The reason why your solution is not good is because it pigeon holes the government into expectations. The government doesn't have a crystal ball as to how this all plays out, they need to have the flexibility to change how they want to respond to each situation without having to defend an ultimatum.

For example, even in your own example here are several situations you didn't account:

-- The availability of tests for the public at large

-- Whether we're doing temperature checks everywhere

-- Whether we're requiring people to download a contact tracing app

-- How much capacity we have in the hospital system even though cases are going down

-- If we can find a drug that helps shorten the time people spend in a hospital

-- If we find new information like masks don't help or they greatly help

-- We run out of swabs but cases are low

There are a lot of factors that has to go into how the government changes the rules and while it might make it easier for the public to be at ease when the rules are hard, it also makes it a lot harder to adjust the rules.

I think being upset at the government is your right, but I also think you should channel your energy into something more productive and thank that at least in California we acted a lot faster than other areas of the country.

I think Governor Cuomo said something very interesting the other day, to paraphrase, when he was asked whether he should've started stay at home earlier and if that would've saved lives. Of course it would have, but the interviewer is not taking into account compliance and public sentiment. Likewise, for you, I think you're viewing this problem from a very individualistic point of view to get strict rules on what happens when, but you're not accounting for the edge cases where the government needs a backdoor to change the rules with new information and to play it close to public sentiment.

> I think Governor Cuomo said something very interesting the other day, to paraphrase, when he was asked whether he should've started stay at home earlier and if that would've saved lives. Of course it would have, but the interviewer is not taking into account compliance and public sentiment.

That’s great, but right up until the shutdown, De Blasio and other NYC officials were encouraging New Yorkers to go out and support their local theaters, restaurants, and bars. And at no point did initial shutdowns meet with any substantial resistance. This is just retconning the history of the past six weeks to make himself look better.

This is true. Speaking from California here, several Bay Area counties were the first I knew of. NYC started doing shelter-in-place like 3 weeks later.

I'm all about more data, more columns. It's the framework for thinking about things. Counterproposing with a more detailed plan would be great. It's the type of dialog we should be having (e.g. what are the thresholds for mandatory masks). Not vague political grandstanding.

> I think Governor Cuomo said something very interesting the other day, to paraphrase, when he was asked whether he should've started stay at home earlier and if that would've saved lives. Of course it would have, but the interviewer is not taking into account compliance and public sentiment.

I'm living on the West Coast, but the way I remember the news from NY was that De Blasio wouldn't shutdown the city because he said he lacked the authority; he passed the buck to Cuomo to issue shutdown orders. Cuomo said that it was the Federal governments responsibility to organize and order shutdowns, passing the buck to Trump while implicitly admitting it was something that needed to be done. Trump in turn said that it was the states' responsibility. Importantly, De Blasio and Cuomo knew the stance of the person they were passing the buck, which means they knew nothing would be done. Equally as importantly, they both ended up later ordering measures they previously refused, and otherwise contradicting their earlier selves.

Meanwhile, over here on the West Coast, we saw real leadership--making hard decisions in a moment of public paralysis.[1] Cuomo and De Blasio seem to be smart administrators, at least smart enough to recognize and follow expert, consensus opinion smacking them in the face. But they clearly suck as leaders.

I'm still astonished how quick we all are to retcon recent history. (And I don't mean to imply that you are doing that, though I am responding to a sentiment that seems to defend Cuomo.) Similar revisionism happened after 9/11 and the Great Recession, where people ended up judging people and events according to narratives and sentiment that arose weeks and even days subsequent, despite obvious contradictions with then recently reported facts.

[1] Not just politicians. Noteworthy (and apropos HN) is how Seattle Flu Study researchers stuck their necks out and bent the law rather than twiddle their thumbs while the CDC fumbled.

I recommend you read this which details how Breed's actions seem somewhat politically motivated to steal show. Chiefly, there was an agreement that all counties would let their health director's announce the lock down order and Breed jumped ahead to announce it herself.

https://missionlocal.org/2020/04/covid-atlantic-london-breed...

The story leaked that morning. The SF Chronicle reported on it at ~11:30AM, explaining "County authorities were expected to announce the move at 1 p.m. and gave a draft of the order to media outlets to prepare. The Chronicle is reporting the story after a television station published the news early." https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/status/1239620219376504832

I knew Breed jumped the gun and thought it a little showy, but I assumed she did it partly to get ahead of the rumor mill. Maybe her office coaxed the TV station (KTVU?) to leak it early?

