The Republicans who brought the lawsuit argue that, in part, continuing the lock down isn't appropriate because deaths from covid19 are going down. They don't connect the declining deaths to being locked down. You would think they would notice.
And, by the way, deaths going down is doing so soooo slowly because we really didn't get the R0 much 1.0. If people had actually locked down PROPERLY, deaths would be dropping much faster.
In addition, you need testing and contact tracers. You also need abundant personal protective equipment in your health providers for if you get a spike.
The problem is that the US federal government squandered 60 days in which it should have been filling those other criteria.
I'd buy Wisconsin Supreme Court's justification if we weren't talking about a fucking pandemic, but here we are.
If the republican part of the legislature could convince the democratic part of the legislature to vote with them, they could probably pull this off. Since they can't, they are asking partisan judges to force the issue, instead.
I broadly agree with your post, but even in countries like France/Italy that have had very strict lockdowns, there's still like a three-week half-life to deaths per day.
The end condition is a therapeutic/vaccine, and since that is not available yet, the next option is a national testing and contract tracing plan. Every successful country has a good one, every country that's seeing mass casualties doesn't have one. There is no political aspect to this. The science is pretty clear here (like climate change clear, meaning there's always a few contrarians for the sake of being contrarian, everyone else agrees). Herd immunity is not feasible, and millions will die.
I'm ignoring politicians, every annoying tech bro (always dudes...) who led "Growth" for a SaaS startup and therefore a are an expert in "virality" and "k-factor". Ignore Elon, this isn't his zone.
Everyone is bitching about the stay-at-home. IF THERE IS A CONTACT TRACING PROGRAM, HEALTHY UNEXPOSED PEOPLE WILL BE ABLE TO LIVE THEIR LIVES. This point seems lost on the people protesting. There's an exit strategy that their leader (protesters are largely Republican) doesn't want to do because testing reduces his re-election chances (?!??!?!). However, they have a testing and contract tracing program FOR THE WHITE HOUSE RIGHT THIS SECOND.
I've spoken to American friends in Hong Kong and they're so happy they live in a functioning autocracy. They're going out normally and enjoying their lives. Getting dinner with friends, going to beach, going out in LKF. (With occasional issues like the Seoul club superspreader). The only reason we are not having fun right now is because of the lack of testing and tracing.
It's expensive, intrusive, and people who get sick will be pissed and not follow the rules - but I don't see another option on the table, and none of the experts I've read or listened to (Fauci, Yaneer's team below) have another solution. This is not a poltical problem.
Yaneer Bar-Yam has been doing great work on supporting countries figure out the best plan, as well as preparing societies for the inevitable fallout of all of this. You hedge for risk. https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam
In the playbook left by the previous admin, the 3rd (5th in the domestic part) question in every stage of pandemic response, after "How bad is the virus and how quickly is it spreading?" is "Does the government have tracing and testing set up?". When it was a credible threat (January if not earlier), according to the extremely clear and again, NONPARTISAN, document below, we should have started setting up a testing/tracing program. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6819268/Pandemic-...
Caveat is that 15% of our nation lacks empathy and is completely detached from reality, and think wearing a mask is communism, so we'll never get to full compliance. However, 90% in a testing/contact tracing environment is better than what we have now.
In summary - if you want to end stay-at-home, you should hope the Trump admin magically becomes competent. Blue states will try to do it, but because of interstate commerce and conservative governments who think they're invincible for some reason, it's 100x harder.
Otherwise we'll be like this for what feels like forever and ~200k disproportionately lower-income, older and minority people will die. If he's re-elected in November, I'd put significant money on 500k+ deaths in the next 4 years. It won't go away completely and anti-vaxxers will feel vindicated by his re-election.
Article below is the result of the question you asked - still don't think you're getting it. Thousands will die specifically because of this decision. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandrasternlicht/2020/05/14/...
Also, it's "ok", "OK" makes it seem like you're shouting.
1: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-th...
Isn't this the problem, the world over? That no government has actually baked into their stay-at-home orders what the specific metric is that unlocks the lockdown. People with mouths to feed are justifiably terrified as they see lockdown stretching out in front of them with no clearly defined endpoint, knowing that the keys to that lockdown are held by politicians who are very much detached from the hardship on the ground.
You can't keep people in their homes forever while they lose their jobs.
We aren't seeing a rise in cases in states that have been reopening for more than two weeks. The rate of decline may be lower but they are still in decline.
Risk can go down if: (1) much of the population becomes immune [after vaccination or recovery from infection e.g.], (2) treatments arrive that mitigate the impact of sickness, (3) some novel isolation equipment/methods arrive that reduce the spread of disease.
Emergency powers are for emergencies. It is no longer hour four in the incident command tent with a map and radio. It has been, and it may be again. But the steady state "waiting for a vaccine" stage is not that.
The normal mechanisms of government are logistically feasible on the time scale you're talking about, which is years. I hope they will listen to the experts. It worries me deeply that they seem not to be headed that way. But "I disagree with the legislature" is tautologically not a justification for emergency powers in a democracy.
Testing and contact tracing are not novel.
If everyone goes out will deaths keep going up or down?
What sorts of preventive measures can we put in place to be safe when going back out again?
A lot of answers are still missing
EDIT: And what about South Dakota, which never shutdown? Or Georgia, which has re-opened? Or Texas, which is re-opening? What is so special about Wisconsin?
Which doesn't answer the question if they have. This isn't some partisan bill but a force of nature, and if they are flexing their powers for the sake of posturing then more Wisconsin citizens will die if there isn't a plan presented by the "powers and perogatives" of legislature.
Have they said this explicitly?
And if you think it was, please cite where the article says that.
To me it sounded like they argued that now that the urgent emergency condition ended, continuing lock downs need to be done in coordination with the legislature.
Which is very different from what you said.