It’s more like the partiers haven’t yet covered in their economics courses (which I assume are still required at Booth) that some actions have negative externalities. Could they just not foresee that a large gathering would lead to Covid spread and remote courses for everyone else? Or maybe they just didn’t care to think it through?
This is not making the B-school look particularly intelligent.
What about 2008?
^ Most of those “responsible” for the bubble and correction in 2008 were actually JD’s not MBA’s. Edit to add: and practically none of those guys had an econ course in law school.
Joseph Cassano doesn’t even have a JD. Selling hundreds of billions of CDS as naked puts is likely the worst trade in financial history.
Illinois and Chicago have been doing relatively well in containing COVID up to 2 weeks ago. Then all hell broke lose in the last 10 days. Last 2 days we had seen the highest COVID daily new positive cases in IL since April. Granted the testings done nowadays are almost ten times the state did in April. Still the upward trend in new cases and positivity rate is worrisome.
UChicago reports 36 new cases this week with 25 students and 11 faculty/staff.
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2020/10/16/university-reports-36-new-cases-third-week-school/
The dorms still seem to be a safe place as most of the new cases are from off campus.
Mayor Lightfoot is warning that Chicago may be going back to Phase 3. And this:
Chicago’s top doctor urged residents to not invite anyone into their homes or apartments as the city experiences multiple coronavirus “warning signs” and enters what officials are calling a “second surge” in the pandemic.
“Please do not invite anyone over to your house or apartment,” Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said Monday. “This is not the time for non-essential gatherings, period.”
So brace for a rough few weeks before the quarter is over.
Is Thanksgiving a non-essential gathering?
If someone thinks I’m not having Thanksgiving with my parents/wife/siblings/children they’re effin crazy.
^ Yep. I really wonder how effective this “non-essential gathering” order is going to be LOL. Might as well cancel Christmas while they are at it!
Based on what happen to both NU and U of C business schools with their recent switch to remote learning, I think the City is pleading with people to avoid parties or gatherings to try to halt the exploding trend of new cases and upward positivity rate. I don’t think they are thinking about the holidays yet.
I cannot emphasize how fast the COVID situation deteriorates in IL and Chicago. Back on October 1st, the ten day rolling average of new cases in Chicago is around 300. Today it is 645. I am quite sure no government officials want to shut down Thanksgiving or Christmas. I think they may have to implement some degree of mitigation measures to halt and reverse the upward trend. Those measures had worked in two different regions in IL in the last few months. But those two regions aren’t Chicago. So we shall see.
From Chicago’s top public health official, Dr. Allison Arwady:
What is behind the latest spread of coronavirus in Chicago?
Despite common beliefs that public spaces are largely where coronavirus spread is occurring, Chicago officials say recent trends show a shift toward in-home transmission.
“Two out of three Chicagoans diagnosed with COVID-19 tell us that they know the person who likely infected them,” Arwady said. “People worry a lot about being out and about in crowds, on the CTA, walking down the street, and it is absolutely possible to be infected. But I will tell you, it is not what we see driving infection. Even transit systems around the world have not been shown to be the major sign of spread that we expected they might be. And I think that is because when people are on transit, they’re thinking about COVID, they’re wearing their mask, they’re trying to keep their distance, they’re washing their hands, because by nature, we worry more about people we do not know.”
But recent data has shown that spread from close contacts within homes has been driving the latest spikes.
“Where we see the spread of COVID is where we let down our guard, where we literally let down our mask, because we feel comfortable with those we love,” Arwady said. “But the virus is just looking for opportunities to spread. And Chicagoans also tell us that three out of four of these close interactions took place at home.”
Arwady urged residents to not invite anyone into their homes or apartments or hold any non-essential gatherings.
https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/covid-19/home/covid-dashboard.html
On a personal note, the sudden worsening of pandemic is affecting me already. Governor Pritzker has just imposed new restrictions on Region 7 & 8, the western suburbs of Chicago. Let’s hope the deteriorating trend of new COVID cases in Chicago will halt and reverse.
Get your flu shot early according to UCMC:
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/how-stay-safe-flu-during-covid-19-pandemic
Dr. Landon is such an inspirational speaker:
Agree Bears. She’s impressive as a scientist and as a leader. Heck, let’s make her Dr. Zimmer’s successor!
I actually saw the candy zip line.
There were a fair number of students at the Main Quad earlier in the day and some of them dressed up for Halloween. But the overall mood was pretty subdued. Well, last year there was a snow storm on Halloween and the year before that there were kids from the South Side rioting along 53rd. So maybe subdued was good.
I finally got a chance to watch this, and read it through to make sure I didn’t misconstrue. Dr. Landon typically gives out very sensible advice and her layered approach to Covid precautions, knowledge of the university’s epidemiology and sensible design of the surveillance test has kept Covid from breaking out on campus. Dr. Landon and UC Medicine should be commended for that.