Anyhow, this is all largely irrelevant. I purposefully didn't single out Breed in my previous comment. What's relevant is that these counties had clearly been working on this order long before the announcement, which means that for her part Breed would have known about it and approved of it days prior. Which is in stark contrast to mayors like De Blasio and most other politicians outside the West Coast and especially outside the Bay Area--Newsom was almost too late in ordering a state-wide shutdown, judging by how bad Los Angeles got. They were consistently days late, during a time when days and even hours mattered.

I'm not very concerned by Breed trying to capitalize on her decisions. What matters is that she has made decisions that could have easily resulted in intense blowback (and still might) while others sat around on their thumbs too afraid of the political costs. There's plenty to still criticize Breed for, but relatively speaking she deserves some praise. And that's basically how the Mission Local article lands, too.

EDIT: See also Breed's first tweet at 11:57AM, which I think comes before her press conference, though Youtube isn't showing the time of the video, just the date. https://twitter.com/LondonBreed/status/1239626809865416704 Speaking of which, it's highly annoying how the SF Chronicle and the Mercury News update their articles in ways that obscure the timeline of what was said and when.

The attached spreadsheet is basically I've been waiting to see. I figured from the title of this post that's what this would be. Everyone I talk to is asking, "Now what? Do we just keep doing this until there's a vaccine?" This post is "California's Roadmap" as in California the government, not California the public. They all seem like questions they should have been asking themselves at least a month ago.

Sure, keep the green columns internal, but broadcast the "Levels" and restrictions, incorporate your bullet points (like temp checks). That way people can prepare for moving to "Level 4" with a rough timeline. With a possible second wave and next fall/winter being inevitable I don't think anyone would be surprised about moving backward.

Personally, I'm not upset by this. It just doesn't seem very useful to the public.

Thanks for chiming in. As I said in another thread I think at least this is the kind of framework for a discussion. Want to add more columns? Great. Want to double a number or halve a number, great.

I personally think there is zero downside to publishing the numeric targets. Of you get more data in to change them, just change them (it's at least better than now where they have dates that they just keep changing). I don't see how having a date that you keep changing is locking political leaders more than metrics that you change.

What was touched on in the reply, things like the amount and distribution of testing, the compliance and effectiveness of measures like wearing masks, and other information and treatments could change the criteria marked in green--which means they'd have to be revised publicly causing confusion. Kept internal they can revise it as things change and just announce Level changes publicly.

All of those numbers in green have been called out as likely incorrect at the moment. You can see positive tests jump as more are done in the daily numbers. In situations where people are dying they're often foregoing tests to save them for the living. At some point we'll hopefully have wider testing which will change the numbers and likely the criteria for level changes.

Thanks for replying! I agree I would like to see better numbers. However, I don't think that things like mask compliance would change the criteria marked in green, rather it would change the actual tracked metrics and require another lockdown.

While I am highly confident I didn't get everything right, I did account for the testing angle because I think that while tests are coming in on average (something like 7 days) very high positive, it is a very good sign that test quantity is wildly off. That is why I personally look at that metric. If 95% of tests are coming back negative (assuming good tests), that is a sign testing is going well. If 40% are positive, we aren't testing enough and should be conservative.

If our testing goes up which dramatically shoots up cases, even though its is a good thing I think its prudent to potentially escalate measures to be sure.

It should only be when everything is at least as good as a certain level should things decline. So for example if there are 1000 new cases in a week in california, with 2% growth rate, but 25% positive tests for some reason, then lock it down again (this is a very made up example).

The government has the power to check temperatures, force people to use a contact tracing app, require masks etc.

It actually largely doesn't have that power.

I mean, it does until challenged, and it could impose restrictions on entering government buildings -- but the government really doesn't have an unlimited authority to declare arbitrary restrictions on the right of people to peaceably assemble.

Not legally, anyway.

At least at the state level, states' general police powers have usually been interpreted to give pretty broad authority to enforce measures like quarantines and mandatory isolation if necessary to protect public health. There's a bit of recent case law from the 2014 Ebola quarantines: a few nurses who had had contact with a suspected case (but had no symptoms) were put under mandatory quarantine, and sued for unlawful detention, but courts upheld the quarantine.

There's some limit to these powers, e.g. a quarantine in SF in the year 1900 was struck down as being racially discriminatory in a way not justified by public health (only ethnic Chinese were quarantined). But courts are reluctant to second-guess this kind of thing unless it seems like a pretext.

There is a distinction between quarantining someone who is sick for the duration of their illness and putting the entire population under indefinite detention and building a long-lasting deep surveillance operation with mandatory universal participation

I think we all know each right has its limits when the greater good is at stake. Largely, it's intent that matters.

The idea of inalienable rights is antithetical to this outlook. No matter how noble the authorities’ intentions may be, certain essential rights are allegedly sacrosanct.

> The idea of inalienable rights is antithetical to this outlook.

