I hate how the idea of reopening has split down political party lines. This is definitely not the time for partisanship. Now that Republicans have come out as pro-reopening, San Francisco will be the last city to reopen in the country. 0 COVID-19 infections will be too many.
You can't have the expectation of paying debts and simultaneously take away people's means for repaying it. Responsibility without control is cruel.
Growing up, my parents maybe would have had an extra $100 at the end of the month. My dad would have probably been out of work - given that, each month they were out of work would have put them in a year's worth of debt. A financial death.
I hear what you are saying, but I am glad I am not the one making the decisions about this.
It is clear that sheltering does reduce the speed of infection growth, but it is also very clear that sheltering puts enormous stress on individuals, families and companies. I have empathy for those who have to work at home while simultaneously home schooling their children, or families that are in economically over-stressed situations where they don't have an option to work at home, or for communities that don't have adequate running water and other resources.
No, the science doesn't "support shelter-in-place", because science in itself doesn't support any particular policy. Instead, the science is simply predicting a certain number of deaths or burden on the healthcare system, and certain public-health officials are recommending policy to minimize number of deaths, because their sole priority is to save human lives. However, someone else could look at that same science predicting a certain number of deaths, and say that such a number of deaths is an acceptable sacrifice and a policy of reopening the economy can be pursued.
Good point. I've seen this mistaken notion of science a lot recently. Scientists can describe the world and make predications about how it might behave, they don't have anything to say (as scientists) about what one ought to do.
Also, it appears that by "science" commenters here really mean epidemiologists or medical scientists, not economists, psychologists, political scientists, etc. Scientists from each of these fields have a limited perspective, a good leader tries to balance these perspectives when choosing a course of action. Of course, the medical view matter a lot now but its not the only view that matters.
I hate how the idea of reopening has split down political party lines. This is definitely not the time for partisanship. Now that Democrats have come out in support of gradually tapering the quarantine, Republican mayors will be chomping at the bit to reopen their cities. 60,000 COVID-19 deaths will be too few.
I have confidence in the leadership of California. They have shown intelligence and restraint in the midst of this crisis, saving perhaps thousands of lives in the process. The federal government? Pure drivel, 24/7. The only policy they have is wishful thinking with a side of word salad.
The new order includes several approved low risk activities and transparent indicators that will be used to gauge safety to further reopen. Is there something about this you don’t feel is backed by science?
At the end of the day it is going to be a judgement call by someone - hopefully informed by scientific fact - but ‘science’ doesn’t say when to reopen, just provides the data and context help make a decision.
The original order was never based on any sound science to begin with. That doesn't necessarily mean it was a bad policy. But it was a faith based policy, not evidence based.
What’s not sound science about separating people to slow down the spread? It’s the only real option for anything like a quarantine with such a long incubation time (and as recently discovered asymptomatic infections) and the absolute lack of tests we had at the beginning of this outbreak...
It’s simple math that reducing the number of people in contact with each other would reduce the number of people that got infected.
> “ What’s not sound science about separating people to slow down the spread? It’s the only real option...”
no, that’s the nuclear option, not a surgical strike, much less the only option, and based on an insufficiently precise perception of the problem.
the mechanism of spread can be crudely described as spitting into each others’ mouths, not standing nearby, touching, or breathing in the same room. with the problem sufficiently, if crudely, framed, it should be easier to imagine other ways of preventing spread besides locking everyone in their abodes. physical distancing by itself, for instance, is probably sufficient for most folks. for “essential” workers, you might add a mask.
In the US they tried the just stay apart message before the stay at home orders and it wasn't working, people still crowded onto beaches in Florida over spring break and into concerts and restaurants all over the country. Ideally yes you'd just say stay apart from people and hand out masks which were getting sold out in a lot of places.
Without ordering places closed there's too much incentive for businesses to fudge and force their employees to come to work. Don't forget there were runs and shortages of masks so service industry employees wouldn't have complete reliable access to simple masks.
> the mechanism of spread can be crudely described as spitting into each others’ mouths
Somewhat true but coughing etc makes loads of the tiny particles that can carry the virus and they can linger and spread.
There's a lot that could have been done better but it requires a level of coordination and action the US isn't super great at, both in general and right now in particular..
> "There's a lot that could have been done better but it requires a level of coordination and action the US isn't super great at, both in general and right now in particular."
the US, by construction, is all-in on decentralized solutions, and one of its strengths is resisting unwarranted coordinated and centralized action, which is simply an amassment of power, because that's inevitably destabilizing (usually over long time periods, which humans have a hard time properly and understandably rationalizing about).
what's generally warranted, at a national level? defense and international relations. centralizing power is so threatening to the existence of the state itself, we limit it to other mortal threats to the state (international relations are centralized so other nations, say, russians, don't pick apart the states).
we are obligated by our forebearers to apply our ingenuity and our massive resources to finding a solution given the few constraints placed on us by the constitution. we do that by applying our brains, teasing apart the problem, trying solutions, and generally being good people. we don't go running to the apron strings of the nanny state.
