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Comment by chrissnell | Hacker News Reader

I am quite confident that it will come back. Demand is there. My dad owns a chain of bicycle stores. Sales have been absolutely through the roof during quarantine (they are "essential"). Like, blowing-away-previous-sales-records good. His customers represent all walks of life in the city he serves. He has stores in the wealthy areas and stores in the poorer areas; all are doing well. People want to spend money and they are desperate for places to do it. I predict that we will see a retail boom if we can find a way to reopen the economy and still be safe (masks everywhere, distancing). The trick is figuring out that safety. It starts with PPE and cleaning commodities. We need universal availability of good face masks, hand sanitizer, and effective cleaning wipes. We need to flood the world with so many masks that you get one for free every time you walk into a store. Figure that out soon and this economy will rebound.

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"People want to spend money and they are desperate for places to do it."

I dont think people are desperate to spend money.

Your dad likely had a upturn in customers due to mass demand for personal fitness devices.

Due to social distancing, gym closures, anything fitness related for home/personal use is selling out.

When covid-19 lockdowns loosened, I expect downturns in these areas.

The market will be flooded with people trying to do returns and reselling the equipment.

The uptick of boredom induced outdoor leisure caused by banning social activity of all kind and an increase of disposable time. Bicycles seem well positioned to do well in this economy.

Also depending on where you live many people who usually use public transportation and still have to commute opt for bicycles if that's viable.

And those who avoided biking in cities due to safety concerns no longer have so much traffic to dodge.

I can confirm this: whilst I never avoided riding due to traffic before, going for road rides now is amazing due to there being practically nobody else on the roads.

Definitely here I'm considering buying a new Nihola bike, mine got stolen a few years back and I never replaced, but now I need something (as opposed to just want sometimes)

this is exactly why digital entertainment is booming. people are making a killing on sites like onlyfans

Moreover, bicycle is very good alternative transport. Bicycle means you can avoid public transport.

The second large reason is that mass transits are actively being discouraged in order to limit spread, and people seems quite aware that sitting closely in a bus/tram/subway is a bad idea. Getting a bike is a much cheaper alternative than getting a car in order to solve that specific problem.

> People want to spend money and they are desperate for places to do it.

This will likely change if people start losing sources of income.

I think it's way too early to see the negative effects.

Wait a few months then let's see how bike sales go.

We’re already seeing record lines at food banks across the country[0], and some are already warning of food shortages. We’re already seeing the negative effects, our society just doesn’t want to pay attention to what’s happening to the poor.

We’re at serious risk for community starvation not seen since the Great Depression.

0: https://www.motherjones.com/food/2020/04/these-photos-show-t...

Food banks are stressed right now, but I'd bet they can hold out for the month or two it's expected to take to get (mostly) everyone back to work.

It’s so hard to see that happening though, and if it doesn’t, we’re in trouble.

We still don’t have scalable testing in the US, which is absolutely vital to reopening the economy safely. Without that, we risk losing all of the progress we’ve made flattening the curve.

Then all of these businesses have to open back up and hope they’re able to generate income quickly enough to stay afloat, which isn’t a guarantee.

There are also a growing number of experts saying that we’ll be in flux for the rest of 2020 unless we establish that survivors can’t be reinfected, which hasn’t been confirmed yet. Even if some areas are able to open up early, the economy will continue to suffer to its global nature. We’re just in no way able to say it’s going to be normal in 2 months.

> Without that, we risk losing all of the progress we’ve made flattening the curve.

I personally believe that the worst could be done in many places.

New York was too slow to institute controls and stopped just short of catastrophe. But, it's likely (based on extrapolation from serological data elsewhere), that 15% of people in NYC are immune and 20% will be soon. A disease with an Rt of, say, 1.8 is still scary and still requires controls and distancing, but it's a whole different ballgames from one with an Rt of 2.5. (-0.5 Rt for reduced susceptibility, -0.2 Rt for seasonal effects, say).

> There are also a growing number of experts saying that we’ll be in flux for the rest of 2020 unless we establish that survivors can’t be reinfected, which hasn’t been confirmed yet.

The case reports we have and clinical experience suggest reinfection is very rare. The bigger question is lasting immunity. Will most people be totally protected for 3 years like with a typical cold coronavirus? Or can we expect more like the 5+ years seen with SARS-CoV-1? And even if people become susceptible again, will the disease be less severe?

I also believe that in the long run, 2019-nCoV will become "just another" endemic common cold virus, and will kill small numbers of people every year just like the other endemic respiratory coronaviruses (229E, OC43 etc) do. I bet those would be pretty fearsome introduced into an immunologically naive population. Which really sucks-- say, 10% more severe respiratory illness forever is not good. But I think it's the path we're on unless we get a truly terrific vaccine, and I don't think we can bet on that.

