rigorousintuition.ca

JackRiddler » Thu Apr 16, 2020 11:56 am wrote: No one's drawing conclusions. It's a tragedy and it's real.

JackRiddler » 17 Apr 2020 01:56 wrote:.

No one's drawing conclusions. It's a tragedy and it's real.

Okay, I'll try one: in a system arranged for the many, not the few, that girl would have been sent home with full pay and free health care if needed and the guarantee she could return to her job when the trouble was over. She would not have been declared an "essential worker." The state would issue funds as needed to cover payroll in the interim.

Everyone in the vulnerable groups would have been asked to take the same option, or otherwise provided with care, income and shelter to quarantine under humane conditions.

As for the rest of us, everyone under 65 or 70, feeling well, and not suffering from one of the preexisting conditions? That's a big question. If our death rate from this virus is far under 0.1%, as appears to be the case -- still up to one in a thousand -- it seems we should have taken every care to avoid contact with the vulnerable while spreading it amongst ourselves until we all passed the contagious phase and had immunity, all the while increasing the hospital resources so that we had a comfortable reserve to handle the outbreak. (Yes, empty hospital beds are a GOOD thing. A smart and humane society will maintain a high surplus of them.)

Maybe someone can argue why that's the wrong approach, and why some form of general "lockdown" was needed, but no one's going to convince me of the uses of the more extreme panic applied (not mostly by the official medical authorities but the extra panic).

These two examples may be pet peeves, but I've been particularly angered by the bullshit (in published material, that is) about how we need 25-foot distancing OUTDOORS because droplets act like second-hand smoke, or how you should treat your house like an active operating room because the virus is as hard to dispose of as spilled glitter, or the plastic industry propaganda about how you should be banned from bringing your own bag to the supermarket. By diverting energy to bullshit fears, these kinds of unhinged claims also kill, I believe.

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0_0 » 17 Apr 2020 03:36 wrote:

JackRiddler » Thu Apr 16, 2020 11:56 am wrote: No one's drawing conclusions. It's a tragedy and it's real.

Except my reply was to Elvis who posted this story without mentioning that she had cerebral palsy. And immediately after my reply Joe Hilshoist concluded that she died from coronavirus. So conclusions are suggested and drawn.

Adults with cerebral palsy have about 14 times more chance of dying of respiratory failure than others. So yes it's a sad story, yes it's real and let's assume that yes she also tested positive for coronoavirus (whatever that means exactly) that still does not mean a causal relation between coronavirus and her death. And statistically it says nothing about the dangers of coronavirus for grocery clerks. Sorry to spell out the obvious, i'm just trying to make sure everyone can follow.

And so the main observation of his topic remains: if there really was a supercontagious, superdeadly disease that warranted an indefinite lockdown of more than half the world's population, you would expect a lot of grocery store clerks to have died by now. Which they haven't. There must be millions of supermarket employees in the US alone, and if the most liberal estimates in the media are to be believed (which i don't) so far around 40 of them have died either from or with coronavirus. Which is 0,004%.Now you can all chime in to comment how insensitive and rude i am.

As more grocery store workers die, employees call for better protection
By Katie Johnston Globe Staff,Updated April 7, 2020, 4:34 p.m.

Several dozen Boston-area grocery store workers and their supporters protested outside the Ink Block Whole Foods in the South End Tuesday, wearing face masks and holding signs such as “Essential not disposable” as they demanded employers provide gloves and masks, additional paid sick leave, and time-and-a-half hazard pay during the coronavirus pandemic.

Grocery stores have become a lifeline at a time when people are largely confined to their homes to keep the highly contagious virus from spreading, and cashiers, baggers, and other employees are exposed to a steady stream of customers with varying degrees of protections.
Grocery store workers protest outside of Whole Foods

A number of grocery store employees nationwide have died of COVID-19 in recent days, including a Market Basket employee in Salem, the company said Tuesday. It is believed to be the first such death of a grocery store worker in Massachusetts. Two other employees at the store have tested positive and are in quarantine. A handful of employees at other Market Basket stores in the area have also been diagnosed with the virus.
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At least four other grocery store employees have died around the country, according to news reports: two at the same Chicago-area Walmart, one at a Trader Joe’s in Scarsdale, N.Y., and one at a Giant store in Largo, Md. The four chains with employees involved in Tuesday’s protest — Whole Foods, Stop & Shop, Shaw’s, and Trader Joe’s — have all reported positive tests among employees. At Stop & Shop, the majority of COVID-19 cases among the store’s employees are concentrated around New York City, a spokeswoman said.

