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Comment by newacct583 | Hacker News Reader

Ease up how? I mean, what's the specific proposal? The lockdown isn't "total" anyway -- very large numbers of people are still working at full salary (including, it must be pointed out, probably more than half the readers of this very site). There's little to no low hanging fruit of safe jobs that can be reopened. Just go look at the California list of "essential" jobs and tell us what needs to be added.

Fundamentally this is just a complicated strawman. People are arguing against "lockdown" but not in favor of another option. But we were all here in late march and we know what this disease does without containment.

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I'm not an expert. I'd lean towards loosening restrictions on non-essential businesses, imposing strict capacity guidelines, and adjusting the strictness of the guidelines by region at fixed intervals with a fixed lead time. Add some worker protections so people who don't feel comfortable working don't lose their jobs during when they reopen, and don't exempt them from receiving unemployment so reopening doesn't turn them into a burden for the nonessential employer.

I'm lucky right now, to be an 'essential' employee making roughly twice minimum wage, working for an employer with deep pockets. I'm not coming from a place of personal inconvenience, because my job's gotten exponentially easier since people became afraid to go out. Most of our part time staff is gone, and I'm worried that SMBs will soon start dropping like flies.

We've proven that lockdowns work, really well. now we need to find a balance in order to prevent the economy we as a society return to from being a small collection of megacorps wandering through a graveyard of small businesses and unemployment.

Um, I'm not sure if you're being serious, but there are plenty of ways to gradually re-open. As an example:

step 1) re-open elementary schools

step 2) re-open middle schools

step 3) re-open high schools & colleges

step 4) re-open all small businesses that do not result in gatherings of more than 2 people in one place, then 5, then 10, then 20, then 50

I'm not saying that's the right approach but there is certainly middle ground between current shutdowns and a total re-opening of society.

I think the problem at this point is two-fold:

1) Schools are about to be done for the academic year, so they're effectively shut down until August anyway. It wouldn't make sense to re-open schools for less than a month.

2) For better or for worse, we've conditioned people to be wary of contact with other people. A movie theater that's 10% full is still hemorrhaging money, perhaps worse than if it was closed entirely (no payroll costs/etc).

I'm not sure what the breakdown is, so this could certainly be hyperbole, but it's entirely possible that people will just feel uncomfortable doing things with groups of >10 until a vaccine is available. A restaurant with 25% of its normal business will likely still need to shut down, reduce staff, etc.

Sure, we may not have 22MM people filing for unemployment but it might still be 10MM, which is still extremely abnormally large.

All that to say, there's a real possibility that gradual re-openings don't actually accomplish anything because the root fear (i.e. catching covid-19) hasn't been resolved in the minds of many people, especially in dense urban areas.

> 1) Schools are about to be done for the academic year, so they're effectively shut down until August anyway. It wouldn't make sense to re-open schools for less than a month.

Though it could make sense to re-open them a month early, health concerns permitting. They already got a "summer break" and can make up for lost time

They most certainly did not get a summer break.

My kid is absolutely still participating in school, and quarantine is pretty stressful for a kid. This hasn't been just loafing around, relaxing, and playing.

My local schools have already called off the rest of the school year. At least for us, that horse has already left the barn.

Shouldnt step 4 be actually first one as it has lowest risk of making anything spread? Meanwhile, kids in elementary schools are unable to keep distance from each other and opening them requires reorganization like need for more space, need have them in smaller groups etc.

You may be right, but my thought was that people can't go back to work if their kids are stuck at home.

> Ease up how? I mean, what's the specific proposal?

Not sure how to put this but if you're advocating for the side that wants to confine seven million people to their homes and shut down nearly all commerce you're the one that has to come up with the specific proposal.

The objection is that there doesn't seem to be any kind of numerical metric to determine the success of this shelter in place policy.

It's public policy. So what are the stated goals of that policy, and what are the criteria for determining success?

It is a serious fucking problem that people aren't even really trying to answer that question any more.

> shut down nearly all commerce

That doesn't seem right. I got tacos from down the street last night. I got paid a week ago. I bought some home office related junk from Amazon yesterday. I need to go shopping tonight.

That's the problem with not being specific, you find yourself spouting silly hyperbole instead of argument. No, "almost all commerce" isn't shutdown, that's not remotely true. We're looking, depending on how pessimistic you want to be, at like a 20-30% drop in GDP. And that's big, but it's simply not almost all.

So I ask again: who do you want to go back to work before the virus case load drops? Be specific.

> That's the problem with not being specific, you find yourself spouting silly hyperbole instead of argument. No, "almost all commerce" isn't shutdown, that's not remotely true. We're looking, depending on how pessimistic you want to be, at like a 20-30% drop in GDP. And that's big, but it's simply not almost all.

You're kidding right? The drop in GDP between 1929 and 1932 was about 15% or so. You're saying I'm the one being hyperbolic for calling a drop of twice that size in three months a total free fall?

I apologize I forgot about Jeff Bezos and your local taco guy. I'll try to be more optimistic, like you are doing here, by predicting an instant drop of economic activity to twice the severity of the Great Depression.

And sure I'll take your bait on specifics anyways. I think we should pick policies just restrictive enough to keep hospitalizations below system capacity and no more. There really isn't any other reasonable choice, the current policy is just delaying the inevitable for no clear reason and without any specific vision of what success looks like.

You realize that if we have the same number of cases, and deaths, but with 3-4x the economic destruction, that's a spectacular policy failure right?

> The drop in GDP between 1929 and 1932 was about 15% or so.

I could be entirely wrong, but I just wonder whether GDP is a good measure or not for this situation. Think about childcare - it's not that children are not being cared for: in fact, they might be getting more attention from their parents or other family members. Yes, the daycare is shut down and not making money, but the work is still performed. Similar to restaurants vs. food made at home.

I wonder if the loss of non-essential businesses is as detrimental to our economy as the loss of essential businesses. During the Depression, we were losing essential businesses like farms and then on top of that we had a dust bowl. The economy feels very squishy - as in, we're able to layoff and furlough an amazing percentage and people still get the basics like food, water, and shelter, and we still have luxury goods: Apple is still releasing new iPhones even though they're made in China, we still have craft beer flowing, and we can get tacos.

Tied into this, though, is that we do have to keep money flowing not through labor, since that's illegal for a lot of folks, but start figuring out better unemployment insurance and small business aid.

Ease up by returning to normal economic activities, but with mandatory masks and gloves for most workers and consumers, while strongly encouraging social distancing.

My current belief, based on experiences reported in other countries, is that this would be enough. There's not much evidence that total physical lockdown is necessary for everyone regardless of their level of vulnerability.

Not a doctor, not medical advice, etc.

Are you not aware that "lockdown" covers a wide continuum of practices?!

Ease up can mean a lot of things between what we have now and no lockdown whatsoever.

What level of easing depends on the goal and the data showing what level of control is being achieved.

I'm painfully aware, which is why I asked the question. Who would you like to see back to work, and are you certain they're not already on the list of essential positions?

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