Governor Debbie Downer

Terrifying attitude from the Head of State, the only option it to keep the people in lock-down.  No thanks, I don’t need that kind of help from my elected officials.  It would be interesting to see polling data on what people think of USVI Government’s management of this pandemic.  In my opinion it’s gone from reasonable at first to schizophrenic to awful and still getting worse.  The People aren’t stupid, get out of their way and let them get on with their lives, the Government isn’t smarter than me and I really don’t want them “taking care” of me, believe me when I say, I have a vested interest in staying healthy.

i have many questions about this whole thing. new york classified 3k as covid deaths without testing-how many others are there? if you get tested numerous times, does each test count. or do they take it as a whole. if masks work, why arent washington dc government officials required to wear them while citizens are?  how many people who died wore a mask religiously? if masks keep our most vulnerable protected, how are they protecting the children who cant wear a mask and how are they protecting our elderly in nursing homes by putting covid patients there? 

ill stop there for now

i dont understand the concept of wearing a mask to enter a restaurant. taking it off and then putting it on to leave.  you are supposedly vulnerable for the majority of the time and havent particles been known to travel past this magical 6 feet

While I mostly agree with both jaldeborgh and singlefin I do disagree on one point. Many things WILL NOT return to how they used to be, and many of these changes in our daily lives ARE NOT temporary. Nor should they be.

For example, the pandemic has accelerated the move to a digital economy. Retail stores and shopping malls, for the most part, will not be coming back. Many employees now working from home will not be going back to work in the office. The movement from big cities to smaller centers is just beginning, causing once unfathomable changes to commercial and residential real estate markets. These are only a few things that won't be going back to the way they were.

I'm an avid stock trader and watch the markets from 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM. You only have to look at the markets to see who the winners and losers of these profound changes are and will be.

And, I haven't even touched on the socio-economic changes and population migration that are beginning to take shape as a result of the undeniable changes to the world's climate.

Like you guys, I don't need governments taking care of me and managing my every move like some do. But, to think everything will go back to the way it was pre-pandemic is naïve.

@vicanuck

hey did you buy Vaxart before it blew up? I bought some of the other vaccine stocks and eventually made decent small amounts of $ and thought about buying some VXRT around $14 but decided not too because I held too many others.

Whoops I meant Novavax NVAX - that was the one that blew up.

I'm holding some VXRT hoping it blows up like all the bullish people are saying it will.

Posted by: @islandjoan

Whoops I meant Novavax NVAX - that was the one that blew up.

I'm holding some VXRT hoping it blows up like all the bullish people are saying it will.

I haven't bought any of the big vaccine stocks. But, I did buy 1000 shares of a smaller vaccine maker VBI Vaccines (VBIV) at $0.85 in April and sold it at $4.85 in mid July.

I'm still watching it daily and may buy in again if it goes down to my target of $3.00.

From a historical perspective on how society interacts, life has always returned to “normal” after pandemics.

Social distancing, along with the migration out of densely populated areas, both took place during the Spanish Flu a hundred years ago.

Since then, every major city has increased in size, professional sports events, concerts, rally’s of every kind, etc, stadiums and halls returned to overflowing capacities. 

Granted, the internet is something new thrown into the mix, but I like to thing the majority of us want to unplug and get out and socialize in one way or another again.

@vicanuck

Nice! Some of the ones I bought were smaller companies, too. I bought CLDX at $2.50 and it blew up to $12.50 in a few weeks! (sold it at that point)

Posted by: @singlefin

Granted, the internet is something new thrown into the mix, but I like to thing the majority of us want to unplug and get out and socialize in one way or another again.

While that may be true for older folks like you and I, young people (today's teens and early 20's) don't socialize or live like we did.

Most have very poor inter-personal communication and social skills unless on a computer or smart phone. The majority don't bother getting driver's licenses and spend most of their time online. They do everything online...order food, shop, communicate, get entertainment, and so much more.

The pandemic is just accelerating the changes that would have happened within the next 10 or 20 years to the next 18 months.

The Governors response to the surge of outbreak in JULY/AUG. was warranted and not  a schizophrenic action -- talk to anyone who works at either local hospital here and ask them about the very real worry at that time that our health system would be overloaded - that our public health workers, public safety officers were also being affected was another concern because there is no replacement population available for their services.

