Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars | Hacker News Reader

Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

governor.wa.gov

414 pointscosmic_shame544 comments

All: the debate about economic effects vs. health effects is turning nasty in places and could get a lot worse. Let's not go there. Please find ways to make your substantive points that don't nudge HN threads in that direction.

If you comment, make sure you're up to date the site guidelines. Note this one: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Very important guideline, and one that's way to easy to forget! Ask me how I know it...

I just upvoted Dang. These, indeed, are troubled times.

;-)

> All: the debate about economic effects vs. health effects is turning nasty in places and could get a lot worse. Let's not go there.

I disagree. I don't think the fact that a subject is a launchpad for abuse in some threads is sufficient grounds for suppressing it elsewhere. Those are frequently the subjects that need the most, and most non-nasty discussion. Yes, very much, please, head the advice to steel-man your debate opponents relentlessly. That's the proper response, not banning the whole conversation. dang, I love you man, but your tendency to preemptively kill stories on controversial topics, not so much. I can see that it makes moderation easier, but the cost is high.

Ah, I see I could have been clearer. By "go there" I mean let's not go further into nastiness. I don't mean let's not debate—quite the opposite. Nobody's killing the story or the discussion. The point is to discuss it in a way that doesn't destroy the container, which is our ability to keep discussing things in the future.

Thanks for the clarification. I do see the strategy of preempting debate used elsewhere on HN, e.g. re social justice or ideological diversity. I'm glad that's not what you're signalling here.

We don't moderate the site that way elsewhere either.

This is going to be an economic catastrophe unless there's somehow a nationwide bailout to literally all brick and mortar businesses. I know of several local bar/restaurants that are considering shutting down for good, and a colleague near Melbourne told me of 4 that already have (I'm eastern US). Even if this all blows over in 3 months, we'll have a huge surge in homelessness and folks needing social assistance across the board.

A restaurant near me already laid off 20 and we aren't even that far into this. A lot of restaurants, bars, and gyms are operating close to the edge of insolvency as it is.

Oh and by the way the timetable on the retail apocalypse just got pushed up to this week.

This is crazy to ponder given it’s only been a couple weeks. I feel terrible about so many smaller businesses teetering close to insolvency.

It's less about insolvency and more about having a ton of savings. The entire business model is driven by customers, and they go from netting $2k/day to losing on salaries and rent. How long do you think a successful bar could survive hemorrhaging money on a daily basis, with no hopes of when customers would be allowed to return? What bank is going to write a loan that risky to keep them afloat?

Give them what the government gives large industries: Bailouts and direct cash payments, plus a loan.

Totally agree. The bailout of the banks has started with 0% rates and massive QE, which at the end of the day while I think necessary to prevent a credit crisis will do nothing to help the real economic situation; demand is dead for a while because of the health situation.

We should consider more radical measures like temporary rent/mortgage freezes.

> The bailout of the banks has started with 0% rates and massive QE, which at the end of the day while I think necessary to prevent a credit crisis

Well, no, if you bailed out businesses and consumers directly, there also wouldn't be a credit crisis.

Structurally, though, that's fiscal stimulus, which isn't the Feds job, and good luck getting much of that through Congress, and by that I mostly mean the Senate Republican Caucus.

> We should consider more radical measures like temporary rent/mortgage freezes.

While not that particular measure, a number of states and localities have adopted or are considering eviction and/or foreclosure bans, which leaves mortgage/rent technically due but limits nonpayment consequences.

HN's culture against partisan political statements looks particularly like sticking one's head in the sand these days.

Coronavirus is not a political thing, but our (partisan) elected leaders had an enormous amount of power over how prepared we were, and their agendas shape the on-going response. It's impossible to talk accurately about the problem or solution without mentioning parties and politicians by name.

This is crazy. There is nothing any party could do to have prevented the virus from reaching the United States, aside from a complete shutdown of the borders, including for American citizens. It is too transmissible, too undetectable, etc, to prevent it. Containment is the only feasible option, and America is actually ahead of the curve. Unlike Italy and France and Europe, American states are shutting down before hospitals have yet to be overrun.

You're attacking an argument I didn't make.

I did not say anyone could prevent the infection from reaching the US. The damage can vary wildly once it's here. Containment is not a binary outcome.

Among the tools govt has: funding science, appointing competent officials at CDC and State Dept, travel bans, quarantines, financial relief, effective messaging, targeted testing, subsidizing tests and treatment, restrictions on gatherings, anti-smoking campaigns, regulations to reduce air pollution, not telling people that it's an exaggeration or a hoax, inviting the other party to discuss a compromise on life-saving measures, acting on the CDC's recommendations, sending govt workers home, enforcing anti-gouging laws... it's a long list.

As has been discussed here and elsewhere, many of Trump's behaviors and much of the Republican agenda has pulled us in the opposite direction of where we needed to be to deal with this. In the CDC, many people are "acting" roles because Trump refuses to fill vacancies. The same is true of the State Dept.

There is so much the US could have done if it had exercised an international leadership role earlier in the crisis.

And the current administration messed up big time by not manufacturing sufficient coronavirus tests and instituting some sort of testing regime.

Yes, they screwed up testing.

However, no administration could have prevented it from reaching the US. Trump's closure of the Chinese border is more than almost any president would have dared done.

Of course we could have contained it. See Taiwan for a golden example. About one case per day since this started.

China, Japan, and South Korea or other examples.

China? China is why we're in this mess. They were unable to contain it, which is why it's now a pandemic. Their actions to shut down society (which the US is now taking, well before our hospitals are overrun) came way way way later.

Japan, I don't know about.

South Korea is doing a good job, however it only took one rogue patient (patient 31) to go from 'well-contained' to 'nation-wide' epidemic. This is why containment measures are doomed to fail if the goal is to prevent the spread entirely. It only takes one person to screw it up.

The gap between the rates on the 30 year treasury and the 30 year mortgage increased from ~1.5% to over 3% and getting worse, before QE4 was announced (and this was already pricing in some fed action). This indicates that investors stopped buying mortgage-backed securities which would have eventually resulted in home buying activity stopping and a housing market crash. I don’t think any bailout for restaurants and bars or mortgage/rent holiday would have helped with this. I’m not saying such stimulus isn’t necessary, but it doesn’t replace fed policy.

Most likely, given that both the White House and the Speaker agree that there should be a financial package aimed at those individuals affected, this is one of those times when both banks and individuals will be given relief.

Such a bailout is feasible. During the financial crisis houses were physically built and purchased without enough people with the income to cover the loan. The difference here is that there is no underlying financial issue. People will still want to go to restaurants and bars after this is over, and it will end.

What about solvency, and the knock on effect to creditors. They can't pay the booze supplier and they go out of business etc. This could go on for months. Most businesses don't make those sweet SaaS margins. Same for airlines.

Other countries are doing loan payment, rent, and interest moratoriums, etc.

We've built everything with growth as an underlying assumption with no ability to pause things and focus on essential services for a month or two and then start back up.

Creditors can experience some of the pain that they normally inflict on others. They are not sacrosanct and are the least important parties in economic relations during an emergency. As normality is restored, they will have new opportunities during the ensuing large scale financial restructuring.

The thing is that a lot of creditors (suppliers basically) are just other businesses. It’s not all bankers holding onto a bunch of debt obligations

Probably ironically banks will be able to make even more money as people pull into credit lines to go over this hump

Bob’s Drywall Supply has net 60 for a delivery of drywall.

Constructor Bill now can’t pay. Bob’s Drywall is a creditor and is on the hook for a product he already shipped. Now Bob’s Drywall Supply can’t pay the company that provided him with Net 90 terms.

So Bob and Bill are now insolvent. And they fire their employees.

Suggesting that creditors somehow deserve “pain,” is just cruel. Creditors don’t “inflict pain” on people — they provide capital to people with a reasonable expectation of getting paid back. Of course I don’t care much about the Payday Lender/predatory lenders so much, but suggesting that creditors deserve some sort of payback is ridiculous. The vast majority of businesses rely on credit, without credit, you would have an economic collapse. And they aren’t the “least important” parties — they are the most important because they’re the ones providing the capital for businesses to operate.

The problem is when everybody takes a hit except the "too big to fail" banks. That's what happened in the last financial crisis, the government bailed out only the big banks by buying their toxic loans at face value. When Obama tried to also bail out individual homeowners it sparked the Tea Party backlash and he pretty much backed off on those plans.

You're twisting history. The tea party backlash was to the bailing out of banks.

You misremember. [1] has the video on CNBC that started the Tea Party.

“Yesterday Rick Santelli, who reports from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade the for CNBC, unleashed a rant against Obama’s newly announced housing bailout plan, intended to help some homeowners refinance mortgages and avoid foreclosure.”

1: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/rick-santel...

The spark for the Tea Party was a viral rant by CNBC's Rick Santelli against a program to help individuals avoid foreclosure. Look it up.

Their main issue was being pro-austerity. Most of what they focused on was cutting funding for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social services. They wanted a smaller government at all costs (though curiously they never called for reducing military spending).

Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, was the group that was specifically against bailing out the banks. The Tea Party was more about not helping regular people.

I thought it was obvious I was talking about financial institutions, which are just going to have to eat it for a while, although with interest rates now at 0% that will be more manageable. I can't address every aspect of the economy in a short comment.

I thought it was obvious I was talking about financial institutions

It's not obvious at all.

The comment you were replying to said "can't pay the booze suppliers" so it's pretty clear they we using the normal business definition of creditor.

As normality is restored, they will have new opportunities during the ensuing large scale financial restructuring.

Yes, creditors restructure payment schedules all the time.

The company, Construction Materials Inc, that supplied Bob's Drywall Supply should accept a delay in payment. In order to ensure payment comes as quickly as possible, an order block (no new orders are accepted from Bob's) or a shipping block (orders are accepted but not shipped) or both are placed on Bob's account.

Now, of course, what of Construction Materials, Inc? Surely they buy the raw materials from someone and ...so on. Everyone does - or should do - the same: don't adjust the terms, simply accept that the past due items are past due and will be paid a bit later than normal.

Eventually it will hit a bank or large financial institution, and they ought to do the same: accept the situation and wait. It's costly when businesses go bankrupt and everyone knows that this situation is affecting everyone else and will blow over in about six weeks.

At some point it hits Joe the employee and he can’t wait 6 months to get paid because he lives paycheck to paycheck and will starve by then. Overall you are right until it comes to individuals. A dry wall supplier can close its doors for six months and their products will t go bad. Joe the employee can’t just not eat for six months. If we do this systematically we would arrive at UBI. We would also need to delay all tax collection and so forth.

That's where 0% credit comes in. It needs to take the whole chain. We shut down for 3 months. Net 60 terms become net 150. Net 90 becomes net 180. Everyone pays as planned, just up to 6 months later and with no interest.

This could help, but note that it still puts a crimp in things, because entities that extend credit (in any form) are counting on previous debts being paid in order to offer money/goods to other customers.

This applies even to the banks at the top of the chain -- at least until you get to (in the U.S.) the Fed itself, which can will money into existence if needed.

Creditors absolutely inflict pain on people who do not pay. That the borrower agreed to the pain is hardly a moral high ground.

This is why the money has to go to the bottom so it can bubble up. All debts get paid off along the way. Government bails out the small business, the small business pays the distributor, they pay their creditor, etc. Investors still make money at the top.

If bubble up economics becomes a thing I want full credit.

Yes, I hope that would work.

If the 700 billion dollars for quantitative easing went to 200 million U.S. adults, that'd be $3,500 apiece. If spent at the rate of $700 a week, that'd be five weeks' worth.

QE was a combination of asset purchases and loans. It couldn't have gone to individual people.

Andrew Yang has been pushing for this kind of "trickle-up" economics for awhile now with his UBI platform.

There may be no underlying financial issue, but percentage wise we're going down much faster. September to Oct 2008 was a 9.5% drop (steepest month drop). Past 30 days was a 20.5% drop. Tracking s&p 500.

The stock market is not the economy.

It doesn't even seem to be a real index on economic activity anymore either...

In my personal view 'The Market's purely reflect consumer confidence. They appear divorced from actual reality, aside from how that affects the mindset of easily panicked lemmings.

Money purely reflects consumer confidence, and as long as the economy is based on money, so does the entire economy.

Not really. There's tons of steady demand to drive money forward. You can double or half average consumer confidence and it won't change the price of a burger or a t-shirt.

One consumer? No. All consumers, it definitely will.

How big of an area do you need to see this effect? I've never heard of this kind of pricing difference on a city, county, or state basis.

And the stock market varies wildly on a daily and monthly basis without affecting the prices of almost anything.

It seems clear to me that money is not even close to affected by consumer confidence the way the stock market is.

The difference in this case is that the stock market is a highly efficient process, where feedback paths are short, information is shared widely, and there is potential to make a lot of money on other's misjudgements, automatically correcting the price in the process. This means changes in confidence are almost immediately reflected in the price.

T-shirts, on the other hand, much more slowly change to match confidence, for the same reasons. If you think people collectively over- or undervalue T-shirts, it is rather hard to make money off of that mistake. In part because it implies moving physical stock, but also because they are a relatively refined product. Markets for natural resources see some of the same fluctuations as stock markets, although not to the same degree.

Thinking something is over or under valued is very different from general confidence in the economy. In daily life you're not betting on the economy, you're part of it. You work and spend even if you think the nukes are going to kill everyone. Confidence has a vastly weaker connection to demand for goods.

If people think the dollar is significantly overvalued, they'll switch to gold, bitcoin, rolls of toilet paper, or other forms of ad-hoc currency. That's what happens in countries with 1000% inflation, for example.

Stock market is a tricky gauge. People sell for all sorts of reasons even if some of it is rational. Always good to remember that the fact that there’s a sale also means there’s a buyer. Another fact is there could be large number of shares that never traded. It’s hard to dissect this information from price alone. All we know from a dip is that there’s more demand to sell than buy. That’s hardly enough information to see the full picture.

That's because of people panic selling, and it's a wonderful opportunity to buy cheap stocks.

The problem is stocks continue to fall — hard — and nobody knows where the floor is.

It’s also unclear how long it will take everything to recover, if they do continue to fall.

Stock prices don't really matter in the short-term, and we are lucky that the underlying financials are good, and that -- at the end of the largest bull run in history -- many of the largest companies have lots of cold hard cash. Apples hundreds of billions don't look so silly now, do they?

Oh, BTW, the floor is hard-set at zero, which they'll never get to, since -- given there is no underlying financial issue, and that demand is going to be higher than ever once we're done with this -- all these companies have intrinsic value.

I won't opine on the correct value of the stock market at the moment, but the drop in demand due to measures needed to preserve life cause a financial issue. Many/most consumer-facing businesses can't withstand a drop in demand to near zero for a period of at least several months. So those businesses, absent some sort of national bailout, will go bankrupt. Or at the very least, they will go dormant. Either way there will be layoffs, and of course the laid off employees will reduce their spending further. Even once the virus is under control, it will take time to reverse this damage.

Yes, of course, the market won't go to zero. But some firms will go under, and we don't know how severe the economic impact will be. Just because the crisis began with a natural disaster rather than a financial one doesn't mean there can't be serious financial impact.

Sure, but economic fallout from natural disasters typically recover much faster. It doesn't shock our trust in the financial system, and people are more community minded, since no person can be blamed for it. Already, we are seeing bipartisan attempts at governmental stimulus. Did you ever think you'd see Trump and Pelosi agree on government spending, because the white house was pretty quick to endorse the house's plan.

But back to pandemics. Pandemics typically result in major booms due to (a) the die off, (b) the pent-up demand, and (c) the fact that everyone still trusts the financial system. The 1918 pandemic certainly caused major GDP losses, and short-term pain, but also caused the 20s

But doesn't the 20's then lead to the 30s? And can't an argument be made that WW1 would have contributed as well?

I think you’re overlooking the cascading effect of a lot of small businesses closing doors (voluntarily or involuntarily) while this blows over — not knowing how long it will take to blow over.

Short of a bailout, that’s not going to be easy to recover from. And even a bailout won’t be enough to bring about a full recovery anytime soon.