There is no way that 15% of NY had the virus.

One recent report: Two hospitals in NYC did universal screening of 215 pregnant women admitted for delivery between March 22 and April 4th. 15.4% tested positive. Most of those testing positive (87.9%) had no symptoms at the time they were admitted.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316

Pregnant women go to hospitals for the antenatal appointments a lot though. And hospitals are full of the virus. You would expect pregnant women to be more likely to be infected than general population

Without other data I'm not sure I find that convincing. In the US, a lot of obstetrical care takes place at offices away from hospitals.

Less so in NYC, but I agree.

In any case, I think the interesting things are: A) the share of infected people who will never have symptoms, and B) the share of infected people that have minor symptoms and will not be diagnosed. There's reason to believe that both A and B are significant. If they reach 90%-- which there's reason to believe they likely do-- it means that with a 1.5% cumulative case count you have more like 15% of the population having been exposed.

NYC's case count is 111k and we know it's very low even vs. symptomatic people. The population is 8.4 million people. This is 1.3%.

Serological data from a random sample of the German town of Gangelt shows that even a robust testing regime missed about 90% of the cases. The known per-capita case count at the time of the study was similar to New York City's, but 14% of the sample carried antibodies to COVID-19.

The German testing regime is and has been considerably better than what's been in NYC. I'm inclined to think that an even bigger multiple of the known case count may have been exposed in NYC than in Gangelt.

Separately, Iceland keeps their test data in two bins; one for people with a known exposure history and any (even minor) symptoms, and one for members of the general population without a known exposure history or symptoms. Analysis of this data suggests about 50% of people never develop symptoms and don't have any known exposure history, in an area with a much more robust testing regime.

> Serological data from a random sample of the German town of Gangelt shows that even a robust testing regime missed about 90% of the cases.

The results are disputed to say the least. A random sampling study in Austria found that the true number of infected is likely to be only three times higher.

> Analysis of this data suggests about 50% of people never develop symptoms

At the time of the test asymptotic. They did not say never develop symptoms.

The odds ratio approach was backwards-looking, so it means "never developed symptoms [in a couple of weeks]".

Seems Iceland is testing a lot more than NYC and that their focused testing (which is still broader than NYC's overall testing) misses ~90% of cases.

Note that the Austrian study I've read shows that current infection as detected by RT-PCR is about 3x higher than present case count, which isn't quite the same thing I'm talking about with the antibody tests in Germany. If you're referring to something else, please share. In particular, no one knows the sensitivity for RT-PCR of asymptomatic people and it might be rather low--- it's not exactly wonderful in people who are quite sick and presumably shedding more virus.

I'm hoping in the next week or so we have antibody data from a couple of US jurisdictions, including the SF Bay Area. It can really inform policy.

> Note that the Austrian study I've read shows that current infection as detected by RT-PCR is about 3x higher than present case count, which isn't quite the same thing I'm talking about with the antibody tests in Germany.

The reason Austria wasn't doing antibody tests yet is because the quality of these is not anywhere close enough to be reliable.

There's good antibody tests at this point, that validate with no false positives on serum predating COVID-19.

Just today, new data from Santa Clara County:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v...

Stanford estimates 2.49% to 4.16% seropositivity, versus approximately 1000 reported cases as of that date-- so about 75x the actual reported cases. Of course, the way that Stanford recruited their sample means that people who were previously exposed might be more likely to report, so I think this overstates things a little, but...

Holy crap, check out these guys' estimate for New York: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.13.20064519v...

Now we have this to add to the pile (though I can't find an actual preprint): http://archive.is/UDrho

Now we can add the Netherlands to the mix.

29214 reported cases / 17280000 population = 0.17%. But apparently about 3% of blood donors in the Netherlands have antibodies. https://nltimes.nl/2020/04/16/3-dutch-blood-donors-covid-19-...

If blood donors are representative of the population as a whole, that means about 94% of cases have been missed. Again-- with better testing than the US.

I said 15% of New York City, and now we have the data -- no preprint yet, but... https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

Thanks for your post. Every news story seems to say "12 to 18 months for a vaccine" as if it's a given, and I always think of all the diseases for which we don't have any vaccine despite many years of effort. I don't have any background in that but I'm hoping we can see some more clear-eyed discussion of the likelihood of that.

I visited four food banks to offer them food over the last two weeks. Three of them were completely out of food. Only one of them had an abundance of food.

On aggregate, food banks may be stressed, just like on aggregate the measure we use to determine economic fortune may be down only 3%. In reality, this means there are lots of individuals literally starving and making $0.

Those people are going to struggle to hold out for however long it takes.

