Your numbers will be an order of magnitude in error. You’ve left out so many factors I can’t even begin to address them (i.e. you can’t have exponential growth unless your social circle has the same function). The death rate will be below 1% maybe 1/2%.
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Benjamin Franklin is alive and living in Florida.
Gil, if you’re ever in a piece of airspace that I’d like to claim the liberty to be in, for the safety of myself, my passengers, people on the ground, and even you, I’ll deny myself the liberty of occupying it till you have vacated it. I hope you’d do the same for me. Should I cease being genuinely worried that you wouldn’t?
“I wish you well in living with the knowledge that you may be contributing to the deaths of other people.”
That’s irrational; so I reject it.
It’s MUCH safer for 2 local people to meet 1 on 1 in a private plane for some training than for 200 people (of unknown origin) to get together on a single airline flight. Reality therefor that a BFR training flight (and then fly yourself) results in a 100 times LESS LIKELY contribution to the harm of other people!
I never said “I don’t care”; I said it’s irrational and frankly illegal to stop training.
I don’t mind sacrificing for freedom.
I do mind being forced by the state to give up inalienable human rights.
Tom, I agree 100%.
Lives paid for our liberty and freedom.
Surrendering them is against everything this country and it’s patriots gave us.
Gil A: No, your comments are ridiculous - to compare the response to the COVID-19 pandemic to any of the other scenarios which you cite is specious and downright ignorant. They are not the same thing.
There are vaccines and clearly understood and delineated means to combat influenza. Cars and trucks on the highways serve a vital and necessary role in our economic and social system. Our society accepts and sanctions the responsible consumption of alcohol and the proper use of drugs saves lives and alleviates suffering.
Does COVID-19 share many attributes with any of these? It is a newly discovered virus, not yet fully understood and with no vaccine yet available. It is not influenza - it is highly infectious and all evidence indicates it is considerably more lethal than influenza.
It has no benevolent purpose – to date is has killed over 46,000 people worldwide, with many more deaths to come.
So just what would you suggest should be done?? Or should I suppose that you believe that nothing should be done because, heaven forbid that anyone’s Constitutional rights be abridged – even temporarily – in order to save lives??
The reality is, whether you chose to accept it or not, there is no known way to limit the lethal march of this virus throughout these United States except to limit person to person contact ACROSS THE ENTIRE NATION. And if the country doesn’t choose to follow that course, then God help us. Many more will die needlessly.
This is not about the Constitution or personal freedom – it’s about doing what is necessary to save lives. It’s about all of us together putting the needs of the whole above the needs of the individual.
When this country has gone to war, men and women have stepped forward and made sacrifices – sacrificing their personal liberty and much more in some cases – for the sake of the common good.
So please tell us again that this is not a war on saving lives. Tell us about how you think this current crisis is some kind of conjured up spectacle designed by leftists to assault the Constitution.
And I would answer: ridiculous.
The delayed response in testing, the lack of a national stay-at-home order, and inconsistent messaging has almost certainly cost people their health, and is only serving to prolong the effects. Sadly, the US has been “outgunned” in its response to this virus.
There may not be a “faster” solution, but there is certainly a slower solution.
Inter arma enim silent leges.
If temporarily giving up some liberty means keeping the numbers in the thousands instead of millions of deaths (like with the 1918 pandemic), I’m ok with that. It would be insane to do nothing, and I don’t think Franklin ever had a pandemic in mind when he said that.
The only testing delays that I’m aware of, are those caused by lack of testing supplies. That’s been - and is being - addressed, as rapidly as manufacturing capacity allows.
A national stay-at-home order is an interesting idea.
Inconsistent messaging is a result of multiple sources, and of continuously-changing knowledge about the virus. “Developing news,” as they say.
Your home state is in a pickle, with Fairfield County a reflection of nearby NYC and Long Island. It’s not a lot better, here; there’s talk of turning my hometown Eastern States Colosseum into the official Massachusetts Covid-19 morgue. We should know a lot more by May. Meanwhile, I’m wasting plenty of time at the CAD screen… Nuthin’ to do, and plenty of time to do it.
Hopefully individual and small business support program will provide some immediate relief, but for me the scary question is this the beginning of the end for GA ?
