You're missing a couple KEY points that we NEED.

We NEED contact tracing so we can dynamically quarantine.

We NEED enforcement of the new rules(6ft, masks) because they're not being followed where I'm at.

We NEED financial support for those who are immuno compromised or those who have to take care of the immuno compromised.

>We NEED enforcement of the new rules(6ft, masks) because they're not being followed where I'm at.

How should those things be enforced in your opinion?

It might get tricky when you have home grown terrorists walking around with long guns shouting that it violates some right they think they have to not wear them.

With fines and jail time if necessary. OSHA can enforce in the workplace - it's quite literally their purview.

Deaths reported as COVID-19 in the US so far: 90,263

Deaths due to flu during the 2018-2019 flu season: 34,157

Deaths due to flu during the 2017-2018 flu season: 61,000

So with a particularly deadly flu season in 2017-2018, COVID-19 has already killed nearly as many people as 2 flu seasons combined.

There are also a lot of deaths that are likely caused by COVID-19 but haven't been attributed properly, for any number of reasons including not wanting to waste tests on people who are already dead. You can find a nice graphic here that expresses this phenomenon nicely using seasonal averages: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2020/04/27/cov...

The stages of grief start with denial. Not gotten very far, have we?

I don't understand why people are believing this literal fake news, you can look at your state's official stats to see it's not true...

You might want to check your sources on that.

Citation?

I was thinking about this.

The easiest way would be to hire inspectors to go around and inspect places during business hours and close them down if they're not in compliance.

That or a federal jobs program of "safety enforcer" paid for by the fed and placed in every business of X size or whatever. The former seems more likely.

CDC: In the US, the flu has killed 12,000-61,000 per year over the last decade. According to the worldometer page, COVID19 has killed 91,000. Since January.

WHO: (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/influenza-(...) Worldwide, flu causes 290,000 to 650,000 respiratory deaths. Worldometer reports 316,000 COVID19 deaths. Since January. And I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that is off on the low side. But it's still early.

> According to the worldometer page, COVID19 has killed 91,000. Since January.

Not quite. The first death in the US was Feb 29. On March 31, it was only 5151.

So ~91k deaths over 2.5 months, or ~86k deaths over 1.5 months. (...I'd probably go with the first just to encompass infection time)

If you're going to spout nonsense that runs counter to the government's official tally, at least cite your source.

Are you forgetting that US hospitals are marking people who are dying of alcohol poisoning and heart disease as Covid deaths? Even when they are not tested! (https://www.foxnews.com/media/physician-blasts-cdc-coronavir...)

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/hospital-payments-and-the-... https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/14/candace-ow... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/medicare-hospitals-covid-p...

Many doctors think there's actually an undercount as they discover ways in which the disease can present differently than severe respiratory distress, or look at guidelines that may have led to incorrectly ruling out a case.

Of course, be sure to save some of that skepticism for ways in which a fee-for-service medical system can bend treatment large and small when this is all over.

And how would one pay for it?

California and Washington are both running massive deficits due to their harsh quarantine measures and will literally be out of money in a few months. Many cities are already running out of money.

Seattle, San Francisco, LA, NYC... all are heading towards bankruptcy or massive layoffs.

Many cops and teachers are about to be laid off. Prisons will be releasing prisoners to make budgets meet.

And here people are talking about a whole new squad of police that do nothing but enforce distancing and mask-wearing. With what money?

https://www.usmayors.org/2020/04/14/cities-report-pandemic-c...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Area-cities-...

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2020/05/12/coronavirus-la-cities...

> And how would one pay for it?

This is like the old line about education ("if you think it's expensive, try ignorance").

There isn't any such thing as "ending lockdown" without certain cooperative measures. Either we'll take the necessary collective steps to control spread and coordinate recovery behavior... or we won't, and we'll have both the uncontrolled spread and the second order uncoordinated responses including large portions of people sitting out economic participation in order to manage personal risk.

Maybe it'll take some kind of civil enforcement to do this. Maybe most people will cooperate.

