Corona Virus Effect On Theatres In The USA

[Marcel Birgelen]

There is a lot of misunderstanding of what's happening.

There is a lot of misinformation and lying out there. People, especially politicians from whatever color, don't want you to hear what they already know. They want to feed it to you in slices, until they figure out themselves what to do...

According to most scientific models, we'll probably have to face this until mid-2022, even if we find a vaccine in the coming months, there is no way to vaccinate the entire world within a month, there will be lotteries. It's obviously not the kind of data politicians want you to hear, but we just need to look at the Spanish Flu to see how it's going to progress. We're a bit smarter now (let's hope so), so we should be able to avoid the gigantic death toll that it brought about, but it comes at a gigantic cost: our economy.

It doesn't mean we all need to be in a constant lock-down, but what we'll see is that things will open and close in waves, depending on the local situation. The problem is that theaters will always be among the first to close and the last to reopen.

How will theaters survive this? I don't think anybody has any real clue right now. Every economist or politician who claims he/she has a clue is just outright lying in your face. But it's obvious that theaters aren't in a unique position. What about hotels? Bars? Restaurants? The entire leisure industry at large?

Some big and bold decisions need to be made in the coming months. You can keep pumping trillions of freshly created debt into the system or you can continue to print new money, but without some big decisions, you will eventually arrive at the same situation Germany was in, in 1923. Also, who's going to pay for all this extra debt? An economy that's already in the toilet?

We need some fresh thinking, or else, this will all end like 1923... and I'm an optimist at heart.

[David Bird]

Some big and bold decisions need to be made in the coming months. You can keep pumping trillions of freshly created debt into the system or you can continue to print new money, but without some big decisions, you will eventually arrive at the same situation Germany was in, in 1923. Also, who's going to pay for all this extra debt? An economy that's already in the toilet?

We need some fresh thinking, or else, this will all end like 1923... and I'm an optimist at heart.

If not hyperinflation, then fairly rapid inflation seems probable. It's one of the evils of allowing politicians to control currencies not backed by anything, their very survival politically depends on constantly handing out fresh stacks of it. And gov't never stops growing, and this will bring more of it. The cost will be the sacrifice of a lot of incomes and small businesses either outright or via their stagnated incomes. A shame, since there are so many unnecessary and ineffective parts of the bureaucracy, they should be sharing in the "haircut" here. If not, the majority of the people making the "old salary" numerically will struggle to buy a $20 movie ticket that used to be $12. The "indexed" politicians and bureaucrats will live just fine and be only too happy to create new programs to "help" whilst attempting to blame others (effectively, 1923).

Now, if this virus is more widespread than we know (don't know about where you are, but Canada only tests those needing hospitalization and the results can take a week or more), that could conceivably change things before a lot of bad things happen economically. If it turned out many more have had it and it's far less deadly and we've avoided the hospital crush and we've learned some effective treatments.......

The models are highly subject to "garbage in garbage out", but if economically we're talking another Great Depression here, the deaths of people due to extreme poverty, suicide, violence etc are scary to think
about. I'd like to see the "curves" on that talked about more, I think it might sharpen up the strategies. Hiding in our homes can't happen forever, need a way forward. Watched a baseball game from Taiwan last night, 0 new cases, only 398 cases (about half recovered) and 6 deaths. Population is 24 million, they've tested 52,000. Large gatherings still postponed, but stores, restaurants, life.....still open. Mass testing, mask wearing, and still going to work.

[Dave Macaulay]

"The news reports do not mention this, but epidemiologists still expect that roughly all of us will get the disease sooner or later"

This is of course assuming there is not an effective vaccine administered to everyone.

"Herd Immunity" requires the majority of people to be immune - previously infected and recovered. It helps somewhat at low immunity percentage but becomes effective at protecting non-immune people at high percentages. If one contagious person attends a cinema with 100 others and 90 of them are immune, the likelihood that they will sit close enough and infect one of the 10 susceptible people is fairly low. We've had recent outbreaks of measles (admittedly vastly more infectious than Covid-19) in schools where (insane) parents had refused MMR vaccination for ~10% of the students - most of the ~10% got measles.
For the SARS-CoV-2 virus the infectiousness is still not fully known. The percentage of a population with immunity needed to really lower the infection rate enough to be safe in large gatherings depends on that (infectiousness is shown as Rₒ, the average number of people one contagious person infects). So far we don't have any data on the percentage of our population that is currently infected, let alone recovered and (presumed) immune. We only know a few hard facts: the percentage of people tested that came back positive - in Canada that's people sick enough to be tested plus people definitely exposed to known infected people or extremely vulnerable, and the death count of proven infected victims (there are deaths where an infection was not known, those are missed in this count).

