The Richer You are, The More Likely You'll Social Distance, Study Finds (jhu.edu) 101
The higher a person's income, the more likely they were to protect themselves at the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, Johns Hopkins University economists find. From a report: When it comes to adopting behaviors including social distancing and mask wearing, the team detected a striking link to their financial well-being. People who made around $230,000 a year were as much as 54% more likely to increase these types of self-protective behaviors compared to people making about $13,000. The findings, that could contribute to more accurate predictions of how the disease will spread, appear in the latest Journal of Population Economics.
As part of a six-country survey, 1,000 people in the United States, from Texas, Florida, California and New York, were asked a series of questions in April 2020 to determine if and how their behavior had changed as Covid-19 cases were beginning to spike across the country. The resulting data includes information on income, gender and race along with unique variables relevant to the pandemic, such as work arrangements and housing quality. The team, which included economics graduate student Matthew Zahn, found that while almost everyone changed their behavior in some way to try to stay safe, people making the most money made the most changes. The highest earners were 13% more likely to change their behaviors, 32% more likely to increase social distancing and 30% more likely to increase hand washing and mask wearing. But the team found it was also much easier for people with more money to take extra safety measures. Higher-income individuals were more likely to report being able to work from home and more likely to have transitioned to telework instead of losing their job. The researchers found the ability to telework emerged as a huge predictor of whether someone would social distance. Compared to somebody who continued to work, people able to telework were 24% more likely to social distance.
As part of a six-country survey, 1,000 people in the United States, from Texas, Florida, California and New York, were asked a series of questions in April 2020 to determine if and how their behavior had changed as Covid-19 cases were beginning to spike across the country. The resulting data includes information on income, gender and race along with unique variables relevant to the pandemic, such as work arrangements and housing quality. The team, which included economics graduate student Matthew Zahn, found that while almost everyone changed their behavior in some way to try to stay safe, people making the most money made the most changes. The highest earners were 13% more likely to change their behaviors, 32% more likely to increase social distancing and 30% more likely to increase hand washing and mask wearing. But the team found it was also much easier for people with more money to take extra safety measures. Higher-income individuals were more likely to report being able to work from home and more likely to have transitioned to telework instead of losing their job. The researchers found the ability to telework emerged as a huge predictor of whether someone would social distance. Compared to somebody who continued to work, people able to telework were 24% more likely to social distance.
No shit Sherlock (Score:4, Insightful)
Rich people in their mansions, not having to work and disposing of 12 Yachts around the world, a private plane and helicopter are more secure from Pandemics?
Wow, who financed that study, Captain Obvious?
Yeah, the failing companies are moving to Texas (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably *your* tax dollars, going to the California public education system. No wonder all the movers are going to Texas. They don't tolerate this nonsense there.
Hmm, thusfar, it's only the legacy and failing companies moving. Oracle and HPE are not good examples of successful companies. They're both very much on the decline. Once Apple and Google move out, then I'll take these California exodus stories seriously.
It's like how divorcees usually move really far out to the burbs after their divorce...it's not because the city or their former affluent suburb is "over" it's because their household income dropped drastically and they need to go someplace cheaper.
For every Oracle and HPE lost, there are dozens of actually successful companies expanding their footprint in CA as well as many new startups forming.
Re: Yeah, the failing companies are moving to Texa (Score:1)
Where is this version of California you speak of?
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Oracle and HPE are not good examples of successful companies.
I remember back in the days when computers were 8 bits that getting a job at HP was like getting a job at a top finance company in NYC with all the perks. Their test equipment was indestructible, their RMB computer (instrument controllers) ***never*** crashed. Problem may stop if trying to access a DVM with incorrect HPIB address, but always can do Basic Reset to stop it, variables still in RAM. Go to places like HSC or Halted (they were two different locations) and there would be these old old HP equipment
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Sure if you want to live a gun-nut, bible-thumping state, it's just the state of mind for you. And if you happen to live in the Black or Latino sections of town, expect to get your vote suppressed. Ya, fine state.
