To all those responding that "if they didn't want 999, they should have set a lower number:"

Whenever you make rules, you define some region of acceptability that's recommended and then if people go too far from that region, you say that's against the rules. The boundary is set some distance from what's recommended. You don't set the number at exactly recommended because people working in good faith still sometimes have honest reasons they need to go past that. But then you get bad faith actors going to the limit too.

If you don't have a good reason not to play it safe during a pandemic, then play it safe. Otherwise, screw you. Just because the law lets you be a dick, doesn't mean it's okay.

It's unclear to me from your comment whether you advocate over or under specifying the norm. "some distance" is ambiguous.

In order to say "that's against the rules" but allow some leeway, you need it to be under-specified so you can enforce it selectively.

But the next part suggest you over-set the norm, so people with honest reasons can go beyond the ideal without breaking the rules and everyone has an moral duty to stay well within the specified norms.

Anyone who engages in rules lawyering (hey, my group is only 999 people, we're all good) is being unethical.

Anyone who brings a large group of people together for frivolous reasons or without taking precautions is being unethical.

What's a large group? It's like porn - you know it when you see it.

To give depth here: limiting people isn't the only relevant dimension. You could argue cities are a gather of more than 1000 people. More important is density, how many people each person is expected to interact with, is there a buffet, etc. If you're running an event with 999 people, hopefully you're organizing to be less bulging at the seams with these other dimensions

Or, instead of issuing unclear vision, the state should just be issuing a blanket state ban on events larger than the x they want. If they don't want 999, clearly they choose the wrong number. Many large events across the country still aren't being cancelled, and they're being cancelled in an overly ad-hoc manner.

Those without sufficient information shouldn't be making these moral gambles to begin with.

Exactly. In my life I've always hoped to live in a world where everybody used "do the most irresponsible thing legally allowed" as their lodestar.

If there is a buck to be made, who am I to not make it??? "Common sense"? I got bills to pay!

You forgot to put the '/s'.

>"Common sense"? I got bills to pay!

Starving has a 100 percent mortality rate.

Luckily no one has ever died of a false dichotomy.

A New Hampshirite will tell you otherwise.

Do you care for common sense for social policy on viral epidemics? Common sense in many places means toughing it out is professionally normal, even if you're getting your coworkers sick. The same applies for kids in school.

These kinds of medical judgments on viral epidemics are exactly where we want the government to communicate clear vision and leadership on emergency medical policy...

What's wrong with that? It's literally adapting to the regulation, and scaling down events down to the legal size. 0% risk doesn't exist, and smaller crowds is a measure to reduce risk.

I believe trolling is against the rules.

Gosh I hope the hammer comes down hard on folks trying to make a buck this way if they even briefly creep over 1000 - since 1000+ events are banned maybe target events in the 100s range.

They'll have a guy out front with a clicker to keep track. It's stupid easy to comply with while still getting close to the limit.

I suspect that if it looks like a crowd close to a thousand the police will shut it down - additionally you need to count those who aren't being admitted, because everyone gathering outside of the dude with the clicker (and the dude themselves) will be in close contact as a result of the event.

The clicker is effective for fire code issues (since you want to make sure X people aren't in the building) but for disease related issues you don't want those people gathering anywhere, and now 1000+ people will have been gathering (at various times of the night) just outside the venue because of the event.

This makes me think of airports and terrorism. I remember standing in a crowd of 1000+ people trying to get through security theater at JFK, and thinking "Anyone could just walk a giant suitcase bomb into this crowd".

That not even one follow-up attack like that—assuredly crippling air travel for months, at least, and increasing the cost of it probably permanently, aside from easily killing dozens per occurrence—happened in the months after 9/11 was when I started wondering whether this Al Qaeda thing was half as well-resourced in the US, and half as well-coordinated, as officials were saying at the time.

Sure, I think the limit is too high too. I just don't think there's going to be any exercising of these rules except against absolutely brazen cases of going over limit.

Specifically, ensuring compliance is as easy as proving non-compliance. Unless the cops are there with a clicker, employee with a clicker wins every time.

If city officials didn't want 999-person events, they should have set the number lower.

At the end of the day you have to set the threshold somewhere. One could argue that a 500-person event is still risky, but a balance has to be struck between attempting to slow the spread of the disease, and not unreasonably restricting people's activities.

In this case, what's reasonable is certainly up for debate. No measure will be perfect, unless we want to start advocating for no gatherings whatsoever (public or private) and effectively putting people under house arrest. While that would stop transmission of the disease, I think it's fairly uncontroversial to say that would be an overreaction. But certainly it's up for debate as to, say, whether a 100-person ban would be appropriate, vs. 1,000, 10,000, etc. They chose 1,000. It won't be a perfect number, but it will help.

Jesus, what are you looking at that makes you so sure of this viewpoint?

I think it's fairly uncontroversial to say that we absolutely do need a quarantine that keeps almost everyone in their homes, except for those providing critical services (medical staff, police, national guard, plus some needed amount of infrastructure for groceries, pharmacies, electricity, water, etc.). For the next 2 or 3 months, I fully expect to only leave home maybe every few days or week to go to the grocery store or pharmacy, like you see today in most of South Korea. It's just a question of when at this point, and the sooner we start it, the less disruptive it'll be in the long term and the fewer people will die.

It's funny to look at this retrospectively 11 days later, after both the bay area and CA as a whole has been subject to a shelter-in-place order.

So you're right, of course.

That assumes the 999 person events will actually enforce the limit and not let the thousandth attendee in.

It also ignores the intention of the rule, which is to reduce unnecessary risk. If 1001 people in a single venue is dangerous, so is 999.

Determining the exact number seems like interesting math.

I imagine a function using things like transmission vector diffusion rate, windspeed, incubation period, critical care percentage, number of ICU beds, and such as parameters, and outputs the maximum allowable gathering size that will keep the spread slow enough that everyone who requires hospital recovery can get admitted. Public officials could then ban public gatherings greater than 80% of that number.

Seems like a paper describing it could be worth some academia brownie points.

That officials at a certain level allow something does not absolve organizers of their moral duties, either.

If you try to live by the letter rather than the spirit of rules in soiciety, that is how you get Martin Shkreli aka "Pharma Bro".

Where is 'here'?

And can you id some such events? I think the 'organizers' need to feel some pushback for their lack of responsibility.

That sounds mildly better than letting N attendees in and then shutting the doors (as happened in my country)