I thought people learned their lesson with variable rate mortgages back in 2008.   Adjustable rate mortgages should be banned.

That being said I don't see USA raising rates for at least a year or two.  However whenever rates do go up the payments go up and then shit happens.

More applications for UV-C cleaning are coming along

Ultra-violet light devices are being embedded into the handrails of escalators to disinfect as they roll underneath and systems are being used that detect when an elevator is empty and then bath the cabin with UV light or even mist disinfectant spray.

Some of the innovation coming to an elevator near you is more low-tech.

That includes large buttons mounted at floor level in halls and elevators that are hit with a shoe, or replacement of plastic or stainless steel buttons – surfaces believed to host the coronavirus for up to seven days – with copper, which has anti-microbial properties.

And needed as well

According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control, it took just riding in the same elevator at different times for a woman to contract the novel coronavirus from her upstairs neighbour, an asymptomatic carrier, in China.

I'm more concerned about getting it through person to person. Cases of contact with surfaces and then touching mouth or face are likely to cause minor infections because the viral load is so low. Sure I'll wash my hands after getting home if I go to grocery store or gas station but I'm not going to spray myself down with Lysol and hand sanitizer turning myself into a hyper OCD. Shit I was semi OCD before all this shit washing my hands more than most people and I'm not going to turn myself into even more. I'll wear my damn mask and sometimes use hand sanitizer at work and wash my hands every so often. Heck I touch my mask at work because im a human fucking being and I have this mask on that makes it even more itchy. I'm not going to wash my fucking hands every time I want to touch my mask or itch my face at work. We are required to wear gloves also.

This whole worrying about surfaces is fucking overblown.  It's people that aren't wearing masks that are talking, singing, dancing or otherwise just close to each other that are getting the most sick.  Viral loads from surfaces are the least of my concern.

This.

A elector a infected person used, may infect like 500 people at once in a few days.
However most of those will be light in virus loads, and likely give less horrible outcomes than ones where some bastard sneezes into your face.

Thats what kills, a strong cough into someones face, or a sneeze.
Here have a buttload of virus! free of charge.

There was that one bus driver, that complained about a woman caughing right into his face, he lateron got the virus and died.
People need to wear masks, and damn well do their best to caugh into elbows (or hell even their own hands, (better than into someones face)).

You get those anywhere in the world and in most countries, there's no problem with them. The Problem in the US is that they are not linked to the rates from the central bank or capped in any way. Mine never went past 4.65% but dropped as low as 2.25% yearly rate during the 8 years I was repaying my loan.

Oops I guess just speaking from experience in USA where rates went to 8-10 percent or even more.   Also didn't help that some banks/lenders weren't verifying income.  They verify income now but don't think there was a cap put into place on adjustable rate mortgages here.

That would be the rate I'd have to pay if I drop below zero on my bank account, and those are intentionally punitive to ensure everybody keeps their balance positive, comparative to an overdraft fee. Such rates are really shitty to put on people with any kind of loans.

It's all a game of chance, probabilities adding up.

In theory, one micro droplet landing in the right place in your body can infiltrate and start an infection. However most will get stuck somewhere harmless where the virus can't infect or simply fails to start duplicating. The higher the exposure and/or the longer the exposure, the more chances the virus gets to land somewhere where it can get in.

So all we do is reduce the chance, wash hands more frequently, wear face masks, keep a distance, stay outside or only short term in enclosed spaces. There are no guarantees with any of that, only severely reducing the chances the virus will have to infiltrate, which adds up to pushing Rt below 1.0 and virus losing ground until it disappears.

There are stories of one person in a restaurant infecting 7 others through the air and stories of one infected person coming into contact with hundreds of people without infecting anyone.

Wash hands frequently, keep the viral load on your hands low to none.
Wear face masks, keep the viral load going in and out to a minimum (stops up to 90% of droplets, but not micro droplets)
Social distancing, quadratic distance rule, twice as far away, volume increases by 8 times, reducing the viral load.
Stay outside, virus in the air disperses.
Stay inside as short as possible, lower the exposure time.
UV-C air filters, keep the viral load in the air to a minimum, don't let it build up.

The more you combine, the lower the chance, but it will never be zero.

My concerns with back to school are, yes more sanitation is encouraged, yes face masks are required most of the day and social distancing remains in effect. However the kids are still 6 hours of the day inside the same room/building where micro droplets can build up and circulate (they survive for 3 hours in the air). Air quality is not addressed at all. So while the chances are lower, there is still that duration part of the equation when it comes to chances of spreading the infection.

When the number of infected people is low enough, there's probably little to worry about. Yet when multiple infected people end up in the same room/building, those micro droplets start to add up, increasing the chances of further spread.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air

"But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. Trusting his vaunted political instincts, President Trump had been downplaying concerns about the virus and spreading misinformation about it—efforts that were soon amplified by Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures. Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.

Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

That logic may have swayed Kushner. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision maker as to what [plan] was going to come out,” the expert said.

On April 27, Trump stepped to a podium in the Rose Garden, flanked by members of his coronavirus task force and leaders of America’s big commercial testing laboratories, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, and finally announced a testing plan: It bore almost no resemblance to the one that had been forged in late March, and shifted the problem of diagnostic testing almost entirely to individual states.

Under the plan released that day, the federal government would act as a facilitator to help increase needed supplies and rapidly approve new versions of diagnostic-testing kits. But the bulk of the effort to operate testing sites and find available labs fell to the states.

“I had this naive optimism: This is too important to be caught in a partisan filter of how we view truth and the world,” said Rick Klausner, a Rockefeller Foundation adviser and former director of the National Cancer Institute. “But the federal government has decided to abrogate responsibility, and basically throw 50 states onto their own.” "



They purposefully let coronavirus get bad, believeing it would hurt democratic states more?
as a way to score political points? by blameing the governors of the states?

What the hell.

Criminal neglect? genocide?

Jared Kushner & friends behinde these choices should face jail time.
If you purposefully let people die to a pandemic, believeing its best for your own political goals...... you are a monster.

Kill or let people die, to win a election? sure why not.
Trump needs to go, america cant handle another 4 years of this.

And exactly how will that benefit the American people? You know, people like you, your children, your parents?