One potential path here is:

- Local and state governments provide bailout funds to suffering local businesses

- Said governments issue new bonds to pay for this relief

- Fed uses the recently-announced QE funds to buy the government bonds

The question then becomes if communities can get organized enough to approve this, and then convince ratings agencies that the new bonds are good.

No issue? Corporate debt ...

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/03/12/c...

I am down 1 large in the uk today £10k

You should only buy now if you a) suddenly have a lot of cash, AND b) can definitely take a long-term position without needing the money for 5-10 years.

Everyone else should wait for the upward trend to make sure it's not going to get much worse. You want to "predict the staircase" and not "the floor".

> Everyone else should wait for the upward trend to make sure it's not going to get much worse.

"Don't try to catch a falling knife."

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fallingknife.asp

To put a finer point on it, a fully funded safety net is a good idea before moving money into investments. Enough to cover basic expenses for, let’s say, a year. How long exactly depends on your risk tolerance.

Not a financial advisor, standard disclaimers, etc.

> The difference here is that there is no underlying financial issue.

This is like looking at just the income statement as sign of business health. Balance sheet and cash flow are pretty important.

> there is no underlying financial issue

As someone with an economics degree I can assure you that a complete and utter collapse of aggregate demand is an underlying financial issue.

Several restaurants in downtown Seattle have already closed. More will probably come over the next few weeks.

As I expect this to largely continue to be a problem through summer the tourism industry in downtown is going to be hit very hard.

The economic side of this is going to hit like a ton-of-bricks. It's going to be very painful, and we should do everything we can as a society to take care of those that are hit hardest by it.

The Alaska cruise season will likely not happen this year. The Canadian government has banned cruise ships from Canadian ports until 1 July. Legally, the foreign-flagged ships of major cruise lines must call at a foreign port between calls at US ports. All Alaska cruises call at Vancouver on their way from Seattle to Alaska.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/canada-suspends-cr...

Maybe they'll sail under the US flag?

Could they go to Russia?

Who do you think will be on the death boats?

Then they'd have to pay U.S. wages and working conditions. Avoiding that is the whole reason they are foreign flagged.

More generally, just US laws period. That affects a lot more than just worker compensation and conditions.

Cruise ships were the a primordial Uber -- regulatory arbitrage to compete in an existing industry. The put a hotel on water just to avoid hotel regulations.

I know. That'd be a great ancillary upside to this pandemic.

Relevant video. https://youtu.be/m3yyA12PAy0

Arbitrary legal restrictions can be changed, especially if unusual circumstances require some changes.

Over 50 restaurants in Seattle have announced temporary or permanent closure (as of a couple days ago)

Suspend rent payments

Without work, I can’t make hours to keep my health insurance, so I’ll be forced to buy COBRA, which is just as expensive as rent.

(Or I could risk going without, while living at this continent’s ground zero for a pandemic.)

Entire industries are being shut down. There are no easy answers here.

Helicopter money to small businesses.

Protip: COBRA is almost always more expensive than a comparable plan you can buy from an exchange. Often hundreds of dollars a month more expensive if you have a family.

The only problem with getting a plan on an exchange is that you may need to satisfy a deductible again. YMMV of course.

With COBRA I believe you can also pay your premium after the month it's due. This can be advantageous because you can opt to not pay for your last month before switching to another plan if you end up not using any services from your COBRA plan that month.

I'm curious how this works in practice? Rent pays for groundskeepers, repairs and maintenance, your landlord's income, insurance, etc. Mortgages seem more straightforward. You would still owe the original amount and are likely still accruing interest.

New problem: debt secured on property investments to businesses.

Landlords don't have expenses?

Let them go bankrupt or have the banks suspend mortgages.

Not having a homeless crisis is far more important than protecting rentiers. Just throw them under the bus.

They are not actually doing anything anyhow.

I have property tax. It's not just mortgages. And there's all sorts of compliance issues even in a closed building.

> Let them go bankrupt or have the banks suspend mortgages.

Is this a serious comment or are you trolling?

Forget about a recession, the devastation a policy like this would cause would plunge the US into a full blown depression. Deflation and asset price collapse across the board. YEARS of stagnation.

(To me) the answer here seems clear: A direct bailout in the form of $ to consumers and some mix of direct $ and tax credits to businesses.

"No such thing as a free lunch" - some 80's unpopular lady, but she might have a point!

Yes it's like the "cancel all debts" idea. Great idea, but emm.. by the way you do realise that "money in your bank account" is technically a debt that the bank owes you, so that gets cancelled too!

Ah "cancel all debts to people not banks". Great idea, but emm. OK so the bank now doesn't have the assets on it's books, goes bankrupt can't pay you that money in your savings account.

"cancel all debts to people not banks, and let the government bail out those banks". Great Idea, but.... something something hyperinflation.

etc.

Who pays the landlords, they aren't public utilities after all. Yet, a government stimulus to landowners instead of citizens would be a bit disingenuous in my opinion.

They announced $50 billion in SBA loans (up to $2 million per business) for small and medium businesses. Interest rate is 3.75%. These kind of funds will help a lot of businesses float through:

https://www.sba.gov/about-sba/sba-newsroom/press-releases-me...

Those numbers are atrocious. But if SBA is offering that I wonder what small business loans from banks will look like, 1-1.5%?

Atrocious? For an unsecured loan?

Loans? Not grants? While large businesses get quantitative easing, bailouts of airline industries, etc? Sounds about right.

Also from the announcement, lol:

"businesses with credit available elsewhere are not eligible"

Ah, so if you can get credit elsewhere, you can't get our help, even if it's needed.

I haven't read about the QE4 plans. How will it work?

This is just tip of the iceberg, now that this is declared national emergency, FEMA money and other sources are unlocked. Meanwhile, it's just the first week of things heating up to the point of these shut downs. Give the government time.

>> Give the government time.

They have time enough to shut down businesses in a snap of their fingers. I don't think it's too much to expect at least a basic outline of a remuneration plan at the same time. I do not see why we should give them time on one issue but not the other.

Well you're talking state government vs federal government. Different departments.

Governments have more fiscal freedom to give out loans than grants. Many of the prior bailouts were also loans (at terms that no bank would offer hence the bailout bit).

Businesses should take advantage of these, and a restaurant operating in a city where operating a restaurant is illegal will not have credit available anywhere else.

Quantitative easing and most of the bailouts I can think of are in form of loans, not grants. The 9/11 airline bailout was 1/3 grants and 2/3 of it was in form of loans. Loans are the default form of bailout pretty much always. They turn into "grants" when the worst-hit businesses can't repay them, but they still allow business to continue and not bankrupt their suppliers and amployees.

At least in California, there will be guidance about evictions and the plan is to provide housing for all 108,000 homeless people. Italy has frozen many financial/property/contractual relations and it's likely that this will spread to other jurisdictions.

I'm a little surprised that commercial landlords of businesses that are affected aren't stepping up to offer rent concessions. Yes, I get they don't want to take a hit -- but they're generally in much better positions to do so than restaurants and cafés that run on less than 5% profit margins during good times.

(And, yes, I'm sure the more leftist and anti-capitalist out there will say "but are you really surprised?," and they'll absolutely have a point.)

It is your government's responsibility, local or federal I don't mind. This is why you pay taxes, to provide services to your citizens, one of which is disaster preparedness. I wouldn't be quick to put the burden onto businesses. If such a thing were mandated you would pretty quickly bankrupt a bunch of landlords who were not in the position to take it, and you would shift a bunch of property ownership to the banks, the consquences of which I am not sure of.

It isn't so much about greed but rather responsibility. Is it really a businesses responsibility to take care of citizens? Shouldn't the government be doing that, and don't you pay them to do that?

I know America is skewed a bit, having businesses provide you your healthcare probably confuses their role in society. But something is off if you feel we should turn to a commercial realtor for community support.

I don't disagree with that, to be clear -- my thought is more that everyone is in this together. There's a lot of actions only a government can practically take, and others they would probably do better than private actors even if private actors could also do it. (Health insurance being a prime example.) But none of that precludes a landlord from giving businesses (and, of course, individuals and families) a rent break without waiting for the government to compel them to do so.

You're certainly not wrong, and I've seen a number of instances where landlords are being lenient with rent to tenants which is certainly commendable.

definitely not just eatery. Someone I know work in retail front and interior design firm. Needless to say, they had to let go a few workers because many retail clients are putting all their projects on hold.

Australia already has an economic stimulus under way, but I am not sure how much it will help brick and mortar retail and hospitality.

A lot of restaurants stay in the red for the first 3~5 years. I have a friend who just opened a brewery in Tennessee in December. They don't serve food; it's just beer, so they might be alright - but I should probably call and see how he's doing. I sure hope they've started bottling to canning.

You'd hope owners would keep a buffer of either cash or loans/credit-line to last three months, but a lot of them starting up may not have that bootstrap capital. Restaurants that have been around for years with good management can probably weather a month or two. Even the best well restaurants are going to feel the strain if we go to month three.

This time of year is the beginning of a slump past Mother's Day for restaurants too (at least in the UK). And they probably won't get much out of Mother's Day this year either.

Coming out of the Xmas period, May, June, July looming which are low turnover periods.

If you're already teetering, you're going to fail. The UK's had a lot of big chains shut down or scale back recently too, there was a big explosion in restaurants and bars about 5 years ago and the first round of losers happened over the last couple of years.

It's probably best if we aggregate these links in one place rather than having a separate thread for each new location. (Similarly to what we did at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22550840)

NYC: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589463

California ("calls for", not enforced): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22587062

Others?

Someone has already posted a California announcement somewhere.

That was a recommendation rather than a requirement, so I thought we wouldn't include it. But you're right, it's substantially the same story. I'll add it above.

LA: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-03-15/coronaviru...

Illinois: https://twitter.com/GovPritzker/status/1239387572884905988

https://www2.illinois.gov/Pages/news-item.aspx?ReleaseID=212...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-il...

DC: https://twitter.com/MayorBowser/status/1239247668347633664

Ohio https://twitter.com/GovMikeDeWine/status/1239275883560648705...

Wow, the responses...

People in Ohio think the virus is a liberal conspiracy.

Please don't take HN threads into regional or political flamewar.

That was an observation of fact.

Oregon announcement expected Monday: https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/oregon-gov-ka...

MA: https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/26-new-coronavirus-case...

Something similar to Reddit's megathreads may well be useful for HN.

Can you link me to an example or two in practice?

https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/fiusxv/covid19_megath...

OP/mod just edits a post to put a list of links in the top self-text comment or a top-pinned comment.

Thanks!

This, yes, thanks.

The Netherlands closed all schools, cafes and restaurants yesterday (Sunday 15 March).

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/03/millions-stay-home-as-...

When talking about economic damage it is also worth thinking about what we are trying to avoid in the US- if SARS-Cov2 gets to 60% of the population, then at a 2% case fatality rate we are looking at 4 million excess deaths. Most importantly, that is a humanitarian tragedy that we must avoid. However, having numbers also let’s us put an economic value out there for what we are trying to save.

A 1% reduction in the case fatality rate saves roughly 2M people. Let’s assume that each would live another 10 years and that each person year is worth $100k. That means a 1% reduction in the case fatality rate is worth 2 trillion dollars. That’s roughly 10% of GDP. You can play with the numbers a bit, it’s hard not to end up in the “taking a multi year recession might be worth it” territory. Obviously, there are decreasing marginal returns to various actions, but the it’s important to keep in mind the scale of what we are trying to avoid.

Actually then CFR would probably be like 5% if medical services would be overcome.

So more like 11m excess deaths.

I picked a lower number to get less quibbles from any doubters. But yeah, bringing CFR from 5% to 2% at 60% infection you can justify actions that otherwise seem nuts.

Honestly, the number I take issue with is the $100k. In terms of household income, this is far above the median.

The actuarial value of a human life is difficult to calculate, but it is definitely above the economic output. There are large 2nd order effects- the pain of those left behind. I picked $100k because it made the math easy, but it's also between the $50k and $129k numbers i grabbed off Wikipedia.

Also, this is one of the rare times it does makes sense to go with mean as the measure of center.

Current total deaths are 6,000 with China already saying the worst is behind them. Why the US would have 4M deaths?

Probably means 4M assuming that no containment measures are taken.

Like someone said on twitter, “In the end, it will be impossible to know if we overreacted or did too much, but it will be QUITE apparent if we under reacted or did too little.”

Right, the rich have nothing to lose, the poorer capitalists pay for the over reaction. That's why we see an over reacting, panicking society, because the rich benefit from it. It is the only reason they do anything, I hate to break it to you.

If nothing is done, the least privileged will suffer the most due lack of access to health services and a financial safety net.

But what is most assuredly going to happen is what benefits rich people. The rest is collateral damage or pure luck. Is what it is, nothing new under the sun.

China nipped this before they spent much time in the exponential phase:

http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/#g8

US is tracking highly with Italy, but 12 days behind.

How is the US 12 days behind? Where does that number come from? The first Italian case was a month after the first US case.

https://i.redd.it/apxxmlc4kfm41.jpg

Interesting, but to truly track similar to Italy wouldn't we need higher numbers being we're a much larger populous? Just curious.

Each outbreak is regional, having the numbers normalised to the total country population doesn't really give interesting information. It is the medical system of that specific region that is at risk of saturation.

The US isn't doing anywhere near as much testing as Italy.

Population of Italy is 60m and the US is 327m.

Land size if Italy is 116,347 mi², land size of US is 3.797 million mi²

I don't think it's fair to make any assumptions from those infection numbers when the two countries are vastly different.

Iirc the first us case was isolated, what really matters is the first community spread. The 12 days comes from lining up the curves. Our current # of cases is where Italy was 12 days ago.

Seems like cherry-picking to me.

Italy has an older population to start with. I don't think the US will remotely reach the chaos we are seeing in Italy.

China shut down their entire economy for about 6 weeks. That's what we're debating here, whether we should do that in the US.

China is still locked down. It can’t unlockdown until they have a way to stop it, they’ve basically managed to reset the clock to early January.

Wuhan is still locked down, but most of China seems somewhat "restarted" by now.

Yeah, most if not all of the larger cities are back to work now.

The worst is behind China because they've instituted heavy lockdown measures beyond what would be acceptable in the US, and enacted emergency measures like constructing temporary hospitals and isolation centres. They're still under lockdown - Beijing for instance is mulling a mandatory 14-day quarantine for anyone entering the city. So far, only a handful of other countries, mostly Asian ones, have had success slowing down this virus.

Most of Europe and North America is on a steady exponential curve upwards with no sign of slowing down yet. Germany has already clearly said that they expect 70-80% of the population to be infected eventually - 60M people, of whom ~2% or 1.2M will likely die. Scale that up to the USA.

Without a vaccine, the only way this virus peters out is through eventual herd immunity, which will require a sizeable fraction of the population to catch it.

The number coming out of China do not seem... completely above board and have been questioned by many people. Also as other have said, China, being an authoritarian country, had the power to lock down in ways that the US simply is not ready for or willing to put up with. Already in KY we've had a man who refused to self isolate after testing positive so now we have to station someone outside his house. We have 21 cases total.

We need a couple more cases like that for people to be out baying for blood and for pandemic-level laws that allow people to be jailed/isolated forcibly.

I agree that "millions will die" is just pure panic. But I'd like to point out that China is most definitely _not_ out of the woods yet. And won't be until there's a cure. This merry-go-round could start again there at a moment's notice.

I don't get this sentiment, I mean numbers are pretty clear at this point. We have +-2% mortality rate, and that when system is not utterly overloaded and those critical patients (15-20%) are getting artificial ventilation and very personalized treatment. Without it, most if not all would die.

So real mortality, once health systems will crumble from the load (we will see in 1 week here in Europe), might be more around 10%. Not many seem to like to accept this simple fact, happy to hear where my conclusion is wrong. I mean if you have water/mucus in your lungs, that's it, very little can be done.

If we take >50% of earth population would eventually take it (which seems more realistic, since we have no vaccine, and no effective treatment and those won't work very well in many places like India or most of Africa), we're talking about 80 million - 400 million of dead (2-10% of 4 billions). I don't see how we can avoid this - we can't shutdown whole global economy for even 6 months, whole system didn't evolve with this safeguard in mind. People will have to start working again. Producing food, goods, services etc.

