Shelter in place for Bay Area counties
sfchronicle.com
sfchronicle.com
https://www.sccgov.org/sites/phd/DiseaseInformation/novel-co...
Grocery stores and pharmacies will remain open, and restaurants may stay open to provide takeout food only. Also staying open: veterinary services, gas stations and auto repair shops, hardware and other home supply stores, banks and laundry services.
Daycare centers may stay open, but children must be kept in groups no larger than 12, and they must stay with the same group of children every day.
I'm not particularly interested in getting in a bike crash and taxing the ER even further, but i'll be avoiding cabin fever for sure.
I wonder how this crisis and lockdown will affect dating and future birth rates.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/opinion/letters/central-p...
But that was only a one day event.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/will-the-coronavirus-spike-births
Just a heads up, This kind of things are already happening in China. You may want to think hard and get prepared for your family.
As such rules are IMHO quite sensible and effective, it is a good thing others are applying them as well. I guess that could be another reason to act quick on stuff like this - so that others can see this is possible and apply it themselves.
> Under the order, residents will still be allowed to take a walk, exercise or take a pet out to use the bathroom as long as people remain at least six-feet away from others who are not a member of their own household.
Seems like it'd be a good idea to limit really big, difficult workouts in order to not tire yourself out too much, and probably stay close to home as well.
If you want to really start factoring stuff in to how healthy or not it is, you should factor in the sedentary lifestyle that too much driving leads to, as well.
But driver-hours (definitely not passenger-hours) are the correct metric if you're considering biking as a substitute for driving. People take longer trips in cars than they do on bikes because they can. If the mode of transportation shifts, trips to the store won't get longer to adjust -- the stores will become more dense to accommodate the reality that people need closer stores.
No, it's not, that's what I'm saying here. The length of a commute is determined by the cost it imposes on the commuter. That cost is measured in time and money, but not in distance. Nobody cares about distance. Commutes are the length they are because that's what people can tolerate. If you slowed everybody down, they wouldn't spend more time commuting; they'd commute for the same time over less distance.
Everyone should exercise, sleep, and eat right to prepare for the coming battle inside our bodies :)
Plenty of exercise can be done indoors, and without any equipment either.
You could do bodyweight exercise like push-ups, L-sits, burpees, and many others without any equipment.
For a small investment you could get a couple of barbells or a pull-up bar to extend even further the number of exercises you can do indoors and in a very small space.
If we're facing a serious medical crisis, please don't rationalize any potentially risky behavior. Use your best dispassionate judgement instead.
Deciding which particular activities are too risky in this situation is left as an exercise to the reader.
> Panicking, moralizing commentary like yours does absolutely no good to anybody and just stokes people’s fear.
My comment was not panicking. However, if advocating that adults think clearly and avoid rationalization counts as "moralizing", then guilty as charged.
Daycare will be closed--we know why. Curfew will be imposed. People need to prepare for 2 months of lock-down (two weeks didn't work anywhere) Virtually everything will stop, no one will risk their life (food, pharma and essentials obviously will go on)
There are similar orders for each county.
Edit: It actually says that going out for safe exercise is allowed.
The amount by which we should shrink the economy to save lives might be quite a different number. I haven't seen a good analysis of that case.
In general, shrinking the economy costs lives elsewhere such as by malnutrition or lack of money to spend on safety equipment. So the number ought to be lower.
If that isn't broken windows, I'm not sure why.
If so, I don't see the connection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
No relation to the other. Sorry - my mistake in assuming sufficient familiarity with both to disambiguate from context.
What is known is that it is incredibly contagious, so they're taking precautions for a worse-case scenario with these shut downs.
I've heard multiple times from the virologists at This Week in Virology that we're not going to know the real numbers until it's all over.
In addition to that, they are going to be highly variable depending on the demographics, pre-existing conditions, and the level of medical care you are able to get.
So it's going to be very difficult to calculate these sorts of metrics even when the actual infection/death rates are known.
Which is a big concern to the US, since there is no universal care. That said, I'm in Canada and the healthcare options in rural areas is often hit or miss -- sometimes just a clinic, sometimes just nothin.
This is a misstatement. Nobody is trying to stop the spread, they're trying to slow it within a bubble. The surrounding counties, cities, and states aren't under quarantine. The bay area is simply hitting the pause button, with a slight rewind, for three weeks. Once those three weeks pass, the pause button is released.
One thing is for sure, unless there's some compensation or forgiveness of late payments/credit score hits from the state, this is going to really harm the lives of those already struggling to afford the bay area.
I haven't been assuming that. I think this step is needed, but nobody has really defined precisely what success looks like. In 3 weeks I assume they re-assess and could very well leave restrictions in place.
I had assumed that as well. No reason things will look better by then, and the preventative measures taken in that time probably won't sufficient enough to otherwise resume normal life either.
Also, the cynic in me says that the government class wants to get people used to the idea of a shelter in place piecemeal, because it might not go over as well if they said 1 month straight out of the gate.
It seems like we need to either eradicate it 100% or develop herd immunity by exposing as many people as possible.
There is clearly value in limiting the rate of infection, but that means the shelter in place is just a rate limit, and we are in for something much longer than just a few weeks.
It’ll take time, too many will die, but instead of remembering that most folks will likely complain about being stuck at home.
Weddings/concerts/flights are all cancelled and the only way to get things back on track is to shelter in place long enough for us to get testing up and running and to isolate the virus.
Half measures in this situation just won’t cut it and the longer we take to accept that, the more will die.
Caveat: I’m a fortunate person who has the ability to work remotely. I realize that many don’t have enough savings to make it through a week, much less two months. I hope our safety net is there to support them as well as the business owners who will all be severely impacted.
I mean, if I'm feeling sick wouldn't I just proceed as if I had it? How doesn't actually knowing change anything? My course of action should be identical.
That's why everyone needs to stay home until we have enough testing to accurately determine who can safely go out.
Having the ability to test quickly means you can save hospital isolation wards from unnecessary overcrowding, because you can now know whether a person who comes in with respiratory symptoms actually has Covid-19 rather than having to treat everyone as though they might. "It means you can move from a presumptive stance to a more informed stance"[1]
If doctors know you're sick with COVID-19 and your disease is severe enough, they might offer you one of the experimental treatments for it, or you might be offered to participate in one of the hundreds of ongoing research studies.
Testing will also help determine where scarce medical resources need to be allocated, which people need to be isolated, and around which people medical personnel need to wear protective equipment.
Finally, testing will let epidemiologists track the progress of the disease and have better estimates about how severe it's going to be, and possibly predict in which communities it'll get better or worse. This will help public health officials decide where and when to declare or end quarantines/lockdowns.
[1] - https://www.wired.com/story/fda-approves-the-first-commercia...
A good intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE4_LsftNKM
Evidence is developing that as much as 75% of transmission events is from non-symptomatic individuals.