Maybe the federal government will lend local governments money to help. Or it won't, or it will, but will come with stipulations designed to weaken the ability of local institutions to act counter to partisan ends of those in control of the Senate and executive.

But anyone on team "end lockdown" should hope there is cooperation, and enough enforcement to encourage it at the margins. And if funding is a problem, then private and public entities alike at least in theory have some incentive to come up with a way to solve the problems that need to be solved to support higher levels of activity.

We also need testing to know when people are actually healthy, and not healthy-looking.

Where are you that testing is still a problem? At least here in AZ there is no wait to get any sort of test, and actually doctors are now just including them in the standard blood panels they do.

It's a major problem nationally in the US, and we've been lied to constantly about timelines on testing. Even if everybody on AZ who fits the current testing criteria can get a test, to be able to reopen safely we need to test lots of people who don't fit the current testing criteria. Wider testing criteria means more testing capacity required, which is an issue because we don't have that extra capacity and won't any time soon.

|At least here in AZ there is no wait to get any sort of test

False. People in AZ are waiting in their cars for hours to get tested.

Haha okay fair point. You do also have to “wait” in the office after you check into for a teeth cleaning, or “wait” after ordering your food at McDonald’s. That shouldn’t be used to indicate that these things are unavailable.

Also YMMV. I did not have to wait at all for my test. I made an appointment at sonoraquest labs (which I believe is part of lab corps) and I was the only person there at my slot other than the staff.

I did have to “wait” in the sense that I scheduled my appointment for the next day after calling them.

Can they test every employee at the start of work and every patron of every business. Can they do that in a fashion where those awaiting results are isolated such that they can't infect others if they are sick? Are people physically distancing themselves and properly wearing masks?

If the answer is no to any of those questions then there's not enough testing to help prevent the spread of disease. Seeing there's no meaningful herd immunity to the virus and no vaccine available if there's no controls on infections the hospitalization rate of the virus will overwhelm hospitals.

The reason for shutdown orders is to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. COVID-19 is really infectious and has a high hospitalization rate. These two factors combined can very quickly cause ICU resources to hit capacity. Once that happens people die at even higher rates than otherwise. A lot of people in Italy died because ICU resources hit capacity.

You can test a million people today but unless all of those people are quarantined from the rest of the population you'll need to test them again tomorrow as they may have become infected in the meantime. Even if COVID-19's mortality and hospitalization rate was low it's still a serious illness and mass infections would still shut businesses down. A majority of causes people are down for weeks with the disease. They're not going to be able to work so if you have a cluster at a meat packing plant it'll still be effectively shut down.

I still can’t buy a thermometer online.

Here: https://wyze.com/thermometer.html

I have one of these and have sanity checked it against another mouth thermometer I have from CVS and the readings agree with one another.

(There have been reports of Chinese-made thermometers lying about their readings)

Looks like there are also a bunch on amazon that will arrive to me anywhere between two days from now and a week from now.

Oh yes, I forgot about this one. It's about the only thing my state is doing fairly well at.

Or we can infect humans with human coronavirus to boost immunity against covid-19.

Shh. You're not allowed to think that.

In all seriousness, I've been really disappointed with people who I respect who have consistently belittled anyone who questions the prudence of the lockdown. "Covidiot" is thrown around indiscriminately.

The other thing that has surprised me is how many people use absolute numbers rather than per-capita numbers in order to prove their points. I even found Neil deGrasse Tyson doing this on Twitter.

Well, a lot of people feel, I think accurately, that the lockdowns are what are or were keeping the case load relatively low.

Regarding absolute numbers, in the early phase when we had a 2-3 day doubling rate, per capita numbers didn't matter very much because you only needed ~2 days for it to double, so any difference in per capita cases saw that gap closed pretty quickly. So for instance, I saw people downplaying the danger by saying "sure Italy has it bad, but the US has 5x the population". That missed the point a bit. It didn't take that long for the US to become the leader in absolute number of cases, then a bit more for it to exceed per capita rates of Italy. Probably both would have happened sooner had there not been any intervention.