There's no such thing. The idea that a right is inalienable is aspirational. While we should respect it, we should also respect that nothing is absolute and the best laid plans of mice and men and whatnot. We cannot allow perfect to become antithetical to good.

The draft is still legal and constitutional. If society and the constitution thinks it's acceptable to send 18 year old boys against their will to get machine-gunned in a foreign jungle in the name of "national security", then by those standards none of the measures being proposed to combat the coronavirus are an unprecendented or unacceptable violation of any so-called inalienable rights.

The virus poses a larger threat to national security than the Viet Cong, after all.

> Largely, it's intent that matters

I'm sure Earl Warren said that to himself when he locked up the Japanese Americans during WWII.

Everything comes in shades of grey, and that's a particularly dark one. That doesn't mean small concessions aren't the right thing from time to time. In the same way while Americans are allowed to bear arms they aren't allowed to bear nuclear arms. I doubt you'll find a single person in favor of unrestricted domestic nuclear proliferation in the name of the second amendment.

Especially when the country isn't even sure about bump stocks.

How about we address such things on a case by case basis?

> It actually largely doesn't have that power.

Yes it does. This is war.

No war has been declared.

But in a way, you are right. We are in a war for our futures, and we are losing.

Now you're right in a way. We're in a war for our futures against an opponent that won't do any damage to the vast majority of the population and will disproportionately negatively affect a small slice. That small slice must be protected and the rest of us need to venture out of our burrows.

>> I like many others are deeply upset by leadership from both parties, at all levels of government.

I'm sitting at home in Michigan where the governor has closed almost all businesses. Politicians bicker over weather governors or the president have the authority to reopen things. And yet there is no plan as far as I can see. No goals, no criteria to trigger next steps, nothing. Meanwhile the press just snipes at people.

it's tough to have productive coordination when the president knows so little about civics and government. it's best to ignore the president in this case, especially since he constitutionally has very little say in a pandemic response.

instead, focus on putting political pressure on your state and local politicians to come up with a concrete plan and timeline, as they're the ones who do hold power in this case.

I think this would be a very good advice in any other politically charged situation, that requires quick action. However, in the case of pandemic your own plan has to depend heavily on the worldwide plan.

If my state would manage to kill 100% of the virus within its borders by quarantine-like measures, and then reopened the economy and everything else before other states and countries do the same, we'd quickly get the spread back on track. So if there's no federal/worldwide cooperation on that coming from the top, local politicians must push up as hard as they can for a global plan to be made.

At the very least, there must be a plan per continent.

immediate and pervasive reinfection is just not a primary concern, given what we've learned over the past few months epidemiologically and politically.

no governing body would open up everything immediately and let everyone go wild mixing it up. reopening will be controlled and coordinated enough to keep a lid on transmission rates (as implied by the CA roadmap), rather than attempting to eradicate all transmission in one globally-synchronous attempt. that would be wholly unrealistic.

It's also not like politicians are busy working on a cure. Almost their sole job right now is to communicate an exit strategy. And they can't even properly align text on slides (I don't actually care about that except as a symbol of how little attention to detail they put into this).

I doubt politicians are the ones putting together these slides.

But yeah, the slide thing is kind of silly. Looks like they did most of the work with a 4:3 template, then realized halfway that it would be shown on a widescreen projector/TV.

> Is he going for suppression? Is he going for mitigation?

This is the factor that has been missing from all the reporting on this crises. The goal of suppressing the virus to zero and merely seeking mitigate the virus surge effect on available ICU beds leads to drastic differences in all metrics most notably “peak deaths”. If the goal is mitigation with rolling shutdowns, there will be many many more deaths. Virus suppression require several months of shutdown. This is the most basic result of the “models”.

None of the major outlets have reported on this at all.

The idea of suppressing the virus to zero just doesn't really exist outside of certain circles. Every government I'm aware of has acknowledged that there will be many more deaths, and all of my friends and family expect that.

Unfortunately, those "certain circles" seem to include the World Health Organization...

> I like many others are deeply upset by leadership from both parties, at all levels of government.

Yes, I agree. What’a really upsetting is they try to justify why less transparency is good thing. When they are using this only as way to impose their authority.

I don't really understand your comment. This is more of a "vision" doc that sets a framework and principles on what the plan will look like. The next iteration will be a more detailed plan. It is fairly typical of tech product work, where you create your vision statement and then create a more detailed plan

It's actually pretty effective management and leadership. As a strategy consultant, I counsel all my clients to communicate the intended end goal, and how they are going to achieve that, before getting in the weeds of implementation.

(5) In 1918, due to a combination of shelter in place, and seasonality the virus had time to mutate into something much deadlier before herd immunity was established. What is the plan for establishing herd immunity before the next strain of COVID arrives (~this fall)?