Testing only really makes sense if we either can test everyone to ensure we can eradicate the virus by isolation, or if we have medication to define who should receive treatment.
We also may have better treatment options in the not-so-distant future, making everybody better prepared for a future spread.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china/
Currently we're Knight Capital and our algos are blowing money. We could worry about the delay or we could turn everything off.
I was planning to do the move myself, with a rental truck. I'm not confident that rental trucks will be available. I'm not sure I'd want to be in one anyway -- even before the pandemic the sanitary condition of rental trucks was dubious at best.
I'm hoping that moving will be considered essential travel, although tonight is just before the start of the new policy. If a lot of people ignore the "shelter in place" during the next week, the enforcement will probably get stricter.
I don't have an answer for you but it's a real problem. Paying double rent (or rent plus a mortgage) involves a huge amount of money in the Bay Area.
I'm probably going to try to contact the county government tomorrow and get an answer but I'm sure I'll be the millionth person on hold on the phone.
(Also, guess who needs a smog check to register his car and might not be able to get one?)
You should be okay on the smog check, because auto repair shops are considered essential in the order.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/local-politics/article/Bay-Area-...
A wide swath of businesses that do not provide “essential” services must send workers home. Among those remaining open are grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants for delivery only and hardware stores. Most workers are ordered to stay home, with exceptions including health care workers; police, fire and other emergency responders; and utility providers such as electricians, plumbers and sanitation workers. BART will remain running for essential travel, and airports are not closing.
2) Read the story of South Korea's Patient 31.
https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-SOUTHKOREA-CLUSTER...
3) It's not the flu. It's more contagious and if you get pneumonia you will have permanent lung damage. It can also invade your nervous system.
4) Pneumonia will not kill you, but it requires hospitalization. The US has less than 3 hospital beds per every 1,000 people.
5) Reported cases are a small subset of the actual number of cases. There are not enough test kits.
Citation, please. Here's a counter: This list shows about 29 ICU beds (so not even just beds more broadly) per 100,000 in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_...
What does this mean?
We've heard that in Italy there are fines and jail time ... but does that even pass constitutional muster here in terms of freedom of movement?
If police stop people on the street and tell them to turn around and go home, habeas corpus might not be a particularly relevant remedy.
[1] This is not about cops. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_(United_States_co...
also, how does the conversation begin in the first place? do they pull you over under suspicion that you're not on your way to a grocery store, gas station, or friend/relative's house?
The order also allows going for walks as long as you're not with someone you aren't housed with, so the misdemeanor part is likely to be about gathering, not travelling.
https://medium.com/center-for-an-informed-public-at-uw/law-i...
The legitimacy of the courts really took some big hits in the last few decades. Will the judicial branch even have the power to stop the other branches before this is all over? Only time will tell.
I intend to break any sort of mandatory lockdown/curfew, without putting myself or anyone else at risk (e.x. going for a walk in a non-crowded outdoor area). I'm not comfortable with the government telling me when and where I can be on such a broad and open-ended basis.
To be clear, I'm not being reckless like people still going on vacations or eating at crowded Red Robins or whatever (https://brobible.com/culture/article/miss-nevada-katie-willi...). I've already been social distancing for a week and am now in full self-imposed lockdown (excluding mentioned outdoor walks and picking up essential supplies)
I just hope that whatever lockdown happens if it happens is sensible and reasonable as much as it can be.
Going for a walk in a non-crowded area is permitted under the order. See https://sf.gov/stay-home-except-essential-needs :
>It is OK to go outside for walks if you are not in a group.
https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantin...
And that's back when things like Polio was raving populations, and could cripple you for life even if you made it through.
Point is, we've had to deal with this before... just not much recently.
Generally, the fall under the state's police powers and the 10th Amendment. They have to be targeted at serving a legitimate state interest (stopping the spread of disease certainly qualifies), not be arbitrary, not have some equally effective alternative that doesn't burden civil rights, etc.
As for the shelter-in-place order, see:
California Health and Safety Code Sec. 120130
(d) The health officer may require strict or modified isolation, or quarantine, for any case of contagious, infectious, or communicable disease, when this action is necessary for the protection of the public health.
California Health and Safety Code Sec. 120295
Any person who violates Section 120130 or any section in Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 120175, but excluding Section 120195), is guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less than fifty dollars ($50) nor more than one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment for a term of not more than 90 days, or by both. He or she is guilty of a separate offense for each day that the violation continued.
When I had my car stolen in Seattle - it was still given parking tickets after being reported stolen a few days prior. I had to visit the city council in person to get them written off. On top of that, the only reason it was only found was because the thieves made a bunch of noise when getting out of the car and abandoning it. So, a lady reported the car to the police for it being a nuisance. Cranky people - sometimes good for something...
More seriously, `Violation of or failure to comply with this Order is a misdemeanor punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both. (California Health and Safety Code § 120295, et seq.)`
They're obviously not being hardasses about it, as doing so is precluded by the "essential activities" loophole; if you're on your way to something frivolous, you can just tell a cop you're going to the grocery store or pharmacy. But it prevents people from doing things that are obviously non-essential, like hanging out with each other in the park (or going to destinations like gyms that are now effectively required to be closed).
I don't own a car -- I take the subway to work (about 25 minutes each way). But it seems dumb to use the subway at this time, which means I have to work from home. If I had a car, I'd feel safe commuting.
A car is also the "solution" to an individual problem -- "how do I get safely from A to B?" -- but this is a societal problem: "how do we as a society overcome this disease while causing as little damage as possible?". Solutions must be oriented towards the community, not the individual. Everyone using their cars, if they even have them, is not the solution.
I don't see this as a poor solution to my particular needs, but I do look forward to it being electric and charged from solar panels on my roof.
It's not that unusual in desert communities like mine.
Our food will be more expensive and it should be but all those other parts of rural living are just this horrendous climate abuse.
EDIT: Oops, I mean the costs should be baked in. Obviously governments should provide food aid.
Urban populations have their own fair share of climate related problems.
Sounds to me like you just want people to starve in order to solve your precious climate ‘crisis’.
Some people stocking up on supplies, to the detriment of their neighbors, is also a "solution"... to those people. Not to their neighbors. A "solution" must scale, otherwise it's selfish. Even worse, if a lot of people think "cars are the answer!" they are compounding the problem.
Fighting coronavirus requires a societal response, one that works for most people and where people don't take individual actions that seemingly benefit them (and only them).
I live in SF and don't own a car. It's never been more tempting for me to get one. I live alone, far from family, and now seemingly can't see my friends or significant other. It's already getting incredibly lonely. A car would enable me to at least go straight to my gf's place without being in contact with anyone, or to the pharmacy for meds without taking public transit.