Sure, but certainly it's a complex enough scenario with enough variables that we should be able to at least have a conversation around what to do without resorting to name calling, yes?

Sure, and many are. Economists, Epidemiologist, and many in the science and political communities are having these conversations.

It's just that opening the economy has also become politicized and the armchair social media "experts" have begun chanting "OPEN UP!" without any sort of nuance repeatedly multiple times a day and overwhelming the conversations and suggestions of the reasonable folks with data. So, by default, the initial reaction is assume someone making that suggestion is they're more likely to be an emotional appeal than a rational discussion partner.

> without any sort of nuance

I think this accusation is equally applicable for politicians though. There has been precious little nuance in blanket lockdowns that don’t acknowledge how vastly different in risk different activities are (e.g. sunbathing in a park vs clubbing). Seems to me like the shouts of “OPEN UP!” are simply a response to the knee-jerk “SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!” that everyone has had to live with for the last few months.

Except it's not "SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING". It's shut down all non-essential mass gatherings until we can get a handle on the situation. All of the governors who implemented strict shelter-in-place orders have also released detailed plans for re-opening safely.

Where I am (Scotland) it WAS pretty much everything. Only shops selling food, medicine, or maintenance products are allowed to open. All others have been shut for ~2 months now. Driving is strictly forbidden unless you’re travelling to one of these stores that have been ‘deemed essential’. We’re not allowed to meet anyone outside of our household, even in a socially-distanced outside context. I have friends unlucky enough to be living alone and single, and the lockdown is destroying them, to the point that they’re secretly meeting other single friends to stay sane. All of this is in spite of the fact that there are thousands of jobs and activities that can be EASILY done whilst also socially distancing. Of course, it requires vastly more thought and effort to come up with rational guidelines that take into consideration all of this nuance, and governments (mostly because of shortsightedness) haven’t had the time to create more humane lockdown solutions, hence the indiscriminate restrictions that have been brought in by countries the world over.

The President of the Unites States of America uses "name calling" on an almost daily basis. I'd say it's fair game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_Dona...

Just because "the other side" does it, doesn't make it right.

The lockdowns are eroding the legitimacy and respect for authority.

Instead of leading the people, the authorities are fighting with them.

Personally I'd contend that leaders who choose not to take action to protect public health (or even try to deceive their constituents) are eroding the legitimacy and respect for their authority.

I'm tired of people pretending they're only "asking questions" when they're pushing for a full reopen. Acting like you're surprised there are unreasonable people saying things and using that to cast anyone who is more cautious as the same is dishonest and cowardly.

If someone actually has questions, they should ask them. Otherwise if they don't have the courage to own their political position, I don't consider them part of the conversation.

This has to be one of my most-hated "tricks."

"I don't believe this long video I just posted. But it does make you think." No, I'm pretty sure you believe and are promoting said video.

"I'm just asking questions here." No, you clearly have an agenda and opinion and want to bait others who are unsure into a discussion with you.

For the rare folks with honest questions, we can have a real explanation. For honest people who want to discuss, we can have a discussion.

But being coy and "asking" when you already have a position you won't actually change seems extremely disingenuous.

Per-capita and absolute numbers are both incorrect. What matters is local concentrations. For example, If all of cases were contained to a few metro areas then there would be no problem outside those areas. This would not be reflected in per-capita numbers.

Locking down is the only current viable tactic the US has against C-19. We have: - terrible testing coverage - no contact tracing - massively inefficient healthcare system - massively inefficient supply lines for masks and gloves - insufficient social programs to support the unemployed

Either we lock down, mitigate the effects of our already broken systems, or open up and accept that we will be killing citizens under "acceptable losses"

I was against starting the long term lockdown. I would think they would have mobilized field hospitals care at a national scale as a long term solution, since they say most people will get it no matter what.

