COVID-19 & US healthcare system: Flattening the Third

[Black Aeronaut]

When I say, "easy to learn", I mean that the learning curve isn't terribly steep - you can start with some basic principals, follow along, learn while you do the scut work, and then eased into while someone qualified watches over your shoulder.  Slowly, you start to learn the Why-for's behind what you do - local codes and standards and why they exist.  (It's like starting out with the practical material right away, and then once you're useful they start cramming theory into your head.)  And as you go along, they watch you less and less and instead simply check over your work to make sure you didn't goof anything up.  Yes, there are tests to take, but the idea is that they should be a breeze if your apprenticeship is being handled properly.

If it wasn't this simple, then you wouldn't have the apprenticeship system at all.  Instead, vocational jobs would be something you'd need a bachelors degree for.  But this is literally not rocket science.  Yes, there is some engineering involved, but to my understanding, that doesn't come until they're prepping you for your journeyman qualifications.

Although there are a few fields they do have formal schools for.  Stuff like HVAC technicians, for example.

And really, a good number of Americans have reason to not pursue vocational work: IT IS FUCKING BACK BREAKING AND DANGEROUS.  Believe it or not, I've had a taste of what that was like during my stint in the Navy.  It's really no different - you do actual work that requires a degree of technical skill, and often in adverse conditions that most people would go "FUCK THAT SHIT!"

Extreme heat?  Extreme cold?  Heavy tools and materials?  Dangerous work areas?  All part and parcel with vocational work.  I've literally been there and done that.

As for what it pays?  HAH!  Hazard?  You really think that a field that in as high of demand as welders or plumbers is gonna pay chicken shit wages?  Why the hell do you think that plumbers can get away with charging exorbitant labor fees?  And if they're running their own operation, that money pretty much goes straight into their pocket.  (Minus taxes, of course.)

Here's some hard data to back me up on this:
https://www.housecallpro.com/learn/plumber-salary/
https://www.economicmodeling.com/2020/05...ders-make/

Do note that they also take into account the apprentices that do the basic stuff and thus make a very low wage.  But on average?  Yeah.  It's nothing to scoff at.  Those are some very legitimate living wages.

Most young Americans are angling for jobs in the tech sector.  Which is fine.  Big data is a booming industry, and as I've mentioned elsewhere on the forums, San Antonio has seen it's share of big data centers pop up.  There's plenty of work available in fields like that.  The only real bottleneck is the education and how much it costs.

Meanwhile, you have migrants getting teargassed at the border because "MUH JERBS!" that people complain about them taking, but no one really wants to do.  <s>After all, God forbid that we get some more citizens who can be productive, tax paying members of society because of the horrible things they'll bring with them, like culture and food!</s>

[hazard]

Pretty sure rockets require a lot of plumbing actually.

Also, if there's a high demand for labour in a sector but nobody is taking those jobs whatever the wages are is not enough regardless of how high they are.

Well, either that or the job sector has a major image issue that needs addressing, which is true enough of blue collar work.


Then again, the apprentice system does have 1 major issue that a schooling system does not. Throughput of pupils is notably lower per teacher regardless of how long it takes to teach the job. This means that if the job market is sufficiently irregular you are always going to have to deal with a teaching system that can't cope. Either because there's not enough jobs so the apprentices get laid off, or there's too many jobs and apprentices can't get taught quick enough, only to find no jobs when their apprenticeship is done.

[SilverFang01]

Despite its epochal effects, COVID‑19 is merely a harbinger of worse plagues to come. The U.S. cannot prepare for these inevitable crises if it returns to normal, as many of its people ache to do. Normal led to this. Normal was a world ever more prone to a pandemic but ever less ready for one. To avert another catastrophe, the U.S. needs to grapple with all the ways normal failed us. It needs a full accounting of every recent misstep and foundational sin, every unattended weakness and unheeded warning, every festering wound and reopened scar.

How the Pandemic Defeated America

We need to be better. And to those who will do everything possible to interfere with what needs to change I say this: you are welcome to stay on the past. The rest of us will keep moving forward.

[Labster]

Black Aeronaut has done something which we call, in the trades, "sticking one's foot in one's mouth." Never imply someone else's job is easy. Or that any skilled labor is easy to learn. We all learn at different rates, so it's not good to extrapolate your own mental model to other people.