Now lets be skeptical and have only 10% of those horrible numbers coming true - still talking about 8-40 millions of dead.

You're confusing things. Not everyone who has the disease is diagnosed or treated in a hospital. In fact the majority of people are probably not. As the healthcare system is stressed, you will see higher "mortality" in the hospital cases because only the extremely severe patients will seek treatment and the rest will try to get by on their own. None of this is _population_ mortality. Meaning, these numbers cannot be extrapolated to the population as a whole, due to the selection bias inherent in them, and the lack of accurate infection rate estimates.

That would cover the sceptical 10%. But OK, lets be really sceptical and have only 1% - still 800k - 4 millions. Sounds a bit like millions to me

This ignores several things. For one thing we might get a reprieve due to seasonality. For another, better treatments will almost certainly be found in the near future. Some are undergoing trials as we speak. Then there's the issue of people who will acquire immunity and therefore cease to be transmission vectors. And then there's the most glaring issue: less than 6K people are likely to die in the _very epicenter_ of the epidemic: in China. Out of 55M people in that region. People are returning to work there now. So this can be contained, with drastic measures. And you can bet drastic measures will be taken if we even begin to approach seven figure casualty counts. Extrapolated from 55M Hubei population to 331M of US population, this would be less than 40K dead: on the order of a severe flu season, but compressed into 3 months. That's in the absence of any advanced treatments, and with a healthcare system arguably inferior to what you'd find in the West.

Sure, though that number that you have memorized for the world population is wrong. We're at approx 7.8 billion rather than 4 billion.

> Current total deaths are 6,000 with China already saying the worst is behind them. Why the US would have 4M deaths?

The official Chinese death statistics are probably severely under-counting deaths, in Wuhan at least. IIRC, they only counted deaths of confirmed cases, but the medical system was so overwhelmed that many, many cases weren't getting confirmed, and people were dying at home.

Also, 2% is very dubious. Italy is at 7%. The Philippines at 8%. I mean, sure these figures are out of people who were tested, but 2% is looking awfully optimistic at this point. So the potential for death reduction is even greater than the intentionally unassailable 1% figure you picked.

Note that in both cases there is a selection bias, due poor testing, and having the majority of initial reported cases being severe enough to reach hospitals. In my opinion, South Korea has better data, due to massive testing, and not having a completely overwhelmed health system. The rate there is 0.6%, which is still significant.

0.6%-1% is what we would be looking at when everyone gets the medical care they need. But many people are suggesting that instead of shutting down a large portion of the economy we let this thing rip through our population. And if we do that, a very small percentage of the population will get the healthcare they need. So the rate we should use when considering the "rip the bandaid" off approach should be closer to 6% than 0.6%.

> And if we do that, a very small percentage of the population will get the healthcare they need. So the rate we should use when considering the "rip the bandaid" off approach should be closer to 6% than 0.6%.

And if you take the "rip the bandaid off" approach, you can't restrict your analysis to just CoVID-19 deaths. The strain on the medical system will mean there will be an increase in deaths from other causes that didn't get the treatment they need.

Those tested represent a tiny fraction of those likely infected.

Yes. But South Korea is still at 0.6%, and they've tested everyone and their dog, and provided top care to everyone.

This is incorrect. As of the weekend gone past South Korea had tested 248,000 people out of a population of 50,000,000, with 8,086 +ve cases and 72 deaths.

<300k is not "and they've tested everyone and their dog"

There is a lot of memetic nonsense flying around about this online and this is part of it

Hm, ok. That would make it in the region of 1%. Thought my numbers were out of date since I heard 0.6% somewhere else.

1% of what?

8000-ish cases. 70-ish deaths => ~0.9% fatality rate. Very thorough testing, so 0.9% is likely to be a reasonable estimate of the real fatality rate.

Granted, 250k-ish of 50 million is a small sample, but you've got to assume that they haven't tested randomly but tested people who have been in touch with known cases.

You are almost there.

> but you've got to assume that they haven't tested randomly but tested people who have been in touch with known cases

Yes. Well with symptoms etc. So of the people who got tested they are much more likely to test +ve. I agree. Which means real cases are massively more widespread than those tested.

It is believed here in the UK that this has been fairly rife for a while now, but those who got it are not statistically counted anywhere. The real fatality rate is way less than 0.9

I don't follow your reasoning. South Korea has tested 35 times the number of positive cases. That's a lot. Presumably, it's not a random sample, but people who have been in touch with people who have had obvious symptoms. Maybe some random sampling in outbreak areas, I don't know their methodology.

Certainly there's a number of people that are not picked up throughout that process. This means that the real death rate is not ~70/8000. The real denominator is bigger.

But it wouldn't be on the order of 10 times bigger. In most of the groups of sick people, there's likely to be some that show enough symptoms to prompt a test, with a positive test leading most of that group to be tracked down. The exception would be tiny groups that somehow did not spread the disease further, or untracably spread it to similar tiny groups.

I don't buy that there's a massive amount of such lonely cases out there. Twice as many as detected? Sure. But not a dramatically bigger number than that.

Maybe there's a way to show mathematically that this reasoning is wrong, if so, please feel free.

I'll use London for an example. I personally know many people who believe they have this, and, I believe I and 3 friends picked it up from each other after one visited Milan in Feb. Loads of people have this and are not counted.

> But it wouldn't be on the order of 10 times bigger.

I believe it is of that order.

> In most of the groups of sick people, there's likely to be some that show enough symptoms to prompt a test, with a positive test leading most of that group to be tracked down

Literally not because most people won't be tested unless they are in need of hospitalisation

248k out of 50M is still a very impressive sample size; especially compared to most scientific papers coming out these days.

There is a persistent assertion that "everyone" in SK is being tested. It's not true. There is a pretty high chance that a high % of the infected are almost asymptomatic. Fatigue might be the only thing some get. Others nothing. The problem is people asserting without statistical extrapolation a base fatality rate predicated on a division of [+ve tests/deaths]. It is exactly what WHO have done before in other epidemic like situations and it doesn't make sense.

Previous epidemics have seen these massive similar ratios promoted only to later be revised aggressively. I can offer examples if required

I am curious of those examples. The big outbreaks in the past the WHO has focused on include MERS, Ebola and H1N1. There's a really good Wendover video on the WHO Ebola response and it's pretty impressive.

That said, Ebola got people sick quickly (compared to SARS-cov2) and it started in areas that weren't as globally connected, limiting the spread.

Still, there was a lot of hype of H1N1 that never really panned out. Still this is a totally new virus, from a family of viruses that has historically never been bad (a quarter of colds are caused coronaviruses).

If it's May 1st and there are <50k dead in the US with the patient rates going down, I think people are going to start to seriously question anything the WHO says going into the future. The alternative is that by May we'll be hearing news reports of how 90% of hospital in <insert big city .. London, Brussels, Atlanta> are at capacity with people being shipped to suburbs and individual 3D printing ventilator parts.

Honestly, I will be surprised either way.

In terms of fatality, the Diamond Princess cruise ship [1] has the helpful property that everyone on board was tested. Nobody recovering/asymptomatic not getting tested, nobody being refused a test.

The wikipedia page lists 700 infections and 7 deaths.

Of course there are still certain biases: on one hand it happened early, when hospitals weren't overloaded; on the other, cruise ships tend to have more older people. And as I don't speak Japanese I haven't traced those numbers to primary sources.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_on_c...

WHO Sitreps have the aggregated data.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

From: Situation report - 55, 15 March 2020

3.5% mortality worldwide (there are totals at the end of country listings)

..and they were trapped on that ship for days. Amesh Adalja (infectious disease MD at John Hopkins) has been in a few interviews where he commented, SARS-Cov2 is similar to other viruses where the initial dosage does impact the severity of the infection.

I hate myself for saying this but if one wants a cold calculous thought experiment, what about thinking about the mortality age? mostly older people, not only don't work but are also often a net burden to society.

Yes we've already extracted all the value we could extract from them. Better get rid of the useless husks asap.

Do you realize how that sounds?

If we’re gonna talk about the economic value of individuals to society, it makes sense to evaluate that value correctly. The premise of the discussion was that a life has finite value to society.

don't hate yourself. china is facing a huge economic epidemic from the elderly and although noone wants to be "that guy" this virus outbreak could actually be a good thing for them and the rest of the world to curb the elderly population.

https://time.com/5523805/china-aging-population-working-age/

its a hard but fair and valid moral question

This is a misguided thought.

Older people are more affected by SARS-2, but they are also more affected by nearly every disease. It comes with age.

Another huge factor is we're very, very early in this crisis. On average, it takes longer for younger, stronger people to succumb to their symptoms. Even if death is not a common outcome for young people, there are concerns of long term lung and organ damage. Not to mention if you have a bad case, it literally feels like you're suffocating.

Data I've seen from Italy and China showed two important factors:

* 41% of people in China's ICU's were under 50 * Italy's average death age from COVID-19 has been dropping. I'd expected this trend until we're about 4 to 6 weeks into this being widespread in Italy (currently 2 or 3 at the moment).

Its already in the model- 10 quality adjusted years of life. You could reasonable drive that down, but not to less than 3 I'm pretty sure.

I don't think it's appropriate to model current output though. This is a social / political question as much as a economic one. I mostly view retirees as "paid up" members of society and, since I'd like my kids and grandkids to think this way when I'm old be not feeble, believe they should be treated as full members of society.

Does the model include costs too - not just earnings potential? like social security?

To be clear I am 100% with your priorities just think it's an interesting - albeit totally inhumane - thought experiment.

And if the mortality rates (from Italy) are fundamentally wrong/misleading?

When it is all said and done, we will find out that the mortality rate is very close to regular flu (around 0.1%). Italy, China and other countries with high mortality rate are not a great model because they were caught unprepared and their health system cannot sustain a moderate peak in hospitalizations. Also keep in mind that a large segment of the infected people go untested in most places which affects the denominator. I see many epidemiologists estimating that the number of true infected is 5 or even 10 fold of what we are seeing being reported. If that is the case, then we can assume the mortality rate certainly drops to less than 1% and most likely ranges in the 0.5% to 0.1%.

Perhaps an unknowable ahead of time, but if we go into recession due to shutting everything down rather than due to poor market fundamentals, the recovery from the recession could be fairly rapid by historical standards.

Who cares about Case Fatality Rate (the % diagnosed that die), it depends on how many cases are measured. What you need to base yourself on is estimated Infected Fatality Rate (the % infected that die) which is what the CDC states is about 0.1% for the seasonal flu in the US. In Korea the CFR is closing on the IFR as they're testing thousands of asymptomatic people, currently at 0.6% AFAIK.

Infected Fatality Rate will likely end up at 0.3% taking the diamond princess cruise ship as a model (this assumes access to quality care and a PCR false negative rate of 29% adjusted for the higher average age on the cruise).

Worst case: 327 million people * 0.6 (a worst case nr) * 0.005 = 981 000 dead.

More likely 30% gets infected, we figure out what treatment options are optimal and we end up with something like 30% infected and a 0.2% IFR = 196 000 dead.

When running out of hospital beds the fatality rate increases a lot though.

IMO the only question now is how long it takes the rest of the country to follow suite. Here in NC our governor announced the closing of all public schools on Friday, but I've heard from several friends that in my city (Raleigh) the downtown bars and restaurants were pretty much at normal capacity this weekend. I don't think the general public is going to truly take this seriously until they're told that they have to.

Illinois announced restaurants and bars closed except for pickup/delivery effective after close of business on Monday.

Ohio as well.

Help me understand this logic... it's not OK for customers to be a few feet away from other people in the dining area of a restaurant, but it's OK for low-paid (and often undocumented) line cooks and chefs, etc, to be right next to each other, interacting, sweating and toiling away in a hot kitchen? These people are heroes if they choose to show up for work, especially since takeout orders hardly tip.

It’s more OK, because the pool of customers is constantly rotating while the pool of line cooks is mostly static. Incidental contact from picking up food is much less infectious than breathing the same air for an hour.

What? All the cooks are breathing the same air for an entire shift, in a smaller, hotter, enclosed area.

Right. What matters is that they’re the same set of cooks, so if an infection spreads the number of people it can spread to is limited.

No, it's not the same set, and it's not limited. Employees have different shifts, days off, vacation, callouts, etc. They all still go home after work and interact with their family. And the working conditions essentially guarantee that if one person is carrying the virus, everyone in the kitchen will get it, which is certainly not true in front-of-house.

This is a government policy that essentially tells low-paid line cooks and kitchen staff they are disposable and a lower priority than all the relatively wealthy people whose meals they are preparing.

You’re looking at this through a very weird lens. Low paid line cooks and kitchen staff are the ones who most need this, because they don’t have savings or a month of food stocked - where are they going to get their own food for the duration of the shutdown? It’s absolutely true that it’s still a transmission vector, but human society can’t function with zero transmission vectors.

Yes, they need to work, but they -- and front-of-house staff -- would be far better off with restaurants that are open and functioning. Perhaps not at 100%, but they could certainly allow half-capacity or "shift seating".

I'm sorry but it's simply a very bad look, when it is mandated by the government. Nearly everyone else has the luxury of remaining isolated and avoiding exposure, except for this small segment of vulnerable and low-paid workers, whose workplace has almost zero protection, to provide the most essential human necessity -- food.

There may be a misunderstanding here. The shutdowns we're seeing in the US aren't full lockdowns - under current plans, most businesses will remain open and most people will continue to go to work. I'd agree with what you're saying if there were a full lockdown happening that arbitrarily excluded to-go restaurants, but we're just doing targeted shutdowns of the biggest transmission vectors.

> most people will continue to go to work

Virtually all white collar workers, tech, administrative, managerial - work from home. Teachers, school admins & university workers - home. Entertainment (shows, sports, movies, concerts) - home. Apple - home.

Shitty jobs that nobody cares about except during a crisis: janitorial/sanitation - work despite the risks. Cooks/food prep - work despite the risks. Grocery store/Walmart - work despite the risks. Truckers - work despite the risks.

(Trucking isn't necessarily a shitty job but a lot of people seem gleeful that technology may render them obsolete in the near future.)

How do you work from home as a janitor?

That's obviously the point -- while everyone else stays safely at home, people in those jobs must come to the site and get up close to germs, other people, and possibly the virus itself. Who do you think is going to do all this "deep cleaning and disinfecting"? The CEO?

I agree, if you have never worked in the service industry for long or don't think this is a problem I urge you read through this thread: https://twitter.com/nomedabarbarian/status/12329226617406136...

I won't be touching delivery food or fast food (or going to any restaurants) until this is over. I feel terrible for the workers in these industries and I hope we pass some kind of mortgage/rent pause and relief to people laid off or not scheduled but stopping the spread of the virus has to be our number one priority.

We need more than mortgage and rent suspension and relief. IRS has aggregate quarterly-granular data on how much businesses in a NAICS/SIC classification has paid out in wages. But not specifically who; the accountants, payroll processors and business owners who DIY payroll have that information.

We need a simultaneous approach. IRS creates a modified 941 form. Every business who files either 941 or 944 fills out new form. It has enough information to link it already-filed 941/944. And fields for list of employees, and where their pay is usually sent.

Direct helicopter drop fiscal stimulus to employers and employees. Employers in specific NAICS/SIC coded industries closed by law get wages they would normally pay taken care of as a straight grant. Direct deposit wages to employees directed by employees, cash at SSA or similar FedGov office parking lot drive thrus for the unbanked. Statistical modeling to roughly make up tip wages. Link to landlord-submitted data or statistical data is used to model and impute an additional grant package to cover a business’ rough revenue figure. Utilities-submitted data is used to estimate a third grant package. Wages, rent and skeleton utilities are granted month by month, retroactively if necessary to stricken industries. Healthcare is emergency Medicare-for-all for impacted employees. Any remaining revenue funds required are through unsecured loans at Fed funds rate.

This gives us a chance to resume our economic footing faster to status ante quo than letting businesses go under and wait a decade for the economy and equities market to recover.