Texas is also losing their water resources fast. At least California has the mountains and their snowpack for some years.
Re:No shit Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure if you want to live a gun-nut
California has a higher homicide rate than Texas: Homicide rate by state [wikipedia.org]
If you don't own a gun, don't live with a gun owner, and don't hang out with drug gangs, your probability of being a victim of gun violence is negligible. Gun violence is mostly opt-in.
Re:No shit Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
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You still can. Canned meat is a thing, and cans do have shelf lives of decades if they are not compromised. It is one of the ultimate food preservation techniques we have.
Even the humble MRE has a shelf life of around 5 years.
Now I didn't say the food was good, but it'll be edible.
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It also has been worth the small investment to buy home canning equipment and learn how to do that.
Not only is it fun (with summer garden), but canning has practical values too.
Go the pressure canner route for extra long, save preservation.
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cans do have shelf lives of decades if they are not compromised.
If you buy food to last a decade, you are doing it wrong.
Your supply should be a FIFO queue of food that you normally eat.
My food stash is oatmeal, flour, macaroni, peanut butter, dry beans and lentils. I also have root vegetables and winter squash from my backyard garden and eggs from my chicken coop.
These are foods that my family eats every day. We replenish when items are on sale. When peanut butter is on sale, you may buy an extra jar. I buy an extra case. So prepping actually saves me money.
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Re:No shit Sherlock (Score:4, Insightful)
Just having room to stash 6 months of food can be a problem when poor, as well as having the money to take advantage of sales and such to stock up.
Re:No shit Sherlock (Score:4, Insightful)
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Social distancing is correlated with wealth.
So is wearing a mask, by about the same amount.
How rich do you have to be to wear a mask?
Re:No shit Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
But in addition to luck of class, color, and opportunity, years of productive decision making has brought us to this point in life. And that productive decision making has now caused us to choose to socially isolate instead of going out drinking, or having a super spreader wedding, or attending a convention of biker gangs.
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They have MORE to live for!!
And it also may somewhat have a correlation to people with more money, being a bit smarter and more educated...so, no only do they make better decisions in life and are able to work jobs that require education and intellectual skills, but they also realize that they are in danger if they don't take precautions against a pandemic.
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And in many cases, years of productive decision making by your parents and your parents' parents. The walnut never falls far from the tree although some are lucky to get picked up by an enterprising squirrel and placed in better soil.
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To some extent. I and most people I know can socially distance with ease because we do not need public transport, we do not need to go to Walmart, and we have jobs where we are more than minimum paid cogs in a machine.
LOL if you really think you're more than a cog in a machine.
Re:No shit Sherlock (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory Bee. [babylonbee.com]
Re:No shit Sherlock (Score:5, Interesting)
Rich people in their mansions, not having to work and disposing of 12 Yachts around the world, a private plane and helicopter are more secure from Pandemics?
Wow, who financed that study, Captain Obvious?
The findings weren't looking at the level of wealth you describe. $230k per year is solidly upper middle class, but not wealthy. You mention not having to work and owning yachts, but that doesn't describe the upper middle class. It is still obvious why the upper middle class are able to social distance more. They do have to work, but are far more likely to be able to work remotely. They can also easily afford to have groceries and other services delivered.
It is still important to do studies where you think the outcome is obvious. I saw one study of social distancing behavior where people with some college were better at social distancing than those with Bachelor's degrees (no college was worst than both). This would not be an obvious outcome, as you would assume greater education would improve people's ability to understand the need for social distancing.
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$230k per year is solidly upper middle class, but not wealthy.
eh?
You said there was a war on the middle class, now we find out that this supposed war-haggard middle class makes 5000% of the national median...
Re:No shit Sherlock (Score:5, Informative)
$230k per year is solidly upper middle class, but not wealthy.
eh? You said there was a war on the middle class, now we find out that this supposed war-haggard middle class makes 5000% of the national median...
Umm... $250K is not 50x the national median income. It's only about 4x the national median household income.