Anyway, we're screwed (cinema sector people, that is).

[Bobby Henderson]

While it's true scientists don't have enough data to nail down the specific Basic Reproduction Number (aka R0 or R-naught) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, they are saying it is very contagious and at least more contagious than seasonal flu.

Medical science is uncovering more data about SARS-CoV-2, and some of the latest data makes me even more afraid to get infected with it than before. There is evidence this virus attacks more than just the lungs. It can cause damage to other organs. The virus is causing blot clotting issues. Broadway actor Nick Cordero lost a leg to amputation as a complication of COVID-19. There has to be a Quentin Tarantino joke somewhere for that "COVID Toes" thing. Some adults under age 50 are suffering strokes. It's bad enough one's own immune system can react to SARS-CoV-2 with a total shit fit, unleashing a cytokine storm, which on its own can scar the lungs and damage other organs. This virus is a real SOB.

SARS-CoV-2 doesn't have an off the charts R0 score like measles. But it's still very insidious due to its ability to spread from people who have no symptoms. It's Spring now. Someone with a minor case of COVID-19 could easily confuse the symptoms for allergies. Not everyone infected spikes a fever. Some never show symptoms at all.

There is a lot of misinformation and lying out there. People, especially politicians from whatever color, don't want you to hear what they already know. They want to feed it to you in slices, until they figure out themselves what to do...

I'm really worried the politicization of this pandemic could set us way back and cause us to lose the progress we have made at flattening the curve.

From the start certain groups of people have been looking for any angle they could find to downplay this crisis. I'm still seeing some people on TV and online claiming the whole thing is over-blown and SARS-CoV-2 is no worse than the flu. Now there may be some people with an agenda to over-state the severity of the pandemic, but I don't see a clear angle of how anyone benefits from that. But it's easy to see the angles being played by those who say this thing is just a media sensation and nothing more. It just comes down to politics and money. Then there's all the crazy loons and wingnuts out there doing their own thing. Even the anti-vax crowd is getting into the fray.

One thing seems possible: a lot of "little people" face a catch-22 situation. The most financially vulnerable people can't afford to stay out of work. The longer most businesses are shut or in limited operation puts these people farther into despair. Unfortunately going back to work before we've flattened the curve means risking getting infected. Unless someone is well-off the price of just surviving COVID-19 could be financial devastation from all the health care bills. Some COVID-19 survivors are coming away with permanent lung damage and damage to other organs. I saw a guy on the news who needs a kidney transplant thanks to COVID-19.

If not hyperinflation, then fairly rapid inflation seems probable. It's one of the evils of allowing politicians to control currencies not backed by anything, their very survival politically depends on constantly handing out fresh stacks of it. And gov't never stops growing, and this will bring more of it. The cost will be the sacrifice of a lot of incomes and small businesses either outright or via their stagnated incomes.

We are in new, uncharted territory. Governments printing money and spending billions or trillions of dollars on stimulus would most definitely pose a risk of inflation. But there are deflationary pressures too. With so many people now jobless and consumer demand utterly destroyed for a variety of things (like oil) there is a risk of broad scale deflation. And that kind of thing could be just as bad as inflation. There is no telling how this ordeal will end. If the financial situation wasn't enough to make people worry, we also have military matters to consider. With the US getting badly over-extended financially it might be a prime opportunity for China, Russia or some other regime to strike and test our ability to respond.

Watched a baseball game from Taiwan last night, 0 new cases, only 398 cases (about half recovered) and 6 deaths. Population is 24 million, they've tested 52,000. Large gatherings still postponed, but stores, restaurants, life.....still open. Mass testing, mask wearing, and still going to work.

South Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia were all very aggressive at testing, testing and more testing. They combined that with multiple levels of involuntary contact tracing. Those governments peered into the location data of anyone with a mobile phone without waiting for anything like courts and privacy concerns to get in the way. The United States utterly failed on any containment efforts because the CDC and others botched the testing efforts right at the start. We muffed the punt on that one big time. And we continue to do terribly on that. Despite any kind of big claims about how much testing the US has done, we're still pretty pitiful on a per capita basis. Contact tracing efforts are starting to ramp up. But good luck with just hiring people to make phone calls.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Most governments around the globe underestimated the potential impact of this virus (and many are still downplaying it) and were pretty late to the party to take action against it, give or take a few exceptions. I guess we can call almost all European countries part of the late-responder team. While the virus broke out in February, big local events like "Carnaval" weren't cancelled. People returning from China weren't even screened for their temperature, you could just see it coming...