On Tuesday, the United Food & Commercial Workers union and Albertsons Cos., which owns Shaw’s and Star Market, launched a national campaign to have supermarket employees designated as extended first responders or emergency personnel, which would give them priority for coronavirus testing and access to masks and gloves. In several states, including Massachusetts, grocery store workers already have access to emergency child care.

Lisa Wilson, one of the organizers of Tuesday’s rally in Boston, started working at Shaw’s in Hyde Park a week ago, after getting laid off from her job at a movie theater in downtown Boston, she said. Employees are allowed to wear gloves and masks, but the store doesn’t provide them, she said, and workers get a 5 percent discount on the gloves it sells. Wilson, 20, makes $12.75 an hour and gets one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, she said.

"There's always a level of fear," she said. "Is today going to be the day that I get sick?"

"There's a bigger fear of how am I going to pay my bills and how am I going to take care of my family?" said Wilson, who is also helping out her parents in Fall River, who are now both out of work.

Many grocery stores have granted workers temporary raises — 10 percent at Stop & Shop, $2 an hour at Whole Foods, Shaw’s, and Trader Joe’s — and are giving workers placed in quarantine or diagnosed with COVID-19 an additional two weeks of paid sick time. Deep cleaning, installing plexiglass guards at checkouts, and limiting the number of people in stores are also becoming commonplace.

Grocery stores initially resisted supplying workers with masks, in line with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that have since been reversed. Now, Shaw’s and Star Market are in the process of obtaining masks for workers, a spokesman said. At Whole Foods, workers must undergo temperature screenings, and gloves and masks are distributed at the beginning of each shift. Stop & Shop said it has made aisles one way and is procuring KN95 masks for employees.

Trader Joe’s said it is supplying workers with gloves; it had masks made and is in the process of distributing them. In some stores where workers have tested positive or had suspected cases, stores have been shut down for several days for additional cleaning and workers were paid during the closure, a spokesman said. In areas hard hit by the pandemic, the company is scheduling periodic store closures for deep cleaning even if there hasn’t been a diagnosed or suspected case.

Wilson, the Hyde Park Shaw’s employee, said management has not been forthcoming about employees testing positive. The store has publicly confirmed cases at the Hyde Park store, and in Easton, but Wilson said her questions about it were deflected. The response made Wilson feel “hands-down scared.”
“The least you can do is inform people,” she said.

On Tuesday, the state implemented caps on how many people can be inside a grocery store at one time, issuing an order that limits stores to 40 percent of the capacity listed on their occupancy permits, counting both customers and employees.

Many area supermarkets have already placed caps on the number of customers in a store, letting new ones in only when someone leaves. The new rules are designed to create consistency across the state, said Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito.

"This is about a more uniform distribution across our communities on how to provide a safe environment for customers as well as the workforces," she said Tuesday.
The rules, which take effect immediately, will be enforced by local boards of health, according to the state order. Stores are also encouraged to designate one-way aisles, “where practical” to reduce crowding, to monitor appropriate distance among customers waiting to enter, and to encourage online delivery or curbside pickup.
Tim Logan of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

Boston Globe via archive

Joe Hillshoist » Thu Apr 16, 2020 6:26 pm wrote:I don't understand the basis for this 0.1% death rate idea?

JackRiddler » 17 Apr 2020 01:56 wrote:As for the rest of us, everyone under 65 or 70, feeling well, and not suffering from one of the preexisting conditions? That's a big question. If our death rate from this virus is far under 0.1%, as appears to be the case -- still up to one in a thousand -- it seems we should have taken every care to avoid contact with the vulnerable while spreading it amongst ourselves until we all passed the contagious phase and had immunity, all the while increasing the hospital resources so that we had a comfortable reserve to handle the outbreak. (Yes, empty hospital beds are a GOOD thing. A smart and humane society will maintain a high surplus of them.)