Absolute numbers are important,those are facts. This isn't a routine disease society has accepted,it can be contained and prevented,per capita does not help guage resource needs.

But if you do start a lockdown you can't half-ass it because that would literally be the worst option. The markets are ok because the shutdown is intentional. The markets would not be ok if spending and revenue loss was a result of people being fearful and panicky.the goal know should be a smooth and quick recovery at the right time, not a rough,rushed and messy one.

No need to compartmentalise. People’s thoughts, sentiments and opinions change (sometimes) based on facts. You’re not belittling this person but you are poking fun the community by saying that it would not accept this opinion.

Our lockdowns were so badly done they didn't even decrease the daily case count. In Korea and many other places, they ended lockdowns after a few months because cases dropped orders of magnitude.

In the US, we're "opening back up" while many states are hitting daily records. Our lockdowns were a disaster and "opening back up" is going to cause an explosion in cases.

If our lockdowns had been done right we would be able to reopen the economy now with little risk

> Our lockdowns were a disaster and "opening back up" is going to cause an explosion in cases.

That was in fact the prediction for Georgia, see for example the expert predictions here: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/infectious-disease-expe...

Of course it turns out not to have actually happened: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/georgia-coronavi...

As far as I saw from the start, predictions for Georgia were that they'd start to see an uptick in about 3-5 weeks. I think that window starts this week.

You can read the article I linked, the predictions were for the week ending May 16.

It has largely been within that consensus range at the low end: "579 and 2,292"; but that's splitting hairs, since the low end is not an increasing count.

With that said, my own reading prior to this point has suggested we'd see the uptick starting in this coming week, through the next two weeks.

Georgia is now backfilling based on date of first symptoms, rather than date of diagnosis. Numbers as far back as a week or two week could still increase.

That's not completely true.

The panel of experts estimated about 1k/day during the week ending May 16, ranging 579/day to 2292/day.

And while so far there aren't that many cases reported today, the data isn't complete due to the lag in testing results. In fact the lag is for 14 days. So we're still in a wait and see point.

The 579/day estimate is the low end of the 90% confidence interval. You can use the 7-day rolling average the NYT provides to eliminate the swings from reporting variance. Of course, the apocalypse will always be two weeks away.

90% confidence means anything within that range would validate their model. And even if their model was perfect, 10% chance the real value would fall outside that range. So as long as the real number (which we will will have in 2 weeks once the rolling average and final tallies are in) then, well, they're still right.

Rolling averages introduce a lag.

Lockdowns were not meant to stop people from getting sick, they were meant to prevent hospitals from getting overwhelmed.

NYC is about the only hospital system that came close to being overwhelmed and even they made almost no use of the temporary hospitals.

The record numbers of cases we see now coincides with record levels of testing- with such limited availability of testing prior to the lockdown, the majority of cases- those not needing hospitalization- were never counted.

maybe in the US, but lockdowns in many other countries have suppressed virus transmission completely. Why would our goal be different? Because we can't achieve that?

The US spans a continent and is the 3rd most populous nation.

Comparing it to someplace like Taiwan or Singapore doesn't make any sense.

China and India are larger. China suppressed the virus, India is doing worse than the US.

Comparing to those countries doesn't make much sense either because US is much wealthier. We should be doing far better than both, and we're not.

Meaningful comparisons require reasonably accurate data, and there is nothing like that to be found in any of these countries. Aside from the fact that testing has been minimal for a number of reasons, different areas have perverse incentives to either over or under count COVID fatalities.

In the US, any and every death of someone who had the virus, and many who did not, are still counted among the death tolls. The recent case of the guy who died from alcohol poisoning comes to mind, though I personally know of others who died from other causes, and were counted even though they hadnt been tested.

Conversely, there is good reason to be skeptical of China's accounting as well- both due to government interference and the simple fact that they were not able to reliably test the majority of cases.

You can look at the EU average, which is close to US population and still makes the US look bad. Test positive rates can tell you how roughly how much a country is undercounting.

