
Detroit to restore water to allow people to wash hands to avoid coronavirus - rmason
https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/detroit-to-restore-water-service-to-unpaid-homes-to-allow-people-to-wash-their-hands-to-avoid-coronavirus
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mpettitt
As someone in the UK, it seems insane that cutting off domestic water is even
allowed. It's considered a basic right, and even during droughts, the water
companies have to supply a basic level to everyone.
([https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/water/water-
suppl...](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/water/water-
supply/problems-with-paying-your-water-bill/if-you-don-t-pay-your-water-
bill/))

You can cut off water to commercial premises for non payment, but that doesn't
seem to be what's happening here.

~~~
nmfisher
The very first line of the article:

> The City of Detroit announced on Monday that it will restore water to
> residents in the city who have had their service cut off _due to unpaid
> bills_ so those people have the ability to wash their hands.

~~~
crgwbr
The parent said you can cut off water from commercial properties for non-
payment, not residential properties.

------
Barrin92
you don't know if you want to laugh or cry when you see these headlines about
fast food workers not being able to stay home because they don't have sick
leave or people not having access to water in a first world country.

One would like to think at some point the message is driven home that we're
first and foremost mammals living in an ecosystem and only secondary
individuals participating in marketplaces and that whoever is in charge has
enough instinct for self preservation to not force the diseased into work or
turn their sanitation off.

~~~
AstralStorm
The water part is more horrifying. Once that's gone, whole swathes of US would
have to be evacuated.

~~~
BubRoss
Why would water be gone and 'large swathes' of the US have to be evacuated?

~~~
netsharc
The answer to the first why is... maybe due to climate change?

The second why should be easy to figure out if you took basic human biology.

[https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonito...](https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx)

~~~
BubRoss
What does this have to do with water getting cut off or restored to people
with outstanding bills?

~~~
netsharc
Probably because the top comment mentioned "ecosystem"?

You're not a conceptual kind of person, are you?

~~~
BubRoss
You can be as patronizing as you want, but you might want to make sure all the
pieces line up first.

The first comment mentioned thinking about people living in an ecosystem
before money. The second jumped to saying for some bizzare reason that "it
will be horrifying when all the water goes away and large swathes of the US
are evacuated" which is nonsensical in most contexts and has absolutely
nothing to do with what they replied to.

Instead of realizing this, you went further off on a tangent of global climate
change disrupting water supply.

Instead of recognizing that this is all a giant non sequitur to the
philosophical questions of paying for fundamental human needs, you lost track
of the conversation and insulted me instead. Focus up.

------
ornornor
> Duggan said that financial reasons should not be a reason for Detroiters to
> live without water amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Any other time is fine though, water not being essential to life if you can’t
afford it but rather a luxury. The US is an insane place. What a time to be
alive.

It could have been an Onion piece but nope that’s real life.

------
spiderfarmer
Are the stories I hear all true? From what I heard, in the US

\- people are afraid to get tested because of the cost \- people can’t get
tested because there are no tests \- people are afraid to stay home \- people
think corona is just slightly worse than the flu \- people think it will just
peter out

That’s terrifying.

~~~
AstralStorm
Why is it terrifying? Are you acting on data or by relying on media scare?

It is only somewhat worse than typical flu, Heck lesser than Spanish Flu.
Nowhere near plagues humanity weathered already. Much less terrible then wars
too.

Tests have some 15% false positive rate and are not useful in a viruses that
propagate this fast for any other intent than confirmation. They are getting
improved.

Treatment is supportive, if you're afraid care will be overloaded, get a pulse
oximeter, oxygen tanks, reduction and mask, disinfectants (esp. water
treatment) and about month store of easily digestible, easy to prepare food,
and certainly water to smooth over any interruptions. (Don't kid yourself, you
cannot store a month of water. Maybe drinking water, but not technical. Still
bulky.)

Multivitamin and extra vitamin C which maybe will help. (It is slightly
effective in colds, which it is a kind of.)

If you're really rich, get some hydroquinone synthesized. Useful chemical even
if you won't use it for this epidemic.

This, and quarantine, is the most anyone can do. Walking around in protective
gear is a joke as operator error will kill effectiveness.

~~~
lm28469
> It is only somewhat worse than typical flu

Yes, and that's why Italy is in full lockdown, and the world economy in
tanking for a week now, because "it's just the flu bro".

