Bad News Thread

Over lunch I just found out our favorite sushi place had closed. Ran into the manager cleaning out his stuff. Similar story to my favorite breakfast place: low take out demand and just fell too far behind on bills. The kicker for them, though, was the recent increases in ingredient and labor costs. While long term inflation might have helped out with the fixed rent for a small window, the cost increases just sank them.
 
dad4 said:
The goal, as always, is sustained R<1.

Those goalposts aren't moving. They're collecting pigeon poop while you ignore them.
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Which you've have never set out the dad plan on how that's possible. For the 12th or 14th or something like that time, you are invited to lay it all out for us, with the benefit of hindsight. You seem to have an outline now. Let's here how this played out in the dad4 alternate universe where everyone listened to you.
 
Morning Consult's recent Return to Normal poll returned some interesting results: the vaccinated are considerably less likely to feel comfortable doing basic human things than the unvaccinated.

To be sure, the vaccinated are already a self-selected group of risk-averse people, but this is still a ridiculous result. Why did you get the vaccine if you didn't think it made it safe for you to go to the movies, for heaven's sake?

The results:
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On a related note, Professor Don Boudreaux of George Mason University, on his Cafe Hayek blog, shares this email from a reader:

Experience of one of my daughters with her long time friend (LTF) this weekend, which is very disturbing.

We own a second house in Aiken, South Carolina. This daughter is an equestrian. SC is now fully open and Aiken lifted all mask mandates just this past week (thank God). With college classes over, my daughter and her long time friend made a weekend trip there. Sounds like fun, right?

My daughter made dinner reservations, and another friend invited them to see live music outside. It is important to note that my daughters has one shot of the vaccine, and that her LTF not only had COVID, but is fully vaccinated, and the friend they are meeting had COVID – and they are all under 25, so already not at great risk. They are about to enter the restaurant when LTF has a panic attack, starts crying, and declares that she cannot enter the restaurant because people are dining inside. LTF then declares that she also cannot go to the music event because there will be crowds there. LTF has become so terrified of other human beings that, despite being immunized, she cannot fathom living life normally. LTF is convinced that all the non-mask wearing people are going to infect her, and despite the fact that she, her parents, and her grandparents are all vaccinated, she is going to carry the illness to them and kill them. This is mental illness. This is what we’ve done to our young people. It is heartbreaking.
 
After sharing a story of his own, Boudreaux concludes with this:

Despite nearly four months of steadily, and often dramatically, falling case counts in Virginia – despite steadily falling hospitalization numbers for Covid – despite falling Covid death rates – despite 50 percent of Virginians now having at least one vaccine shot and 38 percent being fully vaccinated, the government of this State which was home to Patrick Henry, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison officially advises citizens to double mask and to
worry about “new variants of Covid-19.”

This attitude is deranged.
 
Grace T. said:
That funny. Everywhere in the world mask mandates have failed. How’s that mask mandate going in India? Speaking of patting on the back what happened in the czech republic? How it work out in Los Angeles? And Sweden without their mask mandate? Again no where in the world, no matter how much you wish for it, does it make a substantial difference

Very easy to figure out why. On a micro level on the airplane it’s going to help prevent the person 12 rows out from catching it. That additional help though is only marginal utility because being so far away even on a 6 hour flight he’s only rolling a couple die. The person sick right next to you though is forcing you to take several rolls every hour so eventually the n95 will even fail. The end result is the mask was helpful for the people 12 rows away but the overall reduction of cases may be only a handful producing a less robust macro result

sorry dad4. Many of said masks weren’t a panacea while you embraced praying to them
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More straw men.
 
Grace T. said:
Over lunch I just found out our favorite sushi place had closed. Ran into the manager cleaning out his stuff. Similar story to my favorite breakfast place: low take out demand and just fell too far behind on bills. The kicker for them, though, was the recent increases in ingredient and labor costs. While long term inflation might have helped out with the fixed rent for a small window, the cost increases just sank them.
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I used to work as a manager in F&B. Restaurants are not going to survive just on takeout. Takeout for most is just to fill in around the edges for most of these places.

Those that are set up as takeout places have rented/purchased facilities designed to accommodate that biz model. That means the space is mainly a kitchen along with a very small area for people picking up. They do not have the majority of the space set up for dining. So unfortunately these places during covid are paying a rent/purchase structure that was predicated on having a full restaurant.
 
Desert Hound said:
I used to work as a manager in F&B. Restaurants are not going to survive just on takeout. Takeout for most is just to fill in around the edges for most of these places.

