All Forum Posts by: Brant Schumaker

@Matt R. Yes, it’s certainly possible we would have visitors prior to the ban. I think an appropriate mask and eye protection limits your risk but mainly reduces risk to others from your aerosols. My family is sheltering in place as much as possible with trips out only as necessary for food every couple of weeks. Stay safe and healthy. If we can just hang in there I think this virus has the ability to run it’s course. We’ve seen most cases from people who are defying common sense: beaches, Mardi Gras, other large gatherings, as well as direct contact within family units.

@Mike Dymski: unfortunately, no one knows the answer to your question and until we employ massive antibody testing we won’t know. I completely agree with you about uncertainty!

@Mike S. That’s certainly the goal of social distancing but the 10-20% estimate is likely much higher than reality because of our limited testing. We certainly are seeing an effect of flattening the curve from shelter in place but we also likely are seeing that from the virus infecting more people who are not symptomatic.

@Jill F.: I actually do disease modeling in my professional life and understand how frustrating the different models are. The two caveats about models: 1) all models are wrong, but some are useful; and 2) garbage in, garbage out. We have underpinned many of these models with the Chinese data that isn’t necessarily horrible but only has some of the information. We have estimated rates of hospitalization and ICU beds mainly on the number of cases identified when I think we have a large number of people affected that have mild disease or are asymptomatic. There is one model out there that pins likely outcomes to observed deaths which is likely more accurate but probably conservative in my state where we still are not sheltering in place.

@Rob Bianco: I understand the sentiment but I’d you have any sort of respiratory issue, are a smoker or vape you stand the risk of being very severely affected by this disease. Kidney issues, liver issues, etc. This is really not like a bad flu. It’s much worse. The best thing from my perspective is to open up the economy little by little in concert with aggressive testing of the population. Unfortunately, we just don’t have the testing supplies necessary to do wide-scale testing yet.

@Chris Mason: A lot of these answers are probably old news now so very sorry for that. I think it’s a pretty serious situation as we’ve all seen from the number of deaths across the country. We’ve seen even young people suffer major consequences from the disease and it’s ravaged nursing homes. Now we have some initial proposals for opening the country back up. The problem is that we are only testing a small fraction of people who have symptoms of the disease. In my area we have LOTS of cases of respiratory illness but we are only testing people that are hospitalized, are healthcare workers, pregnant, or have some other type of risk factor.

Very sorry for not responding to my own post! I figured the sit would notify me when there was a response but never saw any of these. I’ll go through and answer them all today!

I’m new to this market but also interested in who the good management firms are.

I think there will be a lag phase after re-opening. Hopefully the opening happens in stages with lots of testing to avoid a second outbreak. The credit crunch may cause some problems with small businesses and there may be closures that take some time to recover from. Some of the jobs that renters had may be gone for a period of time until entrepreneurs have time to build up enough capital and restart.

Appreciate this thread very much. I'm still doing neighborhood level research myself and love all the insights from you all.