How Long Will Covid Restrictions Remain In Place...?

[SteyrAUG]

With most service industry stuff it is no longer "in person" and that means more outsourcing and fewer employees working longer hours.

Anything food service has been pretty devastated. Anything fast food limited to drive through only means 2/3s of the employees have been let go. Anyone who waited tables probably hasn't worked in the last 6 months.

And everything else, limited hours are the norm. Did your walmart used to be 24 hour? Now they probably close at 10pm or sooner. Anything that used to be open until 9 or 10pm now closes at 6pm.

Suffice to say everyone who ran out and bought a big screen tv with their "covid" check is now probably regretting it unless they are one of those rare "essential workers" in one of the few industries not directly effected.

More people probably lost their jobs in 2020 and we may very likely hit an unemployment rate of 9.9 or higher as we saw in 2009 following the housing market crash. And I don't think another stimulus check is going to be anything more than a band aid on a gushing wound. Maybe that's why the Republicans didn't seem to try very hard to win the election.

Also concerned this could be a "new normal" for the next year or even two. And we thought 9-11 changed things in a big way.

[PracticalRifleman]

Many changes will be permanent. I think ultimately, it will result in a large out exodus from major cities by those working in industries which can be done remotely. Housing and commercial property in major cities will plummet in price.

It will have many rethinking minimum wage laws as many would rather work for less than not work now that their jobs are being replaced by a kiosk.

Americans are going to get back to saving money, if they can afford it.

“Prepper” types are going to seem more rational, but social media is going to play a larger part in our lives, including providing the “news”.

There will be a greater dependence on government, by design.

There will be taxes placed on at-home workers to offset fuel tax and transportation taxes, tax on rent, and dining. Even retailers selling business attire are going to lose sales to casual wear.

We are diminished and changed forever.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[flenna]

And don't think that the ComDems will not use Covid to further their communist agenda through government overreach the like of which has never been seen before.

[BoringGuy45]

I could see some ComDems pushing for masks and social distancing to become permanent law even after the pandemic in order to "prevent" the next one.

[john armond]

I could see some ComDems pushing for masks and social distancing to become permanent law even after the pandemic in order to "prevent" the next one.

Already being pushed by the experts we are to blindly follow:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...endent-spirit/

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/wear...txrjTiIr8uT1rf

ETA: the final line in the second article is “Masks may simply become part of life.”

[Jellybean]

How long?


If they get their way.
I keep hearing rumors about how a second lockdown might be necessary, and given the way I'm seeing the news panicking over the upcoming 'twindemic'...I wouldn't be surprised, if not that than at least they try to either drastically expand other 'mandates' or make various things permanent.
I can't wait to see the riots when they try to implement the home-work tax....

[HardToHandle]

Realistically we have six more months of pretty massive deaths and illness, even with vaccine distribution.
Vaccine may save the second half of 2021 - maybe a decent fall of school, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, Joe Biden’s death toll predictions may end up being unfortunately too close to accurate. The COVID death toll is rising way faster than .4% mortality right now - and we only have three or four states with exhausted hospitals. At the present trend lines, post Thanksgiving will become ugly and Christmas may be grim.

My guess is redder states in the north will start to lift February-March. My guess is the Southern states will be getting shellacked through the first of quarter of 2021. Summer of 2021 will get us back into the new normal. 10% unemployment is real, especially depending on what the federal relief/unemployment policy comes out as.... Pelosi’s game of chicken on no COVID relief played out terribly for her, but she has such a dysfunctional caucus that they cannot come together to offer a different approach. Biden will be handed the ball in January to try to make deal with the Senate.

[Diamondback]

Wu-Tang Clap is this generation's 9-11, "the day America died." Just like the Reagan Revolution, the JFK assassination, WWII, there seems to be something big every 20-25 years like clockwork.

[Grand58742]

Already being pushed by the experts we are to blindly follow:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...endent-spirit/

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/wear...txrjTiIr8uT1rf

ETA: the final line in the second article is “Masks may simply become part of life.”

Fauci is also the moron that suggested people should buy face shields to go with their masks. I think that's the point I stopped listening to his advice because we cannot wrap up in bubble wrap our whole lives and be "safe." This virus isn't bad enough to change the entire paradigm of modern society and I reject any notion of wearing masks for the rest of our lives.

I thought we were reaching the breaking point with a lot of civil disobedience with the whole COVID situation and any new measures were going to face significant backlash from the public. But it's like April all over again with people doing their best Oliver Twist imitation asking "Please Sir, I want some more..." as more Governors are enacting draconian measures all over again. Summer was a time when people freed themselves up and learned they could live with the virus and even if they caught it, chances are they would have little trouble with it and the vast majority were not hospitalized.

