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Comment by avalys | Hacker News Reader

Insane that this is happening without federal coordination.

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?

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> Insane that this is happening without federal coordination.

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.

minor nitpick, "being the primary sovereign entities" is de jure. De facto, the primary sovereign entity has become the federal government.

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.

Sure, but the states still have the power to do way more than uncle sam without much oversight. They should exercise it at times like these. Moreover, as I stated, this is only at crisis levels in some parts of the country. Local action could have prevented a bigger outbreak overall. Some states are taking much more preemptive action and will be better off because of it, like Ohio.

TFA explicitly mentions some things you're talking about:

>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.

The only thing that covers is electricians and plumbers, and that in the context of utility providers; it's not clear whether it also covers them if they don't work for a utility company.

[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.

That's what I'd like to have clarified - I'm an electrician but not a utility worker.

I know an electrician who was doing a job in a hospital last week.

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.

> The text of the order itself is not available.

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

> Insane that this is happening without federal coordination

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.

That's quite the fake news you got there. Trump said governors should feel free to provision their own if they have a faster pipeline, rather than waiting for the fed's orders to arrive and then have to apply, etc.

But to claim the federal government has not bought equipment it plans to distribute is a lie .

To clarify, this is what the president stated about 30 minutes ago during the ongoing press conference, when asked about his previous statement. Before that we only had the unqualified phrase.

More reasonable stuff is coming out of Trump now. This is encouraging.

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.

“Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves,” Mr. Trump told the governors during the conference call, a recording of which was shared with The New York Times. “We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/politics/trump-coronav...

Imagine if you had to go to your VP or CEO to get approval to buy a new laptop. How long would you have to wait? How much of their time would be sucked up with organizationally-irrelevant bs?

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.

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