A month or two may be true in aggregate. For many, simultaneously, their jobs will never return.

The pictures are both dramatic and strange. Why are there so many people with cars that need food assistance?

Because public transit is a joke for most Americans. It’s simply not possible to have a job without a car in the vast majority of America.

But those don’t look like cheap cars. No one is perfect, but still it looks like some people set the wrong priorities between saving money and buying status symbols

That’s definitely true, but can you blame them? They’ve been psychologically assaulted and bombarded from all digital directions to buy those symbols. It’s not like Facebook and YouTube are showing ads that encourage people to save their money.

This goes way back than Facebook and YouTube though, I recommend watching Adam Curtis' "The Century of the Self" [0] if you haven't yet and are interested in how we ended up with modern consumerism.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self

Yes I can. People still have the ability to make choices for themselves. Facebook Ads aren’t mind control, people still have free will.

Loan companies only give you access to cars that have a reliable resale value. Since Americans basically buy nothing but pickup trucks or SUVs you can only get loans for SUVs and trucks.

That's completely inaccurate. Considering the instant depreciation once you drive off the lot, loans are dependent far more on your credit history/income level than linked to any specific style of car.

Almost all of those vehicles are from the standard automaker labels, very few luxury vehicles in those pictures.

I see one Dodge Charger in the bottom picture, which is a little sportier, and I’m sure I missed a few others, but otherwise I completely disagree with your observation. I’m not sure what you expect poor people to drive if not GM/Ford/Toyota, etc.

Do they all need to be late (2016+) models, though? It seems like most of them are.

When half the Fortune 500 apparently need a bailout three weeks after this hits, it might be time to adjust expectations of individual preparedness to be more in line with observed reality.

There might also be a gap between what people realistically prepared for and what happened. I'm not entirely sure, for example, if a family with both parents employed in (what used to be considered) stable jobs should have foreseen the possibility of losing both jobs at the exact same time?

In the end, this is a numbers game: you can blame the individual up to a point. But when some double-digit percentage fails to abide by your standards of personal responsibility, you have to accept the sometimes flawed nature of humanity and try to work with it instead of insisting on futile efforts to change individual people.

Because there is a shortage of food, and a glut of cars

It's both dificult and rare to store months worth of food.

Most people have an average of 3-4 years worth of car. Ownership runs 7-8 years, or a mean of 3.5 - 4 years remaining ownership.

People run out of food long before they run out of car.

For a normal family, if you no longer need to commute to work, car ownership is significantly less expensive than your grocery bill.

and there's no reason this has to happen. the same way we can print money to hand out to companies we can print money and buy food with it and give it out to hungry people WITHOUT causing inflation.

that doesn't, however, create more food -- and the current problem is really that food is starting to run out, as production has fallen by 20% at the same time as supply disruptions have caused another 20% to spoil at the source

Bikes are selling because they are an alternative to other spending that is either not allowed or not desired.

People will spend $500-$1000 on a bike while also forgoing $2500-$5000 of travel, entertainment and restaurants (over a year)

My personal theory is bikes are selling because they are:

1. A good way to keep fit and maintain social distance

2. An alternative to public transport which people who are still working (and can't drive for whatever reason) want to avoid if at all possible

Both are particularly high priority at the moment

For shorter trips, vastly more affordable than an automobile: no fuel, parking, insurance, registration. Hugely lower maintenance.

Also so much more fun. Seriously: like motorcycles, it's close to flying (as in bird, not Ryanair)

I think there's also: 3. Traffic is at record low levels.

My city isn't at all bike friendly, but at the current traffic levels I'd feel safe enough to take a ride - the bikes themselves are just so absurdly marked up that I can't justify the expense, so I'm running instead.

I've read a story about Russian entrepreneur who sell bikes across the country and his sells are basically zero since quarantine. He's going to declare bankrupt soon.

In Italy the lockdown was very strict and going outdoors was severely limited to short walks in immediate vicinity (e.g. 200m) of your domicile. For Spain I heard rumors that it was even worse (with people walking with fake dogs, because you need a canine excuse to get out in the first place).

What are the rules in Russia?

AFAIK rules are strict but not enforced well enough, so many people still walk, etc. That differs for different regions, though.

People walking outside completely alone are absolutely no problem. It's only proto-fascist (states and people) who consider them such.

Here in Argentina (Buenos Aires City in particular, as other cities are slightly more relaxed), you can't even go out to walk the dog more than the minimum essential for it to relieve itself (say, half a block maybe). Going out for walks, run, cycling is forbidden. Only allowed to go out for essential workers, or buying groceries at proximity stores, walking.

You need to have a permit to use your car or walk more than a few blocks from home (for essential workers, like security, health workers, grocery store workers, transportation, etc). If you are stopped driving without a permit, the car is seized, and you lose it forever. You also end up with a criminal record.