I see this a lot in programming, with the boot camps. Some people really can learn how to program in six weeks, but there are a lot of washouts too. People who, when you try to make their brains do symbolic logic, it always seems difficult. They might have high emotional intelligence, and be suited to an entirely different job, which I would be terrible at. Sure, I can learn to be a salesman, but it would be difficult, and I'd never really be good at it.

[Labster]

Well, time for you to get worried, Canadians.  A couple days in a row now, Trump has been talking about cracking down on prescription drug prices: specifically how they're so cheap in Canada and Mexico.  He's wondering how Trudeau lets them get away with those low prices, and is planning to investigate.  Either way, it's clear to Trump that in order for drug prices to decrease in the US, they have to increase somewhere else.

He also mentioned how vote by mail can't work, because the post office can't handle millions of ballots in the mail.  I mean, think about it, how can they possibly deliver millions of letters in a week?  But, according to Trump, it's okay in Florida because the post office had a chance to "build up strength" there and they had good Republican governors who won't send out ballots to just anyone.  Sorry, rest of the country, post offices are only good in Florida.

If you watch these daily press conferences from the White House, you really hear a lot of things that you've never thought of before.

[robkelk]

Well, time for you to get worried, Canadians.  A couple days in a row now, Trump has been talking about cracking down on prescription drug prices: specifically how they're so cheap in Canada and Mexico.  He's wondering how Trudeau lets them get away with those low prices, and is planning to investigate.  Either way, it's clear to Trump that in order for drug prices to decrease in the US, they have to increase somewhere else.

Drugs are cheap in Canada? Why didn't anybody tell me that? I only live here...

Seriously, it's called "cooperating with other people to buy in bulk" and "government subsidies". Does anybody think the Nicknamer-in-Chief will go along with either of those ideas?

[Labster]

Nah, it’s just his way of promising to Build the Adderall, Canada will pay for it.

[hazard]

The USA heavily supports with the drug industry with subsidies and US drugs are extremely expensive, so it can't be that.

It's probably 'we buy in bulk and if we don't like your prices on this drug we buy elsewhere even for different drugs'. Turns out, having very big organizations negotiate on your behalf tends to be helpful.

[robkelk]

The USA heavily supports with the drug industry with subsidies and US drugs are extremely expensive, so it can't be that.

You're subsidizing only one end of the pipeline. Canada also subsidizes the purchase price of the drugs, paying for it from income tax revenue.

So, yes, it's socialized (but not socialist) medicine.

[hazard]

Oi, 1) I'm Dutch and 2) That one end of the pipeline is heavily subsidized doesn't mean the other end has to be as well to deliver low cost medication.

[Black Aeronaut]

I agree with Hazard on this point.  There should be no reason that the pharmaceutical industry needs to be subsidized at both the R&D end and the sales and production end.  Although I would certainly make an exception for an emergency like the one we're in now.

The only other reason I would want to subsidize the R&D of pharmaceuticals would be if there was a mandate that the drugs in question are immediately placed into the public domain so there can be healthy competition in the market to keep prices down.

[robkelk]

Canadian man in U.S. ICE custody dies after getting coronavirus in lockup

A Canadian man who contracted the coronavirus while in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities has died, leaving his family shaken and looking for answers from governments on both sides of the border.

Way to go, USA - giving a healthy person a fatal disease instead of extraditing him. (One assumes that an extradition counts as "essential travel".)

According to ICE statistics, there have been 290 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the Farmville facility as of Wednesday, with an estimated 350 to 400 detainees at the centre in total.

And this tells the world that, if you're in custody in the USA, you're going to die. Never mind whether that's an accurate statement - "truthiness" has made accuracy irrelevant nowadays.

[robkelk]

Mass gatherings in U.S. as COVID-19 cases top 5 million (video)

[Dartz]

Apparently, 1 in 67 Americans have now been confirmed to have the disease.

The actual number may be 1 in 7.

This is what failure looks like.

[hazard]

Hey, at least they are getting that herd immunity thing they wanted. They'll need to get everyone infected first, of course, but chopping trees, chips flying, etc.