But here we are in November with the same scare tactics being put out by the media and we got scared all over again... I had hoped people would see the light over the summer and see the massive government overreach into their lives. But again, they are perfectly content with allowing the media to scare them yet again.

As other have noted, the restaurant industry is decimated especially in places that have kept COVID restrictions in place longer than others like New York and California. Some places will never reopen. Larger chains are taking a hit.

Airline travel will never be the same. The tourism industry as a whole can be taken out and buried after this year and it will take years to recover if some places ever can recover.

I think more industries will start having serious discussions on whether or not they should consider themselves "essential" since the term is uniquely vague and not often described by the local or state governments.

In person entertainment and sporting events will take years to return to normal crowd levels even with a vaccine.

People, as others have noted, will become even more dependent on the system if the government continues their stimulus and unemployment compensation levels like we saw through this past spring and summer. Because when you make more to sit on your ass at home rather than work, what's the point in working?

Unemployment numbers will rise again this winter prompting that very same situation to arise. And even more "non-essential" businesses will fail because workers just won't work since it's financially better for them to sit at home and collect their $800 a week.

Brick and mortar stores without an online option will fail even more. Big online retailers like Walmart and Amazon will thrive (drawing criticism from the left of course)

As other have stated, even fashion industries and clothing manufacturers will take a hit.

Not even going to mention the detriments to societal interaction we will have to overcome in the future as people get scared each and every time someone coughs or sneezes. Those with sensitive allergies will become like lepers in the general community.

Now, there are some "silver linings" so to speak...

Families, especially those who have been working from home, have rediscovered the value of "family dinner" as a time to connect with one another. People are learning how to cook and, well, dang it, that's fairly cheap to do instead of ordering out as much. Families are spending quality time together in ways we haven't seen since the 80s in my opinion.

Parents are learning their children might not be the angels they thought them to be and have not been so quick to attack teachers these days with failing grades. I'm friends with a teacher in one of the school districts out here and she has said the parents have a newfound appreciation for what they go through since they are seeing firsthand how "my baby didn't do nuffin" doesn't always apply to their spawn of hell (her words, not mine).

People are rediscovering their neighborhoods and neighbors as well. While yes, we have become more isolated and less interpersonal, I've seen the rise of more neighbors starting to talk to each other even at a distance and help each other in times of need. I went out myself last weekend helping a neighbor clear her property of downed trees from our ice storm. Two other neighbors pitched in as well. Maybe that's just an Oklahoma thing? But it seems like I've connected with my neighbors more in the last six months that in the previous six years.

I believe people are starting to live within their means more each and every day, especially those who's jobs are sometimes week to week on whether they get a pick slip. As someone said, they are saving more and buying less "nice to have" as opposed to need to have. Buying that 75 inch LED TV suddenly becomes a way, way, way down on the list of things to pick up when faced with the possibility of unemployment this winter and their furnace needed replacement a couple of years ago, but they kept putting it off.

As Steyr mentioned, stores are closing earlier or not doing 24 hour operations. But let's face facts here, Walmart, save maybe a few locations here and there, never really needed to be 24 hours as it is. Not to the extent they did that. Stores closing earlier isn't a bad thing in my opinion.

Speaking of, the Black Friday stupidity will be curtailed this year which is a good thing.

There is a lot of negative to what we are doing and where we are as a society, but there are a few good things as well. But the artificially induced negative effects of this virus will take years if not decades to overcome. For what reason? What will we learn from it?

[chadbag]

Not everywhere is as bad as Steyr has outlined.

A lot of the restaurants, fast food or otherwise, are open for dine-in (with spaced tables, masks required) in Utah and many of them are hiring. I don't know about places that actually waited on tables, as I have not been to one of those, but I believe many of them are also open. There are still some that are take-out only or work through the delivery companies. It seems more dependent on who runs the franchise, when speaking of fast food,

Most of the stores, Walmart included, are back to their normal hours. (Our Walmarts had mostly all gone off 24 hours open a couple years ago).

I personally think a lot of this damage is self-inflicted -- governors exercising power rather than doing prudent measures. Looking at the death rate, it has been pretty level since early spring, with a big bulge up at the very beginning and now for the last couple weeks, while the case rate has climbed at a higher rate.

The most concerning thing for me, at least in Utah, is the flood of new cases is leading to the hospitals starting to fill up and exhaustion by the medical staff. My wife is an ICU nurse and she cares for Covid patiens some days (she normally is cardiac ICU) and she says that the respiratory and thoracic ICUs have had really heavy turn over from burned out nurses.