Middle class generally extends to $250k or so (or at least that was true ten years ago; the number may be higher now). Bear in mind that there is a huge disparity in cost of living between different parts of the country, and you have to define middle class in a way that makes at least some sense in areas with a high cost of living, not just in areas with a low cost of living.
Someone living in rural parts of Tennessee and making $150k per year is relatively wealthy. One or two years at that income level (if you didn't have to pay taxes or living expenses) would easily buy almost any house you could find, situated on twenty acres of land.
Somebody living in the Bay Area and making $250k per year (including stock, etc.) is just a mid-level tech worker, and probably not even in management. Eight or ten years at that rate will buy you a modest house on a postage-stamp-sized plot of land. One year will *almost* buy you a mobile home and a lifetime of $1,200 per month site rent.
So $250k in the Bay Area, if you use housing costs as a metric, would be equivalent to about $12,500 in rural West TN. Fortunately, not all costs increase at the same rate as housing costs. But the fact that the housing costs are so high makes it clear that at least in the Bay Area, $250k is solidly middle class, and probably not even upper middle.
THE PRECARIOUS GENERATION OR GIG WORKER (Score:2)
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"In 2020, $68,400.00 was the median household income in the United States. This is up from $63,030.00 in 2019."
Looks like your off just a tad. And according to usnews:
A family earning between $32,048 and $53,413 was considered lower-middle class. For high earners, a three-person family needed an income between $106,827 and $373,894 to be considered upper-middle class, Those who earn more than $373,894 were considered rich.
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Re:No shit Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
$230k/year, well over twice that, is unnecessarily fucking wealthy.
That depends on location. A household with two nerds in Silicon Valley is likely earning more than that. A family earning $100k can't afford to live here.
Re:No shit Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends on how long you have been in Silicon Valley. If you were able to buy a house here decades ago, The equivalent of $100k backdated long enough ago was plenty to buy a house and your housing expenses were mostly frozen decades ago. I have neighbors who live in $1.5M houses and have no mortgage. Because of Prop 13, they pay little property tax. I don't know how much money they live on, but I am confident that it is a lot less than $100k.
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Wrong. $50k/year is middle class. $80k to $100k a year would be upper middle class. $230k/year, well over twice that, is unnecessarily fucking wealthy.
Depends on where you live. In a major metropolitan area, $50k/year is lower class and barely able to afford rent. $200k/year gets to a middle class range where you can someday hope of paying off a 30 year mortgage and owning a home. Yes, it would be great if we could all move to the middle of nowhere and live like kings, but some jobs require specific locations.
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Wrong. $50k/year is middle class. $80k to $100k a year would be upper middle class. $230k/year, well over twice that, is unnecessarily fucking wealthy.
Would that be income of a single person or of a couple? Where in the country is that? Cost of living varies greatly.
There's a huge problem with making generalizations across the swath of the country. It's why a national minimum wage doesn't make sense versus ones at more localized levels. It's why defining in the federal tax code what constitutes too much income for various tax cuts doesn't fairly work. Then there's the whole politics of envy and class warfare that always puts numbers just above the th
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usnews.com:
A family earning between $32,048 and $53,413 was considered lower-middle class. For high earners, a three-person family needed an income between $106,827 and $373,894 to be considered upper-middle class
Your $80-100k figure would put you lower middle class in several regions of the country. In fact, the median family income where I used to live was over $100k, and at $100k, it was unlikely you could afford your own home.
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$230k/year, well over twice that, is unnecessarily fucking wealthy.
Who are you to determine what is necessary and unnecessary for other people? Keep you head down, do you best to improve your own situation, and stop casting judgement upon those who enjoy more success than you.
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I'm not living in a mansion, and my boat's only 14 feet long (Hunter 140), but when the lockdown in Washington state began way back when... I complied because, well, it was the f***ing law. It wasn't convenient, and I hated the idea of it, but came to believe that it was necessary even though it seemed like a Draconian overreach by a Governor I neither like nor admire. I had to explain the logic of it all several times to people I knew, some of whom were violently in agreement with the *principle* of it (
Re: No shit Sherlock (Score:2)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
Around 38th second:
'Giovani, make sure there are no ordinary people around, I don't want a disease'
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Wow, who financed that study, Captain Obvious?