It appears likely the economy won’t recover anytime soon and so with most people a lot poorer, who will be able to afford recreational flying ?
Also I thing it will accelerate the decline of mom and pop small flight schools in favour of paint by big integrated numbers pilot puppy mills catering to the demand for more children of the magenta by commercial/corporate operators.
Those schools by definition have no interest in training recreational pilots
Second sentence in the third para got messed up. Should read …“in favour of big integrated paint by numbers pilot puppy mills …”
The president does not have the authority to issue a “stay at home” order. It would be a violation of the 10th and 14th amendment. Now if Congress were to issue a “declaration of war” on this pandemic, that would change things dramatically. Fat chance of that happening.
For those who feel that sacrificing the constitutional rights is ok in this situation I ask where do you drawn the line. Once down this slippery slope where or how do you stop! And what assurance do we have after all this is over that those rights will be restored? Look at all of the 9/11 related rules that are still limiting GA after 19 years?
We won’t know until we know, exactly how deadly this new virus us. It might not be as deadly as it initially appears. But it is hospitalizing a lot of people, even if they don’t die, and that is where the real strain is.
But for the sake of argument, lets say that this virus has effectively the same effect as the seasonal flu does. That is on top of the season flu, automotive deaths, and drug and alcohol ODs. Plus, without a vaccine no one has immunity, so it will continue to spread and hospitalize people until either: a) we slow its transmission, or b) a vaccine is developed and enough people take the vaccine (if I recall, you need around 90% of people to be vaccinated for there to be effective herd immunity).
I don’t like these stay-at-home rules anymore than anyone else (in fact, I really hate it), but these rules appear to be having an effect on slowing transmission, and the faster we can slow it down, the faster we can get back to normal.
What about this situation:
Swan Lake Flight Centre is in Florida. It is in, let’s say, Grapefruit County. It is a 141 school with mostly foreign students. 60/40 mix let’s say. The operations area, hangar, and dormitory are all colocated in the same building. Let’s say 10 - 30 students at any given time. A dozen in the dorms.
There is another flight school, Puzzle Aeronautical University, let’s call it. In Volusia County. It is a large private university. Industry leader.
COVID-19 comes along. To Florida. The Governor, a good free-market capitalist, realises the longer we give businesses to take in revenue, the less painful the shutdown is going to be. This seems especially true as there is no evidence of the virus in rural areas at this time. Grapefruit County and Volusia County also put off stay-at-home guidelines. Counties in hot-spot parts of the state enact stay-at-home guidelines locally.
Some of the state-run flight centres at local colleges decide to cease training. After all, tax payer’s deep pockets will still be there when they decide to reopen. Puzzle and Swan Lake decide to continue training, but Puzzle does close its dorms.
Let’s say last week there is an asian student at Swan Lake that has flu-like symptoms. Doesn’t get tested. Everyone decides to dismiss it as ‘food poisoning’.
Let’s say a couple of days ago the Governor issues a stay-at-home order. Puzzle’s in-house counsel interprets the order as them needing to shutdown flight ops, and issues a notice similar to this one:
Swan Lake is a private school. For-Profit. So the accounting equation applies:
Assets = Liability + Owner’s Equity.
And salary, as we all know, is a direct debit of Owner’s Equity.
Swan Lake decides to take a broad view of the Executive Order, and continue flying. After all, if this shutdown lasts too long, they may not be able to keep the lights on. Or, with a looming recession, it is better to bring in as much revenue as possible before closing the doors.
So now, today, their doors are open, their dorms are full, and they are flying. So, the dorms have become a possible cluster of…’food poisoning’. The flight instructors don’t live in the dorms. The flight instructors are arriving on property each morning, and leave the property every evening, going back into the native community.
I pose this first question: Should Swan Lake suspend training? If so, for what reason? If not, for what reason?
I pose this second question: If Swan Lake is an LLC, are the FIs protected from possible litigation? Corporate veil and all.
“There are areas of this country that are virtually untouched by the virus. If you are healthy with no risk factors (travel, age, co-morbidity) then go!”
I wonder if that’s what all those people who got sick in Sun Valley, Vail, Park City, or Albany (GA!) were thinking…