Well, I didn't mean to. In fact, I'm advocating for the community at large. An individualistic "solution" ("if only I had a car, I would be able to [...]") is not the best solution for the problem at large. Everyone fending for themselves, driving their cars, is obviously not the answer, and in fact it might make things worse.
That you, and many others, are feeling pretty lonely and isolated is part of the reality of this outbreak. It's obviously going to be very hard for a lot of people. Many people's livelihoods are at stake here, regardless of the seriousness of COVID-19. Unfortunately this is going to have some big consequences regardless of individually owned cars.
update: it seems the city of SF has an advisory, and is mandating (among other things) against taking "unnecessary" trips in public transportation, car or motorbike: https://sf.gov/stay-home-except-essential-needs
Some excerpts:
"You cannot have dinner parties. You cannot invite friends over to your home to hang out.
[..]
You cannot take unnecessary trips on public transport or in your car or motorbike."
"Can I leave home to visit friends or family members if there is no urgent need?
No. For your safety as well as their safety, we need to help each other fight the spread of COVID-19 by staying at home."
Public transit, walk, bike, or... rent a car.
Without a car it's incredibly difficult to fulfill even a trip to the pharmacy with only a compromised public transportation system.
> Not everyone has 24-hour public transportation available.
I don't think public transportation is the safest choice at this moment either. In fact, everyone should avoid it if at all possible (in some cases and parts of the world, it's not possible at the moment).
Since last week I have been driving 100% & not using transit. Now is not the time for reusable mugs & public transit. Right now we optimize for distancing & isolation, not resource conservation.
Mine wasn't an argument about pollution or the environment, but about individualist vs collective solutions.
edit: Commenter below asked for citations, which is reasonable. :-)
This comment applies to the USA only.
There were 37,991 deaths classified under one of the WISQRS "Motor Vehicle Traffic Death" codes last year.[0]
Another 1000-3000 are reasonably counted also, for example, the 203 deaths coded as "Pedestrian injured in nontraffic accident involving other and unspecified motor vehicles." (this includes some cases of people injuring themselves with cars on private property, etc).
I think we can safely say 40,000, without even including any part of the long-term health effects of cars; this is just deaths from crashes.
We've had 71 deaths from COVID-19 so far[1]. We don't know how many total infections or transmissions have occurred; estimates vary unbelievably wildly because of so little test coverage. [2]
It's possible that our death rate is high, more likely that, at least so far, it is much, much lower than has been published in the media (the 8% of people over 65 figure, for example, uses only confirmed cases, which almost certainly represent only a tiny fraction of cases).
Based on these numbers and sources, I think it's a reasonable assertion that the number of otherwise unexpected deaths to result from COVID-19 is unlikely to be higher than the number killed by cars.
1: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
2: http://perkinslab.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/6/2/25629832/perkin...
That reallllllllllly depends on how we respond as a society in the coming weeks...
If we don't do drastic measures, many experts are citing numbers in the high hundreds of thousands to over a million (example [1], which is well worth reading). But if we do act, the experience of China, South Korea, and Singapore teach us that we can do better.
[1] https://tincture.io/dispatch-4-from-the-front-lines-79c74fa6...
(I want to link https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/notes-from-ucsf-expert-panel-... which actually does give numbers, but that might no longer be available)
That means (2 ^ N) - 1 cumulative grains of rice on the N first squares.
So 63 total grains of rice on the first 6 squares is correct.
But the numbers you've cited do not represent a mainstream view in the papers currently being reviewed and published as far as I can tell.
Give this a read, "2019-novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV): estimating the case fatality rate—a word of caution": https://smw.ch/article/doi/smw.2020.20203
...and for that matter, take some time to consider generally the resources on CIDRAP; they are one of the few academic centers that seem to be actually focused on science instead of hype. http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/
> It is not the case that "many experts are citing numbers in the high hundreds of thousands to a million people".
You are objectively wrong on this. The UCSF panel on 3/10 presented an estimate with a range of 1.5 million on the high side. Dr. Osterholm said on the Joe Rogan podcast, "We conservatively estimate that this could require 48 million hospitalizations, and over 480,000 deaths over the next 3-7 months." The Imperial report warns of up to 2.2 million in the US, and even with mitigations in place a large number of fatalities. Not one of the epidemiologists I follow on Twitter has called this estimate into question, and many have praised the report.
Nobody has the real answers, and we all have to do our best interpreting the evidence that's out there, but making shit up is not helpful.
ETA: I found a working link to the 3/10 UCSF panel: https://tincture.io/an-expert-covid-19-panel-from-ucsf-664a3...
As best I can tell, he is citing the "leaked webinar" for hospital prep from the American Hospital Association. I can't find this document or other interpretations of it.
But yeah, I was dead wrong about what he said. ---
Ahh, gotcha.
I think there's some confusion about what we're talking about.
I thought you were talking about a number of deaths in the USA (ie, compared to my pointing to the approximately 40k traffic deaths).
480k deaths, the CIDRAP estimate cited by Osterholm (which, by the way, I can't find a PDF for - do you happen to have a link), is unlikely to include more than 40k US deaths; I don't think there has ever been a pandemic where the US accounted for 9% of the worldwide deaths, has there?
For example, the 2009 H1N1 outbreak saw 284,000 deaths worldwide, with 12,000 in the USA. [0]
> The Imperial report warns of up to 2.2 million in the US, and even with mitigations in place a large number of fatalities.
We might need help interpreting the 2.2 million number - it is described as the calculation of an "unmitigated pandemic", and appears to take the worst death rate for each age group observed worldwide and combining it with the "cumulative ICU cases trigger" (the report loses me here), and then simply applying it to the USA population.
In other words, I don't think it's meant as a prediction, but a ceiling to define the parameters of the report.
But again, I'd appreciate some help interpreting.
0: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2012/06/cdc-estim...
It seems unadvisable to look at exponential curves with a linear mindset…
Consider a different way of estimating:
There are >300m people in the US.
It's easily conceivable that >50% of them could catch the virus.
CFR is likely to end up >.5% (Korea, with excellent medical care and very widespread screening, so probably one of the smaller numerators / largest denominators around, still currently has rates higher than that).
That would already give a rather high number of fatalities. And if the health care system gets overloaded, CFR is going to be quite a bit higher than assumed above.
[Disclaimer: Not medically trained or otherwise qualified]
I wouldn't be so sure. Italy may hit that amount this week. Italy has 3,333 deaths from car accidents per year. They currently have 2,158 deaths from covid-19, adding 368 just today.
It's actually not. It's a good argument for actually diversifying our transit options so people have real choice.
A lot of people aren't really pro transit options. They are really for public transit and/or against cars.
If it is easier to do a mix of walking, public transit, etc, then there's no single point of failure.
If the transit system isn't overloaded, you can sometimes find yourself on the bus by yourself for a bit.
If you have flexibility to work from home or go in when you feel like it, that's another way to not be trapped in a crowded bus or whatever.