I know it’s intentionally made into a diffuse set of states but there’s far more than just those two issues where federal power makes sense, environmental regulation in particular since air and water pollution don’t stop at state lines.
But we’re getting off on a tangent about the fundamental design of the US government made at a very different point in history. I don’t think either of us can convince the other here before we both wind up [dead].
On the topic of bungled mismanagement there’s things like states being forced to bid against each other for various medical supplies on the open market and then after being paid for the federal government taking those supplies to redistribute. Instead of those steps just buy them all an do the distribution based on the need in each state which won’t be tied to how much they have to spend. We could have started programs earlier this year to increase the supply of PPE and ventilators knowing that this would inevitably come to the US. We could have followed through on programs like this [0] to ensure that there were cheap easy to build options for ventilators instead of allowing the existing companies to buy out the company contracted and then get out of the obligation because ‘it wouldn’t be profitable enough.’
ok, but supply of PPE and ventilators to medical workers mainly concerns treatment rather than transmission.
stay-at-home and physical distancing primarily concern transmission.
we want to control transmission to reduce death and suffering, not eliminate them. even with dystopian and draconian measures (not to mention economy-destroying), reducing death and suffering to zero is effectively impossible (and seasonal recurrence is highly likely). moreover, the US is simply not designed, for good reason, to willingly tolerate such measures.
life is full of (similarly likely) risks, and we don't generally panic over them. if this were plague-levels of bad, more draconian measures might be warranted, but this isn't that.
sub-linear transmission is likely the best we can do.
with that in mind, physical distancing (combined with other carefully targeted guidelines like quarantining the sick and having workers wear masks) doesn't need to be perfect to be effective at reducing transmission to sub-linear levels. people who are likely to cough for any reason are already highly discouraged from going out, and most people in public are already hyper-aware of not coughing openly, especially not into each other's mouths.
stay-at-home doesn't meaningfully decrease the risk further, but it's a huge risk to social order.
Its all about the level of risk, which many of us are not so confidently dismissing. Everything follows from that. To assume its 'probably going to be ok' is potentially callously condemning a million people to die needlessly. All for lack of patience.
"life is full of (similarly likely) risks, and we don't generally panic over them. if this were plague-levels of bad, more draconian measures might be warranted, but this isn't that."
So if the IFR holds up at around 1%, and herd immunity ends up being the only solution since vaccines are tough, the pandemic in the US would be quite bad, no?
Help me see where the following is flawed:
Population of the US:
328M
Herd Immunity infection total (generously assuming 60%):
196M
So with 1.97M dead Americans, and 17M seriously injured (but surviving) fellow citizens, what exactly would you envision plague-levels of bad? What would be the economic damage from this level of bad?
Even if the IFR is off, closer to the flu at 0.1%, the infectiousness of this virus means we'd still need 60% or higher infections for herd immunity. With this IFR, we'd still have 17M hospitalized with serious effects, and still have 197K dead. That's at flu level IFR.
The economic value of losing 2M people, as well as 17M with shortened life spans would be far worse than what any lockdown we've implemented would do. It will take all we can to maintain social cohesion for the next 12 months.
As someone once said, "The Constitution isn't a suicide pact." It and the USA has changed dramatically over the last 246 years. Both the Constitution and the USA will change over the next 246. This idea that the Constitution is inviolate and perfect, that it's the only thing we should adhere to is nonsense, and has been since the ink on it was drying.
You have stated a plausible hypothesis. That's one step in the scientific method. Now do the rest of the steps. The actual math isn't so simple.
We all understand that in a crisis sometimes leaders have to take decisive action based on incomplete data. That's fine. Just don't dress it up with some fake veneer of "science".
No, we know limiting person to person contact will limit spread of diseases. The stay at home orders are a blunt instrument but they're implementing a very simple, well understood mechanism for reducing the spread of diseases.
I think the rest of the steps were done long ago. That’s when we discovered about infectious disease. Taking steps to slow spread is based on that science, AFAICT.
Sometimes the scientific process isn’t an option and intuition is required. Look at the results and tell me you would have preferred they waited in the name of science. SF could have been much closer to the situation in NYC...
Maybe we’re splitting hairs. I agree that it wasn’t “sound science”, but one could argue it was evidence based - the evidence being reports/video coming out of China (I believe there was an article in The Atlantic stating this is what made London Breed issue the first shutdown in the nation). Your use of “faith” based implies to me there was zero evidence taken into account which seems unfair. Again, maybe we’re splitting hairs and trying to agree on the same thing.
I think your logic around the word "intelligent" is overly simplistic. Would you say Sweden's logic behind their limited lockdown was not backed by "intellect"?
Just over a month ago, you were talking about Japan's reduced rates of COVID-19 cases thanks to their mask-wearing culture compared to western societies.
Would you like to revisit that topic before we talk about reopening anything? Or how about Hokkaido facing another wave of cases due to reopening too early? Because it seems to me it's only a matter of time for any country that's currently open to see a spike in cases regardless of their culture.
Its disappointing that you bemoan the partisan politics in a time like this and immediately assume/mock that San Francisco will take a partisan decision when so far they have done a good job and stuck to science.