If US has twice the test positive rate as another, they're only testing half the cases.

The fact is no matter what metric you look at, the US is doing worse with our response than almost anywhere else.

Larger but three times the population density, which likely means far more than 3 times the number of interactions.

And we don’t know how China is really ever doing about anything. We need to stop confusing statements from China with transparency.

Can you provide any specific reasons why a large group of people can't fight the virus in a similar way to multiple smaller groups of people?

Population density, primarily. More dense means more close contact, and more contact overall comparing areas with public transit to those without.

Not to mention the human toll of quarantine- I live surrounded by a few hundred acres of forest, my cousin in a studio apartment. My daily life has hardly changed since I also work from home. She lives in or near paris, I think, and couldn't go 10 feet past her apartment door without a permit, and mostly got that only for groceries. Even still, she managed to catch it (or a similar disease, since she was refused testing).

Some people on HN love to hate on rural life, but I honestly wouldn't have it any other way.

Which states are hitting records? AZ, one of the strongest reopenings as far as i know, has been on a downward trend on every relevant metric for about a month now.

I know a lot of the sources say different things, but the NYT site does not show AZ improving on daily case count - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/arizona-coronavi...

Here is the data directly from the arizona department of health: https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-cont...

I'm a broken record talking about how nytimes/etc. will always pick the more sensational data to sell ads, and how it doesn't matter for them if they're wrong (and how they actually have a financial incentive to be wrong). Maybe it is all just an accident though.

Doesn't this also show daily case counts trending upward for the past month?

Yes, but that’s because Arizona is doing more testing. If you click the “lab testing” section on that site you’ll see that the testing positive rate is also down substantially (from 11% to 5%) from our peak over a month ago.

It’s one of the things that public health officials have been warning about pretty consistently: as testing increases, positive cases will go up, but that shouldn’t be looked at as a bad thing.

Very good point.

dude, click on "Confirmed COVID-19 Cases by Day". If you ignore the drop every weekend and greyed bar from last few days (incomplete data) its increased every single week.

Number of new cases per day is steadily increasing every week! A month ago the daily new cases were half what they are this week

Because we are testing more. The testing positive rate is less than half of what it was a month ago.

I said this elsewhere but this is something health officials have specifically warned against. Yes case counts are going up, but that is because testing is increasing. The metric that matters is the testing positive rate.

More tests would reveal more carriers, yes. But at the same time, the curve would be more accurate, no? If the curve isn't going down DESPITE more tests being done, wouldn't that indicate that the problem is not getting better at all?

The curve is more accurate going forward for sure, but it's possible to record an increase in new cases each day simply by doing more tests, even as the number of new cases per capita declines. This effect theoretically wouldn't stop until you were testing basically everyone, at which point the new cases per capita and the new cases would be the same.

you are right, the testing page shows half the positive rate and far higher testing. I was wrong here, its likely that AZ cases are dropping

A lot of states are hitting daily records because they're ramping up testing. There isn't more sickness, there's more accurate numbers.

Basically by following absolute numbers, and commenting on them as if there's a failure on the state's part, you're punishing states for increasing testing.

This can be disproven by looking at daily death rates. Many states are also peaking in daily deaths vs average. There's undoubtedly more testing, but its not the main contributor to the lack of suppression

Deaths are a lagging indicator and shouldn't be used for this comparison. On average, in cases of death, it is about 18 - 23 days between diagnosis and death (compared to 12 - 17 days for recovery).

>Our lockdowns were so badly done they didn't even decrease the daily case count.

Is it any wonder? Look at the comments here. Look at guys like Elon Musk breaking quarantine for economic reasons and getting praised for it. Conspiracies abound.

This didn't happen in less partisan countries. Like absolutely everything else in the US, the lockdown became a political issue, for and against it.

Where I'm from, everyone took it seriously and in a matter of weeks we got down to ZERO active cases. Then again, we don't hate people who have different politics.

its not just political. The rich and powerful have too much influence. Countries with high income equality are the ones with successful lockdowns.