We need to break some lockstep patterns, not trade one monolith for another, which tends to be the argument.
But the 80/20 rule tends to apply. If you do whatever small and easy things are immediately possible, you get 80 percent of the way there and it frees up resources and extends the runway so that last hard 20 percent can be resolved or at least better tolerated.
But once you're on the bus there's only so much social distancing you can do. What are you going to do then? Thus, the car is the ultimate vehicle if you don't want even want a driver.
Renting a car is the lowest hanging fruit right now for dealing with this problem. If you have a low hanging fruit suggestion then put it out there, but it's not trying to socially distance yourself on a bus, right?
When I gave up my car, I was in an apartment complex within a twenty minute walk of four shopping centers. There were two other apartment complexes lined up next to mine.
No one walked. They literally got in their car to drive their trash to the dumpster or pick up their mail or go to the pool.
Me and my sons began walking. And when you walked, you didn't have to go all the way down the hill to the street. You could cut through the grass and one of the shopping centers didn't even require you to cross a street.
If you aren't familiar with various options, you don't have the mental maps to do things quickly and easily. You impose mental maps from an unrelated process and draw inaccurate conclusions because your brain superimposes the car path you would need to take when you aren't going to go walk down to the street and walk in the street, etc.
I gave up my car and the internet told me it was not a walkable neighborhood because there was no theater or something. My favorite grocery store was on the corner.y bank branch was across from it. I was near my job and other shopping.
It wasn't perfect, but it met a lot of my needs. I'm not a big movie goer. I did not care that there was no theater.
And I can talk until I'm blue in the face and people who don't walk as a form of transit will shout me down and tell me I'm a whack job.
But if you want to beat this thing, you may find that you have other options to do things you need to do if you will just look for them.
Sir down and list an essential task.
Food.
Work.
Banking.
Write out the sticking points. Why is this a problem currently.
Brainstorm alternatives: ATM, online banking, PayPal, prepaid debit card, e-gift cards, etc.
Search Google maps for all nearby options. Zoom in. Think about what's actually conveniently close.
I'm not saying no one should drive. I'm just saying it's not better for driving to become the new monolith everyone should pursue because of the pandemic.
Shopping when it's less crowded is effective. It's a practice I'm pursuing. It reduces exposure and it has nothing to do with how I go there. It's just a function of timing.
> If it is easier to do a mix of walking, public transit, etc, then there's no single point of failure.
I have "real choice". Subway, buses, uber, walking, biking. That's normally how I get around.
But I, someone who relies on public transportation, have noticed that there are, in fact, situations where owning a car is advantageous. Like an epidemic.
Forget my commute. I can't visit my sister, who lives 15 miles away, without uber/metro/bus. Those options would put me in the wake of hundreds or thousands of other people. If I had a car, I could just drive and it would be significantly safer.
I'm not saying "everyone should buy a car". I'm noting that, hey, there actually are situations where being able to safely move around by yourself is helpful. That's not so shocking!
That's my entire point. You should have a choice.
It shouldn't ever be an argument of "all public transit, all the time" versus "cult of the car." But Americans turn it into an either/or argument all the time.
Take care. Safely move around as you choose.
Wash your hands.
Stop touching your face.
I'm a little bewildered at how you've chosen to communicate but, uh, have a nice day.
You don't need a personal vehicle, you need to figure out how to stay home.
[1] Not stocking up on things since I constantly pass stores that contain necessities, locating myself where I can access a dozen parks (and a million activities) instead of having lots of personal living or yard space, not owning a car since I can easily (and cheaply) rent or take the subway...etc
It seems we're just trying to delay the inevitable.
And before you respond about how we're trying to slow exposure so medical services are available -- that would imply we're going to need to quarantines for a few weeks every few weeks for, what, a year? More? There's no way this action is sustainable.
This analysis suggests that actually flattening the curve would require us to slow this virus down over the course of a decade:
https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-dea...
[1]: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-ana...
[edit, as apparently you edited your comment after I posted my response] The essay you linked praises the complete lockdown in Wuhan as being effective. That said, it's written by an AI researcher, as opposed to a public health expert.
The alternative is to just let it burn through the population, hoping it takes out mostly economically unproductive people (the sick and elderly), and letting business as usual go on. Some might find this an acceptable policy, but I do not.
That's exactly what it implies (or a continuous lockdown for months). It may seem like a crazy proposition today after a century of life being relatively tame, but WWII lasted six years.
This is what we're facing. We're in survival mode through the end of the year. It is crazy, but we'll get through it.
A city just more or less put its entire population in parole.
It is OK to go outside for walks if you are not in a group.
I don't think they'll be shooting or arresting anyone.
And the other linked article said they'll be lax enforcement the first few days to give people time to adjust.
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.”
For the Federal Goverment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Health_Service_Act
The list (for the federal government) of diseases is managed via Executive Order [PDF] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2003-04-09/pdf/03-883...
The CDC also has a link to this: https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantin...
These measures have precedent, so good luck in getting these overturned.
Where that balance is, I don't know. That's why we have the courts, to begin with.
Today, during my commute on the tollways, the signs indicated do not stop at the toll plazas. All of the manned stations are closed. They indicated to either use your I-Pass or pay your missed toll online. I don't think they even want people using the unmanned cash/self-served stations.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/14/hong-kong-dog-with-coronavirus...
I'd say it's likely that dogs can be carriers although it sounds unlikely that they'll come down with full on COVID-19. They found the virus in the dog's sinuses but later blood tests came back negative.
Especially since the order says Violation of or failure to comply with this Order is a misdemeanor punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both.
I'm going with the assumption that surrounding counties outside the six mentioned in the article will take up a similar measure.
> Am I allowed to leave the areas covered by this Order to travel to/from a vacation home outside the Bay Area?
> No, except to the extent that you leave the Bay Area and do not travel back or are leaving for a permitted purpose. That kind of travel runs the risk of spreading the virus around the state or elsewhere, and that puts others at risk. Stay put and don’t risk exposing yourself or others.
https://sf.gov/stay-home-except-essential-needs#main-content
(sorry, there's no anchor for the FAQ elements, you'll have to search for the text).
Accelerate? Maybe medical marijuana is different, but my non-medical experience was of time seeming to stretch out forever, not to speed by.
If this is an order in WA and they don't literally put a cop by my door, I wonder where I stand when I willfully violate it.
I've tried to do some research but most of the freedom of movement cases seem to be concerned with interstate and international travel.
You mean forever? Hopefully.
Then we need to have infrastructure to trace, track down, and quarantine any remaining cases like Korea.
The trick is to manage the economic implications. The government can hire those people, pay people to stay home, or whatever else. It will lead to inflation, but that's better than a million deaths.
Also luckily the comment ranking here seems to mean your peers disagree with you.
[1]: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop...
