What Does A Quarantine Due To Coronavirus Mean For Truckers?

Very much flu like but i gotta say i bounced back much faster from this than i ever have the flu for the first week it did kick my butt though The pannick has gotta stop people just need to be clean courteous and if they know they are sick stay home By the way this should apply to everyday life not just because of this virus. Very happy to be back working making a paycheck. There was no governmental god out there waiting to hand me a check because i missed 2 weeks either for those that might think there is

Has anyone noticed how the person who started this conversation by exhorting us to escape to the woods and build a lean to so we could avoid the insanity, is now fanning those very flames of insanity with rhetoric, and then calling it truth and facts?

A bit yes. I have heard so much crazy chit these days, people talking about national lockdowns, gun confiscation, new global governments, crazy stuff old school.

Stay safe out there..... I dont buy the nwo government stuff, a very bad virus caused by human stupidity and lower cleanliness standards yes absolutely.

Will we see blue UN hats going door to door rearranging American life? highly unlikely.

Night out there

Has anyone noticed how the person who started this conversation by exhorting us to escape to the woods and build a lean to so we could avoid the insanity, is now fanning those very flames of insanity with rhetoric, and then calling it truth and facts?

Has anyone noticed how the person who started this conversation by exhorting us to escape to the woods and build a lean to so we could avoid the insanity, is now fanning those very flames of insanity with rhetoric, and then calling it truth and facts?

I know I certainly have!

I'm glad for this conversation though. It wasn't anything I had planned on doing every day, but the more information I've found the more important I feel it is. Digging up the real numbers and giving people a more balanced perspective is something I wish more people would do.

I'm working on today's now.

I for one have appreciated not only the factual numbers gleaned from your research Brett, but also the entertainment value derived from this thread.

The extent to which some will go to push their narrative is comical...and sad.

I for one have appreciated not only the factual numbers gleaned from your research Brett, but also the entertainment value derived from this thread.

The extent to which some will go to push their narrative is comical...and sad.

Another thing that I find most interesting about this thread is the mindset of those who disagree with Brett's position. They act like they WANT this to be worse than it is, which is one of the reasons why I don't like to watch the TV news. Don Henley's song "Dirty Laundry" sums up the fascination with tragedy "She can tell you bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye." What is wrong with people who sensationalize tragedy in order to generate publicity.

Social distancing is the solution our local and federal government is giving us. I can't help but laugh when I see a press conference NOT practicing what they preach.

yesterday they had even more people shoulder to shoulder as they said they will take out the cartels bringing drugs into our country.

A bit yes. I have heard so much crazy chit these days, people talking about national lockdowns, gun confiscation, new global governments, crazy stuff old school.

Stay safe out there..... I dont buy the nwo government stuff, a very bad virus caused by human stupidity and lower cleanliness standards yes absolutely.

Will we see blue UN hats going door to door rearranging American life? highly unlikely.

Night out there

Has anyone noticed how the person who started this conversation by exhorting us to escape to the woods and build a lean to so we could avoid the insanity, is now fanning those very flames of insanity with rhetoric, and then calling it truth and facts?

Any of em show up in my neighborhood - they will have 7.62X51 holes in them pretty blue helmets.

If this ever gets so far out there - that UN Troops are on American soil - pop some popcorn, sit back and watch the show.

Just sayin...

Rick

We will soon talk about various governments around the world, including ours, and changes that are happening. But not today. Today's update is about the virus itself.

Do travel bans really slow the spread of the virus?

From the article What China’s coronavirus response can teach the rest of the world:

Multiple analyses of air travel suggest that the Hubei travel bans, which stopped people leaving the province on planes, trains or in cars, slowed the virus’ spread, but not for long. A 6 March study published in Science by scientists in Italy, China and the United States found that cutting off Wuhan delayed disease spread to other cities in China by roughly four days.

Four days? That's not very inspiring.

The bans had a more lasting effect internationally, stopping four of five cases from being exported from China to other countries for two to three weeks, the team found. But after that, travellers from other cities transported the virus to other international cities, seeding new outbreaks. The team’s model suggests that even blocking 90% of travel slows the virus’s spread only moderately unless other measures are introduced.

So travel bans don't really do much except slow the spread slightly, but of course they devastate entire swaths of the economy and prevent people the 997 out of 1,000 of us who are in no danger from living their lives.