Link quarantine peer pressure to grants. Each time someone from the business steps out of quarantine orders and is caught by LEO, their grant is reduced by 30%, and everyone else in their workplace has theirs reduced by a proportion (1 / total-employees&owners), with a message saying who stepped out.

Should do similar for industries deemed strategically critical and employees must come in. Sanitation, defense, energy, emergency response, transport and delivery, etc.

Take the currency hit on this grant tsunami, and hope for a rocket ride back up starting in a couple years when the vaccine is out to make up the monetary weakness.

The same cooks. The restaurant has maybe 70 employees total.

I also live in the Raleigh area, and it has just been baffling how care-free everyone is...

The relevant facts are, one, only much older people have to worry about it, and two, the cure already exists in washing yourself. This common flu is here to stay, the absolute risk to vast majority of people is extremely insignificant.

That's categorically false. Read more, and get educated.

There’s nothing false about it. Fatality rate for 50 and below is a paltry 0.2%, let alone the infection rate is very low as well. The incubation period is long and symptoms for most are mild, so it’s here to stay as it’s easily spreadable. I dont understand your position!

> Fatality rate for 50 and below is a paltry 0.2%

These fatality rate estimates assume top quality medical care. And this crisis is quite simply not "here to stay"; decisive measures can definitely "flatten the curve" and perhaps even lower R0 so much that the virus stops spreading altogether, and cases start dropping towards zero.

> Fatality rate for 50 and below is a paltry 0.2%

Assuming no medical treatment because the medical system is already full? I doubt it.

"There’s nothing false about it."

Actually many of the statements from your post were absolutely false.

"Fatality rate for 50 and below is a paltry 0.2%"

For a typical seasonal influenza, the fatality rate for that age bracket is around 0.01%, so this is much more lethal to those people than the flue.

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-compared-to-flu-...

Italy is recording a death every four minutes. The annual flu doesn't even come close to that.

That's not true necessarily. Italy has had this outlier before

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197121...

Highlights

- In the winter seasons from 2013/14 to 2016/17, an estimated average of 5,290,000 ILI cases occurred in Italy, corresponding to an incidence of 9%. - More than 68,000 deaths attributable to flu epidemics were estimated in the study period.

People keep saying this, but if healthcare systems get overwhelmed then everyone has to worry about this "flu". Adding to that, even the strictest measures will only have visible effects in one or two weeks. We literally have no idea what the situation on the ground will look like by then, even in places like Raleigh. That's why it's entirely appropriate to act now and minimize risk.

I don’t know what makes people like you go online and post this type of incorrect and harmful advice in such a smug fashion. All I can say is you need to educate yourself.

I posted the relevant facts. Please post your relevant facts to counter them. I’ve done my research and until those core facts change my viewpoint remains.

You've posted incorrect and incomplete "facts". Many others in this thread has posted more complete data, please educate yourself and also consider those around you that are more vulnerable.

What would be a reputable source for education? I've been reading reports from the CDC and the WHO, as well as listening to microbiologists I know personally who have been studying coronaviruses for some time. I'm seeing lots of fear here, but nothing concrete. Please, educate me: what am I missing in my information feed?

Covid19 is closer to SARS than the flu, and is known to cause permanent lung, kidney, and testicle damage, even in young and healthy patients.

Even among young patients, the ICU rate is as high as 10%. A low mortality rate for young people assumes access to an ICU.

All of New York State only has about 600 unoccupied ICU beds. If the number of infections in New York breaches 6,000, the fatality rate among young people is likely to be 10-20x that of the flu.

Young people need to worry about Covid19/SARS2

Those are some important facts, thanks for sharing. I’d like to see the probability of healthy people getting permanent damage however. That would change my mind. Until then the extremely low fatality and infection rate for average people, as well as the incubation period being so long that it’s unrealistic to contain it, is enough for me not to worry about it.

You're being selfish. Everything isn't just about you.

reedx8's post is about reedx8's level of worry and personal risk assessment, which is 100% about reedx8.

reedx8's personal risk assessment is only 100% about reedx8 if they have no loved ones, and don't care for any lives other than their own.

Still fair to callout someone that only considers personal risk for being selfish.

Yes. That's selfish, because their actions have effects on others and they need to take that into consideration too.

AIUI, SARS did cause permanent damage because many people were treated with strong anti-inflammatory drugs that suppress the immune system, despite the ongoing viral infection. These will probably be used against COVID-19 as well, especially given ICU shortages. Hopefully we will gain a better understanding over time of how to properly balance the avoidance of life-threatening damage from the immune response (e.g. due to CRS) with still countering the virus effectively.

"as well as the incubation period being so long that it’s unrealistic to contain it, is enough for me not to worry about it."

Remember that low-risk people still get infected, and still infect others. The evidence is fairly conclusive at this point that you're infections even if you lack symptoms, so you can easily be putting the at-risk people in your life (or in communities around you) in significant peril by being careless and thoughtless.

Please be extremely careful with this disease. If you're not going to self-isolate or be more cautious and normal, please do not visit any at-risk people in your life

Uh well it causes bilateral interstitial pneumonia which is inflammation that causes irreversible scarring around the air sacs. If you get it you will have scarring. If you get it badly you will have bad scarring that will impact your future health. If you have an underlying health problem esp if it involves your respiratory system you are fucked. Combine all of this with thousands of your neighbors Unable to breath creates a very interesting union in the ER.

Maybe the Wikipedia article on bilateral interstitial pneumonia will change your mind?

You may have to worry about rioting and looting however.

> low fatality and infection rate for average people

Could you say how're defining "average" because right now it just sounds like "me". There's a lot of people who are non-average and have the very same right to live as the average.

Also if the healthcare system is overloaded it is also overloaded for young people that get another disease or have an accident.

Yep, I am in the unfortunate situation of being an Oregon trying to arrange public health insurance and make doctor's appointments as soon as possible for a worsening long-term digestive condition. I'm definitely concerned about being put off or crowded out of hospitals.

Sorry to be that person, but citation needed? Where is a reputible source for this information?

Nobody know where a reputable source is. It’s just a laundry list of all the ‘talking points’. I keep hearing people say this stuff, but nobody knows where it came from.

It is certainly not the message the CDC is putting out in the USA.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/summ...

The Seattle Times ‘Fact sheet’ is also singing a different tune.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/facts-about...

I've never seen studies that say anything about "permanent lung, kidney, and testicle damage, even in young and healthy patients". Where did you read this?

"young patients, the ICU rate is as high as 10%."

Any links?

Even the very first COVID-19 study [1] showed that 42% of the survivors (and _all_ of the deceased) treated in the Wuhan pulmonary hospitals experienced sepsis. Sepsis [3] causes tissue death all around the body, leading to permanent decrease in the function of the affected organs. Our ways of mitigating sepsis work only for bacterial infections, which COVID-19 isn't [2].

Sepsis aside, just plain pneumonia in adults is no laughing matter: pneumonia survivors are twice as likely to die as others in their demographic, be they rich, poor, old or young [4]. See the long term effects of SARS: if you survive, your health status and exercise capacity will be impaired for a long time, potentially for the rest of your life [5].

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

[2] https://www.epmmagazine.com/news/new-drug-could-stop-sepsis-...

[3] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/sepsis

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4066634/

[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20337995

Quotes from link 1

> Sepsis was a common complication, which might be directly caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection, but further research is needed to investigate the pathogenesis of sepsis in COVID-19 illness.

> 91 (48%) patients had a comorbidity, with hypertension being the most common (58 [30%] patients), followed by diabetes (36 [19%] patients) and coronary heart disease (15 [8%] patients).

>I've never seen studies that say anything about "permanent lung, kidney, and testicle damage, even in young and healthy patients". Where did you read this?

It's obviously bullshit. How would we know about "permanent" damage from a disease a few months old.

Ya know, because we humans can't regenerate organs at the drop of a hat... or at all. So if your lung tissue starts dying, that's it. The best you can hope for is permanent scarring to replace the dead tissue. Scar tissue is a poor replacement for the original by many measures.

>regenerate organs

Some organs can and others can grow in size to compensate for reduce efficiency. Plus, there's no real evidence that Covid is causing organ damage.

> if your lung tissue starts dying, that's it

That's definitely not "it". Your lungs can repair damaged tissue and the system as a whole can adapt to compensate for portions that can't be repaired. And also no real evidence that long term damage is being done.

I don't have any links handy but I've seen reports that in a few cases covid19 has indeed caused permanent lung damage after the infection subsided. Apparently it's rare but possible but don't take my word for it.

I don't think any other organs growing in size are going to compensate for reduced lung function. It's true our bodies adapt to damage but once the tissue is dead it's not coming back.

I downvoted you because I think you have some factual mistakes:

"only much older people have to worry about it"

That's false. There are a number of comorbidities that don't have anything to do with age. Immuno-compromised individuals, or individuals with pulminary conditions, are at risk regardless of their age.

Further, while the risk does go down for younger populations, only children seem to be fairly risk-free. Healthy individuals of all ages have died of this (at rates significantly higher than that of the flu).

Finally, younger people (even children) still get infected by the disease, still incubate it, and still spread it even if they have no or low symptoms. This means low-risk people can easily spread it to high-risk people without being aware of it.

"the cure already exists in washing yourself"

That's false. Handwashing is not a cure. Handwashing is a preventative measure. They are totally different things.

Once infected, handwashing will do nothing to protect you (though can still help protect others, so ill people should continue to handwash). There are no cures for COVID-19. There is no vaccine for COVID-19. There are no widespread treatments for COVID-19 (though some human trials underway). The only care we can currently provide care for people with COVID-19 is to treat the symptoms.

"This common flu is here to stay"

That's false. Coronavirus is not influenza. It is a type of coronavirus, and is closely related to SARS. The CFR of influenza is around 0.1%, while the Coronavirus is estimated to be around 1% (or higher if medical care becomes saturated).

"the absolute risk to vast majority of people is extremely insignificant."

That's unknown, but disagrees with pretty much all of the expert opinion on the topic. The infections disease expert in the US federal government (Anthony Fauci) thinks it's possible that a million people in the US will die of Coronavirus.

For people like many of us here who live highly connected lives for 15+ years, it's hard to appreciate how some people are disconnected. It can be a very peaceful lifestyle, it comes up often in conversation here. But this, they would find out...but how soon I wonder?

Raleigh just had a confirmed case in Wake County today, stay safe out there.

Ohio closed restaurants and bars effective 9 PM local time. I hope it gets people to take this more seriously.

I have family in Raleigh, and I’m concerned that with the known Biogen cases and the lack of “social distancing” that there might be a major outbreak there

Just look at some of the comments in this very thread, calling for us to adopt the "UK model".

It's clear that some people DO NOT see this as a threat worth worrying about. Shame on them, I say. They're probably the same idiots that show up to work sick, and cough without covering their mouth around others.

A lot of people who apparently don't believe in biology, and don't have the ability to see past their own 2 feet.

The UK model sees this very much as a threat. They are just taking different action to address it.

The UK model also happens to be the Germany model: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51835856 .

The UK are focused on minimising deaths, by avoiding COVID-19 striking during next winter, when the NHS is at peak load due to winter flu. Instead, they will guide the first strike towards summer (NHS's least load), and impose measures to protect at-risk folk during that time.

I'm not sure what the the "UK model" is, but schools don't seem to be closed there (are here in Germany) and I can't find good info about mass events being banned. The best term I found for Germany's policy is "flattening the curve", while UK news seem to describe theirs as "herd immunity". Sure, there will be overlap in policy, but wouldn't call it the same model.

https://mobile.twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/12388215155... is a UK modeller explaining that there has been a misreporting of UK's plan: UK aims to flatten the curve and reduce deaths. Herd immunity "is a tragic consequence of having a virus that - based on current evidence - is unlikely to be fully controllable in long term in the UK."

It's a bit longer, but here's the Chief Medical Officer talking about the UK's response. https://youtu.be/IfJcwDaZrsA

UK is progressively adding lockdown too, per the response's plan.

As of now, I don't think there's any evidence that the immunity from having been infected in the past would last long enough to avoid another peak in winter. This thread mentions that we can assume an immunity measured in "months" if we look at other coronaviruses:

https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/12388371580074475...

> The UK model also happens to be the Germany model

Eh ? Germany is on lock down right now, we'll be at Italy's level by the end of the week imho.

UK says: "we're all going to get sick so let's not do anything." DE says: "we're all going to get sick so let's spread it over a long time as to not overwhelm our health system." That's a huge difference.

https://mobile.twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/12388215155... is a UK modeller explaining that there has been a misreporting of UK's plan: UK aims to flatten the curve. Herd immunity "is a tragic consequence of having a virus that - based on current evidence - is unlikely to be fully controllable in long term in the UK."

It's a bit longer, but here's the Chief Medical Officer talking about the UK's response. https://youtu.be/IfJcwDaZrsA

UK is progressively adding lockdown too, per the response's plan.

NYC bars/lounges were packed Friday and Saturday. The bar staff that I follow on IG was giggly at the amount of money they were making telling people to keep coming in.

The sad thing is it were places popular with the crowds that live paycheck to paycheck most of whom cannot afford any sort of medical emergency or being under a forced quarantine.

I bet having to pay for COVID-19 treatment will cost them more than a paycheck though

Good. Aggressive steps like this are the only way we'll get a handle on what's happening. The alternative is exponential runaway and complete disaster.

Full disclosure: I live in Seattle.

Another Seattle resident here... I wonder if we're only a few days away from a Hubei/Italy-style lockdown where you can't go outside except for groceries and pharmaceuticals. Is there precedent for that in American history?

California is already there for people over 65.

No. It is definitely not.

It's a strong recommendation without enforcement. This however could change in the coming days and weeks.

Source: https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/03/15/...

I think that is the next step in the official escalation plan

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/seattle-are...

There is very little precedent I could find, however baltimore did impose a curfew in 2015 for a short period of time.

No precedent for it, and a lot of Supreme Court precedent against it. Nonetheless, as an also Seattle resident, it has dramatically changed the city through voluntary behavior of the population. This has been an incredibly destructive blow to everyone in the formerly thriving restaurant and bar industry in the city.

Citation? My understanding is that quarantine powers are well established in law. This isn’t the first epidemic.

Furthermore, the lockdown of the Boston area after the marathon bombings is a very clear and recent precedent relating to a different public safety emergency.

Worse comes to worst, I suspect we’ll see MRAPs on the streets first and any legal fallout, later.

The Boston "lockdown" was voluntary.

> No precedent for it, and a lot of Supreme Court precedent against it

Could you cite some of that precedent? When I did my research around quarantines, the things I found said that precedent was very thin. What precedent there was typically was extremely deferential to government responses during emergencies and pandemic outbreaks.

I didn't find any SCOTUS cases myself, so I would be very curious to read the SCOTUS precedent against it.

The precedent you are looking for is about the legal principles that limit the extent to which the government can prevent free travel, not quarantine per se. Quarantine must conform to that precedent, being one of many examples where the government may restrict travel. The No Fly List is a modern example of a government policy that violates free travel and has consistently suffered under judicial scrutiny -- it is insufficient for the government to deem someone a threat to public safety to deprive them of fundamental rights. You can no more violate rights because someone "might be a terrorist" than you can violate their rights because someone "might have COVID-19" absent strong and specific evidence. There is much more latitude to limit what people do than where they go or what they say.

Americans have a strong Constitutional right to free movement within the country. As with free speech, suspending that right for an individual requires either due process or specific imminent threat to public safety to withstand judicial scrutiny. That is the calculus. A good test would be "can the government suspend free speech" in this scenario, as similar legal constraints will apply to free travel. That the specific case involves disease quarantine doesn't matter that much, as the Constitution makes no such exception. I don't follow freedom of travel case law closely, I am only aware that loads of it exists and that it is extremely biased in favor of the individual right.

As a related point, in the US most quarantine authority resides with the States, not the Federal government. If the States don't enforce it, there is little the Federal government can do.

> The precedent you are looking for is about the legal principles that limit the extent to which the government can prevent free travel, not quarantine per se. Quarantine must conform to that precedent

As you noted, the highest level of judicial scrutiny for constitutionally protected rights (like the freedom of speech) is strict scrutiny.