This severity has kept the numbers much lower than originally predicted, flattening the curve, but at the same time, it's draining the economy.

So, as you can see, different countries have different strategies. In some places the lockdown is severe, in others, not so much.

>with people walking with fake dogs

How do you fake a dog? Do you dress a cat up in a dog costume, hire someone to dress up in a dog costume, or something else?

Stuffed animal with leash replaced by a stiff wire or stick? or maybe just drag it along and trust people aren't paying attention...

I've found it super interesting how some people are willing to bend the rules, and how far they're willing to go, and other's aren't. I don't know if the ones most railing about the 'panic and fear' being spread online are the ones that are also underestimating the risks themselves and so feel justified in bending the (unreasonable-to-them) rules.

> We need to flood the world with so many masks that you get one for free every time you walk into a store. Figure that out soon and this economy will rebound.

I'm pro-mask, but masks are but a small part of what it will take for the economy to rebound. Far more important are tests (short-term), treatments (mid-term), and vaccines (longer-term). For now, tests are the most important goal. We should have reliable diagnostic testing available in every doctors office, and reliable serological tests in every home.

If there’s no vaccine, which reports suggest there may never be, and you can be reinfected, lots of economic activity won’t come back as people will not be going to restaurants, airports, movie theaters, etc. like they were before. Most of these businesses cannot handle a sustained 50% drop.

As far as I know there is pretty high confidence in vaccine development and reinfection is completely speculative and in most cases it was the same infection.

Do you happen to have recent reports showing either problem?

http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/03/25/coronavirus-vacc...

There are many seasonal coronaviruses that cause colds. We’ve never been able to create a vaccine. There was a NYTimes article in last few days, I’ll post it when I find it.

EDIT: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/can-we-rea...

Finding lots of sources that there has never been a successful coronavirus vaccine and that reinfection is common. So, thinking there will be a vaccine anytime soon is happy thinking. If it happens, it won’t happen fast enough to stave off a deep recession. I know I won’t be going out like I was.

There has also never been a massive global attempt at a coronavirus vaccine. Also many coronaviruses have wildly different behaviors and mutation rates. I think the answer right now is nobody knows for sure, but it will probably take at while for a vaccine if it's developed successfully, which would mainly at that point serve to prevent repeated lockdown cycles as it returns seasonally.

Here is some further reading: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/15/co...

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41573-020-00073-5

I agree. The OP suggested a quick and immediate bounce back soon. I’m pessimistic about that for the aforementioned reasons. “Nobody knows for sure” is a reason for short term pessimism not optimism.

There exist successful veterinary coronavirus vaccines, and an optimist (at least, a sufficiently cynical one) would posit that we don't have any human examples because it has not previously been deemed sufficiently profitable (or, more charitably, an efficient use of resources better spent on more pressing issues) by whoever makes funding decisions for vaccine development, not because of a failure of science.

Edit: That being said, efforts to develop a SARS vaccine were quite horrifying on whole, so there's certainly no natural law that says a vaccine must exist to be invented/discovered.

We’ve never been able to create a vaccine.

Nobody has tried very hard because the common cold is unpleasant but bearable. This vaccine is now a global priority, there may even be a few variants discovered.

Reinfection is neither common nor proven. Given the number of cases globally and the long incubation period plus unreliable tests such stories are not unexpected.

I agree a recession and layoffs are coming to every sector, but war is a greater fear. This could cause more unrest and wars than 2008 did if it lasts longer than a few months.

Imagine the common cold was also cured by some breakthrough in vaccine development. It (or its 200 variants, rather) may be merely unpleasant, but in aggregate, that's a whole lot of unpleasantness (and lost economic output).

I'm don't ordinarily lean towards conspiracy theories, but its pretty easy to imagine the cold-medicine companies trying to think of ways of hindering any cold-vaccine development, in the same way that they actively seem to encourage people using their cold medicine to get back to work right away to spread that virus around some more.

I'd love a world with less cold viruses running rampant. When I started working from home full-time (years and years ago) I immediately noticed that the number of colds per year I had went from something like 10-12 to 1 or less. And the colds I get now are usually correlated with a visit to my grandkids...

Nobody has tried very hard? Are you kidding? We've been trying for over 70 years since we first learned about rhinoviruses and their serotypes.

Not very much money has been spent proportional to other diseases, for obvious reasons.

Here's a report that Immunity published that details a mind-boggling number of promising approaches currently under development:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7136867/

It is way premature to declare right now that none of them will work out.

We’re talking in the context of a recession. Continued social distancing will happen for a significant portion of the population until there’s a vaccine. A vaccine is far from a sure thing, especially anytime soon.

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