Interestingly enough, the World Health Organization actually recommends against travel bans:

Dozens of countries across Europe, the Americas and Africa and Asia have now introduced travel restrictions, although the WHO warns against them, saying they aren’t usually effective in preventing an infection’s spread, and they could divert resources from other more helpful measures and block aid and technical support, in addition to harming many industries.

Singapore has nearly stopped the spread altogether without stopping life there:

As the first cases popped up in Singapore, doctors promptly identified and isolated those people and started contact tracing, says Lee. The country still has under 250 COVID-19 cases, and it didn’t need to introduce the drastic movement restrictions used in China. Some events have been canceled, people with COVID-19 are being quarantined and temperature screening and other community measures are in place, says Lee. “But life is still going on,” he says.

It's important to understand that slowing the spread is not eradicating it. The virus doesn't dissolve into thin air:

China is suppressing the virus, not eradicating it, says Osterholm. The world will need to wait until about eight weeks after China resumes to some form of normality to know what it did or didn’t accomplish with its population-movement limitations, he says.

Deaths amongst the elderly

Again, my question is why haven't we simply quarantined the most fragile people in our society, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems? The virus has already spread nationwide, as all viruses do. If we can quarantine those who are at danger, the 3 out of 1,000, then the other 997 out of 1,000 of us in no danger can continue living our lives, feed our families, pay our mortgages, and run our businesses. To quarantine everyone makes no sense.

According to an article, 80% of US coronavirus deaths have been among people 65 and older, a new CDC report says — here's what it reveals about the US cases

80% of deaths associated with COVID-19 were among adults aged ≥65 years with the highest percentage of severe outcomes among persons aged ≥85 years," the report said.

I find it incredibly frustrating, and rather revealing, that no one is releasing the raw numbers showing how many people have died in each age group. They'll only give estimated death rates, which have no meaning because we have no clue how many people actually have the virus. I think if they revealed the demographics and prior health of those who have died from this virus it would have completely undermined their hopes of us treating this as an apocalypse.

In the end, the numbers will reveal the truth.

The Crushing Of The American Economy

Let's talk about the economy a little bit, including what this means for truck drivers.

The devastation to our economy has been swift and brutal, though very few people are talking about it in the media. If you used coffins for burying businesses and the financial hopes of families across America, the media would have millions of them to show us.

An article from CNBC says It could take 4 to 5 years for many Americans to recover wages lost to coronavirus

“A lot of folks working for small businesses are probably going to experience something very similar to 2008, where they are losing everything,” he said. “It will take four to five years for them to recover.”

Trucking will continue to do well, at least for a while:

Transportation, on the other hand, topped the list, thanks to the increase in demand for delivered goods from the many people working from home. First-quarter wages grew 3.2% over the past year.

“In this case, I imagine we will see a huge spike in transportation and warehouse wages just because there will be a lot of demand.”

Weekly Job Losses of 6.6 Million

US weekly jobless claims double to 6.6 million

The torrent of Americans filing for unemployment insurance skyrocketed last week as more than 6.6 million new claims were filed, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That brings to 10 million the total Americans who filed over the past two weeks.

Unfortunately, those 10 million job losses are nowhere near the actual devastation to the economy already.

“Sadly, this probably still underestimates the actual numbers because of the overload in the systems and not every call getting through,” said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “Even if we’re accurately calculating the numbers, we still likely have worse to come.”

Not only will we see millions more in the coming months, but business owners and contract workers are not reflected in this number, though they claim both will benefit from the upcoming stimulus package. Unfortunately, that will be far too little too late for many.

How big is this unemployment number?

Before the coronavirus shut down major parts of the economy, the highest week for claims was 695,000 in 1982. The Great Recession [of 2008] high was 665,000 in March 2009.

However, the sudden shutdown from social distancing policies caused a cascade of joblessness unlike anything the nation has ever seen.

“We’ve lived through the recession [of 2008] and 9/11. What we’re seeing with this decline is actually worse than both of those events,” said Irina Novoselsky, CEO of online jobs marketplace CareerBuilder.

Actually, what we're seeing is far worse than both of those events combined.

In the coming days we'll talk about what the governments are doing and some theories behind what's really happening around the globe. We've heard death estimates for the U.S. that started as high as 2 - 3 million, then drop to 1 million, then drop to 100,000 - 240,000, and in the coming days we may get my first prediction for what the numbers will show at the end of all this.

Will it turn out I was right from the start when I said this wasn't nearly as bad as they wanted us to believe? If you've been paying attention to the numbers instead of just the hype, that is already obvious. But in the end we'll see, and it won't be long.