When your president is one of the richest men in the world its hard to convince leadership to shut down the economy.

And the US is pretty much unique with the whole "corporation is a person" nonsense

Even before Covid-19, our health care system doesn't really provide much for these folks. Additionally, seeing all the failures of getting money to small businesses during this crisis and all the deaths in nursing homes, I find it hard to believe we'd effectively care for these people as they are isolated at home.

>encourage social distancing, sanitation, masks

We're still in quarantine in the Bay Area and I'm seeing _more_ people not wearing masks or social distancing.

The next thing people need to hear is "quarantine is over" when they're associating quarantine with COVID still being "around." Once that happens, it's game over; I think a majority of people will just go back to normal without being careful.

Not that I don't want quarantine over but I just don't think most people understand the message it would send.

>It's time we did what we should have done after two weeks of quarantine

You seem to know better than the experts.. not sure what qualifies you to believe that.

I am neither in favour of or against the lockdown. I consider myself ill-equipped to make this decision. I do not have the data, not the know-how. I hope that I can trust the people who have passed the job interviews in our institutions and have been elected to do their job properly or at least better then what I can do without know how or data.

So for every person who puts forth their strategy I get curious, why? So here's a few questions to you.

Can you explain your position?

Can you tell me your social context, what state and city are you in? What is the opinion of your friends and family?

Did you weigh the numbers for predicted economic impact and predicted deaths and health issues and contrast them? Did you consider factors such as that even pre-lockdown the economy was slowing and restaurants closing because a lot of consumers voluntarily avoided putting themselves at risk?

Without you putting any answers to these, or specifying your qualifications, the amount of time you spent thinking about the problem, the edge cases, etc. I can't trust your judgement anymore then I'd trust a coin flip.

Do you think people would be more or less inclined to go to restaurants if the epidemic goes back to out of control exponential? [1]

South Korea recently reopened bars and clubs, and just shut them down again, because masks and voluntary social distancing aren't enough for this virus.

Do you think Americans are more, less, or equally capable of voluntary compliance to this sort of thing than Koreans?

[1] I'm comfortable enough to order takeout at the moment. If we go back to exponential spread, I'm going right back to bunkering down, and not spending a single dollar on anything but groceries.

One of the best things about American culture is "fuck you" attitude towards authority and high risk tolerance. Of course the downside of that is in cases like a pandemic some more people will die. There's very little chance, in my mind, that Americans will be as compliant as Koreans regarding lockdowns.

It sure seems like the majority of the lockdown effect has been voluntary, across the world. Except for places where the police are actively beating people who refuse to comply, of course. I think it's likely that we could throw open the entire US and it wouldn't fundamentally change much, aside from an initial surge. As soon as the death count started to climb steeply again, people would voluntarily go right back indoors and stay there.

> I think it's likely that we could throw open the entire US and it wouldn't fundamentally change much, aside from an initial surge.

What makes you think that the initial surge will stop? The reason the initial surge in March stopped was because we closed everything down.

What mechanism is going to stop the surge from lifting lockdown? What has changed since March, and why is it enough to bring R to 1?

Why didn't South Korea think the same way that you did, and just decided to let infections surge, and see if they stop on their own?

> What makes you think that the initial surge will stop?

Same as the first -- voluntary social distancing. I think you missed my point, which is that I don't believe the government is really in control, at least not in western democracies. I think people are choosing for themselves to isolate, and I think they will continue to adjust that decision based on their perceived risk.

I think there would be a surge at first because there is some pent up demand for things people feel like they need, or they really want to do and they don't perceive a strong risk. So these people would cause a surge, it would hit the news, and most people would then panic themselves right back indoors, then a month or so later we'd do it all again.

Someone released a study a few days ago suggesting that if we could actually achieve nearly universal compliance with mask wearing in public indoor spaces (I think they said 80%) then a slight improvement over our current masks (better than the homemade cloth or disposable surgical masks, not necessarily N95 level though), we could push R0 below 1.0 without really doing anything else different from normal everyday activities. I don't think we can expect that compliance rate, though.