I deeply value the freedoms we have, but in cases of an outbreak of a new, highly contagious virus, I think it's best to take hard, localized actions, so we can avoid taking away the freedoms of millions of others. And while I despise a government using repressive tactics on their people, in such cases, we could make a temporary exception and use the technological means at hand to do stuff like contact tracing.

If you look at it, SARS-CoV-2 is maybe even a lucky shot. If a highly contagious but more deadly virus would make it out into the wild and we would've reacted as bad as we did with this one, we could be facing an event that could potentially wipe out big parts of humanity. It happened before...

[Lyle Romer]

If you look at it, SARS-CoV-2 is maybe even a lucky shot. If a highly contagious but more deadly virus would make it out into the wild and we would've reacted as bad as we did with this one, we could be facing an event that could potentially wipe out big parts of humanity. It happened before...

With modern methods (medical and communication), what makes SARS-CoV-2 so difficult to contain is that it is both highly contagious and not very deadly or serious. When taking into account the 7-10 or more times the cases that exist but aren't confirmed due to being very mild or completely asymptomatic, the actually mortality rate is quite low and even the percentage of people who get very sick is quite low. This makes it very difficult to isolate and contact trace.

This is really the first disease that causes very mild or no symptoms in the vast majority of patients while also being very serious or deadly in a small subset of patients AND spreads easily. It is really the definition of an unlucky shot.

If the 1918 Spanish Flu had appeared in 2020, it wouldn't be anywhere near as serious.

[Bobby Henderson]

There is a couple of things I find really troubling relating to the latest news of this outbreak. I totally understand we cannot financially afford to be in lock-down forever. I'm afraid this curve that we're starting to crest could end up being a foothill in front of a much bigger mountain we have to climb.

An almost foolish sense of confidence seems to be taking over a bunch of people in the United States that the crisis is finished or merely an acceptable problem. We can go back to life as usual, somewhat. Focus has been shifted to "exit strategy."

Some states are ending stay at home restrictions. Many kinds of businesses are planning to re-open. This is despite the fact many American states are still recording more new confirmed cases than recoveries on a daily basis. Nationally we have nearly 1 million confirmed cases and a little over 100,000 confirmed recoveries. New confirmed cases per day in the US are still outnumbering recoveries by a nearly 4 to 1 margin (yesterday there were 27,629 new cases and 6,616 new recoveries).

Here in Oklahoma we've been relatively spared from the worst effects of this outbreak compared to other states. We're recording fewer new cases per day, but the number of recoveries per day still isn't outpacing new cases or new hospitalizations either. As of noon Monday Oklahoma had 3280 confirmed cases and 2167 recoveries. That's a much better ratio of recoveries to confirmed cases than the US national ratio. But it still means we have 1113 active confirmed cases and no telling how many unconfirmed cases. To date only 53,144 tests have been conducted in Oklahoma, for a state just shy of 4 million people. We had only around a couple dozen confirmed cases when several cities in Oklahoma first went into lock-down in March.

The lock downs around the country have begun the process of slowing the number of new cases to a trickle. Re-opening many kinds of businesses, even partially risks turning that trickle of new cases into a steady stream or even turning the faucet to full blast. Hence the model of an even bigger disease curve to climb.

There is a certain mindset, even among a few medical professionals, that we need to just let the virus eventually spread through the population and do our best to isolate those who are most vulnerable. This opinion of letting the virus run its course is based on a couple of assumptions.

One guess is the SARS-CoV-2 mortality rate may be lower than first estimated. Anti-body tests are implying the US may have 10 times the number of people infected with SARS-CoV-2. But some of those anti-body tests have been flawed with false positives, false negatives and other technical issues. Anyone carrying SARS-CoV-2 and completely asymptomatic is far less likely to seek getting tested. That pushes mortality rates lower, which allows some to exclaim, "See I told you this wasn't any worse than the flu!" But weigh that against the fact that just in April alone nearly 50,000 Americans have been confirmed killed by COVID-19. There is likely thousands of unconfirmed COVID-19 deaths in the US (thanks in large part to the lack of testing). This month SARS-CoV-2 has been killing people in the US at a much faster pace than seasonal flu or any other common cause of death in the US. And that's while we've been in lock-down.

Another argument for letting the virus spread involves herd immunity. Many have assumed anyone infected with SARS-CoV-2 will develop some level of immunity. If the virus is allowed to spread through the population in a manner gradual enough to not overwhelm hospitals then herd immunity would get built up through the general public. SARS-CoV-2 would have a far more difficult time spreading in subsequent outbreaks. Anyone infected and recovered could have an "immunity passport" and go back to living life like they did before the pandemic.