Our very limited hospital facilities are a major consideration and must be part of the conversation about response to a Covid -19 spread.

We will be living with COVID for a long time. Seems that the recovery from virus is only associated with short term immunity and virus is quite contagious and not deadly enough to self extinct as Spanish flu did. So it is here to stay regardless of the future vaccine. 

we will keep accelerating migrations to digital and VR life. 

Posted by: @vicanuck

For example, the pandemic has accelerated the move to a digital economy. Retail stores and shopping malls, for the most part, will not be coming back. Many employees now working from home will not be going back to work in the office. The movement from big cities to smaller centers is just beginning, causing once unfathomable changes to commercial and residential real estate markets. These are only a few things that won't be going back to the way they were.

I'm an avid stock trader and watch the markets from 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM. You only have to look at the markets to see who the winners and losers of these profound changes are and will be.

And, I haven't even touched on the socio-economic changes and population migration that are beginning to take shape as a result of the undeniable changes to the world's climate.

Like you guys, I don't need governments taking care of me and managing my every move like some do. But, to think everything will go back to the way it was pre-pandemic is naïve.

I do agree with much of what you are saying about the social change that is being accelerated by COVID-19, but I'll add further accelerated by the current increasingly toxic political environment.  I've spent my career as an equipment supplier to the semiconductor industry, so I am very tuned into the impact that technology is having (can have) on how we will live our lives, both now and in the future.  You are correct that COVID-19 has changed (actually massively accelerated) how the world does business, that trend will not reverse itself.  Our little company has roughly 700 people in our HQ/R&D/MFG center, since early March about 400 of those people have successfully worked from home and many (most?) may never return to the office.  It's really only the people directly involved with assembling, testing and shipping of our equipment that are actually needed in the factory.  I've spent much of the last 20 years traveling 250K to 400K miles a year building the business but I haven't made a single business trip since late February, while our business remains very strong.  Given I'm retiring early next year I may have already made my last business trip, which isn't a bad thing.  As for the urban flight, this is more complex than just COVID-19 but combined with todays toxic political environment has resulted in a macro social trend that is unstoppable at this point, IMHO.  As this affluent tax base escapes the major cities the future looks difficult for our urban areas, given that a grossly disproportionate amount of our cities revenues come from a tiny tiny fraction of the population that is very mobile and now the upper middle class are fleeing as well.  Not a good sign.  The social repercussions of this growing migration will very likely be both significant and not good for the folks left in these cities.  This is just history repeating itself and it doesn't end well.

I guess “Doesn’t End Well” really depends on your life expectancy.

Using NYC as an example, it has seen mass exodus’s, it has limped along during some years, and at other times, boast about having the most expensive real estate in the world. NYC is undoubtably going through a rough patch, like many big cities, but as history has shown us, it will return as a highly desirable place to live & work. Small Caribbean Islands aren’t for everyone... thank God!

@jaldeborgh

Great post...I enjoyed reading it!

Posted by: @singlefin

NYC is undoubtably going through a rough patch, like many big cities, but as history has shown us, it will return as a highly desirable place to live & work.

I grew up just north of NYC, 2 of my 3 daughters lived in NYC, one attended NYU graduate school, one lived in metro Denver, CO.  My oldest (NYU grad) left NYC 24 month ago (after almost 5 years), moved to Boston, she (and her new husband) just moved out of Boston (after 2 years) and are now planning to move to suburban Nashville.  My youngest hasn't spent more than 2 weeks at her apartment in Brooklyn since March, choosing to live a gypsy life (with her partner), away from any large city, as she can work remotely.  My third daughter (with here partner) just moved from downtown Denver to Bozeman, MT where she (they) purchased a home.  All three daughters are hard core Trump haters, they'd rather vote (metaphorically) for convicted murderer and see the country plunged into a deep depression than see Trump re-elected.  My point being they're not returning to any large city, regardless of their politics.  I think they represent the attitude of a large swath of the young urban population that has the education/workplace freedom to work remotely, which is increasingly common for young professionals.  This is the recipe that makes a comeback for cities like NYC hard to imagine in the foreseeable future.  History tells us that things first have to get so bad that there is a crisis resulting in a culture change for the mainstream voting population.  I don't see that happening in NYC, or many of our large cities, anytime soon and I'm an optimist by nature.

@vicanuckhave you bought more? its under 3 now