D&D and the rising pandemic

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think he's more talking about real estate that isn't traditional housing. Like, unused airports, unused office space, and so on.

Yep.

There’s a multi-story hotel that has been empty for something like 25 of the last 30 years. It reopened as a hotel a decade or so ago, but it quickly closed again. 10+ stories, on a bus route, fenced in doing nothing. Use eminent domain and use it to house the homeless or similarly disadvantaged people. Not only do you have lockable, climate controlled rooms with indoor plumbing, those buildings have gyms, business centers, and kitchens. Those could be used for the services those people will need, all on premises, possibly including jobs or training.

We’ve got all kinds of empty or emptying buildings here, including enclosed shopping malls. Something like that could become an enclosed condo community- turn the big anchor store duites into things like schools, urgent care clinics, entertainment venues, child care, etc.

For me, the catalyst for the idea came when someone pointed out that a hotel The Beatles had stayed in one trip to Dallas had been converted to a prison. I’d been in there to talk to clients, and hadn’t a clue.

Then someone else purchased a high-rise office building near downtown Dallas and turned it into an upscale assisted living community 20 or so years ago.

 

[CapnZapp]

EU and USA manufacture vaccines we don't.

Government's can block exports or directly or indirectly pressure the manufacturers to supply them first.

Australia is running ads for vaccinations you can't get while here they think by the end of the year you can get one.

Other countries need the vaccines more as well. Downside is if delta gets out of control.

Australia richer than NZ and I think the average Australian household is richer than USA (not GDP per Capita). Better wealth distribution.

So it's mostly supply issues and perhaps mono vaccine option due to the way healthcare is funded/applied. They selected Pfizer here that's your only option.

I would be much less complacent and more mad at my government than you if I knew my country was just as rich as the US, or the UK, or maybe Sweden... yet vaccine availability was comparable to perhaps Brazil or India (that's just a guess).

So I guess I am looking for answers beyond obvious replies like "supply". Supply was a hot issue in the US or the EU too - but here we are, with the most important half of the population vaccinated.

Your other answers are fine. Still feel much more could have been done and that you're letting your government off the hook too easily. A 10% vaccination rate would from my (fully vaccinated) perspective (I'm 50 years old) be considered a complete failure - not even 90-year olds! - and a huge scandal that ought to force the government out of office.

Oh well. I guess you have (re)learnt the lesson of relying on supply from distant America and Europe (something tells me this isn't the first time you hear of this...)

I'm not saying this to needle more answers out of you. Just wanted to explain why I might have come across as weirdly insistent. I was just having issues calibrating my perspective. Thank you and have a good day!

 

[CapnZapp]

It looks like we are going to face animal-to-human transmission of something new every decade or so.

You say it like it's a new phenomenon.

 

[Ryujin]

No idea. I think Top Gear filmed a episode there. They used it for a race track.

We're kinda full up building wise. Half a million USD to buy something vaguely nice in most places. Almost double that if you like the "best" cities.

Or you go and live in Christchurch only 400-450k usd there. Government officials got predictions severely wrong.

In Toronto, Canada, with the fact that many who are currently working from home will never return to on-site work, there will soon be a glut of unused office space in the downtown core.

 

[CapnZapp]

In some cases its simply impractical, though. Some things require sufficiently specialized and dedicated facilities that, while there's enough demand for their services to justify their existence, there isn't enough to justify it in every single country.

While that is true, we're neither discussing rocket science nor "every single country".

Researching the specific vaccine formula might be rocket science, but mass-producing vaccines is not.

And in this case we're discussing "every single continent" only. Not every single country.

Edit: ninja'd

 

[CapnZapp]

Not on short timescale it cannot. The mRNA vaccines use new processes that aren't run of the mill chemistry for everyone. Building the facilities and training up the skills can take years. While building for the future is excellent, we also have to deal with the world we have at the moment.

I believe we are all aware that we're not discussing fixing the current pandemic in this regard, but the next one.

It is sheer neglect that is the reason there isn't a vaccine plant in or near Australia. Maybe it wouldn't have been able to produce mRNA vaccines, but it sure could have produced a vaccine like AstraZeneca.

Heck, even a (very) small country like Sweden is talking about setting up shop. And that's a country within the richest club in the world!

The biggest scandal in the EU is that the UK beat them - a country that just left the EU... To billions of people, coming in the top 3 is an unattainable dream... here coming "dead last" out of that top 3 meant the top EU leadership had to scramble for damage control...

 

[CapnZapp]

Anyhoo...

The biggest news lately is that health officials can't hide their irritation with Pfizer who's already past that first annoying "supply the world with even ONE shot" headache and well into "sell a third shot to the richest 10%" mode...

Comirnaty was projected to be the best-selling medicine EVER, all categories. No naughty word, as Sherlock would say (if he could devise a way around the word filter, at least)...

 

[Umbran]

Shortage of all of that as well.

In the US, we are looking at having a lot of it. The pandemic has taught companies that
1) While it does help for folks to be in the office, they don't need to do it 5 days a week to stay productive.
2) they can save a lot of money if they don't buy office space with the assumption that everyone is always there.

The commercial real estate business is apt to take a hit from this. Finding alternate uses for the buildings is not a bad idea.

 

[Deset Gled]

Use eminent domain and use it to house the homeless or similarly disadvantaged people.

Without going too far into politics, I think it's safe to say that the idea of using eminent domain (in the US) for this is going to be messy as all heck. You'd need to have the government outright purchase it to avoid complications. Even then, you're guaranteed to get a ton of NIMBY backlash. It sounds terrible (because it is), but the US has a long history of only wanting these services if they're far away.

Not kinky do you have lockable,

 

[Umbran]

You'd need to have the government outright purchase it to avoid complications.

Um.. that is Eminent Domain. Eminent Domain requires the government to pay fair market value for the real estate they are taking. The power is in how the current owner doesn't get a choice in selling.