The reason people are choosing for themselves to isolate is because there's nothing open that they can leave their apartment for.

If your thing is going to bars, and all the bars are closed, you're not 'choosing' to self-isolate[1]. I mean, yes, you are choosing to stay home instead of aimlessly wandering the streets, but most people don't care to do that. If the reason they want to leave their home is not there, they won't leave the home.

Re-open the bars, and suddenly all those people who 'chose' to self-isolate will start 'choosing' to go out to drink and mingle.

Also, you are vastly underestimating the number of people who, for good reasons, or bad, don't give a shit about their personal risk. They will be actively getting people who are actively trying to minimize personal risk sick, because the latter can't avoid essential social interactions.

When your personal risk includes liability for anyone else you get sick, I'll be more than happy to let you frame this entire conversation as personal risk. Until then, what people taking 'personal risk' are doing is shirking personal responsibility.

[1] The bar owner is 'choosing' to comply with the shutdown order, but that's because his personal risk[2] profile is completely different to that of his patron. His personal risk profile has to account for externalities caused by operating his business. He can be fined, lose his liquor license, etc. His patron's doesn't care about those externalities, because when the patron's irresponsible behaviour gets someone else sick, nobody goes after the patron.

[2] The fact that you're even talking about personal risk is why re-opening can't work in America. This is, and has never been about personal risk. Personal risk isn't something that legislature needs to control. The problem with epidemics is social risk, and patrons are in no position to accurately access it.

> Re-open the bars, and suddenly all those people who 'chose' to self-isolate will start 'choosing' to go out to drink and mingle

This is not a good faith argument, why are you trying to frame it as some kind of moral good vs evil dichotomy?

So, we've had "encouragement" since the pandemic began, at least from state and local leaders. The very old and ill were already largely self-isolated with the exception of their caretakers, who they still need. That experiment ended sometime in March, though it's still playing out in nursing homes.

We've known about masks and temperature checks since the beginning of the pandemic, and every reasonable scenario requires them. We can check on the progress of thermometer production and mask availability.

I have a hunch that developing the capacity to implement your proposal will give us enough time -- a few months at least -- to see how voluntary self isolation is working in the regions that are already ending the lock down.

Why did't anyone schedule quarantines,like you would be allowed to drive or enter a business during certain times of the day of certain days. Using things like drivers license or license plate numbering,immune system vulnerability and other factors.

Especially when lifting the lockdown, I would have lifted lockdowns strictly for people who have no violations during the lock down. And prioritize scheduling based on age and medical exceptions. Maybe have hours of the day strictly for vulnerable people with hard restrictions and a separate time for people that have already recovered.

It seemed to me this was a great idea that never materialized beyond "old folks get to use the grocery store exclusively before 11am." If I could schedule an hour at a grocery store, or Home Depot, a few days before, rather than having to stand in a 6 foot spaced line that extenders literally around the building. Curb side pickup is nice, but its really just a worse Amazon.

This seems like a missed opportunity for a "service" business that everybody seems to be clamoring for.

If a medically-informed response to a pandemic creates economic hardship so serious that the impacts are more deadly than the virus, then you change your economic system, not your response to disease.

You mean change the entire world's economic systems? Who had a real lockdown and has upward economic indicators as a result? Even Germany isn't spared. China certainly isn't. There's a level of interdependence here as well - if consumption (goods or tourism or take-your-pick) in one country shuts down, another country can be heavily hit and layoffs result. But all that aside, what's the bullet-proof economic system that 300 years of economic philosophy and experience has missed that would help here?

This is sort of where I've ended up as well. Many other countries have taken incremental reopening steps already. Some states have as well, and despite it being over 2 weeks, there hasn't been a spike in cases in those areas yet (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa/so...). Some countries also never issued a strict shelter in place order in the first place. And I don't mean just Sweden. For example, per IHME data, none of the Scandanavian countries ever issued orders that met their definition for a "stay at home" order.