[Labster]

Hey, we're well on our way to herd immunity, while Europeans are all too busy not catching the corona.  And, well, people will need to get sick for us to get immunity, because...

One in Three Americans Would Not Get COVID-19 Vaccine even if it was free.  The non-compliant groups here are pretty much what you would expect -- a majority of Republicans don't want a vaccine for the fake news China virus, while for some reason minorities don't trust the vaccine either.

[Labster]

Trump is now saying oleander can cure COVID. God help whoever decides to try it.

[robkelk]

How Toxic Is Oleander to Humans?

Dangerous Oleander Extract Not a COVID-19 Cure

Gotta love DuckDuckGo - these popped up in the first screen (not page) on a search for "oleander".

(You don't suppose he meant to say Leander, maybe? It wouldn't be the first time he's misspoken... this month.)

[classicdrogn]

Maybe he's just a grunge fan? I can see why he'd feel their music speaks to him...

Everyone has been in my face
Telling me that I'm a disgrace
Showing me things that I must face
Telling me that they need their space

I can't love you anymore
I'm scared of the sound of it

It's the reason why I'm down
I'm beaten been pushed around
Hit the ceiling without a sound
Everyone I know considers me a clown

[Inquisitive Raven]

I can't love you anymore
I'm scared of the sound of it

Maybe the rest of the lyrics, but I'm not buying this bit. Since when does Trump love anyone, other than, perhaps, himself.

[classicdrogn]

Well, he's repeatedly endorsed various underlings or acquaintances and then hurriedly announced that he barely knew them, hasn't spoken to them for years, and nobody can prove anything when they get arrested or involved in some scandal, or have their first original thought and he has to fire them for contradicting him. Appreciating another person is like love, right? Not many people know that, but Trump can tell you.

[robkelk]

Reuters: Trump acknowledged seriousness of COVID-19 privately to Bob Woodward in early February

Article includes audio, spoken by the Nicknamer-in-Chief, and published by CNN.

Woodward said that only in May was he satisfied that Trump's comments were based on reliable information and that by then the virus had spread nationwide.

"If I had done the story at that time about what he knew in February, that's not telling us anything we didn't know," Woodward said. At that point, he said, the issue was no longer one of public health but of politics. His priority became getting the story out before the election in November.

[robkelk]

Just heard a sound bite on the radio, where the Nicknamer-in-Chief claimed Canada wants the border opened.

This, of course, is bullshit. And I insult bullshit when I compare that statement to it.

90% of Canadians polled support keeping the border closed, despite the costs

(For comparison, only 80% of Americans think supporting the US Constitution is important to being a "real American".)

[DHBirr]

‘He Obviously Got an Education in America’: New Zealand Deputy PM Humiliates US COVID Denier

Well, it obviously wasn't much of an education; merely the kind Prez Windrip and his Secretary of Uneducation want voters to have.

Peters added: “We’ve got 79,000 cases just today, probably in India, and here is someone who gets up and says ‘the Earth is flat.’” The deputy PM then witheringly told the man: “Sorry, sunshine, wrong place.”

Inevitably, the man didn’t realize that he’d been resoundingly humiliated in public and tried to respond to what Peters had said, but he was told: “Quiet, we have manners at our meetings as well.”

Why was a USAian even let into a well-run nation, anyway?

-----
“We’ve had our differences, but he’s seen the light … and I made sure he moved toward it, instead of coming back.”

[robkelk]

Just heard a sound bite on the radio, where the Nicknamer-in-Chief claimed Canada wants the border opened.

This, of course, is bullshit. And I insult bullshit when I compare that statement to it.

90% of Canadians polled support keeping the border closed, despite the costs

(For comparison, only 80% of Americans think supporting the US Constitution is important to being a "real American".)

And it's still bullshit, no matter how many times the Nicknamer-in-Chief claims otherwise.

Trudeau and Trump are worlds apart on the Canada-U.S. border closure


So... in 2016, the Nicknamer-in-Chief campaigned on closing the borders - "build that wall". Well, the border's closed, and the country to the south is paying for it. And the Nicknamer-in-Chief doesn't like that state of affairs. Too bad. You reap what you sow.