Now some scientists and epidemiologists are bursting that bubble of hope. They warn no studies have proven anyone infected with SARS-CoV-2 will develop immunity, much less any lasting form of immunity. The WHO is warning it's possible to get infected with SARS-CoV-2 more than once. Some patients in China confirmed to have recovered from COVID-19 have "relapsed."

I would love it if this pandemic was really drawing down to a finish. It would be a big relief. But I'm afraid we're going to be battling this crisis for many months to come until a vaccine is developed (or IF one is ever developed). I worry if the virus is allowed to just run its course we're all going to experience more pain and lose people we care about.

[Harold Hallikainen]

I heard that report this morning that WHO does not yet have evidence one way or the other as to whether people can be re-infected. IF it were found that there is not an immunity after infection (and I thought people recovered because their immune system was able to fight it off), what does that say for vaccines? I thought vaccines gave us an "artificial infection" so we would build the antibodies to fight off the illness in the future. Can a vaccine work if recovering from the disease does not? Maybe a series of vaccine injections ("boosters") would work better than the real disease. Anyway, WAY outside my area here. But that news story caught my attention.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I'm not qualified for an in-depth medical discussion on this topic, but the body certainly produces specific antibodies against the virus, this is also being used in the antibody tests currently available, to check if somebody has had the virus.

The question seems to be as how long those antibodies remain in your body and how effective they might be against a potential mutation of the virus. I've read about reports that in some cases, the immunity only lasts a few months, as in China, there seem to be a select number of people that seem to have had COVID-19 twice.

Vaccines are pretty complex substances and there are quite some variations out there, but how long a vaccine remains effective will probably also need a long-time study. Many vaccines last many years, decades or even a life-time, but not all do.

But this coronavirus is quite a special beast, like indicated before, many people carry the virus and are completely asymptomatic. Maybe there is no need to vaccinate people that have had it and have had zero or only very symptoms, as they seem to be naturally immune. Combined with extensive anti-body testing this could speed-up the vaccination process, where we only vaccinate the people who haven't been infected by the virus yet.

[Lyle Romer]

Now there may be some people with an agenda to over-state the severity of the pandemic, but I don't see a clear angle of how anyone benefits from that.

There are several clear angles. First there is the desire for power. The higher the severity, the easier the argument to impose restrictions on people thus giving more power to the people imposing the restrictions. Harming the economy is another angle because it takes away the strength of certain incumbents to the benefit of challengers. Most directly, some politicians benefit from the ability to host crowds at political rallies and it is in the best interest of the opposition to those candidates if people aren't allowed to attend those gatherings.

I understand what you are saying about "progress" being reversed with lock down orders being relaxed. Unfortunately, some level of increased spread and some number of deaths have to be accepted in order to restart the economy. Due to the significant number of infected people who are either completely asymptomatic or have very mild cases, it is impossible to eradicate this virus without a vaccine unless you literally quarantined the entire population for probably two months. When I say quarantine, I mean nobody leaves their home for any reason and even people in the same household would have to stay isolated from each other. Obviously, that type of worldwide lock down can not be done.

Even the current "safer at home" orders are not sustainable from an economic standpoint. FAR more people will end up dying due to the economic destruction than will from this virus if the worldwide economy doesn't start to come back. In poor countries, people (including children) will die of starvation.

When you really analyze the data, the vast majority of people who die from COVID-19 are elderly AND have significant health issues. A very disproportionate percentage of the deaths are in residents of nursing homes. Any disease outbreak in a nursing home is going to lead to a high mortality rate. Pragmatically speaking, the vast majority of those who die of COVID-19 do not have a very long remaining expected life span.

The number of cases is really irrelevant. It is more about who gets infected. Extreme care must be taken to try and keep the virus out of nursing homes and from spreading within hospitals. People over 65 (especially if they have an underlying condition) and younger people with serious underlying health issues should take precautions like staying at home as much as possible, keeping distance from all other people when they are in public also wearing an N95 (or equivalent) mask for extra protection.

The rest of the population can really go back to normal but take precautions to protect the most vulnerable. The fact that all studies indicate that there are at least 7 times the cases than are reported (probably even more), means the actual mortality rate is at least 7 times lower, even among the high risk groups. If you study the data, if every single person under age 60 were infected there really wouldn't be that many deaths resulting from infections. However, if you let the virus spread freely among the least vulnerable and assume there is some period of immunity (as there is for pretty much every virus known to man), the virus could be eradicated by herd immunity.

It isn't feasible to destroy the well being of over 99% of the population in order to try and "save every life."