It's true, but it has zero relevance to the fact that people are naturally resistant to being told to make huge sacrifices almost solely for the benefit of another group of people. Particularly at a time when one of the major (pre-coronavirus) world storylines is around the first group of people suffering from the climate decisions made by the older group.
The older generation also solved a lot of problems, and gave us great gifts, as did every generation before them, and as we will for the ones that follow us.
It's not productive to try to pit the young against the old, and the GP is right to point out that you too will be old one day, if you're lucky, so it's certainly unwise to reform the system so that it discriminates against the very group you should hope to join someday (and sooner than you would imagine, sooner than anyone wishes), especially considering the alternative.
^This matters because it shows that the government is capable of taking dramatic action
Be sure to tell grandma how much you care, junior.
> But where is the help for those that now can't pay their rent or buy enough food?
Folks in California are eligible for up to $1800/month in unemployment benefits.
> That situation inherently breeds resentment at a time where resentment is already a mainstream topic.
Response to a disaster should breed solidarity.
This has gotta be the most nihilistic thing I've ever read. And I spend time on Reddit.
The ascendance of humanity is due to a) our brains, and b) our aggregating into communities and working for collective benefit. Our entire existence disproves your hyper-libertarian/utilitarian notion.
Then again, clearly some people hold this perverse idea... which explains the random edge lords on Twitter bragging about violating social distancing protocols.
Either way, we may be looking at an economic depression the likes of which hasn't been seen for a hundred years.
Unfortunately, the current government is very unlikely to offer a New Deal to get us out of it, and it remains to be seen what the voters who survive this pandemic will do about it.
An overwhelmed health care system and lack of medicines and medical supplies is likely to cause even more deaths.
That's not to mention other possible deaths due to the ensuing chaos and social and economic disruption brought about by the above deaths, global political instability, and reduced supply and demand from the rest of the world as it battles this pandemic.
How many people will die from climate change? It really feels like unless it is an uncontrolled threat to baby boomers we will not take action on it.
400K people die from smoking related illnesses, as a result of consuming something they knew would do that to them. What we outlawed was second-hand smoke, where we prevented innumerable deaths of people who didn't get to choose whether they smoked: at bars, at restaurants, at casinos, on airplanes. That is a fair place to draw the line. If you want to kill yourself smoking, you know the risks, and so long as you're not impacting anyone else, have at it.
> How about sugar to prevent obesity related illnesses?
As in this case a debate should be had: personal liberty vs. companies who know they're selling a harmful product. The right place to draw the line could easily be to outlaw advertising of sugar-added products to children.
> I think these measure are reasonable, I think allowing other such stupid things is unreasonable.
Not going out to the detriment of others is far closer to second-hand smoking than to first-hand smoking so I'd wager an entire couple of decades of case law and precedent exists.
> How many people will die from climate change? It really feels like unless it is an uncontrolled threat to baby boomers we will not take action on it.
Boomers represent 22% of the US population as of 2018, and obviously, falling. If I remember my math right, democracy gives the youth a pretty big edge so they can't really pin this one on the boomers anymore.
You aren't thinking of second-order effects.
In such a situation, old people are going to effectively be left to die, and it'll be younger people who are more likely to survive (which they are anyway, simply by virtue of being young).
The only old people that are likely to benefit are those who manage to live long enough in isolation to not get infected before a vaccine or effective treatment becomes widely available... which could take a long time.
if you come in messed up from a car accident and you need 5 doctors to survive, or those 5 doctors can keep 5 covid patients alive each, you’re going to be left to bleed out. regardless of how young you are.
(i’m not claiming those relative numbers are realistic.)
An unaddressed gap is medical staff on the pandemic front lines without adequate PPE are still shackled by these rules made for a system that is not overwhelmed by a pandemic. These need to be waived for the duration of the emergency.
As with such trolley problems, real life is rarely so clear-cut. If done intelligently, massive loss of life can be prevented, and the economy can find smart ways to adapt.
> Also luckily the comment ranking here seems to mean your peers disagree with you.
> [1]: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop....
> [2]: https://www.flattenthecurve.com/
I've noticed these discussions all revolve around problems related to the virus. However, these quarantine measures are also economic in their nature and I'm not seeing even the standard university economics professor trotted out in front of the press to support why this is all going to be okay.
If you are concerned about old people, consider that their investments go belly-up, their pensions funds dry up, their house goes negative equity, and they cannot physically work. How bad is for them after this happens? Because this is what is going to happen with the economy shut down.
This is assuming no CPI increases from all the money creation, especially if they send the money directly to consumers, likely reducing the Cantillon effects.
And "lately" isn't after weeks or months of substantially reduced economic activity.
They'll be even higher if/when that happens. They're not in bonds for the interest. They're in bonds for safety and price appreciation.
> They'll be even higher if/when that happens. They're not in bonds for the interest. They're in bonds for safety and price appreciation.
Assuming someone is interested in buying those bonds, since during inflation physical assets (e.g., precious metals) tend to be what buyers prefer.
T-bills will do just fine despite any outward appearances of inflation. BTW, would rather load up on real estate than "precious" metals. Gold is a relic from a bygone era.
> T-bills will do just fine despite any outward appearances of inflation. BTW, would rather load up on real estate than "precious" metals. Gold is a relic from a bygone era.
It is further back to the inflationary period of the 70s, which is the last period that there was a mass flight from dollars due to the rate of CPI increase.
Investopedia[1] states the problem related to T-Bills rather well:
> Treasuries also have to compete with inflation, which measures the pace of rising prices in the economy. Even if T-Bills are the most liquid and safest debt security in the market, fewer investors tend to buy them in times when the inflation rate is higher than the T-bill return. For example, if an investor bought a T-Bill with a 2% yield while inflation was at 3%, the investor would have a net loss on the investment when measured in real terms. As a result, T-bill prices tend to fall during inflationary periods as investors sell them and opt for higher-yielding investments.
So when the CPI is going up and dollars are being used to bid up the price of physical assets, who is buying T-Bills?
Gold is useless.
> Gold is useless.
I am making the comparison on the worst-case assumption that $1000 is sent to every American every month (extended lock-down of the economy will still require people to have some measure of income or they will riot in the streets), so that's $330 billion pumped into consumer goods sectors every month. Your position is that this will not cause CPI rate of increase to go up?
I just reread my post and I can't find the word "gold" anywhere in the post and I am assuming that your claim is to be amended to state "Gold is useless [as an asset]" since it is one of the most useful minerals known to mankind. Where do you get this from?
"Physical assets" can be anything physical: a building; a lot's worth of used cars; a warehouse full of Play-Doh, etc. When people don't want dollars or financial assets, they will replace them with whatever seems like a better deal.
So for the next year or so as defaults accelerate I expect that deflation will be a larger concern than inflation, and central banks will try to counter that by large, frequent injections of new money.