It's not what you know, it's what you can prove .
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The richer you are the more you fear death, it's called guilt, it really creeps and crawls around the edges of attention of the rich and greedy, the price they will have to pay. Life is a quest for the future, you deny life a future and life will deny you, leave you behind to fade in the void, a silent scream in the dark. They have a real fear of death, they already hear their own scream in the back of their mind, desperate for all sorts of activity to silence their guilt driven fear.
The clearer you consci
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The more cash you have (Score:3)
The better you can protect yourself without starving.
Also the other way around (Score:3)
Yep, the summary focused on income and certainly in some ways if you have a higher income you can put that income to use to better X, for any value of X. You can protect yourself and your loved ones, or do whatever else with those resources.
I've found that in bad times, even more important than my income is my ratios, particularly savings vs expenses. A lot of people make $150K and are $200K in debt, slave to high monthly payments. The borrower is slave to lender and that's true when you owe the lenders a m
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I think it's less that, and simply "the richer you are, it's likely you're more educated".
Taking that with the correlation that more educated people take the pandemic seriously and do actually obey things like keeping apart and masks and all that and the result is pretty obvious.
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I think it's less that, and simply "the richer you are, it's likely you're more educated".
Taking that with the correlation that more educated people take the pandemic seriously and do actually obey things like keeping apart and masks and all that and the result is pretty obvious.
That's the start of the story, but not the complete story. The part you missed is that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to have a job that can be done remotely, or at least in an isolated fashion. If you went straight out of high school into a McJob, you probably can't help but interact with the public every day. If you attended school and got a degree, there's a better chance that you can work from home. If you have an advanced degree, the chances go up from there.
Also, the more intel
Already the case before the pandemic (Score:5, Interesting)
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Study: The wealthier you get, the less social you are. [vox.com]
Guess I'm calling bullshit on both studies then, based on the sheer number of pure unadulterated Professional Attention Whores online.
(Yeah, I'm talking to you too, Hollyweird.)
Narcissism, is highly profitable if you're good at it. Study is outdated. Narcissism has gotten far worse.
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Attention whores are loud by definition. The majority are quiet. The more attention you call to yourself, the more likely someone will come to take your money.
We need a study for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Poor people have poor ways. Nothing new there.
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Oh the other hand, we did see a COVID-19 supercluster centered around a rich person's home office in the Washington DC area, a couple months back.
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Poor people have poor ways. Nothing new there.
Poor people have to get out and work if they want to not starve. Nothing new here.
Wrong (Score:3)
The better ability you have to social distance.
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Pretty much. Balancing that out it also appears as though the more likely you are to take stupid risks. I did a little informal take on some of the wealthiest, poorest, and middle-class neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The poor areas have about twice the infection rate as the mean, and rich areas were more like 10% below the mean. The middle was close to mean and hard to pull much out of without more data.
Bottom line is that being poor makes things significantly worse compared to how much better being rich h
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I bet some of that is also population density
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That’s a big part of course... but from what I understand it is more about multi-generational households than households per square mile or something.
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Poor people often get fat because they eat cheap food - mainly refined carbohydrates - which is all they can afford. An outstanding exception is liver, presumably because many people dislike its taste and texture. And you shouldn't eat too much of it, to avoid overdosing on Vitamins A and D, copper and zinc. Nevertheless, on a limited budget it is the best buy, along with free range eggs.
Eating well does cost more, with a few exceptions. You can get good quality fruit and vegetables fairly cheaply, but gras
well duh (Score:3)
It's a choice!! (Score:2)
They just don't want to hang out with us tawdry plebs.
I told you folks.... (Score:2)
I told you folks, Trump doesn't have any money.
Who earns 230K a year? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most people that I know of don't earn 230K a year. Not even in big corporate, not even my managers (and I work in Big Corporate) earn nowhere near that kind of money.