Those that are set up as takeout places have rented/purchased facilities designed to accommodate that biz model. That means the space is mainly a kitchen along with a very small area for people picking up. They do not have the majority of the space set up for dining. So unfortunately these places during covid are paying a rent/purchase structure that was predicated on having a full restaurant.
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Our friend's small restaurant survived on takeout and delivery quite nicely. The income was down, but so were the expenses -- no wait staff, smaller kitchen staff, reduced utility costs, etc. They also had good fortune in a way that when the roof over the dining area sprung a leak during a big storm early in the shutdown they lost no income because the room was empty anyway.
 
espola said:
More straw men.
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She is changing the topic. She can't find a decent argument that cloth masks fail in normal life, like when you are in line for ice cream at the beach.

Therefore, she assumed that most people are flying, and showed that cloth masks are insufficient protection on airplanes. Which they are.

But that doesn't make her argument apply at all to normal, day to day life. It just means don't get on an airplane without getting vaccinated.
 
dad4 said:
She is changing the topic. She can't find a decent argument that cloth masks fail in normal life, like when you are in line for ice cream at the beach.

Therefore, she assumed that most people are flying, and showed that cloth masks are insufficient protection on airplanes. Which they are.

But that doesn't make her argument apply at all to normal, day to day life. It just means don't get on an airplane without getting vaccinated.
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She is so close to hitting the point. Masks work, but mask mandates don't, especially in our "Oh, yeah? Watch this!" society.

Not really relevant, but the person who tried to talk me out of buying a 2-liter Coke a couple of weeks ago ("We're all boycotting Coke") was wearing his mask with his nose exposed. I didn't say anything, but I reached up and got another bottle.
 
dad4 said:
She is changing the topic. She can't find a decent argument that cloth masks fail in normal life, like when you are in line for ice cream at the beach.

Therefore, she assumed that most people are flying, and showed that cloth masks are insufficient protection on airplanes. Which they are.

But that doesn't make her argument apply at all to normal, day to day life. It just means don't get on an airplane without getting vaccinated.
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Why do you need a cloth mask outside on the beach when the transmission outdoors is less than 1%? Unless you are hanging out in line with a buddy that's sick and have been speaking with them for a while, there's no reason for it. The mask does nothing in either case for reducing cases. Same with a factory, because people after a long day are going to socialize. Same with a meat packing plant, because they are stuck together for so long in close quarters and have to talk loudly to be heard. Same with a fishing boat or stable where people sleep on site. Same with residences, where the vast majority of transmissions occur. Same with indoor dining or a movie theatre, where people are going to lower their masks to eat.

Where can they help? Short term exposures like grocery stores and doctor's waiting rooms....not exactly the essential workers they were trying to be assuring for. Or, as you pointed out, greeting a friend quickly less than 6 feet apart or walking side by side, or at the McDonald's drive thru. But the universe of what they can help is very limited. Hence, my guess is that they probably contributed to maybe an overall reduction of 5-15% of cases which otherwise would have happened. Just a guess, but I think it's a pretty good ballpark for what masks alone (not coupled with the moving goalpost of distancing) ends up.
 
Grace T. said:
Why do you need a cloth mask outside on the beach when the transmission outdoors is less than 1%? Unless you are hanging out in line with a buddy that's sick and have been speaking with them for a while, there's no reason for it. The mask does nothing in either case for reducing cases. Same with a factory, because people after a long day are going to socialize. Same with a meat packing plant, because they are stuck together for so long in close quarters and have to talk loudly to be heard. Same with a fishing boat or stable where people sleep on site. Same with residences, where the vast majority of transmissions occur. Same with indoor dining or a movie theatre, where people are going to lower their masks to eat.

Where can they help? Short term exposures like grocery stores and doctor's waiting rooms....not exactly the essential workers they were trying to be assuring for. Or, as you pointed out, greeting a friend quickly less than 6 feet apart or walking side by side, or at the McDonald's drive thru. But the universe of what they can help is very limited. Hence, my guess is that they probably contributed to maybe an overall reduction of 5-15% of cases which otherwise would have happened. Just a guess, but I think it's a pretty good ballpark for what masks alone (not coupled with the moving goalpost of distancing) ends up.
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"Just a guess" pretty well sums up your entire contribution to this thread.
 
espola said:
Our friend's small restaurant survived on takeout and delivery quite nicely. The income was down, but so were the expenses -- no wait staff, smaller kitchen staff, reduced utility costs, etc. They also had good fortune in a way that when the roof over the dining area sprung a leak during a big storm early in the shutdown they lost no income because the room was empty anyway.
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The problem now is they are being hit by price increases in wages and commodities but they are unable to raise prices as demand isn't fully back yet.

espola said:
She is so close to hitting the point. Masks work, but mask mandates don't, especially in our "Oh, yeah? Watch this!" society.

Not really relevant, but the person who tried to talk me out of buying a 2-liter Coke a couple of weeks ago ("We're all boycotting Coke") was wearing his mask with his nose exposed. I didn't say anything, but I reached up and got another bottle.
Click to expand...

Oh, I didn't know every where in the world, including India, the Czech Republic, Spain, Peru, Argentina and the Phillipines were "oh yeah watch this" societies.
 
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