Comment by NotSammyHagar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NotSammyHagar | Hacker News Reader

There's every reason we should see a good increase in cv19 spreading, because there is no reason for it not to. Washington State's daily number on Sunday, June 7 is 450 new pos cases, [1] which was last seen on the first of April. 2 months later coming back to early April numbers. [2]. We are testing 50% more per day (about 4k/day in early April, 6k/day now). Even though we increased testing by 50%, it was only recently that WA state got daily pos counts matching 2 months ago.

My opinion is that standing up for the current abhorrance of police violence connected to BLM is worth some endangering behavior on their own choice (i.e. going out in crowds, because it's a multi-100 year problem), whereas getting a haircut is not the same, but I see why that's contentious. 1000 more people getting a positive case that wouldn't have otherwise will lead to a few deaths, and they will spread it and kill a few more. It's personally horrible to just write down that fact and not know what to do with it.

1. https://bing.com/covid/local/washington_unitedstates

2. https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/NovelCoronavirusOutbreak2...

The haircut comments drive me up the wall, particularly if you know someone who owns a small business and their accompanying struggles. Economic money movement was stalled, which can have an enormous impact on livelihood. While I can absolutely understand being critical of when protestors wanted things to re-open, it shows a deliberate attempt at being unable to empathize.

I am empathetic with those who will lose small businesses. I have someone in my family personally affected.

I think the potential customers who wanted to get a haircut or their nails done were making a less important request than the person who is losing their livelihood. That is a different issue than the impact on the small business owner who is devastated by this. Someone in my family is facing financial devastation because they work in the wedding industry and all weddings are of course on hold. This person could lose everything. Yet I don't want my or anyone else's old relatives to die because of more spreading. Also my niece has a job in a restaurant that isn't open any more - they tried to open but not enough customers came.

With the people going to protests, we are certain to have increased infections in a week or two.

These protests are a complete rounding error compared to how many personal interactions were going on in a single day back in March when everything was still open for business as usual and no one was wearing masks.

COVID-19 cases will go up when the economy reopens. Until then I'd be surprised if we even see a statistically noticeable blip from these protests.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com