It seems fairly obvious this is not, nor was it intended to be, a “plan”.

This “Roadmap” was likely rushed out as part of a coordinated political response to threats made by the POTUS to override state decisions.

It was framed in the local press even before it was announced that the governor would be discussing which metrics the state would be looking at to determine when and how to start opening things back up.

It was shocking/hilarious/predictable to see the headlines streaming out even before Newsoms press conference was over that “California releases plan to reopen economy”.

If I was expecting a plan, and then opened this PDF, I would want to rip it to shreds as well.

Well, I think we agree it would be a crap "plan". However I think for most people "California’s Roadmap to Modify the Stay-at-Home Order" is basically something like a plan.

And Newsom's twitter seems to really allude to it being "like a plan" with tweets about this like: "@GavinNewsom lays out parameters and tools needed before the state modifies California’s statewide stay-at-home orders" https://twitter.com/CAgovernor/status/1250136291347324928?s=...

and they "announced a shared vision" https://twitter.com/CAgovernor/status/1250212300147101697?s=....

A bunch of "parameters", "indicators", "vision", and "roadmap" to describe this one thing, means most people are going to expect something plan-like.

Was this thing rushed out? Probably. But why? This is literally the most important thing that Newsom could have been working on for the last 3 weeks. He pre-announced this yesterday, he could literally have had his whole team work on nothing else.

I mean if I had to make one of the top 10 most important announcements of my life tomorrow, I would really make sure it was good.

But to be fair, and I think this was at least part of your point, maybe it is exactly what he wanted. This is a political document, not really meant for California citizens to understand what the goal of the state is, what measures will be taken, and what kinds of numbers will be looking at to make decisions.

Roadmap v. Plan is an age old argument many PMs have had!

If I draw out a map to Disneyland, even going as far to include which freeway exits to take, or maybe even going further as to plot out a few stops for gas, this still says nothing about when I will actually start the trip, how fast I’m going to drive, how much coffee I’m going to drink beforehand and how many bathroom breaks that will require, how many flat tires I’m going to get, how many times I’ll get rear ended by another driver who is playing with their phone, or how many times I will get pulled over by the cops on the way.

Some of that information is impossible to know, and some of that information has a low ROI in planning further.

> This is a political document

I feel strongly this is the case.

requiring masks seems like a shitty policy when it's still pretty hard to get them. guess who will be disproportionately affected...

I don't really think you fully appreciate what how your "real plan" or your accompanying nitpicks would be received by the average citizen. The biggest pitfall, as has already been pointed out by another reply, is that it creates concrete expectations that the government will be held accountable for.

Secondly, most of your nitpicks are great if you want to nerd out over the details of the epidemic, but most people are not going to find small details like static versus dynamic surge capacity or suppression versus mitigation useful at all or relevant to them at all.

A sprinkling of Dunning-Kruger here..

Thank you for your reply. I don't understand the objection that this is locking government in. Every level of government keeps setting dates then changing them, so I don't see how changing a criteria for a level is worse.

That’s because you don’t understand what you are talking about. You have waded into a debate where people are informed and you are not, yet when faced with an informed opinion you dismiss it as it doesn’t make sense. This is type of argumentation is a disease, ruining our ability to learn things and expose ourselves to other opinions on HN

> this is what a real roadmap looks like

Sorry, but what's your expertise in what real public health plans look like? And why are you criticizing a slide deck as if it were a carefully considered public health plan?

If you want to talk about what you'd like to see, great. We all want things, and communications can always be better. But I don't understand why you're treating your preferences as overriding, especially when you don't even know who the author is. (Hint: it's not a he.)

Governor Newsom, the governor of California, is a man (source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Newsom). This slide deck was released as a part of his press conference today. If a female staff member created the slides I don't think that changes anything, and is a poor ad-hominum attack, as the governor has presented this as his plan.

This issue (the issue of reopening) is not actually that much of a health discussion. It's a discussion about tradeoffs of a horrific deadly shutdown vs a horrific deadly disease. Health experts can help determine R0 and Rt and IFR, but they can't make these tradeoffs for us, it's ultimately a question for society.

We have to change the conversation from yelling at each other to debating the real details.

The author, according to the metadata, is Dr Sonia Angell, MD MPH, currently director of the CA Department of Public Health: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/meet-the-director

Pointing out that you don't know the source is not an ad hominem, because you are apparently offering yourself as an expert as to what a good plan is here. You also don't appear to know the difference between medicine and public health. The latter, of course, is very much about the tradeoffs between medical and other societal factors.

So I'll ask again: given that you are presenting your opinions as more pertinent than the experts here, what's the expertise you're basing that on?