear by the middle of May.
Sorry for another long post. I have Mars retrograde. In Cancer. Rising. So this is all really driving me nuts
TL;DR: I think the lockdowns will end by the middle of next month. What do you think?