> get a pulse oximeter, oxygen tanks, reduction and mask, disinfectants (esp.
> water treatment) and about month store of easily digestible, easy to prepare
> food, and certainly water to smooth over any interruptions.

The majority of americans are living paycheck to paychek and you're telling
them to setup a basic hospital in their living room. People are dying of
diabetes in that country, do you think they can afford all that and a month of
supply if they can't afford insulin to literally save their life ?

Some of you are so out of touch with reality, that's the terrifying part for
me. Recommending vitamin C is laughable at that point.

~~~
AstralStorm
Yes, that is exactly why everyone is in lockdown, because there is enough
panic and nothing more can be done. So anything that seems politically
acceptable is being done. It won't be effective and is at best false sense of
security. It is about as effective as quarantining kids after mumps outbreaks,
which is not much, and this thing spreads quicker. The question is not if, but
when you will be infected, and if your immune system will be able to handle
it. For most, it will be a cold, for the others where it won't, unless they
have their own hardware, they're screwed. As seen in Italy. Chinese were able
to spin up hospitals, most everyone else does not have enough hardware.

Hospitals get overloaded with about few hundred cases, give or take.

Coronavirus tests are not effective preventative measures. (Not yet anyway.)

Good pulse oximeter costs maybe $20, an O2 tank with hardware and mask
$80-100. If you cannot afford that, you're literally screwed. I bet you would
pay more off a copay for a bed in the US. If that's the case, good luck.

If you cannot afford food, you're also screwed, there's no charity that will
help. As a reminder, many people died from Spanish Flu due to malnutrition.
And old age. This combination is also problematic for COVID-19. Strict
isolation measures _do not work reliably_ against this kind of virus. They did
not work for flu nor for cold, they won't for this one. They can at best slow
it down a bit and delay, which is ok if you use this time to do something
meaningful - China did, others cannot.

Government could try to help with this but US is allergic to handouts. There
is enough food and production capability to distribute rations if need be. I
hope they're being stockpiled. Probably are not.

~~~
lm28469
> It won't be effective and is at best false sense of security. It is about as
> effective as quarantining kids after mumps outbreaks

The whole point of slowing down (or stopping) movements is to slow down the
spread enough to let hospitals handle as few sick people at once as possible.
Western europeans countries have very good health systems as long as they're
not overcrowded. It really isn't rocket science. If you have 2000 beds and
6000 sick people you're fucked, if you have the same amount of beds and a
continuous flow of low amount of sick people spread over weeks or months it's
just a bit worse than business as usual.

It's not panicking, it's taking steps to ensure the virus doesn't get more
serious than it is.

~~~
AstralStorm
Recovery takes too long for such preventative measures to matter at all. It
increases the delay but does not reduce load.

The hospitals explode almost immediately with medium to hard cases.

(We know thanks to Chinese data that recovery can easily be a month for harder
cases. We know how fast medical systems get overwhelmed, and how much
overcapacity would be necessary.)

~~~
lm28469
Well, we'll see how it develops, it's too early to tell but it'll be easy to
compare France/Italy to the US.

------
distances
What does running water usually cost in the US if $25 is a countermeasure
during an epidemic? I pay less than that as a full price.

~~~
grovellogic
Normal water usage in the US costs more than $25 a month.

([https://www.statista.com/statistics/720418/average-
monthly-c...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/720418/average-monthly-cost-
of-water-in-the-us/))

If you don't have septic you have to double that cost as well to pay for
sewage treatment.

This cost is most likely already subsidized by local property taxes, it
doesn't take in account the total cost to provide water (Water Towers, wells,
infrastructure, etc.), or the fact that Deriot has horrible water to begin
with and needs more conditioning.

------
onyva
How is the USA considered a “developed country”?

------
jungletime
Detroit is right next to Lake St. Clair and Detroit River. I know someone that
had the bright idea of watering his garden by taking water directly from Lake
St. Clair. He bought a large 3x3 foot plastic water container, put it on the
back of his the truck. When he tried to fill it up, got stopped by the Police.
What's the legality of taking water directly from the Lake?

Living off the land, is not really an option if its illegal to take water. And
outside of the mountain regions, very little public land. Not that you could
take trees from public land either.

------
AndrewOMartin
This is the main content of the article, just in case the headline is a little
misleading.

The City of Detroit announced on Monday that it will restore water to
residents in the city who have had their service cut off due to unpaid bills
... for a $25 fee and then keep their water on during the crisis for $25 per
month.

The state is assisting by paying the $25 fees for the first 30 days of the
program.