That doesn't mean the government is unable to restrict those rights, but it generally means that the Government's regulations must meet the following criteria:

1. is necessary to a "compelling state interest"; 2. that the law is "narrowly tailored" to achieving this compelling purpose; 3. and that the law uses the "least restrictive means" to achieve the purpose.

From all the descriptions of precedent around quarantine laws that I've seen, the judiciary was extremely deferential to Government decision making during a bona-fide epidemic.

Given that, I think a reasonable travel regulation to implement a regional quarantine would easily survive such scrutiny.

1. "compelling state interest" - maintaining the public health has long been held to be a compelling state interest. 2. "narrowly tailored" - if the regional quarantine was restricted to bona-fide epidemic outbreaks, and backed up by epidemiological experts, I think the courts will accept this. I think this is the criteria that the drafting will have to be most carefully tailored around. 3. "least restricted means" - I think the Governments have been demonstrating that they have been actively trying all the other less restrictive means, and they haven't been effective.

Based on this, I find it extremely unlikely that a court would rule against a regional lockdown quarantine.

In saying there was significant precedent against it, I was hoping you had something related to epidemiological outbreaks and public health quarantines. I find the argument that the courts have generally been skeptical of travel restriction to be quite unpersuasive. I don't think courts will view this as a "typical" travel restriction, and will give local / state / federal governments a lot of leeway in responding to this kind of an outbreak.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-quarantine...

> The C.D.C. rewrote its quarantine guidelines in 2017 and they have never been tested in court. The Supreme Court has also never dealt with an infectious disease quarantine case, [Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University Law School who specializes in public health law] said.

Freedom of travel, upon which quarantine rests, has been thoroughly adjudicated in diverse public safety contexts. It is unlikely that the court will deviate dramatically in this specific case from centuries of precedent regarding restrictions on travel relating to public safety. The CDC's guidelines may be new but not unprecedented.

The outliers where the courts allowed the kind of special reasoning being proposed here, which has happened on occasion, have almost universally enabled shameful chapters in American history e.g. Japanese internment. Courts are understandably reluctant to allow this kind of expedient violation of Constitutional rights.

Relatedly, the Supreme Court has suspended sessions that have oral arguments, starting today: https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/press/pressreleases/...

“The Court’s postponement of argument sessions in light of public health concerns is not unprecedented. The Court postponed scheduled arguments for October 1918 in response to the Spanish flu epidemic. The Court also shortened its argument calendars in August 1793 and August 1798 in response to yellow fever outbreaks.”

Not at all.

But, if the US is ~11 days behind Italy in terms of infection rate, then we can expect a lockdown by ... Friday, March 20.

Good Lord.

Agreed. Wish people were more responsible and this wouldn't have to happen. Drove by the mall today and would have expected it to be a ghost town, but the parking lots were full and people were still walking and queueing close together.

This may get downvoted, but I think the following judgement-free statement is true: this is starting to look scary/serious /solely/ because of the measures the governments are taking, and the media circus around it. Otherwise (while it would have almost certainly "started to look serious" eventually, probably for a short time), at this point, you would not have even noticed given the actual numbers.

Your suggestion here and elsewhere has been that it would be ultimately less harmful overall to let the disease run unchecked, even if it kills millions in a few weeks that way, than to attempt to control it in the ways our various levels of government are doing.

I have yet to see you substantiate that claim in any way.

AFAIK, covid-19 is basically a "slightly worse flu". Most people are not at risk of dying and in fact most people don't even need to go to the hospital to recover.

Surely there has to be a balance between protecting the vulnerable at the cost of ruining the economy and protecting the economy at the cost of ruining the vulnerable.

How about instead of shutting down planet earth we advise people over the age of 60 to self-quarantine for a few months. The disease will run its course and then they will be protected by herd immunity. Neighbors and friends can drop off supplies on the front doorstep during this time.

Sorry this is not a "slightly worse flu". The "Spanish Flu" was both less virulent and less deadly and killed ~50 million world-wide. This is the mostly deadly pandemic since the "Black Death" of medieval times.

It’s not more deadly.

The fatality rate is 0.6% or so, and almost entirely focused on the very old or il.

You can't just cherry-pick South Korea's case fatality rate because it's convenient to your argument. The case fatality rate worldwide is currently 3.7%. Regardless of what the reasons for that may be and whether it will remain the same, that is a cold, hard, fact about the current reality.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#measuring-and-interpr...

It's no where near the Black Death. From what I've heard from multiple people are the limits are most likely a lower bound of 0.6% and an upper of maybe 1.5%.

That's still a lot of people. America is ~330 million. 1% is more than 3 million. Assuming only 1/3 of Americans get infected, there could still be an upper bound of a million people dying (although it'll more like be 300k ~ 1m with all the efforts to spread out everything).

It is not a slightly worse flu though. There are numerous experts in record pointing to it's long incubation time, that some people are asymptomatic, that it may be airborne, the death rate... It is not normal seasonal flu and it demands a different response. Now, what that response is can be debated, but it should be more than doing nothing.

> that it may be airborne

To be pedantic, it's not airborne. It's a respiratory virus. An airborne virus can linger in the air, possibly for hours or even a day. It's much much more transmissible.

The danger with SARS-cov2 is that, when going back to some of these cities where the first patients appeared, WHO researchers have found people with large viral load in their throats, and they didn't develop symptoms for over a week! So just being within 3~4 feet of them breathing could spread the disease. Sure, it's less likely than if they coughed or you shook hands, but it's still dangerous.

The difference is that for regular flu we have vaccines, herd immunity, and medicines that work. We have none of those things for COVID-19. The effect of that is to drive up hospitalization rates to the point that it's a DDoS on the healthcare system. People suffering from unrelated issues now can't get care on time, and some of them will die too.

We don't even know for certain if getting it once makes you immune. How do you know herd immunity will work if you don't have the answer to something basic like that?

Isolating just over-60s only works to some extent. What about the healthcare and nursing home workers whom they interact with?

If you are ignorant of the virus, why talk about it like this?

50% of the patients in ICU are under 50, and it causes permanent damage to your lungs and organs.

If you don't take paranoid drastic measures, many millions will die.

If you do take paranoid drastic measures, lives will be saved, and then everyone will call you crazy for taking those measures because it ended up not that bad.

Just like people think Y2K was an overblown non-issue. Because it was fixed by millions of people working hard.

> 50% of the patients in ICU are under 50

And what % of patients infected actually end up in the ICU vs. just have a sniffle and a cough for a few days?

When the mortality rate is 0.2% for people < 60 years old, I just have a hard time believing that it requires the response we've been giving it. I would bet that for healthy, non-vulnerable adults (i.e. they don't have a pre-existing condition that makes them extra susceptible) the death rate is virtually 0%.

I'm not saying "do nothing", but I am saying "shut down the world" is too extreme in the opposite direction.

>And what % of patients infected actually end up in the ICU vs. just have a sniffle and a cough for a few days?

This data is easily available: ~20% of people who get the virus are in life-threatening condition. Thats a 1/5 chance.

> I'm not saying "do nothing", but I am saying "shut down the world" is too extreme in the opposite direction.

Experts disagree with you. Maybe you should ask yourself why?

1. You have a hypothesis that taking less drastic measures would result in a manageable death rates and less impact on the economy. However, Wuhan and Italy tried to deal with the virus through these less drastic measures (telling the elderly to self-quarantine, asking the population to social-distance), and the results were disastrous. Does that not invalidate your hypothesis?

2. Even if you're right, and there was a good chance we could avoid the worst of the epidemic, we know for a fact that the worst case scenario is that in the US, 21 million people will require hospitalization, and 1.7 million people will die. Saying that it's worth taking a risk on less drastic measures is the equivalent of saying it's OK to play Russian roulette because the odds are actually really good: it totally ignores the tremendously high cost of the worst case scenario.

I have found that risk-analysts like Taleb have the most convincing arguments for why all these extreme measures are called for. Check out his twitter: https://twitter.com/nntaleb

> This data is easily available: ~20% of people who get the virus are in life-threatening condition. Thats a 1/5 chance.

No, it's not "easily available". There's data flying around everywhere from different countries as this situation rapidly evolves and you can torture it to tell any story you want. If the data is so easily available, couldn't you have at least linked your source?

> Experts disagree with you. Maybe you should ask yourself why?

The "experts" in this case have never dealt with a global pandemic of this scale before. So they are inexperienced experts giving it their best guess based on what they know about disease transmission and math. But they clearly did not factor in the effects of shutting down the global economy for 3-6 months in their quest to optimize for a single variable. I'm sure we'll have a lot of "lessons learned" after this is all over and the experts will be much more experienced the next time around...

Sure, I was referring to this study which shows that 20% of cases were either severe or critical: http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9...

True, this is only in China. In most other countries, it's still too early to be able to collect great data because of how quickly the situation is evolving (the denominator is bound to be wrong due to delays between cases being detected and the amount of days it takes before cases evolve into severe/critical condition or death). But it's data, and you can't easily dismiss it.

> So they are inexperienced experts giving it their best guess based on what they know about disease transmission and math.

This isn't entirely true. The epidemics in China, South Korea have more or less been resolved, and many of the steps being taken in other countries are based on comparing the outcomes in those countries compared to ones that are failing to slow the spread of the disease with disastrous consequences (Italy).

> But they clearly did not factor in the effects of shutting down the global economy for 3-6 months in their quest to optimize for a single variable.

It's possible that the health experts are not taking the economical windfall into account, but the politicians enacting the laws probably are. These decisions are being made in rooms with people who, with their knowledge pooled together, most likely have more information about the disease and the economic impact of their decisions than you.

Secondly, the reasoning for national shutdowns earlier rather than later is to shorten their length. As of now, local government officials are hoping not advocating 3-6 month shut down, but rather trying to avoid one by shutting down now. I remember reading the figure of 2 weeks but I cannot find it quickly now. We will see.

My point (in the other thread, but this is going the same way) was that yes, if someone says let's have 100 people of all ages play Russian roulette (only the gun has 30-50 capacity, and also loaded guns mostly go to much older people), that is very bad.

But if the alternative is, we will instead take those 100 people and make them really miserable, make a few homeless and/or drug addicted, maybe have one commit suicide, starve a few of them, get a few divorced, and ruin a few lives completely - disproportionately affecting the young and children - let them play Russian roulette. I am not convinced, but at this point to me it's looking more and more like that's the case.

Politicians (in NZ) are already saying it's going to be worse than 2008. - The cost of the Soviet union collapsing (a purely economic disaster I can really relate to, even though I do think Soviet union disappearing was a great thing as such) in Russia was 3-5 years of life expectancy, over a decade, for EVERYONE. How many lives is that? Not counting the missing births and the knock-on effects of both, as well as the total waste of life that the 90ies in Russia were for many people.

You are taking my Russian roulette analogy way too literally. The "bullet" is not literally just dead people, it's also the economic impact of letting this disease run rampant, which you are clearly not accounting for.

We aren't just shutting everything down to save lives, we're shutting everything down because we some reason to believe that if 70% of the population gets this disease in a very short amount of time 20% of them are hospitalized, and at least 2% die (in truth, the CFR would skyrocket if we don't flatten the curve), the societal and economic havoc would be much worst than the one resulting from these government imposed quarantines. At the highest end of the risk spectrum, it could be orders of magnitude worst. Do we know that for sure? No, hence the Russian roulette analogy: some chance of extremely high risk, esp. when it comes to the entire planet: NOT WORTH GAMBLING.

If you think that world leaders are currently sacrificing the economy just to save lives, you are not paying attention to what they have been doing.

We already have the best case (South Korea) and worst case scenarios (Italy) in front of us. Each country affected is shutting down so not to become another Italy.

If you're not aware of the situation there, I really urge you to look it up - doctors are saying they're having to choose who has the best survival chance to give attention to.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/13/opinion/coronavirus-c...

it's all about "flattening the curve" right now, to slow it down.

> and it causes permanent damage to your lungs and organs.

It's too early to know this for sure. I know personally, it took over two months for my lungs to recovery from pneumonia when I was younger. People are claiming this, but we won't know for a full year of this damage is non-recoverable.

But to your other point, yes a number of experts have said the really scary thing is the number of people in their 40s, who were healthy and non-smokers, who ended up on respirators in Italy and S Korea.

Also, since when was "just a flu" okay? The flu is really fucking bad. Twice in my life I had a flu take me out for over a week, and from the accounts of SARS-cov2, many are reporting it as feeling much worse than a flu with chills for days after.

> Also, since when was "just a flu" okay? The flu is really fucking bad.

Bad enough to merit shutting down nations, bankrupting companies, and causing a global recession?

> Just like people think Y2K was an overblown non-issue. Because it was fixed by millions of people working hard.

Y2K was an actual issue? I thought it was purely artificial issue created by computer layman. Year 2038 is an actual issue and there's really not much fuss about it, for many years.

First of all, I made this suggestion in the other comment and I absolutely did substantiate it with numbers.

On the contrary, the responses I've received were 1) Point #2 below. That is fair. 2) Failing to read my post, e.g. saying healthcare will collapse while I already include that assumption. 3) Appeal to emotion like (literally) "[you are] not human" or "shit HN says"

If you have something better, I welcome you to comment on my other post.

Two new pieces of information I got since then:

1) Medical supplies are in danger because of the local disruption (e.g. local blood drives are cancelled in King County so they say the supply is collapsing), factory closures, and shipping disruption - again, the cure is worse than the disease and it just reinforces my point.

2) People noted that sudden death spike would cause economic disruption due to panic too, however I argue that (a) without the media and govt attention at the early stage, the panic would be brief, (b) even after healthcare collapses, the panic and impact would be much less significant than now, as evidenced by Italian doctors on FB/Twitter being unhappy with the common reaction of reading the horror stories and then going out with friends.

Either you don't do anything and it eventually _gets_ serious, or you do something and it _looks_ serious.

> you would not have even noticed given the actual numbers.

Surely you'd notice if 15%+ of your family's elders died in one year. People don't seem to get that it's not so bad (health wise) as long as you take serious decisions to slow the spread, so yes, you're right, it _looks_ serious, because it is, and it would be much worse if governments didn't do anything about it.

At 85 you have a 10% chance of dying each year for any and all reasons, and it goes up each year.

So most of us are indeed used to losing about 15% of our elders each year, and have been forever.

You got what I meant, no need to play with bs percentages. Old people will die, more than usual, and you would notice.

That remains to be seen. The consequences of current actions, while the current impact of the virus itself is basically nil, will be severe, including extra deaths (and lack of births, for that matter - didn't occur to me to count that but looking at demographic articles I realized it's also lives lost in the net), and massive waste of life-years due to economic disruption that will disproportionately affect the developing world, the poor and the young. Which one is worse, I don't know, but over the last few days my opinion is starting to change towards the latter being worse.

> while the current impact of the virus itself is basically nil

You should read about Italy, and how they're running out of hospital beds. Which means usually non life threatening issues are getting much more serious.

It's not a boolean choice between "saving lives" and "saving the economy"... If you don't do anything: people get sick, sick people can't work, the economy tanks, hundred thousand people die. If you do something, less people get sick, the economy tanks anyway, but less people die. As it turns out it seems like most government prefer prioritizing human life over money.

Most of the cases of the infection are mild. Nothing has happened yet (yes, nothing - the number of deaths currently happening in Italy is still, statistically, a blip), and yet already more people are not working for weeks than what would if everyone got sick at the same time, given the working-age mortality and complications rate. And we haven't even started yet.

It hasn't seemed binary to me before about this weekend, but it's increasingly starting to seem binary as the over-reaction escalates.

No, we're treating it as serious because educated guesses say it is, and unfortunately, because of the lack of testing capacity, we can't do any better than that. We're taking measures that are proportional to the problem as measured in countries that have the capacity to measure it. When we're in the dark scrambling around with a lighter trying to find the light switch, it doesn't mean much that we can't see the problem.

You should not call the media a "circus" if you are trying to be judgement-free. So, removing judgement: this is starting to appear serious because of government actions and media reporting.

I find this to be personally true, because if the government and media had not informed me of this illness, I would be unaware and unconcerned.

I think you probably want some discussion of this point, but it is so plain and obvious it is hard to discuss.