There is no avoiding reopening. General availability of vaccines will take a very long time, simply because manufacturing 1 billion of anything is nontrivial. It is simply not feasible to ask people to put aside their personal lives and business for 18-24 months. We can do so reasonably safely with clear common sense guidance, without vacillation on the effectiveness of masks or distance or precautions.

In the least we need to stop issuing blanket orders that apply over broad geographies like entire states. The risks are different for different people and different circumstances. For instance, the infection fatality rate (IFR) is so low (less than 0.1%) for those under 50 that they should be permitted to go about their business. I am very much in favor of individuals assessing the risks to themselves in choosing which activities they participate in. From https://reason.com/2020/04/15/people-not-politicians-will-de...:

> Who has the best information to weigh these risks, the costs and benefits of each trip out versus staying home? Not a governor or a president, but an individual. Different people may have different tolerances for risk. For some people that trip to a restaurant or a place of worship may be a risk worth taking. For others it is not. For sure, each individual decision can affect other people—one person who takes too much risk and gets sick means one fewer hospital slot available for someone else. But that is true in many areas of American life, and it hasn't until now caused the country or states to be locked down.

>For instance, the infection fatality rate (IFR) is so low (less than 0.1%) for those under 50 that they should be permitted to go about their business.

Those people, unfortunately, are still able to spread to those who do have a much hight mortality rate.

Sure but those other folks can continue to isolate themselves to a greater degree, in line with their own risk assessment. I am not sure I understand the case to curtail one person's rights for another's benefit.

>I am not sure I understand the case to curtail one person's rights for another's benefit.

Thats pretty much the entirety of laws that involve safety. My right to drive 150 mph is curtailed for the benefit of people I might kill.

Please don’t post leading questions like this. It’s clear you don’t want the lockdown and subscribe to objectivism. Blanket philosophies always have edge cases and if you can’t accept that there’s no room for debate.

I didn't pose a question in my comment. I made the point that individuals who see a great risk and those who see a low risk can both make choices that fit their individual perception of the situation, without needing to impose undue constraints on each other. I don't see what's wrong with pointing that out. There is room for debate if you have an additional perspective to add to the mix - I'd love to hear and understand that view even if I don't ultimately agree with it.

Interesting idea, but if everyone between the ages of 17 and 35 goes out and gets sick it doesn't matter how isolated your 90 year old grandma tries to be, she's probably going to get sick too.

The point of having society, and of having governments, is that cooperation allows us all to lead longer, healthier, more fulfilling lives. You can't just discard the necessity of cooperation in specific instances where the benefit you personally receive is lower than the amount of effort you need to put in.

“But that is true in many areas of American life, and it hasn't until now caused the country or states to be locked down.”

Yes it has, in the 1918 pandemic. This is a false equivalency anyway, and can be made an anti-vaccination argument, where parents decide upon the lives of their children

And how does driving fit into your argument? It is both putting others and yourself at risk and yet we allow it... My point being that we can each sit here and pull out example after example that proves either side is correct. As such, is it not pointless to do so?

In this case you have the last word so you’re correct haha. But seriously, there are unknown risks here. Why can’t we point out the extenuating circumstances to deviate from the rules?

The problem with this strategy is that most restaurants cannot survive on reduced capacity or economic participation by the public. A huge percentage of people aren’t going to patronize restaurants until a vaccine is found, and if things open back up and people don’t show, we’re going to have a very different economic problem on our hands.

> "The problem with this strategy is that most restaurants cannot survive on reduced capacity or economic participation by the public."

No shit, but 100% of restaurants would fail with zero capacity. A partial open is better than nothing.

> "and if things open back up and people don’t show, we’re going to have a very different economic problem on our hands."

What would that be?

Change in long term behavioural patterns.

That's may be causing an economic problem, but it isn't the problem itself.

Without a real testing regime in place ending the lockdown just means turning on the death switch