What I don’t understand is who Dr. Landon is actually speaking to. Was this speech directed to a national or local audience? It seemed to be local. IL has been one of the earliest midwestern states to impose a mask mandate so it sounded to me like Dr. Landon is scolding the choir - who isn’t even singing! We’ve been around Hyde Park on numerous occasions as well as other parts of Chicago (all before MN joined the travel order). Is most of Chicago blatantly ignoring the Covid rules? That hasn’t been obvious to me during the times I visited and as the summer progressed and people got used to wearing masks. No doubt some have been violating the rules with large social gatherings - we know that. But in general the city looks pretty quiet compared to normal times.
To me it appears that the state is experiencing a major surge in the virus despite some pretty good efforts to contain it. This is happening elsewhere too, including MN where we also have a mask mandate and a very compliant populace. Perhaps something else out of everyone’s control might be happening.
It would have perhaps been more helpful had Dr. Landon stuck to explaining the relative differences between change of seasons and spread of the virus. Her information there was very insightful. It could well be that being indoors spreads the virus more than conspiracy theories do. There’s just a lot we don’t know yet and as a scientist she should have kept her personal distaste for certain people she doesn’t agree with out of it.
@JBStillFlying I was in HP yesterday. Almost everyone was wearing masks. There were students on the Main Quad but most of them kept a good social distance from one another. Now a bunch of them were playing Ultimate Frisbee and they might be in closer contact with one another. Still if HP is a microcosm of the City, everyone seems to be observing the COVID protocol.
I think Dr. Landon admonishment was directed against a lot of restaurants owners as well as suburb mayors who openly defy the state new mitigation effort to slow down the spread of COVID. IL is in this mess that COVID new cases, positivity rate and hospitalization just skyrocketed in the month of October. And the trend is skewing upward.
The obvious culprits are restaurants & bars and small social gatherings. State and city government can shut down the former but are helpless against the latter. Nonetheless, they have to try the mitigation effort or else hospitals will be overwhelmed before even the dreaded second wave of fludamic begins. Unfortunately, the restaurants and bar owners choose to stay open and hence Governor Pritzker has to enlist Dr. Landon to tell them as well as everyone who plans small parties to hunker down.
We all feel for these small business who through no fault of their own have to bear the brunt of financial carnage. But I am not going to stir the hornet nests of whether government should write checks to keep the restaurant industry workers afloat. All I can say is for people who have sufficient means should get some take out food regularly to help out the restaurant industry to weather this storm.
^ Appreciate the additional information. IMO, Dr. Landon’s job is to explain, not to admonish. There are policy issues and there are public health reasons behind those. She’s very good at providing the reasons for the policy. But suggesting that small business owners (assuming that’s who this comment was directed to) don’t understand as well as she does why they have to pay their taxes and stop at stop signs . . . really? Dr. Landon should stick to the scientific findings and let Gov. Pritzker respond to the constituents.
MN is seeing the same spike for likely the same reasons. There has been no open defiance here - it’s very likely the result of being indoors with the heat turned on. Our blast of December weather in October has facilitated that. We saw what happened in early summer when TX/FL/AZ turned on their AC. HVAC systems are in large part responsible for the spread of this virus. Can Dr. Landon perhaps provide some sensible guidance for the smaller gatherings that will inevitably be happening this fall and winter so that perhaps they won’t need to rely on blasting the heat? How about stoking up that fireplace? Using (in-code) space heaters? Opening up your garage for entertaining (something that MN’s tend to do anyway)?
It’s prudent to be worried about hospital bed capacity rivaling the spring; however, even at that time, Chicago withstood and never over-shot capacity (remember, Rush was particularly well-prepared and, IIRC, was never utilized to that extent). Healthcare workers and hospitals have had lots of additional time to prep-up again; the version of the virus is milder, and masks and other measures help enormously. Physicians are better at treating the virus early on and people - by now - should hopefully be more aware of preventative supplements and the importance of getting to the hospital right away given early-onset warning signs. If they aren’t, can Dr. Landon spend more time explaining the importance of drops in oxi levels, taking Vitamin D3 and other helpful measures?
Government and their experts being on hand to provide guidance and assist the populace in making good decisions is a lot more useful than attempting to shame the public and revealing your personal dislike in the process. Can’t see how the latter will result in more compliance. Dr. Landon isn’t an agent of the governor; she’s an independent physician with clinical and research expertise.
Here is the current hospitalization dashboard in Chicago; not sure whether this looks alarming or not: https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/covid-19/home/hospital-capacity-dashboard.html
Honestly JBS I think there is only one thing that is causing the surges and its the gathering of young people. Every restaurant I have gone to, everytime I go into a store, there are people in masks and with decent spacing. Young people are the most asympotomatic group, they have parties, they don’t usually have serious consequences, most don’t know they even have it. It’s not hard to figure out where the issue is.
^ @CU123 - then why did IL shut down the indoor dining? LOL. It’s more than gatherings of young people, although clearly those are happening.
Edit to add: My beef wasn’t with the cause; it was with the problematic and insulting messaging included in Dr. Landon’s speech (which had some excellent parts to it as well, of course). I seriously doubt that Gov. Pritzker figures the young people are paying attention to his briefings.