> So for the next year or so as defaults accelerate I expect that deflation will be a larger concern than inflation, and central banks will try to counter that by large, frequent injections of new money.
The flow of new money creation is not evenly distributed throughout an economy, and this is called the Cantillon Effect (which can also be applied to deflation).
The new money creation has been going strong for some time now, but hasn't been flowing into sectors measured by the CPI. This has kept CPI increases relatively low in comparison to the increases.
However, send $1000 per month to every American and nearly all of that will go into sectors measured by the CPI, which will then go up.
It would be really nice to hear compassion instead of worry about money. How about we keep people alive, then deal with the economy? Something tells me the country that can burn $2T in less than a week will be just fine until this passes. Talking about the long term health of the economy in terms that push people out into unsafe situations, when we have a virus that kills people in 3 weeks, borders on evil.
There is one way to solve the virus problem: social isolation. There are infinite ways to solve made up economic problems we foist on ourselves.
---
EDIT: as expanded on below my main intent behind the Federal Reserve <> Government affiliation remark is that the Feds decisioning and repro market fund pumping is not government affiliated.
Economic factors should absolutely be taken into account. Money pays for life saving medication and treatments. Tax money from the economy pays for social medicine.
For example, 280,000 EXTRA people died from cancer between 2008-2010 in the OCED. When you consider heart disease, other indications, and the rest of the world, you are talking millions of lives.
Far more people could easily die from the economic fallout in the US than the virus.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
I was reading the Contra Costa County order when their site went down.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ilhKHP...
When the panic hugs end, the Contra Costa order will be available in one of these two locations:
https://www.contracostahealth.org/coronavirus/pdf/HO-COVID19...
https://cchealth.org/coronavirus/pdf/HO-COVID19-SIP-0316-202...
10 a. For the purposes of this Order, individuals may leave their residence only to perform any of the following "Essential Activites."
...
iii. To engage in outdoor activity, provided the individuals comply with Social Distancing Requirements as defined in this Section, such as, by way of example and without limitation, walking, hiking, or running
The virus is here to stay in the US for the next year. It doesn't make any sense to limit social interaction (for young people) for just 2 weeks. If there is no vaccine and the rate of expose gets down, after the "lockdown" is lifted, transmission will simply pick up again.
The media and WHO are complicit in spreading hysteria like claiming the mortality rate is 3.4% (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/05/coro...) based on completely faulty numbers. These numbers are obviously flawed because they do not account for people who have not had major symptoms and thus have not been diagnosed.
The actual way to stop the spread is to tell elderly folks and people with underlying health conditions to stay at home. Not to keep young people out of their gyms (All bay area gyms are now shutdown). The hospitalization rate for under 45 year olds is very low. By allowing under 45 year olds to get sick and develop immunity, we can actually stop the spread.
There is no endgame for social distancing everyone other than waiting for a vaccine (won't happen soon) or hoping the summer stops the transmission rate (not guaranteed). It is selfish to expect the majority of the population to stay away from work and gyms when the risk is extremely low for them. Note that young and old will continue to cross paths in close proximity at grocery stores, the post office and other "essential" locations. It is just wishful thinking that a two week break will lead to a long term fix.
The only thing that I believe is objectively contentious in my post is whether allowing young people to get exposed would help things.
The opposite extreme would be to let everybody get infected, see >15% of the 65+ population die, which I am sure some economic model might favor.
I do hope, but doubt, that this crisis will start changing how our society manages crisis and is pro-active about it, rather than being reactive. I this point I don't care which banner a politician represents. I will only care for the one with a plan for direct accountability at the highest level. Otherwise they're all d-bag.
Theoretically there are two factors that make this virus dangerous:
1. Experience elsewhere in the world suggests the transmission rate is high under normal social conditions. Say 2:1 or 3:1. If those numbers are accurate, the infection will spread exponentially. Are they accurate? Dunno.
2. Experience elsewhere in the world suggests a high rate of infections require long stays in ICU, with some of those cases dying. What rate and how long and how many? Dunno.
But there is some combination of transmission rate and hospital load where the healthcare system gets absolutely gummed up. If that happens, they must deal with the scenario where large numbers of patients who normally would have been treated get triaged to to end of life instead. I assume that would mean all major cities start digging mass graves, because what else do you do with 1000s of unplanned dead bodies all at once?
The purpose of the lockdowns is to lower transmission rate below 1:1, where it will essentially fizzle out on its own as long as we remain locked down. Again I've read that experience elsewhere in the world suggests this can be effective. Again, I'm not aware of any especially convincing evidence of this.
Given this model, the optimistic outcome is a short lockdown will buy enough time to come up with less harmful interventions. For example, better testing would allow healthy people to return to normal life while keeping transmission rate below 1:1. Or improved treatment would reduce the load on the healthcare system. Or a vaccine. Or maybe the estimated parameters are too high, but we can't know until more testing is done.
Less optimistic outcome is lurching along in uncertainty while the economy implodes, followed by the unpopular mass grave scenario.
What happens after that?
And when will we extend this to the whole country?
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...
I had the right to free travel in mind, specifically.
Of course there are limits, and I'm asking what they are, in this specific case.
Feel free to contribute to the discussion.
I don't think this pandemic is do-or-die. This pandemic is just a stress test for what's to come.
This essay is a little bonkers but also has a kernel of wisdom in it.
https://mailchi.mp/4c8646c6a609/crypto-trader-digest-1307893...
I am a big fan of Arthur. He’s a little hard for people to stomach but super smart.
I disagree that this isn't the biggest recessionary event. Never in my lifetime, or even my parents, has EVERYTHING shut down at the same time. This is economically bad. We're promising to help the affected industries, which is more cash printing. The USG cannot support the entire economy for months. Either the market or the government has to break, and I feel it's gonna be the former.
On a serious note, there are many, many things we're doing well on that might change, the financial aspect is only one of them. If we're doing bad, we could be doing so, so, so, so much worse. I can't stress that enough.
Precedent does not turn a civil-rights-destroying idea into a legitimate one.
If I buy a salt shaker, it's going to last me months -- do I need to buy individual serving size packets?
I usually buy a dozen eggs at a time that will last me for weeks, am I relegated to only buying 6 (or 3?) at a time? Making everyone buy small serving sizes may make things worse since it's more packaging to fill and deliver.
If I buy 12 jars of spaghetti sauce, maybe that's hording. Or maybe I'm making a double batch of pasta every night this week to feed my large family.
I'm the type that usually buys 3-6 months worth of goods because I hate the retail experience and don't want to see the interior of a store more than a few times per year. What kind of hateful soul are you to want me to only be able to get enough goods that I'd need to return on a weekly basis?
Seriously though it's as if all those things that America is lagging the world in seem to come together in one large event (financial over-leverage, lack of public health care, denial of facts at highest levels of government, poor sick leave, generally terrible social safety, low trust in the government).