I earn 45K (converted to USD for the majority in here), and I live in one of the worlds most taxed countries (in Scandinavia), my boss earns roughly 5K more than me, but we all do pretty well in life without those fantasy salaries of 230K, then again - we do have free health insurance in Scandinavia.
Got a house, no mortgages (paid it down by hard work and savings), car - everything I need, fiber-internet and the privilege of being able to work from home. Personally I'm dead afraid of going to the grocery stores because people basically don't give a hoot about mine or others safety, so I order groceries home delivery now, but yeah, I don't take in visitors at home anymore. When someone knocks on the door, I open my kitchen window and talk to them there, no hands-on contacts or face to face at all.
I even saved up money just in case of SHTF situations so I don't have to face situations where I have to seek new jobs if that should happen, but the increased need for Online Co-workers, and we're desperate for more people working online, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Working from home is both a blessing and a curse. A curse because we are humans, we need physical contact and interaction, a blessing because in times like these with a pandemic going around, we're still kind of privileged to be able to do this, safely in our on homes - and even get groceries delivered to our doors.
My hearth and thoughts goes out to all our health care workers out there who put their own lives at risk for the rest of us!
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Less than 3% apparently [dqydj.com].
Re:Who earns 230K a year? (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't have universal health care in the U.S. We are held down by Death Panels, known in the insurance industry as actuaries. We're mighty fearful of Government Bureaucrats lest our people get health care and decide they don't need to work ever again. Errr, how come you are still working and from a socialized country. Do we need to send some our patriotic Americans over there to straighten you out? Please, please, please, take some, we have more than any healthy nation can live with.
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Living a first-world lifestyle is fantastically expensive in desirable parts of America. For example, here in Seattle the average house costs over 700K and was built in the 1940s. Only the wealthy can afford to live in something built to modern standards. Someone with your salary would be renting a studio apartment or living with roommates.
Pandemic brought out the ugly in my community (Score:5, Insightful)
For context, I live in a gentrified liberal community that 40+ years ago was factories then tech and biotech moved in and now is pushing out the immigrant communities that lived here before. I live in a deep blue neighborhood in one of the bluest cities in the bluest region of one of the bluest states...so overt racism is verboten socially, but they'd instead talk in vague code about the brown/black side of town. They focused heavily on the teenagers playing basketball at parks, which was against the law at the time. One dick even posted photos of kids online, hoping to shame them. We all know that there are almost no white teenagers at the parks mentioned, so there was a lot of ugly back and forth between individuals calling them racists and the older people somehow thinking they've outsmarted the system because they can complain about black & latino kids without mentioned their actual race. It's like when your newsmax-addicted uncle makes some intense complaints about "hip-hop and urban" culture...he thinks he's being clever and is so flabberghasted we'd interpret his comments as racist, but we all know what he means. But this shittiness is very much on both sides of the political aisle and I was surprised to see members of my own community turn ugly so quickly.
I'll say this. If you're middle class and above, you have a greater chance of having savings in case you lose your job. You can afford to buy in bulk to reduce your number of shopping trips. Costco is not really meant for the poor. You can afford PPE and probably have low enough stress you can worry about disinfecting and washing your cloth masks as often as you should, etc. You can afford to setup a nice home office in a dedicated room for your kids. You can afford nice things to distract your kid and make being trapped at home more bearable.
For those struggling, like we did growing up, it's tough. Your job is stressful, your margins for failure in anything are thinner, you have less space and less quiet and privacy. I sympathize with those who just need to get our of their tiny apt with your siblings and shoot some hoops. Yes, you need to follow the law, and since then kids are allowed limited access to playgrounds, but if you're comfortable to sit back and shame people for not socially distancing as well as you are, remember this is most likely a function of your affluence, not your virtue.
I very much sympathize with poorer families. You live in a more cramped space. You rely on school services, like free lunches, moreso than middle-class suburban families. You don't even have a ton of space to stock up on things you need like toilet paper and cleaning supplies. I can understand it when the kids are not as on board with every CDC recommendation when their life is pretty shitty in comparison to mine.