I suspect you are trying to argue your personal judgement that the media is a "circus", that they are not justified in their reporting. That is not judgement-free and could use some supporting arguments.

That is fair, "circus" was a judgement. Regardless, the main point stands. I tried to start a discussion in another thread; this post was mostly to bring more attention to the fact that the virus is not disrupting things at all at this point, the reaction to it is.

“Restaurants will be allowed to provide take-out and delivery services but no in-person dining will be permitted.

I live an SRO. I don't have a kitchen. I currently don't have a fridge. I have a small grill and some shelving to store stuff.

I eat a lot of takeout. I'm glad to see I can still get takeout.

But, wow. This is beginning to look pretty scary.

I was homeless for a few years. The quarantine/containment measures are turning into a really big problem for the homeless population.

I don't even know where to begin trying to talk about that. At this point, I find the whole homelessness in the US thing simply infuriating. We mostly need to solve our housing supply issue and people are wholeheartedly against that and it's just infuriating.

I will add that Little Caesar's now has a "pizza portal" where you order online, pay online and enter a code to get your pizza yourself without ever interacting with a person. I don't know how to scream this from the rooftops so everyone gets the memo, but someone should.

> But, wow. This is beginning to look pretty scary.

> I was homeless for a few years. The quarantine/containment measures are turning into a really big problem for the homeless population.

How so? I assume that soup kitchens and the like will still be open.

You might be assuming wrong.

https://www.reddit.com/r/homeless/comments/fipg6s/covid19_is...

(from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22580519)

Also, the lack of sporting events jobs are going to push many people back into homelessness, as they’re used as a transitional stage out of it.

All this hoarding is starting to affect these providers too: https://www.khq.com/news/spokane-nonprofit-collecting-toilet...

It's not just about getting access to services; all of those homeless services are awful for limiting disease spread. Soup kitchens are going to force people into relatively close contact.

And the volunteers tend to not show up in times like this, so it falls apart pretty quickly

Grocery stores offer a lot of ready to eat food options. Though I guess salad bars are probably a bad idea at this point.

I'm sure you mean well, but I'm poor and medically handicapped, not stupid.

I have a form of cystic fibrosis, as does my oldest son. My younger son is a carrier.

People with CF typically require up to a quarter of a million dollars in medical treatment annually. With two people in the family who have it, that's a half million dollars annually.

I've supported all three of us on well under $20k annually for like more than 8 years or something. And I can do that because we've done a metric fuckton of research and made a lot of dietary changes and gotten off all the boat loads of drugs we used to take.

So having my food supply cut into like this potentially does enormous harm to me. And I will get zero sympathy from a world that didn't give a flying fuck about me when I was homeless and has spent years telling me to my face I'm a lunatic making up the whole thing about having CF and getting well when that's not supposed to be possible.

For me, this is very scary stuff. I literally am better off not eating than eating the wrong things.

A silver lining of the past decade of horrifying shittiness is that poverty and social callousness taught me this: My condition actually benefits from semi-fasting and I can live for several days at this point on almost no food. It no longer even causes nose bleeds and fun stuff like that.

I'm a good bit stressed out and suggestions that I'm too dumb to be aware that ready to eat options exist are in no way comforting to me.

A lot of them are things I absolutely cannot eat for fear of being immediately sick and beginning to undo nearly two decades of extremely hard won, painful progress against a Dread Disease that should have already killed me and I often wish it had. This is a shitty life in a shitty world full of amazingly callous people and I'm really not happy to still be here at this point.

Perhaps this pandemic will help us to realize just how important understanding one another better is.

I’m not happy about this either, though my family doesn’t have any dietary restrictions. I’m just recounting an option that is still available, I’m not implying stupidity for anyone involved.

You have a grill? How about a hot pot, burner or hot water maker? Rice cooker? Crock pot?

These are electric appliances.

Cooking for yourself is a good way to protect against the virus. Heat kills it.

Most people are not getting it from their food.

Domino’s is allowing no contact delivery. You pay online for the food plus any tip you want for the driver, and tell them where to leave the delivery, such as at the front door. They leave the food without any need for in person interaction.

Thanks.

I probably can't do that in my building. It's a secure building and I've never figured out how to get delivered food here. You need a key to enter the building.

But it's good info and thank you for posting it. I hope it helps other people.

Just wait in the lobby so when they drop it on the porch you can go grab it?

I live in a very walkable small town. I typically go just pick up whatever I've ordered. Most things are no more than a ten minute walk for me.

Edit: FYI, cuz reasons, there's no lobby.

Doordash is also doing a no contact delivery in Toronto.

> But, wow. This is beginning to look pretty scary.

This is the main benefit I see of having our government take these measures: making people like you realize THIS IS SERIOUS. It has "looked pretty scary" for almost two months. And no one has taken it seriously. And now we're here.

I practice extreme germ control daily. So it has nothing whatsoever to do with me not taking it seriously.

I just think I am unlikely to get coronavirus because I'm a fucking hermit who works from home and doesn't touch anything and practices germ control so my genetic disorder won't kill me.

Maybe read all my comments before making insulting assumptions about me. I've already talked about having CF in this thread.

> Maybe read all my comments before making insulting assumptions about me. I've already talked about having CF in this thread.

GP wasn't talking about you specifically.

Possibly not. Thank you for pointing that out.

King County is opening an extra space for homeless men to allow them to be more than 6 feet apart in the shelter.

Someone is thinking about it, but it was crappy before, and now it’s crappy and scary.

That’s the only thing I’ve noticed about the homeless population here

> I live an SRO. I don't have a kitchen. I currently don't have a fridge. I have a small grill and some shelving to store stuff.

I hesitate to ask about the size of the space you have available, but in Paris it's pretty common to find one room apartments that are only 9 square meters. Typically you put a one or two top induction or electric stove (portable ones are actually very cheap and work well) above a minifridge and a hutch for dishes/spices with a sink about the size of your hands.

I hesitate to ask about the size of the space you have available

Thank you for both your concern and for being respectful. I don't wish to get into the details of my living space in this discussion.

You just started your comment by listing details of your living situation, however.

This is true. That doesn't make it an invitation for the entire world to grill me about the specifics of my life.

Previous opinion piece by me if people really want to know what I think about how I'm allowed to mention a thing about my life and then decline to answer invasive personal questions:

https://witnesstodestruction.blogspot.com/p/a-pragmatic-appr...

The polite response to "I'm not comfortable discussing in more detail" is "OK, sounds good."

I wasn't previously part of the discussion, so it would be strange for me to post that.

Keep in mind that this is all subject to change on a daily basis. A serious recommendation: if you don't have it already, make sure you have at least some easy to prepare canned/dry food (i.e ramen/soup/veggies/crackers/whatever) that you can store/prepare (along with some bottled water) in the event that you are unable to get takeout for a period of time. This is a good idea in general, more so right now.

A substantial number care about the hiring supply crisis and are YIMBYs (even though my yard is currently at risk). Beyond advocacy we and many others donate to support our neighbors and additionally support the serious tax support supplied. It's not perfect and systemic changes could help a lot but it is what we do locally and as a locality, what we are able to do. I'm sure there are naysayer opinions and I'll check back to read them if someone would be so kind as to leave some. Even better would be concrete solution specifications (link to something of substance?). Not that I'll likely reply, debating on the internet seems a low value use of time.

Even better would be concrete solution specifications (link to something of substance?).

We've torn down about a million SROs in recent decades and zoned out of existence a lot of housing options that are being termed Missing Middle Housing.

The current YIMBY movement and Missing Middle Advocacy is the latest attempt to try to address this issue. New Urbanism was a previous one.

None of them get at the roots of the problem, which date to "the boys" returning home from WW2 and the birth of the modern American suburb.

In a nutshell, the vast majority of our housing financing mechanisms, tax incentives, etc etc are aimed at helping people get single family detached homes and homes today are more than twice the size they were in the 1950s while housing about one less person.

So our housing policies have caused "home inflation" in some sense. Homes are bigger and have more amenities -- or don't exist at all.

We now expect single people to rent a place designed for a nuclear family and get roommates to fill the empty bedrooms and split the rent. Then we make movies, like Single White Female, about what a nightmare it is to be forced to make ends meet by living with a total stranger and do nothing to change our policies.

I've made several stabs at trying to write about this, but none of that has gotten any traction.

Here's a few things by me:

http://projectsro.blogspot.com/2019/11/americas-housing-ghos...

https://americanhomeworks.blogspot.com/

https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-missing...

You are right that posting on the internet is mostly a waste of time. But I'm medically handicapped, so it's where I spend the majority of my time, though I would prefer to actually have a life. I simply don't.

I am involved in stuff locally in my small town. I'm no one important and it may never lead to better housing here. On the upside, the local police department does hand out my fliers for homeless resources -- which is mostly websites, mostly written by me. So maybe the time I spend online isn't a total waste.

Have a great day.

Edit: Those are not intended to be "substantive" supporting links. I've studied this problem space for decades. I wanted to be an urban planner before life got in the way. I don't know of any other sources that will say exactly what I would like them to say. Sorry.

I am curious why you think that homelessness is a supply issue?

Do you currently have enough funds or collateral to purchase a modest home but there are no homes for sale in your area? Or do you mean the taxpayers should provide homes for free to the homeless?

The knock-on effects of homelessness cost society far more than free housing would. The number of homeless is not massive, and effective, high-density housing is not expensive on a governmental scale.

To say nothing of the moral imperative to care for our most vulnerable people. A wealthy country with a homeless population shames itself.

I’m probably in the minority but I lean towards the UK model. My suspicion is that the mortality rate is lower due to inadequate testing.

Call me a cynic but after 9/11 I’m weary of temporary measures that become permanent in one way or another.

I'm going to go ahead and call you a cynic here.

Do you really think there's any way that the State of Washington will be permanently banning events over 50 people?

Do you really think there's any way that the State of Washington will be permanently preventing the operation of bars, dine-in restaurants, and entertainment facilities?

I'm generally pretty skeptical of creeping government powers myself, but this just...doesn't seem like a place where the government is going to keep these things shut down permanently. Which of these enacted bans are you concerned about becoming permanent?

Maybe they’re worried that sick pay for all workers will become permanent?

No, but it could normalize doing all of that in the future. Giving up rights once usually make these rights less untouchable in the future which doesn't have to mean that the current measures will be permanent.

Counterpoint: the west has had quarantine measures in its traditions for centuries, while developing the individual rights approach. We haven’t had to use them much in living memory, but they were not permanent in the past.

Quarantine has been a necessary fact of human life for centuries. We just lived in a blessed time.

The word quarantine comes from having to spend 40 days mooring outside of Venice before being allowed to enter for trade.

Wow thanks! Can’t believe I never noticed the linguistic connection.

You're right and I don't necessarily agree with the original comment but governments have a much bigger place our lives today than in the past. They also have a much better ability to actually permenantly enforce those new restrictions.

The patriot act and all the measures taken because of 9/11 are still here simply since it is now so easy to keep them active which wasn't true in the past at all. Not because they are needed. The same could happen in the future!

I agree it’s certainly something to watch for. One difference is everyone is paying attention. People didn’t care about the details of the patriot act.

What about South Korea’s use of data in crisis?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51733145

Sure, I think those privacy concerns are a little bit different.

I am slightly more hesitant about things like that, but at the same time I think that use of data has probably greatly helped their response in controlling the epidemic. Overall, I'm probably in favor of the use of this kind of data in this scenario, but the "slippery-slope" argument makes a lot more sense there to me.

While we've had epidemics and pandemics in the past, we've never had them with the intersection of shared personal data before. We haven't really had any time as a society to think about the utility or the dangers of this kind of approach.

Once the acute phase of the crisis is over, I'd love to see a lot of thinking go into how we can get the benefits of this kind of data while mitigating as much of the privacy downsides as possible.

The WHO mission to China couldn’t find the supposed submerged iceberg of undetected cases. They tested 320,000 people in Guangdong province, found very few they hadn’t traced through contacts.

Diamond princess looking to be 1% mortality. Korean mortality matches China’s, when you adjust for age groups.

Further, mortality rises when the health system is overwhelmed, as in lombardy and wuhan. The math of this suggests every place gets overwhelmed without containment.

Not only does coronavirus morality rise, but you ALSO get excess mortality as the hospitals are taken out of commission for stuff like heart attacks, trauma, etc. hospitals become covid-19 treatment centers.

Source on WHO mission: https://www.vox.com/2020/3/2/21161067/coronavirus-covid19-ch...

Yep, this all seems way too convenient for the powerful to build a moat around their holdings.

I'm +1 on the UK's model for the UK. Different apporaches can be right for different countries: different health systems, different seasons, different levels of connectedness, ...

The UK's Chief Medical Officer is the right person for the job: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Whitty

If you want to hear him talk about the UK's plan, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfJcwDaZrsA is long but informative.

Gov. Baker has done the same today in Massachusetts. A one month ban on on-site service starting Tuesday. Any food establishment will be allowed to do delivery or take out even if they didn't previously have a license for it.

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/03/15/charlie-ba...

EDIT: It's until April 5th, so 3 weeks not a month:

https://whdh.com/news/all-mass-restaurants-and-bars-ordered-...

A license needed for delivery/takeout? How is that justified?

Handling food safely requires training and process. Delivering food is a totally different environment than serving it in house.

There is nothing complicated about putting food in a delivery box and driving it somewhere.

How many meals should you deliver in one delivery? In what order? Where can the food be in the car? (Is it ok to put it on the floor?) How long can the food be allowed to get cold before it's no longer ok to deliver? What are you expected to cover, insurance wise, for your delivery drivers? How is your business prepared if your delivery driver has an accident? How much do you need to contribute to vehicle maintenance? Who owns the vehicle?

Yeah, I'd say it's definitely not just 'throw food in a box' and driving it somewhere.

As much as you want, whatever order makes sense, anywhere, yes, FDA says 2 hours in the danger zone, google the rest or get a legalzoom consultation if you're unsure.

In Massachusetts, everything is either illegal, or requires a license.

I have lived in the US for 20 years now - I am a millennial. I am originally from Peru. When all of this started I thought the US was going to handle it. We all were going to rally together and take care of each other. We would exercise social isolation and hold this virus off. The rate the trend is going should be scary for anyone (at least the people reading hacker news). I am surprised of people thinking this won't affect them. If widespread and out of control, it will affect everyone.

Funny enough that my country of birth, Peru, just declared a national emergency and declared quarantine for everyone in the country. Peru is a democratic country - at least for the last 20 years - but it had to enact this to stop the virus from spreading. It's a bold move, it's not a popular one, but it's the right one imho.

We should be doing the same, our current leader is - unfortunately - a coward who will always be afraid of taking a risk. It's on us then, as responsible citizens to make sure we don't go out unless we really need to for a while - at least that we can control. Just my two cents.

Americans are going to be handling it but the POTUS has multiple well known weaknesses that was always going to cripple response.

Weird you expected better out fo him.

This is overall a good move if we want a chance to greatly slow the spread. However it needs to be coordinated with the rest of the country if we want to minimize the total downtime. Shutting down Washington now and having to wait weeks for Idaho to follow (where there are no reported cases) is just going to force Washington to extend theirs as long as it takes for the last state to shut down.

Small nit: Boise has one recorded case. It was recorded Friday.

How many tests have they done? The spread pretty clearly seems to be all over the US at this point.

Right, the actual number of cases is almost certainly over 1. The parent comment just said Idaho had no reported cases which is factually incorrect. The first reported case was on Friday.

Anyone found any good info on the risks of food itself.

Eg kitchen staff is infected, coughs into meal

1. Do you get if it’s cold food, like a salad or sushi?

2. If yes, do you get it if it’s warm food, like indian food?

3. If yes, do you get if you reheat/microwave the food? If so, what is required/

Have not seen a lot of discussion about this. Did see that in china restaurants would certify the body temperatures of all involved.

Would love to hear more on this. Official wording is something like “there have been no documented cases of transmission through food or food packaging” however it seems impossible to actually trace transmission anyway.

It transmits in several ways, including droplets:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/transmissi...