[James Wyrembelski]

Regarding the inflation effects, there really isn't anything to worry on that front. We are going to see more of an issue with deflation. It's hard to comprehend, but there is in fact a dollar shortage in the globe right now hence the massive need for printing cash and the dollar value/demand rising, also why the Fed opened lines of credit to lend to foreign central banks. Other countries are indeed seeing hyperinflation, but they don't hold reserve status nor do they have the tools we do. There are no other currencies on the planet right now that looks as good as the dollar even as ugly as it is, which says a lot. Russia being the next best bet due to their almost non-existent debt to GDP, and massive gold holdings. But, everyone will have to start refusing the dollar before that happens.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I still have some toilet paper left, so I'm probably all set for the coming months. The good thing about toilet paper is that it's more eco-friendly than dollars and it's worth more with... ahum... nothing printed on there.

[Martin McCaffery]

California Governor Says Theater Reopening Still Months Away

Variety

[Frank Cox]

Funny thing about toilet paper.

The local hardware store sells commercial janitorial supplies. It's not stuff that they put on the shelf but when you want it you just ask for it and they bring it out of their storage room. Garbage bags, paper towel, toilet bowl cleaners, and...
paper.jpg
2 ply, box of 48 rolls for $40.99 (Canadian) plus tax.

I was talking to the owner the other day and said, "So how's the toilet paper sales?" He said no different than it's always been and he said he still has plenty of stock in the back.

I guess most people don't realize that he has toilet paper in big boxes like that. The grocery store has a limit of one package and has been more-or-less continuously sold out anyway for the past several weeks. Just like everywhere else, I suppose.

I told him I'll take three boxes.

[Bobby Henderson]

Now there may be some people with an agenda to over-state the severity of the pandemic, but I don't see a clear angle of how anyone benefits from that.

There are several clear angles. First there is the desire for power. The higher the severity, the easier the argument to impose restrictions on people thus giving more power to the people imposing the restrictions. Harming the economy is another angle because it takes away the strength of certain incumbents to the benefit of challengers. Most directly, some politicians benefit from the ability to host crowds at political rallies and it is in the best interest of the opposition to those candidates if people aren't allowed to attend those gatherings.

I don't think any lawmakers have been issuing these lock downs as a means of making political hay against an opposing party. Closing businesses and costing millions of people their jobs isn't going to be beneficial to any politician. There will be blow-back in both the short and long term.

Even the current "safer at home" orders are not sustainable from an economic standpoint. FAR more people will end up dying due to the economic destruction than will from this virus if the worldwide economy doesn't start to come back. In poor countries, people (including children) will die of starvation.

This virus is already killing a lot of Americans all while much of the nation is shut down. It would pretty much take a breakdown of our society for other types of deaths to far outnumber COVID-19 deaths.

Re-opening everything carries its own risks. Consider "essential businesses" that have stayed operational during the crisis. Major portions of our food industry are at considerable risk of collapsing because of outbreaks at places like meat processing plants. These kinds of businesses can end up being forced to close if too many employees get infected or sick. It's not going to make any difference even if the President orders them to stay open. How do they operate with no staff? Orders to re-open are going to affect America's population in a very uneven way. Those who are most well-off will probably keep working from home. Most low wage people can't do their jobs from home.

There's also economic cost to a lot of people being hospitalized or dying of COVID-19. Anyone covered up in medical bills isn't going to be doing much consumer spending. A large rash of COVID-19 deaths will do things like put a bunch of homes onto the real estate market. That's not desirable in an economy already heading downward.

When you really analyze the data, the vast majority of people who die from COVID-19 are elderly AND have significant health issues. A very disproportionate percentage of the deaths are in residents of nursing homes. Any disease outbreak in a nursing home is going to lead to a high mortality rate. Pragmatically speaking, the vast majority of those who die of COVID-19 do not have a very long remaining expected life span.

There is a lot of non-elderly people dying of COVID-19 as well. Many millions of non-elderly Americans have their own "comorbidities" that lower their odds of surviving COVID-19. Obesity is very common along with adult onset diabetes. Heart disease is another risk factor. Medical experts are troubled by the number of people under age 50 suffering strokes or other circulatory system blockages.

Certain work occupations, like health care workers and police, are seeing much higher mortality rate levels. Epidemiologists have been saying its likely a higher amount of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 leads to worse outcomes, be it multiple exposures from different people or a high amount of virus getting into the respiratory system from a single exposure.

Also the COVID-19 mortality rate also varies greatly depending on a hospital's ability to provide care for patients. If the hospital gets overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients then a lot more people end up dying. If too many health care workers get infected that also translates to more COVID-19 deaths. If too many types of businesses re-open too fast the COVID-19 case levels will shoot back up into unmanageable territory.