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Not many Chelsea residents use quarantine hotel so far, but city says it's worth the cost
By adamg on Thu, 04/30/2020 - 8:59am
The Chelsea Record reports, says Lynn and Somerville will soon start using the Revere Quality Inn that Chelsea and Revere rented out for Covid-19-positive residents who need a place to stay and who don't want to infect their families or neighbors.
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As of Tuesday, there were 37
$1 million / 37 people = $27,000 per person
Well
You want to offer them a room?
If each one would have infected several others who then infected several others ... and even one person died, that's still a bargain.
Remember: these are the people who are working in/living with people working in nursing homes, food prep and handling facilities, etc. You can't just count one side of the ledger.
The question
Why is it costing $1M? That's $300/night including for rooms which aren't being used.
It's reasonable for towns to spend big money for safety but it's not reasonable for private companies to use this as huge windfall.
No it isn't
Spending big money is seldom reasonable. Anyone who has ever had to make and spend their own money should be deeply offended at both sides for engaging in a $27,000pp hotel transaction.
The unreasonable factor in your scenario is a system where someone from another country is afraid they'll get booted out of here for being here illegally, which stops them from giving their city officials a holler about staying in the hotel. Seriously, 18 people have taken advantage of the offer? That's like four houses on my street worth of people for the entire city of Chelsea.
Again, what the (expletive) did John Lennon say? He's a scumbag for hitting Yoko, but he nailed it with "Imagine there's no countries." A person from somewhere dangerous coming somewhere safer wasn't a problem until someone drew a bunch of lines on the map.
They come, they work, they don't force their ways on me. Who's aggrieved?
Pay now or pay and pay and pay later
You can't evaluate whether something is "too expensive" unless you also evaluate what happens if you don't spend the money.
The point isn't the people in the hotel
The point is the people who DIDN'T GET SICK, because the contagious were in the hotel. You don't quibble about the cost of the plague tent, you just separate the sick.
BTW, I have some bad news for you about how much the tax payers have paid Trump for having the secret service stay in his bedbug infested hotels.
Depressing
Due to colossal failures at the federal level, towns and MA is spending boatloads on the emergency now meanwhile entire departments are being laid off. For some towns, this will lead to drastic spending cuts for years (or decades) to come. This is going to cripple basic services and eliminate all discretionary spending that makes the cities good places to live.
Not debating the need to spend money right now, just sad about the future. With better testing and preparation in January and February, many of these hits could have been avoided.
$1M/37 ppl = $27K/pp = 2 nights in the ICU
n/t
Speaking of which
How many people are using the rooms MassArt, BU, and other schools have made available?
Yeah, this ain't working
Despite my negative subject line, I do hope they figure out a more efficient and effective execution. At the current rate, it is just costing a lot of money for a very tiny dent in the spread because it is only stopping 37 people. But when we have tens of thousands of cases - over 2,000 in Chelsea alone. Then it is essentially nothing.
I don't really know a solution. Well, technically I think I know a solution. Both China sent whole groups of people to isolate - by force. But that's not a solution that is acceptable here (and I'm not saying we should, just saying what is effective). But how to get people to isolate rather than infect other people in their households? Done voluntarily? And at a scale it is actually effective? I don't know.
Though I do say, at the cost being spent for the people who signed up so far. It sounds more efficient to just straight up give vouchers to the volunteers directly, choose a hotel they want, and let them camp there with room service. It may even be more effective in getting people to volunteer as the offer would mean free room in the nicest hotels in Boston. Still massively inefficient, but anything more than 37 people would imply it is more effective.