And WHO says it lives on surfaces for a couple hours up to several days.

https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses

So, personally, I'm not eating anything if someone coughs on it or around it. I'm not even buying fresh fruit and veggies at the store right now.

I can't find any information about heating the virus to kill it.

> I'm not even buying fresh fruit and veggies at the store right now.

Just cook it.

Apples? Lettuce?

I mean, I cook some carrots, potatoes, broccoli, yes, but I don't want to risk cross contamination at this time.

Pan fried apples are quite good and not hard to do. A little nutmeg and cinnamon. A sprinkle of brown sugar. Maybe a dash of cooking oil.

Yum-my.

Also, you can go looking for historical dishes. Early Americans had recipes that were heavy on things like cabbage and apples together because it might be all you had left in the cellar towards the end of winter.

Soap kills the virus, so raw fruit and vegetables are probably fine if you wash them with soap first.

Heat also kills the virus so cooked vegetables should be fine (and cooked fruit too if you're into that I guess).

Mmm... Pie!

Fully-cooked food (~160 degree F temp) is sanitary as of the time it's done cooking. For takeout food, the lowest risk is items with relatively little post-processing after being cooked - Thai food, for example, where the cook basically dumps it from a wok into a container.

The worst case is probably dishes where many people interact with raw ingredients to create a high-touch item. Compared to physical contact with people, it's still considered a relatively small transmission risk, but in relative terms, it's higher than something that's boxed up right after it's cooked.

More: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/03/11/coronavirus-..., https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/coronavir..., https://www.fdacs.gov/News-Events/Press-Releases/2020-Press-..., https://www.insider.com/what-temperature-kills-germs

So definitely no salads. Check.

Blast it in the microwave to a certain temperature and it will be safe.

Containers are a big risk though. Be sure to handle carefully and wash your hands afterwards.

Canlis (fine dining place, think Michelin) made a really interesting switch in order to keep the lights on. They shut down their restaurant and are starting a drive-thru burger stand, a bagel stand, and a meal delivery service, rather than lay off all their workers. I'm going to try their burgers tomorrow.

They must be making really fine burgers.

I hope so. Bagels too. I have yet to find a decent crusty one in this town since moving here.

I'd suggest they put a couple of picnic tables out in the parking lot for take-out. Curious about other commercial operations that could satisfy the rule "... all gatherings under 50 participants are prohibited unless previously announced criteria for public health and social distancing are met"? Take-out biergarten? Silent disco?

> I'd suggest they put a couple of picnic tables out in the parking lot for take-out.

Why, though? The whole point is to stop people gathering in public places.

> Curious about other commercial operations that could satisfy the rule

Again, why? These rules weren't put into place as a challenge for entrepreneurs.

I want to eat and drink with my family and friends. And it's spring, so I want to do it outdoors.

A food truck with a couple of outdoor tables has got to be lower risk than a full-service bar/restaurant, while still giving us human companionship.

The combination of “I want” with “lower risk” (rather than “no risk”) speaks to a lot of the problems we are facing right now.

Our grandfathers wanted to eat and drink with their families, but they ate k-rations with their fellow soldiers.

They got called to war. We are called to sit on our couches. We can do this.

Rules like this dont need to be enforced (or even enforceable) because by and large the community is onboard. Ie if Canlis, a Seattle institution ,was seen as looking for loopholes and risking lives it would be the end of their entire business.

I didn't mean to suggest anything nefarious. On the contrary, I'm curious as to what kinds of "fun" and "social" celebrations we can do these days while still limiting coronavirus risk.

That's really interesting! I've heard great things about Canlis but never had a special enough occasion to go, and I moved away from Seattle last year. I would have loved to try their meal delivery.

Puerto Rico also started a curfew that restricts movement except going to/from work, grocery stores/pharmacies, or health care: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/us/coronavirus-puerto-ric...

I'm in Seattle and, other than these closures, complete movement restrictions would be the next step here.

This is a good move. We’re obviously moving slower than we ought to and only time will tell how late we are.

The one thing we, in the US, have been consistent in this is that we’re too slow to act.

There’s obviously a risk of the pendulum swinging the other way but until we see a down tick in cases we have to assume we’ve got ground to make up.

Case growth won’t start decreasing until social distancing is widely adopted.

If a country discovers the measures are too strict, it can always reduce them a little bit. The US looks like just a pair of weeks away from disaster, acting now may be enough to make that disaster brief and having the situation under control shortly after.

The next 10 days are prime. We do this right now, isolate hard, or it will look more like Italy than we would like.

Similar measures were just mandated in IL. Basically, take out and delivery are your only real options. We are kinda stocked up, but we will both keep ordering in just to keep local businesses going. Our family unit is oddly priviledged during this outbreak.

Tbh, I am slowly starting to get worried as recent FED move again focuses on banks and not on small business relief.

The FED’s job is monetary policy. It isn’t to bail out businesses.

Yes and no. Its mandate is to keep the stability of the financial system, price stability, full employment..

As you can see, bailing out businesses, as you framed it, could be helpful in avoiding full fledged system collapse, which just happens to be their mandate.

edit: corrected opening sentence

Anything the fed does affects large and perhaps medium sized businesses directly. A couple of percent lower interest rate on their line of credit matters fuck all for small business facing a total collapse in demand.

Same with SBA loans - how much paperwork will it take to owe a huge sum to the government with an uncertain business environment in a few months? A lot of small places will just close.

Fiscal stimulus is the only approach to keep these businesses afloat. Honestly at this point it might be better to skip the middle man and cut checks to individuals.

Also in MA and other states. But VERY important to note: "Restaurants will be allowed to provide take-out and delivery services".

As usual, these announcements never come with any promise or a plan of economic relief (or at least reference to plans already made) for businesses force closed, creating more panic. I don't understand why it's so hard to just say: "We will take care of the businesses affected by this policy and more details are forthcoming."

Shutting them down is the right move. Taking care of small businessowners running on thin margins - like mom/pop restaurants - is also the right move.

EDIT: Unless the government has no plans to help small businesses. Which is completely possible and probably even likely.

Can't restaurants still offer takeout/delivery?

Many of them, no.

And bars, for instance, aren’t allowed to serve their primary purpose via delivery. Or movie theaters. Or music venues. Or retail. Or....

It’s gonna be a mess, because we already know the government is going to fail to alleviate the impact.

Retail can't deliver... What is the primary non-deliverable thing you get from retail?

The context was in harm to retail stores that can't do delivery, not in problems for the consumer.

The ones that can, yes. Specifically called out as such in this announcement

> Restaurants will be allowed to provide take-out and delivery services

Yes, but what about the wait staff? I guess they can all go drive for GrubHub or whatever (if they have a car...).

Maybe not an ironclad promise, but the announcement does include this line:

"I know there will be significant economic impacts to all our communities and we are looking at steps to help address those challenges."

State governments can't provide that kind of relief without help from the federal government and the federal government has made no such commitment.

Are you expecting states to wait for something that might not come?

> State governments can't provide that kind of relief

Maybe not all states, but some states can afford it better than others.

States' fiscal powers are nowhere near that of the federal government. They borrow at much lower rates, have more flexibility with respect to the level of debt they can take, take in far more revenue, and as a last resort print money.

There is no historical precedent for any state bailing out an industry to this extent.

In the same way that many Americans are living pay check to pay check, I think it's clearer than ever that states are doing the same thing.

People literally don't have enough money if they don't go to work, and states literally don't have enough money to pay people (or businesses) not to go to work.

Yes, there will have to be a federal bailout, because the states cannot run deficits.

Counties, cities, can issue bonds and go into debt. It might even be a good investment for everyone involved. They'd probably pay more than the federal government, seeing as short term treasuries are now 0%, and thus while not free to finance it would be almost free.

This is acknowledged in the announcement.

"These are very difficult decisions, but hours count here and very strong measures are necessary to slow the spread of the disease. I know there will be significant economic impacts to all our communities and we are looking at steps to help address those challenges."

Glad to see it. It's tricky, because restaurants are often marginal businesses. But I think we should create some sort of low interest loan program for small businesses, and maybe offer outright subsidies. Workers will need to get paid regardless, so that will lessen impacts on unemployment. And letting a bunch of businesses go under could substantially deepen a recession, which is bad on its own and will also reduce government revenue.

Given that the Fed cut their interest rate to 0% and that treasury bills are under 1%, credit is approximately free to governments, so a well-run small business support program could end up costing much less than doing nothing.

You should be in government, we need you.

hopefully landlords won't kick businesses out given it's not like another business could move in

I expect many fast food to just follow Chik fil-a's example of going drive through only. I was wondering when a state would take that option themselves.

Still like comments about original restrictions of larger gatherings, many grocery stores and big box stores can have more people in them than a restaurant and touching more items too

Good. Seattle resident here. Have been ordering takeout for the past two weeks and honestly don't understand the large parties I've been seeing in local pubs for the past week. I find it sad that this needs a 'proclamation' from the Governor, when basic common sense is that you need to avoid crowds.

For places that don't want to close restaurants. Would it be legal in America for the restaurants to check everyone's temperature before they enter the premise (guests+ cooks+ waiters).

Wouldn't be perfect but could slow transmission down while giving them a way to earn money.

People are contagious the entire time.

Right now matters, this is why:

https://old.reddit.com/r/WeAreNotAsking/comments/fitsej/covi...

Basically, we have one shot at this. Max number of unidentified transmitters coupled with max number of potential infected people.

Depending on how many of us will, can isolate hard, 20 days from now the wave of sick, and weaker people hit the hospitals.

We have a 5th the beds per 1000 compared to many of our peer nations.

Illinois governor Pritzer announced the same about 8 hours ago starting tomorrow evening (takeout / delivery would remain open). Conveniently aligning with the closing of schools I guess. I strongly expect tomorrow will be my last day in the office for a while.

I know this probably won't be enough, but how about tax exemption for all business affected by shutdown order in 2020 paid by the federal government

They've done this in Illinois too. What's happened is people are self-isolating to prevent the spread even though government is pleading with them to do so. So, they're having to force the issue. If people still don't get the hint they'll have to put curfews in place.

At this point I hope they do. I'm sick of seeing the governor pleading on television and people not taking him seriously. I have friends that literally don't get that this is much more serious than the flu. There are daily posts on Facebook about how it's a conspiracy of the government to control us or there's posts about how this illness isn't worse than any flu that's come through and it's going to bankrupt people. Just sick, ignorant people that don't give a rats.

This is good. You can find in this thread that other states are following the suit. This might, just might if we're lucky, that the curve will start becoming quadratic and then logarithmic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22583594

How long does this go on for? Realistically we can't just live with the world shut down (can we?) with a vaccine far off, this can't be the new normal?

I think we're about to find out very quickly exactly how much labor is nonessential.

We’re going to find out which can work remotely. The “I can haz cheeseburger”s will survive while every arts organization goes under.

This goes on until enough people gets the disease to that natural contamination is slow enough not to overwhelm the health care infrastructure.

I don't think anybody can give you any actual number. But it's not hard to test a sample of people and determine the virus rate of spread, so we will know it when it happens.

If you do it properly (flattening the curve), it takes longer than getting hit with the full-height wave.

You have to “keep your foot on the brakes” until the disease is no longer a threat. Take a look at countries where there is success - Taiwan, Mainland China outside Hubei, HK, Singapore, SK - they must keep whatever countermeasures are working for them in place to some degree or risk another wave of infections. I think the culture of wearing masks really helps, despite the public messaging to the contrary. It seems like it would be good if mask manufacturing spins up enough to totally saturate the world over the next few months, and western cultures get over themselves and start making it common to wear them in public.

It has been refreshing to see the mask come off of those feigning care about "undesirables" who would be disproportionately affected by this virus. At the end of the day we come down to economic calculations to decide whether to let hundreds of thousands to millions of people die in this country.

The moral choice isn't always the most efficient one. I wonder if we will have the courage to make the moral choice?

not trying to be a wise ass in anyway, a legitimate question .. i'm wondering do you have to shutdown a bar that still allows smoking? can the virus even survive on surfaces and in the air if tobacco smoke is present?

Smokers are a higher risk group for Covid-19, so you should probably avoid such bars, even if they weren't going to be shutdown.

California Governor has just done the same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589365

California is letting restaurants operate at 50% capacity for now, it’s not the same as in Washington.

Gov. Newsom is only providing "guidance".... The local bars by me are promising to stay open since its not a legal order :(

NYC too

Aside, but I want to call out Miami Dade Public Schools for being the only public school system I'm aware of that has had a contingency plan in place for years:

On rare occasions it may be necessary to close a school(s) due to weather or other emergency situations. If this occurs, the district will make every effort to ensure that our students' educational opportunities continue while at home. Throughout the years, the district has compiled a comprehensive collection of online content and digital resources. The district also provides mobile devices for students to check out for home use to ensure that district students (non charter) can continue their learning without interruption.

...

The Instructional Continuity Plan (ICP) has three components: Content Delivery, Mobile Devices, and Internet Access. Content Delivery explains which resources students will use for core instruction and which materials can be used as supplemental resources to enhance core instruction. Mobile Devices provides the steps the district is taking to ensure that any student who needs a mobile device to access the instructional resources will be provided with one, upon request, for the duration of the schools' closure. ... Internet Access poses the greatest challenge to ensuring that M-DCPS students can continue their studies while at home. The district has taken steps throughout the years to assist students in getting access to the internet at home through projects such as The 1Million Project; however, partnerships with service providers is crucial to providing free or reduced-cost internet service to students should the district close in case of emergency situations.

http://icp.dadeschools.net/#!/fullWidth/2943

Also:

Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) is continuing its efforts to provide support to students and their families during school closures, which begin tomorrow, March 16. From distance learning, to community feedings, to facilitating childcare for essential medical personnel, M-DCPS stands firm in its commitment to support the South Florida community during this time of uncertainty.

A support hotline was established for teachers, students, and parents seeking assistance with distance learning.

During school closures, students and families may pick up hot meals to go, both breakfast and lunch, between 9:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

A Mental Health Services hotline will be available for students.

An Employee Assistance Program hotline will also be available.

http://covid19.dadeschools.net/#!/fullWidth/3024

In contrast, I am extremely disappointed in how haphazard things are going in NC. I'm particularly disappointed in the UNC system which appears to have done zero advanced planning.

Hurricane prep helps with lots of emergency scenarios, it seems.

I don't think this is hurricane prep. I was in Miami for Andrew. Hurricanes knock out power for weeks. Kids wouldn't be able to learn from home during that. I can't really think of another scenario where kids are stuck at home while infrastructure is all fine other than the one we currently find ourselves in.

I agree, but if you are prepped for a hurricane, you should be ok in this scenario.

We still have water, sewer, power, and internet.

one has to wonder. If this virus didnt disproportionately target baby boomers...would we still see this level of response?

My Daughter was working as a temp between jobs and the work has now been stopped, she had two second interviews planned in Sydney this week now both positions have been retracted and nobody hiring or interviewing, she has about 7 weeks of cash savings and 4 months lease on a rental. Oh and no unemployment benefit or subsidies as she is New Zealander working in Australia.

Young People at the lowest risk from this virus are going to be much worse off than just catching a fucking bad cold.

The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods.

Happy to be downvoted to nothing because I am so over this.

> The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods.

The UK's answer to the problem may result in manyfold more dead than this approach. We won't be able to know until after the fact.

In that state of unknown, I prefer the approach that values lives over dollars.

Lives and dollars are not totally different things. How many lives will be ruined by total financial destruction? How many will commit suicide in the months and years after due to financial issues?

Lives and money are not the same thing. Hard stop. I understand your point, but I just disagree with the expected outcomes here.

Realistically how much would it cost to bail out these businesses and provide a safety net to people? I imagine the numbers are less than we'd first think.

It's a choice. It's not inevitable.

Death rate is highly correlated with unemployment. They are not NOT the same thing.

https://news.yale.edu/2002/05/23/rising-unemployment-causes-...

Why do you expect long term unemployment here? Unless the virus crisis lasts for a year, in a few months things will be back to normal hopefully and you can expect the economic activity to take off again.

...

If small businesses are not economically relieved, there will be significant - and permanent - damage to those sectors.