For example, having the highest incarceration rate in the world would be consistent with both authoritarianism (a form of high trust in government) and not really working all that well.
Society is much more productive when you don’t have to worry how much to bribe everyone.
Ah that old chestnut -- the ostrich in the sand approach. I like it!
No one gets lazy about keeping a critical eye on it. We also don't give it complex tasks cause it would just mess it up so it only does really big simple things.
We look at other places that trust their government and it always historically goes wrong as soon as you give blind trust. Like if Trump got elected in a well-oiled machine that mechanism that necessitated blind trust. I don't want a smart capable government. Give me a dumb one that does simple things any day especially if the people in the country are capable.
And still, go out their way to prove it doesn't work. Should you really ever trust a system that individuals can sabotage so easily on purpose or not?
I think this is a simplistic view. We're not only talking about infection rate here.
edit: Social safety nets, medical debt, etc.
Lets talk about medical. I haven't heard anything about hospital bed shortages in the US yet. Again, not saying we won't get there, but China had to build entire new facilities because they didn't have adequate infrastructure.
Lets talk about essentials. American stores might be temporarily out of toilet paper, but Wuhan is currently dealing with dramatic food shortages.
That said. Italy basically denied having a problem until they couldn't anymore. China's safety net health system did everything they could to cover up the crisis until it exploded in their face. Other countries haven't been doing much more to prepare than the US.
People like to hate on it, but the US government still functions are a comparatively high level while maintaining a degree of individual freedom that other countries do not.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/seattle-flu-study-coronaviru...
Those words are doing a lot of work. If we densely-packed city folk don't work extra-hard to contain this, it's going to absolutely raze our health, and other support systems.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/07/24/o...
PS: It’s also irrelevant as many people identify as independents while actually voting overwhelmingly for a single party. Further, political power has nothing to do with the national popular vote let alone what the non voting public believes. For example Trump won with 46.1% of the popular vote and votes from about 19.5% of the total population. That’s simply how the system works and what shapes politics.
My guess is it’s a difference between stated preferences and actual preferences.
And some countries like Japan have public health care. Despite being one of the first countries with widespread infection, they’re still far below America.
It will also be interesting to see the court cases that come from what American governments have done so far; there's a serious case to be made for violations of our right to freely assemble. Even the time, place, and manner standard (which is still contested but is current precedent) may not cover such drastic curtailment of all public gatherings.
Sadly, these things usually happen and get fought out in court later (see Japanese internment camps) when in some sort of crisis state, so I doubt constitutionality has any bearing on the pencil-pushers latest and greatest idea.
Friendly reminder that, while I don't see any malicious intent in the current actions, these directives specifically sound disturbingly close to those issued by many an authoritarian government:
> You cannot engage in group activities in person with others.
> You cannot have dinner parties. You cannot invite friends over to your home to hang out.
The precedent set today could be abused in the future, particularly precedent that looks like this.
And yet, China's number of active cases went from 81K to 9K in a few weeks.
No matter how you feel about China, you can believe Tim.
To answer your earlier comment, even if the cases dropped, are you arguing that we implement authoritarianism just because it's more convenient in this case? Classic "trains run on time" argument. Of course it offers some benefits, but the losses are far greater.
> To answer your earlier comment, even if the cases dropped, are you arguing that we implement authoritarianism just because it's more convenient in this case? Classic "trains run on time" argument. Of course it offers some benefits, but the losses are far greater.
Not making an argument one way or the other just stating some facts. People can make up their own minds.
It's also pointless to say that we have a bad outcome when it's only now beginning to grow. We don't know how this is going to turn out, but the US is not in a worse position to deal with this than most other countries.
Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. responded well because they already had to deal with SARS. They had infrastructure in place to respond to an outbreak exactly like this one. The US didn't have that experience, but we're catching up.
Moreover, we still don't know if China has actually weathered this storm. It is very possible that this could tick back up once they start going back to work. If that happens then all of this effort could end up as nothing more than a stall on the inevitable.
If we get off easy it will be because warmer temperatures or mutation play a part.
Delayed testing, a disbanded pandemic response team, a president in denial for the first part of the outbreak, people not going to hospitals because they can't afford it... Do you sincerely think these things put the US on equal footing with the rest of the world in terms of responding to this?
Keeping those in mind. Yes, we might get off easy. Yes, it might turn out worse for us. No, the outcome will not be 100% correlated to government effectiveness.
That said, the US healthcare system still leads the world in research, funding, talent, etc. Is it more expensive? Yes. Is it the best system for public health? No, probably not. But we do have our own advantages.
Immuno-suppressant therapies that are being used as a last resort for COVID 19 were developed by Genentech. Roche and Genentech are leading the way on development of a vaccine. The US healthcare system is home to some of the world's foremost experts on drug development and patient care.
We are undoubtedly better off in dealing with this than many other countries. We're probably not the top percentile, but we are most definitely among the top 5-10%.
Edit: From the FAQ that was just posted, "Businesses that ship or deliver groceries, food, goods or services directly to residences" are an essential service and can continue operating.
> People in the six counties will still be able to go shopping for items such as food and household supplies, and seek medical care. They will be able to go outside for walks or exercise as long as they keep six feet away from anyone they don’t already live with.
Don't think China or Singapore have that issue...
With many more homes, far fewer will be homeless.
I realize this is on a much different timescale than the epidemic, even if something impossible would be allowed.
Don't be a dick, the homeless are going to be affected by this in a major way, probably many more deaths than the general population.
I'm rolling my eyes at our deeply dysfunctional housing situation, that will now kill even more people. Not the homeless themselves.
Not that SF isn't already a ghost town tho.
Laws are a social construct. I doubt any judge (which are elected by the populace in California) is going to issue an injunction against this.
CALIFORNIA HEALTH AND SAFETY CODE DIVISION 105. COMMUNICABLE DISEASE PREVENTION AND CONTROL
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayexpand...
From article:
> The order calls for the sheriff or chief of police to “ensure compliance.”
> All non-essential gatherings of any size are now banned, along with non-essential travel “on foot, bicycle, scooter, automobile or public transit.” People may travel for shopping for necessary supplies, accessing health care, and providing aid to family and friends who need assistance, and for non-residents, returning to their home outside the Bay Area.
Still doesn’t speak to it not being enforced.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-italy-...
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-italian-doctor-says-f...
He bitterly scorned people "on social networks who pride themselves on not being afraid and ignoring the rules, complaining because their normal lifestyle habits are 'temporarily' in crisis - all the while an epidemiological disaster is taking place".
Why do you think this stupid? Why would the same not be necessary in a country of 300m people?
You're not visiting anyone outside of your state in April. Start being calm about it now.
As far as I can tell, this is untrue. Many countries have placed restrictions on international travel, but few have closed airports completely.
Details available here: https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-travel-restricti...
