What a hero is worth

Leana Wen of the Washington Post talked about how to gauge risk as things reopen. All 50 states have eased lockdown restrictions at least a little bit. None of them have met the guidelines for when to reopen safely. Wen talks of four kinds of risk.

There is relative risk, measured in proximity, activity, and time. Close proximity to an infected person for a long time is high risk. Birthday parties can be superspreader events. Passing a stranger while outdoors is low risk. If you really must visit friends, do it outdoors, skip the hugs, keep your distance, and even bring your own food.

There is pooled risk. If two families have been rigorously sheltering at home then visiting each other is low risk. That changes when any person from either family resumes work outside the home.

There is cumulative risk. For example, if you must have your hair cut, don’t follow that with a meal in a restaurant.

There is collective risk. The more infected people in a community the more likely you will come in contact with an infected person. This is why mask wearing is important.



Meteor Blades of Daily Kos quoted a bit from Jake Johnson of Common Dreams. A few of the notoriously abusive corporations – such as Amazon and Walmart – have been running ads on TV and YouTube praising their employees as being heroes. Some of the ads even proclaim they are doing everything they can to ensure their health and safety.

Two replies to that: Three days after such an Amazon ad appeared workers at their Staten Island warehouse walked off the job to protest inadequate measures to prevent the spread of the virus. And Bernie Sanders says it is nauseating that these companies don’t pay their workers what a hero is worth.



skralyx of the Kos community takes a look at what the virus is doing to the coal industry. First there are two maps comparing coal burning power plants in the US in 2010 and 2019. The later map shows fewer plants with a lot of them designated as in the process of closing. That was before the virus.

The virus will be the knockout punch for several coal companies who were teetering. Longview Power put out a notice that it filed for bankruptcy, that included this:

The West Virginia power plant blamed the move on low power prices caused by competition from cheap natural gas, a warm winter and the COVID-19 pandemic’s stamp on the economy.

skralyx noted:

A warm winter, huh? Did anyone else get a whiff of irony here in the building?

Murray Energy, the nation’s largest coal miner, also filed for bankruptcy, saying it might be force to liquidate if it can’t shed health care payments for retirees. Yup, retirees on the chopping block first.

There are several quotes saying how hard coal has been hit. And that mines and plants that are shut down because of the virus will not reopen once the virus is gone.

skralyx is aware that when a mine or power plant closes a community will be hit hard. These are communities that had relied on coal for generations. Even so:

But coal is dangerous, deadly, polluting, and awful for the climate, and it’s long past time to move on. Instead of making empty promises to bring back the coal industry and then going golfing, we need to be serious about getting these workers training for rising energy industries like solar and wind. They’re not married to coal; they just want stable jobs.