This is either a straw man argument, or I disagree that there should be long term unemployment here. Govt programs and laws will probably be needed to provide that safety net.

I'm not saying that death rate and unemployment are unrelated (equating lives and money together). I am saying that we should prioritize lives first, and figure out the money once we stop the damage.

>> I am saying that we should prioritize lives first, and figure out the money once we stop the damage.

False dichotomy. There are plenty of economists and accountants and others who can work on the economic relief package and do so in a meaningful way while scientists and medical teams (plus politicians) handle the lifesaving operations. There is no reason they cannot run in parallel.

Uhhhhh ok. I'm not really sure why you think I said they can't run in parallel? What I am saying is that you can't prioritize money over lives and actively do things to harm the life of others.

This whole comment is about the approach to covid-19 where life goes on as normal and you don't practice social distancing at all. One argument for people that do that is that they can't take off work because their businesses are open and will fire them. I believe the businesses should be forced into social distancing and provided financial help if unable to do that. We're actively going to see this happen in the next week—it started tonight—will it be late?

Who will provide the safety net when the entire economy is shut down? Production precedes consumption, always.

Those are the questions we need to figure out as a country or even as a world. Realistically, the govt needs to provide that safety net for its citizens.

However, let's start with the decision that lives are more important than money.

This is a straw man argument. Nobody proposes shutting down essential parts of the economy, such as food production or basic infrastructure. I think we are going to survive just fine without new iPhones or SV startups for a few weeks.

People work their whole lives to make the value we measure in dollars. We humans have been dying for millenia for lack of the material wealth we have now. Having materials/dollars/whatever you want to call it is clearly worth lives because people spend vast portions of their precious lives getting it. If anything, valuing 1 more year of working life at 80 over ten years over 10years of working in your 20s would be silly.

I'm not saying that people don't need material wealth to survive in our society. I think that wealth can come from somewhere other than packing a petri dish bar with patrons who want to drink. For example, we're realistically looking at govt intervention at some point.

It starts with a concerted decision that lives are more important than money. If we can't get onboard with that, then there will always be people that put their well-being over others.

> How many will commit suicide in the months and years after due to financial issues?

Hopefully 0 if we provide a robust social safety net for people who's livelihoods are harmed.

I predict a 1% chance of that happening in the US. The 1% is due to the possibility that so many people are affected that they overthrow the government.

Even if we accept your premise, how many dollars in economic activity will be destroyed by the deaths of enormous numbers of working age people because the hospitals were overloaded and they couldn't get the critical care they needed?

I know this is horrible, but likely not too many. In Italy they are currently kicking people over 60 out of the hospitals to make way for the younger people who are more likely to survive with medical treatment.

And they have roughly 5 times the beds per 1000 people too.

No they don't. Italy has much fewer critical care beds (the kind needed for COVID) than the United States, which is #1 in the world.

> No they don't. Italy has much fewer critical care beds (the kind needed for COVID) than the United States, which is #1 in the world.

Do you have a link to statistics that support that? Is that on an absolute basis or on a per-capita basis?

On a per-capita basis, I see more hospital beds in Italy than in the US (3.18 to 2.77): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hosp...

What's your source for data on critical care beds? I'd love to take a look

Oh sorry. Meant to post the article, from Forbes. US and germany are way ahead of the world.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-co...

Hospital beds are a different story, but not what is important for COVID, which needs ICU beds. Hospital beds are much easier to deploy anywhere (and with the emergency measures taken federally, will see a huge increase due to waived FDA requirements for inspection). An ICU is much more involved, and requires ventilators, specialty beds, special equipment, etc. Much more difficult to deploy suddenly in response to sudden upticks.

If a lot of people die, a lot of economic value will be literally put into the ground: funerals, handling of estates, coffins. That's not long-term productive value. At best it reshuffles money in an optimal-blind way.

Except "working age people" are pretty much not impacted by this. The massive death rates are for people with existing preconditions: heart disease, lung problems, etc. There have been no deaths with children.

Practically speaking, the only thing a "working page person" (<60) could do is unknowingly spread the virus to someone else.

Sorry, I wish that were true. A non-trivial number of people under 60 year old also end up seriously ill and require critical care. In Wuhan half of all patients admitted to the ICU were age 25-49 ( https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... ).

For these younger people their prospects are good if they receive that care. An overloaded health system may be unable to provide that care to everyone who won't survive without it, including some younger people.

A tremendous number of working people also have preconditions which are implicated for covid19 including hypertension and obesity.

If you are a younger person and carelessly get an avoidable infection and end up in an overloaded hospital needing intensive care, your life may well be saved due to being triaged ahead of an older person with worse prospects. But in that case your life would be saved at the expense of someone else's. ... someone else who's infection might also be due to your spreading. I wouldn't be okay with that, and I hope you're not either. So I hope your glib attitude doesn't mean that you're not taking avoidable risks.

In the US there hasn't yet been clearly established ethical guidance to direct triaging like that. Your local hospital may assign ICU care first come first served... if so mortality rates there for younger people won't look so good.

And now the CDC is reporting similarly to my claims above: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e2.htm?s_cid=mm...

We will not value the lives of people with money over those that do not. Financial loss is _not_ the loss of life. Our lives are literally the only thing we have in this universe.

That's no what my comment said. The people who will be hit the hardest are those with little money and little employment protections. People working casual in these restaurants will be left with no job and no support.

Governments at all levels, companies and non-profits can (and I don't doubt will) help mitigate the financial hit in the months and years ahead. The California state government has for example promised to keep paying teachers and school staff. [1] Many tech companies for example are continuing to pay maintenance staff despite office closures. [2] NBA players have donated to arena staff affected by cancellations. [3]

But there is nothing anyone can do to bring back our loved ones.

[1] https://edsource.org/2020/newsom-assures-districts-theyll-be...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-google-facebook-...

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/us/nba-player-donations-coron...

If there is total financial destruction at the level of people losing their homes, not being able to eat, having their utilities cut off etc. it will be entirely due to policy choices that prioritise maintaining the current economic system and protecting the interests of the wealthy for the duration of the crisis over ensuring that everyone can survive with a basic, indeed decent, standard of life. By this I mean having their basic needs of nutrition, shelter, heat etc. met. For many (and I'm writing from the UK) this would actually be an improvement over the current situation. Globally we are the richest society in history by a profoundly long way, we have enough resources to get through this crisis. There is no reason that anyone should lose their home, or starve, or be left without power. But we have to acknowledge that, just as in situations such as WWII, normal economic life and the interests of capital / shareholders / the wealthy have to take a back seat to ensuring that, as far as possible, everyone can maintain a decent standard of life.

Has anyone thought about what will happen once other countries start getting better? They might as well quarantine the UK as a redzone area.

What is UK's answer to this problem?

Not imposing as much social distancing.

"Herd immunity" or something along those lines, apparently.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22577132

Wow that twitter thread linked was a wild ride. They really are doing a huge experiment in the middle of a world-wide pandemic. I'll be really interested to see how it all works out.

There is a huge backlash and they seem to be backing off of that idea. We'll see.

Because the description in this thread is a mischaracterisation of what the approach has been

>The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods.

Closed shops can be reopened, dead people can't be brought back.

EDIT: it really scares me to see there a real actual living human beings on HN here who would in all seriousness downvote this.

What is the "UK's answer" that's different than every other country with similar rates has done? Authorities have already denied the whole "herd immunity" meme is any sort of active policy in the UK.

https://politicshome.com/news/uk/health-and-care/illnesstrea...

Now that there is a growing backlash, the UK authorities are rejecting that they ever were trying to achieve "herd immunity” by allowing 60-80% of the “low-risk” population to be exposed to SARS-CoV-2.

However, the article you link to does not differ in its details from what authorities such John Edmunds a professor Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said 2 days ago [0] and Ian Donald Professor Emeritus from University of Liverpool wrote the same day [1]

These authorities are backpedalling in the face of deserved widespread criticism. But rather than changing the course of UK policy, they are only disavowing the phrase “herd immunity”.

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C98FmoZVbjs

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/iandonald_psych/status/1238518371...

That still doesn’t answer what they are doing differently than everyone else. Seems like a whole lot of politics I’m not invested in.

I guess people want far more aggressive policies but the same could be said of the majority of places. Italy and Spain are very much the exception in western countries and they are facing a higher scale. Here in Canada the federal gov has done absolutely nothing besides increased spending and repeating critiques of other countries for being too aggressive, meanwhile our prime minister is in isolation and Quebec just announced major bans of restaurants and bars, while also critiquing the prime minister for doing nothing. The current policy sounds more in line with WHO and the wider health system recommendations.

Even the US has faced significant backlash for their border policies from these same countries (our health minister has repeatedly claimed it has no scientific basis to close borders to places like China).

It’s hard to tell what people want vs just opportunistically critiquing politicians. I’m more curious from a practical healthcare perspective what they are expecting vs what’s actually being done. Border bans (can they do that w/o parliament)? Shutting down gatherings? Directly influence the health administration to test more? Better airport screening?

> The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods.

You mean the answer that consists in maximizing the dead count?

The UK's response is irresponsible IMHO. But we'll see.

Case A: No drastic action, your daughter gets her job in Sydney, you catch the virus in a few weeks and die.

Case B: Drastic lock down, your daughter lives on your dime for a few months or a year before she gets a job. You live to see your grand kids grow up.

And you'd rather risk case A?

> Young People at the lowest risk from this virus are going to be much worse off than just catching a fucking bad cold.

It's not a "fucking bad cold" for young people.

- Over 50% of ICU patients in Netherlands from COVID-19 are under 50. [1]

- Over 50% of ICU patients in France are under 60. [2]

- Over 40% of patients requiring hospitalization in China were under 50. [3]

Young people are not invincible. The fact that they can use up a significant chunk of already scarce medical resources suggests that we really shouldn't be sending that message and encouraging young people to not give a sh*t about the epidemic.

[1] https://www.ad.nl/dossier-coronavirus/40-a-50-nederlandse-co...

[2] https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/03/300-...

[3] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032

Those numbers measure the wrong thing. The proportion of young people in care means nothing without knowing also the proportion of young people infected.

South Korea had a large proportion of young infected people: https://medium.com/@andreasbackhausab/coronavirus-why-its-so...

Even if the number of young infected is much larger, it still means a significant number of young people need hospital treatment. A cold basically never needs hospital treatment. So it may not be deadly for the young but it's certainly not a bad cold.

Well if you triage patients and ventilate people much more likely to survive, that's what the numbers might end up being

No, triage based on likelihood of survival has not been happening widely yet in France and the Netherlands (thankfully).

Any possibility she could head back to NZ? I guess the lease is stopping this right?

From a purely economic perspective, you might be right. However the cost is blood. The mortality rate goes from about 1% to above 3%, since the UK’s hospitals will quickly be overrun.

The cost will be at least the delta 1.3 million preventable deaths. This doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of folks left with pulmonary fibrosis, which has a 3-5 year life expectancy.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589476.

Can't wait to lose my job over this complete overreaction to this virus.

Great action, well done

Welp, I guess my trip to Sakuracon is officially cancelled...again.

heaven forbid you miss a weekend of fun so that some of our fellow humans might live

Personal attacks are not allowed on HN. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and please don't post like this here.

Note this one: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

We can allow people to express sadness at loss.

Their official website doesn't have any update yet. I suggest checking it after everyone has the official wording and duration of the announcement tomorrow.

http://sakuracon.org/

Most restaurants around here already had 1/4th of customers and almost never over 10 at a time sufficiently distanced away. It still provided workers to come in any way and get whatever minimum wage they can. I feel this move is boneheaded and is just a knee jerk reaction without actually knowing the above fact. Most folks working in restaurants don't even have a week worth of savings. They don't have investments or own homes. They still have to pay rents pretty soon. Governer is ignoring all of these to make an appearance that he is making swift aggressive action. He has made zero provisions for all of these people who will be on the verge of losing their roof. The least he could have done would be to mandate no evictions during these closures so the financial load is transferred to rich rent collectors and investors with sufficient fat as opposed to these poor people.

This feels like a much worse outcome than just taking the virus on the chin and letting 40-70% of the population get sick. That may seem contrarian, but this panic feels worse than the actual virus. More people will die from economic hardship than from COVID.

I guess people would rather lower the gdp than have their parents die.

Destroying the economy at this rate will bring much more death than Corona. 10s of thousands of businesses are being crippled. The government will do nothing aside from bailing out institutions they’ve bailed out countless times before. Leaving the lower and middle class absolutely gutted.

People presumably still want the recession form of death than the pandemic one, it's not even a competition. There is no amount of evidence you can present to the public that would make this call even a close one. "ten times as many will die from the recession unless we let X people die now" doesn't work.

Rather an economic crisis than losing some of your loved ones a decade or two before their time. Get the authorities in place to be the safety net and take the measures required. Preventing a major GDP bump downwards is not worth millions of lives.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

The argument about economic effects vs. health effects is getting nastier and could get a lot worse. Please find ways to make your substantive points that don't nudge HN threads in that direction.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The problem with that strategy is that some percentage of the people who become sick need acute care or they will die, and acute care is effectively a fixed resource over short time frames. There are a limited number of hospital beds, ventilators, nurses, doctors, and support staff available. The disease can spread much faster than you can increase any of these resources. If you run out of hospital capacity the death rate will increase rapidly and substantially. No government will fail to act when there are literally bodies piling up on the sidewalks outside of hospitals, so it is much saner to act to divert that scenario.

> this panic feels worse

Well, for most people losing their family would feel way worse.

There are many ways to mitigate the economic impact down the line. Governments at all levels, companies and organization are already helping blunt the impact. For example, the California state government has promised to keep paying teachers and school staff. Many tech companies are continuing to pay maintenance staff despite office closures. NBA players have donated to arena staff affected by cancellations.

But nothing can bring back our loved ones.

Sources: https://edsource.org/2020/newsom-assures-districts-theyll-be.... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-google-facebook-.... https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/13/us/nba-player-donations-coron....

You're talking about conceivably millions in the U.S. alone.

55% * 6% fatality rate * 330 million is >10,000,000.

That's a lot of people to sacrifice to keep bars and restaurants open.

6% where are you getting that number? The highest I’ve seen is 3% and that’s in people older than 80...

In countries having overwhelmed healthcare systems, most recently: Italy, the rate is much higher than the 3.4% estimated by the WHO. It’s still too early to say what the actual figure will turn out to be in Italy, but 6% was the raw result from 13 March.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

So our best sets of data are the WHO analysis of Wuhan which puts it at 5.6%. And the diamond princess which gives us a 1% fatality rate. But here's the big catch, those infected on the Diamond Princess got all of the medical care they needed.

And the issue is once our healthcare system gets overwhelmed the rate will shift from 1% up to the 5.6% (And Wuhan could have gotten much worse)

Also, South Korea was around 1%. It's a number that has grown in credibility, unfortunately. I was hoping 0.1%.

It's awful when you consider that losing 1% of the population is the best case scenario.

You're assuming that none of them would die if you keep bars and restaurants closed. There's no indication that this measure is effective at all.

That's true, I was mostly just trying to illustrate the size of the problem we're dealing with. I think our best bet is to slow it down as much as possible. And we're not going to get randomized controlled trials on a lot of the interventions we take, just our medical community's best guess at what will work.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry I assumed op was underestimating the mortality rate(which is easy to do if you just look at the mortality rates without digging into the overwhelmed vs not overwhelmed rates), not that he didn't care about human lives.

I think many people think that if we don't strongly mitigate/contain the virus the deaths are measured in 10's of thousands which would need more careful consideration of the downstream effects of closing off a part of our economy.

Looking at my comment the restaurants and bars could sound flippant but I posted that before the thread turned nasty so I wasn't as careful with my words as I would have been had I known this was a contentious subject.

I wish the tone in my head when I wrote the comment came through, I'll try to be more careful in the future, especially regarding this subject. Just sometimes the tone of a comment sounds very different in your head then how it might read.

Letting 40-70% of the population being infected by a virus with 2% percent of mortality rate mean the death of 1% of the population. And probably even more because hospital beds will be saturated and won't be able to provide the cure they need to many people.

(for perspective the normal moratlity rate is 0.77% in a normal population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_rate)

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