So if you're affluent enough to ride this out in relative comfort, please don't be a dick to those around you who can't. Yeah, fuck the Karens who make up medical reasons why they can't wear a mask in whole foods and end up on the news, but the level of vitriol I saw towards the poor in my community on nextdoor was really disgusting. Please have a little empathy for those who have it rougher than you.
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You can afford to buy in bulk to reduce your number of shopping trips. Costco is not really meant for the poor.
That depends a lot on how narrowly you define "poor".
I'm from the South. It seems like just about everybody there has a separate fridge out on the porch or in the garage. The affluent folk in Silicon Valley, not so much. If anything, people in rural areas tend to stock up a lot more, because the nearest store is further away, and it requires more effort and planning to go there. And by and large, people in rural areas are less well off (in absolute dollars, anyway) than people in urban areas.
Most of the
Urban poor point of view (Score:2)
You can afford to buy in bulk to reduce your number of shopping trips. Costco is not really meant for the poor.
That depends a lot on how narrowly you define "poor".
I'm from the South. It seems like just about everybody there has a separate fridge out on the porch or in the garage. The affluent folk in Silicon Valley, not so much. If anything, people in rural areas tend to stock up a lot more, because the nearest store is further away, and it requires more effort and planning to go there. And by and large, people in rural areas are less well off (in absolute dollars, anyway) than people in urban areas.
Most of the time, people make multiple shopping trips because it is convenient, or because the store didn't have what they needed the first time, not because they can't afford to buy food for an extra couple of weeks. Only the poorest of the poor are so poor that they cannot do so.
We're not disagreeing. However, in urban areas, it is normal to have 6 people live in a 1000 sqft apt, particularly the working poor. And to be clear, these are people with both parents having full time jobs who actually follow the rules. Most earn more than minimum wage. However, in most parts of the country, the minimum wage is not a living wage. That aside, perhaps for those of us with nice tech jobs where you can work remotely, it helps to empathize with that kids of that family cramming them into
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You can afford to buy in bulk to reduce your number of shopping trips. Costco is not really meant for the poor.
That depends a lot on how narrowly you define "poor".
I'm from the South. It seems like just about everybody there has a separate fridge out on the porch or in the garage. The affluent folk in Silicon Valley, not so much. If anything, people in rural areas tend to stock up a lot more, because the nearest store is further away, and it requires more effort and planning to go there. And by and large, people in rural areas are less well off (in absolute dollars, anyway) than people in urban areas.
Most of the time, people make multiple shopping trips because it is convenient, or because the store didn't have what they needed the first time, not because they can't afford to buy food for an extra couple of weeks. Only the poorest of the poor are so poor that they cannot do so.
We're not disagreeing. However, in urban areas, it is normal to have 6 people live in a 1000 sqft apt, particularly the working poor. And to be clear, these are people with both parents having full time jobs who actually follow the rules. Most earn more than minimum wage. However, in most parts of the country, the minimum wage is not a living wage. That aside, perhaps for those of us with nice tech jobs where you can work remotely, it helps to empathize with that kids of that family cramming them into a small-ish apartment.
Yup. The high cost of living in some places means that families that would be lower middle class in some places are almost the poorest of the poor in others. And although raising the minimum wage and tying it to inflation would help, sadly, I'm not holding my breath for that to happen, because even the minimum wages that folks are proposing now (and that folks on the right are screaming about being too high) are way less than what I was proposing twenty years ago, and the cost of housing in many cities ha
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TFA discusses the obvious explanations (Score:3)
When getting covid is the least of your worries (Score:3)
To be clear this isn't a rant about masks. It's a rant about the quietly miserable invisible people all across the country and why they might not seem to give a shit about staying alive.
If you're going out into the world every day you see society's human toilets. These guys keep society running to everyone else's benefit and their own expense. If you press them they'll say they're happy slaves but that's a lie that they've told themselves. Shit rolls downhill to these downtrodden laborers and society's attitudes toward them are evident. Their boss calls them a liar or pussy if they're sick, to get out of doing 15 or 20 minutes of extra work finding someone to fill their shift. Their work is never respected they'll be made to take on hours of labor for someone else's comfort or satisfaction, maybe their effort is as unnoticed as they are when muddy footprints get stamped across their freshly cleaned floor. Maybe their boss forgot to get gloves and so they're unclogging a toilet with their bare hands.
