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> Now its an absolute chaotic situation where lockdowns go up and down per county every week with it based on number of cases(colleges are open leading to huge case jumps).

How is a system that loosens and tightens restrictions based on cases and positivity rate "chaotic"?

Yeah, seems like that would be a system that can respond to changing conditions - seems like a good thing.

Technically, it's almost the literal definition. There are just a few constraints more, and those are satisfied.

But I agree it doesn't make a policy bad.

Because the system is completely arbitrary. There is no explanation of why 3 extra cases per XX people means you get indoor dining, but 3 less doesn't. All of the numbers that I saw where never justified, and seemed to be based on someone saying we need a few different tiers so that people think we know what we're doing.

I think the problem is that there is no easy formula for making these kinds of decisions. You need to look at the data and figure out what's going on before deciding what to do. For example, let's say someone has a big party and there are 100 new cases because of it. It wouldn't make sense to shut down indoor dining just because there was a spike. But on the other hand, if you saw 100 cases coming from a lot of restaurants spread out across a county, then you might consider shutting down indoor dining again.

Alot of the cases recently from california are from colleges starting classes. Cases are spiking at the college and instead of closing the college or forcing it to go fully remote the entire county suffers by having its businesses forcibly closed. Or take Lompac[1], a huge outbreak at the prison there caused santa barbara county to possibly enter a restrictive tier(even though the prisoners have no involvement in the community). Also the wording of the level of restriction changed from phases(1,2,3,4) to colored 'tiers' with no explanation. If that is not the picture of dysfunction I don't know what is.

[1] - https://www.edhat.com/news/lompoc-prison-could-delay-reopeni...

> a old coworker who died of it in his late 40's

that’s not old at all

I read it as meaning "former coworker"

Sorry, better term is former coworker, late 40's is very young to die from a virus.

Ha makes sense now, in my 40s so I got a bit defensive there :)

I think the main problem is that there are simple ways to reduce the chances of virus spreading, but people ignore them - the only tool you have left in your tool belt is to shut things down. At this point, opening things up won't change much in my opinion - folks that want to stay at home will stay at home, limit their spendings (no restaurants, entertainment, etc), won't travel, and wait it out till the vaccine is ready. At least I know I will.

A blanket shutdown of businesses in California is/was a bad idea. The people who want to be irresponsible will get the virus, even the CDC acknowledges that it primarily spreads via close person-to-person contact. So we have a situation where businesses are closing at an apocalyptic rate leading to a huge drop in the tax base for the state, the virus is still spreading rapidly amongst those who do not take it seriously and we(who are responsible) still suffer. Counter that in we have open businesses that see a drop in customers but these businesses see some revenue(all the while maintaining social distancing and requirement of masks inside).

My point is mostly that even if you do open everything up, that won't convince everyone to start going out and spending again. After seeing what's happening around mandatory masks ("muh freedoms!"), I don't trust my fellow members of the society to do the right thing. At this point I don't care if you open up or not, I can hunker down a few more months, & I expect I'm not the only one thinking along those lines. The only problem to me is that when you open up, you are forcing people to choose between losing their job or potentially getting sick.