Vienna to Berlin is 425miles, same language, same currency.
You can't fly from Vienna to Berlin right now. You can't take a train from Vienna to Berlin right now. You can't drive from Vienna to Berlin right now. You can't walk from Vienna to Berlin right now.
Germany has closed its borders.
Atlanta to Boston is 1025 miles, same language, same currency.
This seemingly solid paper[0], published in the Journal of Medical Virology, shows Vitamin D to be an important intervention. And obviously fresh air and sun are generally important for health and well-being.
These steps seem uninformed, authoritarian, and wrong-headed.
0: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmv.25707
And with all due respect, what relevance does Vitamin D have to do with the price of tea in China? I hope you're not suggesting this thing will magically go away if we just get our vitamin supplementation right.
Do you have a citation on CIDRAP opposing school closures? I couldn't easily find it.
I have to say, I think this is a very insensitive thing to say. Being in a position of privilege to likely avoid the consequences of authoritarian tendencies is wonderful, but most people don't enjoy such a position.
Authoritarian tactics are per se wrong.
> And with all due respect, what relevance does Vitamin D have to do with the price of tea in China? I hope you're not suggesting this thing will magically go away if we just get our vitamin supplementation right.
I didn't suggest that, no. But it is one of the interventions that makes sense. And generally, obviously, fresh air and exercise are important for overall health and wellness. Tangentially related: warmth and humidity is likely, according to some researchers, to drastically reduce replication and transmission. [0] [1] So getting out in the sun (with reasonable social distancing) can't hurt, and it might help.
(Even more tangentially: some researchers believe that very high heats, such as with sauna therapy, can even further reduce replication, based on this 2004 paper [2])
0: https://nusmedicine.nus.edu.sg/medias/news-info/2230-hot-and...
1: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767
2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14722281/
> Do you have a citation on CIDRAP opposing school closures? I couldn't easily find it.
Michael Osterholm himself has spoken extensively on his apprehension about shelter-in-place as a policy to combat coronaviruses, including COVID-19, including during his recent (very informative) interview with Joe Rogan, during which he specifically discussed school closings as well. [3]
By the way, his contention is also that neither environment heat nor sauna therapy are supported by the data as likely mitigations. So different smart people are saying different things, as we might expect in such a situation.
3: https://www.youtube.com/embed/E3URhJx0NSw?autoplay=1&auto_pl...
The discussion on authoritarianism is one too deep for this comment thread, but I would like to leave you with a question, now hypothetical, but might be less so soon. This virus is a bit of an uncontrolled experiment on the ability of different countries and regional governments to handle crisis. What if the evidence provided by this experiment suggests that authoritarian systems are better able to suppress the virus because they can actually get people to avoid harmful behavior, where in freer systems it's just not possible to get the rate of selfish behavior down to the point of being effective?
[1]: https://www.postbulletin.com/life/health/this-is-not-going-t...
[2]: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-ana...
The text of the order itself is not available. I hope it is not as poorly thought out as the article suggests. What about home maintenance providers - plumbers and electricians? Surely they must be allowed to perform essential services. Delivery personnel - can I still order things from Amazon? What if I need medical supplies or equipment that is not available from a local provider, who will deliver it?
>Everyone is to work from home, or stop working, unless they provide an essential service, which includes health care workers; police, fire and other emergency responders; and utility providers such as electricians, plumbers, and sanitation workers.
[Edited for clarity.]
Edit2, from the FAQ that was just posted: "plumbers, electricians, exterminators, and other service providers who provide services that are necessary to maintaining the safety and sanitation" are exempt from the order.
Even if an electrician doesn't work for a utility company, isn't it pretty vital that medical facilities are able to call him/her in if needed?
I'm also thinking it's not wise to forbid services to homes. Yes, this risks homeowners and workers spreading coronavirus. But there are bigger risks from people going extended periods without electricity / running water.
Not surprising, because the feds are providing zero leadership right now. Just today, Trump told the governors on a conference call that they should "get their own ventilators". We should not expect competent and engaged leadership from this administration any time soon.
But to claim the federal government has not bought equipment it plans to distribute is a lie .
Amusingly, this morning, there was zero Trump content on the Fox News home page. All epidemic info was from more reliable sources. The story behind that must be interesting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/politics/trump-coronav...
The US military has the principle of solving things at the lowest level possible. Not only does it prevent extra time and hops but it means the people closest to the problem are the ones solving it.
Apparently a TV station broke the embargo early, the announcement wasn't to happen until 1pm local time (in 10 minutes, as I write this).
Edit: now available here: https://sf.gov/stay-home-except-essential-needs
Um... it's good. States have more powers than the federal government, being the primary sovereign entities in the united states of america.
Also, most of the united states (and most states of the united states) are not affected the way the west coast and new england are.
That said I completely agree that it's a wonderful thing that these things are happening at the local (not even state) level. That's the most sensible thing, really.
Other things, like disease spread tracking, should probably happen at the federal level. But absent a missing amendment that I don't know about legally (A pity, the framers didn't know about disease theory) there's no clear mandate for that, which contributes to the ambiguity of what the feds should or shouldn't do about this, which becomes a matter of judgement, and there are certainly pros and cons to both stances.
More and more I’m beginning to feel like these measures are being done to destroy small businesses while the local governments know they can simply beg for money from federal after the smoke clears.
The timing and severity of these measures seems all too convenient in light of the huge money grab federal bill moving through the senate at this point.
It's sort of like when South Carolina became the last state to get rid of a law requiring all cocktails to be poured out of mini liquor bottles. There was much pearl-grasping about "what if the bars rip off their customers," and "what if bars pour too much alcohol and road DUI deaths shoot way up?"
When, instead of coming with implausible or unlikely theories, you could just look at what is happening in other places and act accordingly.
It is far more likely that these measures are being taken because they have been proven effective to prevent harm to citizens, than as a conspiracy to destroy small businesses.
This disease is both very infectious and relatively very deadly. We know that the death rate can double or triple if emergency health care is not available. We also know that without dramatic quarantining measures, the number of people requiring emergency care will overwhelm our health care capacity.
I am a San Francisco resident, and I am grateful that my local government is taking action. I agree with Mayor Breed's assessment that the federal government's response is terrible.
They also have had the best results of any country to date.
Digging into it, they also had an incredible testing network, which is claimed to be a key differentiator. In the US, the government is actively telling people not to get tested on their own judgements.
I too would prefer much better visibility over a shelter in place order. Unfortunately, we have next to no visibility. So lacking that, I would prefer dramatic measures.
Measures are being taken, and the Japanese government believes that the rate of infection is still very much growing [1]. Schools have been shut down in Japan. And while the government is not actively enforcing quarantining, that may be due to bureaucratic roadblocks. [2]
[1] https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/03/8aafa8e3636c-loca...
[2] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/11/national/politi...