These people are everywhere and they're barely noticed by anyone who hasn't been there. They're conditioned to take abuse and not care, when nobody has cared for their health, safety, or happiness in so long and then someone tells them they need to do something for their safety, when suddenly someone cares, not about them but because someone more important than them will finally be held accountable. Well they just don't give a shit.
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...and why they might not seem to give a shit about staying alive.
If you're going out into the world every day you see society's human toilets.
When you go out every day, you are guaranteed to get covid.
Almost no discussion around this accepts this as a fact. This one, your response, included in the bizarrely unaware camp.
You cant tell the people that are going to get covid for sure, that wearing a mask will protect them, that social distancing will protect them, because it hasnt, and it wont. You told them to stay home starting in march last year. Their unemployment has run out, jackass. Now their mortgage is $15K overdue while they take hom
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Dude I want these people to get relief packages that keep them going on with their lives safely. I want workplaces with seriously essential workers to respect them and protect them. This means air circulation, mandatory masks, socially distanced workspaces, temperature checks, and standby replacements for their shift already handled if they find themselves sick so their bosses don't try and pressure them into coming in anyhow.
The narrative on the right is that this is silly and undoable.
Rich people and immortals (Score:5, Insightful)
In some of his SF stories, Larry Niven describes people who prolong their lives with "boosterspice". This allows them to live to 200 or even older. With some prescience, Niven explains that the older a person, the more care they take to avoid accidents - and the more graceful and balanced they become. Frank Herbert says something similar about his almost immortal rulers in "Heisenberg's Eyes" (also published as "The Eyes of Heisenberg").
The principle is the same: the more you have to lose (or think you have to lose) the more careful you will be to avoid hazards.
Yeah... (Score:2)
little bit easier when you have a 10,000 sq. ft. "cottage" in the Hamptons to hunker down in :-)
Or maybe poor people (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When your whole family or your unrelated housemates live in a small crowded apartment...
When your small crowded apartment is amongst hundreds of others in a large block with shared lifts/corridors etc.
When your job cannot be done remotely, and requires you to commute every day on a crowded bus or train.
When your job requires you to regularly interact with the public.
When you can't afford to order deliveries of food, so your only option is going in person.
There are many factors that can make social distancin
Not enough of a sample size (Score:2)
The study said it was in 6 countries including the US. In the US they polled 1000 people from Texas, New York, California, and Florida. Only 1000 and what parts of the state would determine if you make $230 you're really well off, or you're just making ends meet. But the article has no detail on the breakdown. This can easily change from other states, and even counties.
Bottom line: 1000 people poled is way to small a sample size to make these extrapolations.
IQ (Score:2)
You think? (Score:2)
Comfortable house with a car in garage, two parent family, remotable white collar job and money for grocery deliveries / home entertainment can help people socially distance, sure. Besides wishing that more people had such options, we should also rethink the new ideal of single adults living in a tiny apartment in a big city. It's just not healthy for individuals or for society in many ways.
The Smarter you are...... (Score:2)
The Smarter You Are, The More Likely You Are to Social Distance.
Money is just a shelter that allows the social distancing to happen efficiently.
Even before the pandemic (Score:2)
They probably consider the stench of the unwashed masses unpleasant long before they heard of COVID.
Need distance from the unwashed masses? (Score:2)
That's why the Jones live in a gated community.
No Shit, Sherlock (Score:2)
I'm poor so I have to work. I'm an essential worker so I'm still working. That is, I'm not distant from anyone. I have to get up close with members of the public and my coworkers in order to do my job.
If I had a big bed full of money to comfortably rest on, I would do that. But I don't.
More prone to lie about it FTFY (Score:1)
It doesn't have to take a John Hopkin professor (Score:2)
Proxy effect (Score:1)