I'm thinking: Give it time/we need another solution, because even under lockdown, cases will kick back up.

Illinois went into lockdown March 21, so given the incubation period no effect was expected to be seen until the beginning of April - which is exactly what happened, between the last few days of March and April 13, the growth rate plummeted - from 20-40% to 4-6%.

The drop in new cases during that period made it look like we were past the peak, but since then it's been really stable at 4-6%, so we are coming up on a second peak in the future. That's when I expect the extra capacity will be needed. In absolute numbers, it's already at 3x new cases per day with the slower rate than it was back at the higher rate.

So the later any specific case happens, the better the likely outcome. Multiply that by the number of cases, and it absolutely starts to make a lot of sense to wait to decide until you know more. Certainly the number of patients who come down with it in the Fall will have a lower fatality rate than the very first patients who got it, barring mutation that makes it more lethal for some other reason.

Gathering information takes time so delaying until that information exists isn't the same as winging it.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/15/8340211...

Individual governments such as the UK have established less restrictive conditions.

The key point is building massive capabilities to test and contact trace so any further outbreak can be contained.

Otherwise we will be lurching from lockdown to lockdown.

Just because the US Federal government is unable to define criteria, because they don’t want to increase the manufacturing of test kits for political reasons doesn’t mean every other government has no clue.

Cite please?

This is the first time I've heard this. Could you expand on what you think these political reasons are?

The lockdowns have come as desperate measures in response to the general confusion and the progression of a deadly epidemic. California is vaguely looking to testing as mechanism for lifting the lockdown. Hopefully, they'll come up with good ideas. The epidemic is still running hot so do have time to think.

Having local authorities improvising isn't the best approach by any means. It's still a better approach than a mob of anti-vaxers, Proud Boys and other right wing types improvising or a president who doesn't know biology improvising, to illustrate the mess we're in.

This mess, however, is one of those situations where it's incumbent on the critic to come up with something actually better that can be implemented rather than whining that a given solution is far from perfect.

I'm not sure that we can build a health system capable of handling this a second time... I have the feeling that this will just result in the way people work changing.

Essential workers taking more power because we are all forced to acknowledge that they're essential. People able to work remotely doing that much much more. Wearing masks at the grocery. These are things I expect to be long-term, except for the first which has some obvious structural barriers.

I’m going to make this statement my fb profile picture.

Here in California, our governor has declared that we will do this indefinitely (!) until six criteria are met. Well, I hope they have some really concrete plans to meet them, because I haven't seen any such plans presented to the public. The absolute devastation we are doing to the livelihoods of so many is staggering. What will happen when the tax revenues run dry and the tax base has been reduced by some huge percentage? Coronavirus will still be around when that happens.

The virus is here, and will not be eradicated. Society cannot hibernate like this sustainably, certainly not until a vaccine arrives. I'm all about masks in public, social distancing rules, bans of large gatherings, and lots of resources directed to protecting vulnerable populations. But I'm afraid and convinced that the stay-at-home orders will do far far greater damage to society as a whole than the virus would/will under a more targeted mitigation scheme.

Maybe my fears are overblown because of the recent hit to my mental and physical health. My gym was declared illegal, as was access to all parks in Los Angeles, as was my ability to work in an isolated office without a needy toddler in the room.

Sweden has a strong well being systems. People stays at home every winter during the flu seasons. In any given meeting there are a couple of employees working from home because they may have the flu.

To compare the social protections of Sweden that allow citizens to stay home when sick ALWAYS, not just for the current pandemic, with the USA approach of come-to-work-or-you-are-fired is not reasonable.

The USA should pay more to their employees, have better healthcare coverage, give paid leave, and forbid free lay offs. And then, it would be in a position to postpone, lets see for how long, the shutdowns in a pandemic.

Sweden without lock down: Workplaces -32% New York with lock downs: Workplaces -48%

I have the fear that the same Americans that want the "Swedish approach to CoVid19" are the ones against the social safety nets that has made it possible.

- https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-04-17_SE_Mobil...

- https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-04-11_US_New_Y...

I believe you're right about that. The cynic in me thinks Georgia is only 'reopening' to avoid paying more unemployment. Maybe it's my own Swedish ancestry that compels me to want an strong social safety net and a softer lockdown?

Sweden's approach is having a strong social safety net, including for personal health, that makes acting in the way public health requires consistent with personal incentives without mandates. Georgia’s approach is to have neither positive social incentives in the general case not appropriate public health mandates in the absence of those incentives. They aren't similar approaches. Sweden's probably won't be completely disastrous (though their death rate is high, compared to neighboring countries), Georgia's is on track to be. Sweden mostly gets misused as a positive example because of a low known infection rate, but that largely reflects differences in the scale and distribution of testing, not actual prevalence.

None of their approaches place any consideration on the damage caused by the mitigation efforts themselves. Suicides, domestic violence, overdoses, and other negative outcomes are all up and will cost lives.

At what point does the conspiracy theory that much of it is a pure power grab become validated?

Re-opening some things is not a contradiction, as long as you keep the reproduction number <1 you are on a path so that you can contain things. Stricter measures mean you hit them earlier, laxer measures means later but you might not damage the economy as much ... but in any case they said if it flares up again the strict measures come back.

That said permant economic damage will be due to politcial policy choices not due to a two-three month lock down. Consequence of protecting the rentier class instead of businesses and people.