7 ms·

MA just announced a ban on all gatherings over 25 people. Restaurants are all now take-out only. Health clubs closed. All shows and schools canceled. Etc.. Curr

by zaroth 7y ago

MA just announced a ban on all gatherings over 25 people. Restaurants are all now take-out only. Health clubs closed. All shows and schools canceled. Etc.. Currently this is through April 7th. I hope the government is also planning to pay people’s rent, mortgage, electric, water, groceries, credit card interest, etc. A friend of mine runs a small local restaurant. Not sure how he will pay rent. All of his servers are now temporarily unemployed and have no way to buy food or pay rent. Another friend of mine is a personal trainer. Not sure how he will buy groceries next week. The vast majority of the people most directly impacted by all this are essentially at zero risk of dying from COVID. And on April 7th it’s not like COVID will cease to exist... “Locking everything down” is an incredibly damaging and nonsensical action for the vast majority of the population.

brown9-2 7y ago
death is also pretty damaging
- zaroth 7y ago
  Who under 35 is dying from COVID. Like 10 cases the whole world over. So you tell me which is more damaging?
  - blondin 7y ago
    i understand what you are trying to say. but people aren't concerned with young folks being at risk. they are concerned that they will spread it. that's why schools are closed. they wanna "plateau the curve" or whatever they call it. curious, can't personal training happen online? via i dunno, skype or slack? if not, well, someone needs to make it happen.
  - en-us 7y ago
    The people in at-risk groups are people too. You're acting like their lost lives don't matter.
  - edmundsauto 7y ago
    People under 35 who take extra risks to protect their economic interests are being negligent. This behavior will harm vulnerable populations, and also impact health system availability, hurting everyone. We need to figure out something, fast, for these workers. The economics are terrifying and require resolve to accept that we will economically damage ourselves to protect others in our communities.
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    As someone who's over 35, I dont know what to make of your comment... Are those of us over 35 somehow worthless? Should we segregate the entire population based on age until the vaccine is deployed in 18 months?
    - zaroth 7y ago
      A couple generations ago there were “Measles Parties” to expose kids to measles because it was not risky to children. This was before a vaccine was available, and made sense at the time to build herd immunity. Until a vaccine is available, as someone over 35, and who has parents who are 70/72, I want as many 0-55 year olds to get COVID as soon as possible to establish herd immunity and ultimately limit the risk to the elderly population. The 0-55 population by and large isn’t going to the ICU when they get exposed to this coronavirus. Most will report that they “don’t even know they had it”. After they get it, the data we have shows that they won’t be able to get it again, or spread it.
      - ec109685 7y ago
        What’s stopping all those <55 year olds from giving it to >55?
        zaroth 7y ago
        Self isolation on the part of the at-risk population.
        war1025 7y ago
        lockdown of at risk populations
      - lazyasciiart 7y ago
        This is incredibly uninformed. It doesn’t matter what happens “by and large”. There aren’t enough hospital beds for even a minority of them.
        7y ago
  - brown9-2 7y ago
    There are people under 35 who might have immune or other underlying conditions. Also a lot of us have family over 35 that we care about.
  - pcestrada 7y ago
    Younger people die from the flu too. This is several times more dangerous.
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    Who under 35 is going to die because when they need to go to the ER for a non-COVID life-threatening issue, the hospital has their hands full dealing with a pandemic?
amscanne 7y ago
How would your personal trainer friend have paid for groceries if he’d gotten a serious flu and had to stay home for two weeks? Or if he was unable to work for one of a million other reasons? A prolonged shutdown warrants government intervention, but people should at least be prepared to have disruptions in their income for a few weeks or ideally, months. The abdication of personal responsibility there is impressive. I hope we come out of this without major damage, but there will certainly be some hard lessons learned.
- zaroth 7y ago
  The vast majority of 25-45 year olds will never have to miss an entire month of work due to an illness. Now with this action, an entire segment of the economy is being wiped out for at least a month, and it happens to correspond to a segment which is extremely unlikely to have any PTO or sick time policy. Most 25-35 year olds are not prepared to lose a month of income without suffering serious financial hardship. That’s reality. Not an “abdication of personal responsibility” at all. The people taking it on the chin here are simply not the people at risk from this virus. Do I think they will literally starve? No, likely not. But they will be suffering serious financial hardship as a result of these actions, when they are in fact extremely unlikely to suffer health consequences from COVID.
  - Touche 7y ago
    Realistically most people can get by on credit in an emergency such as this.
    - dillonmckay 7y ago
      If they have credit to begin with. Without employment it is difficult. Do you think credit-card companies are looking forward to this?
      - icedchai 7y ago
        Credit card companies (really, banks issuing credit) survived 2008. Pretty sure they'll be fine this time around.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rocketpastsix 7y ago
Unfortunately it is not non-sensical. People in this country are currently showing us that they dont have the self control to just lay low for a while and let this pass by. Look at the video going around from the bar on Broadway in Nashville from last night. People are shoulder to shoulder. This is why we are having such a hard time containing this thing, so drastic measures need to be put in place. I feel for your friends. However, if they dont have a 3 to 6 month emergency fund that's on them. This is an emergency in every sense of the word, and they should be saving money to weather a storm like this. And just because someone is not at risk of dying from COVID-19 doesn't mean they can't catch it and spread it around, thus possibly contributing to someone else dying. That's an incredibly naive statement for you to make.
- tenacious_tuna 7y ago
  > if they don't have a 3 to 6 month emergency fund that's on them A lot of my friends are fresh college grads, moving into the world, and suddenly finding themselves without job opportunities. They haven't had time to get established in a career, much less build up a 3 to 6 month emergency fund. There are plenty of people in the US who are living paycheck to paycheck, where an unexpected $500 expense would be financially difficult for them [1]. From a position of security and with the benefit of hindsight it's very easy to say "oh well, they just didn't prepare enough, it's their own fault" when in context that's a rather shortsighted take. Part of it is poor financial literacy, I'll grant you that. We should take strides as a country to improve that. But perhaps a larger potion is that simply most people don' t have the luxury of advanced financial planning, or the ability to actual act upon that planning. Please have more compassion for your neighbors. See also, this other comment from this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22588601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22588601 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=22588681&goto=item%3Fid%3D22588035%2322588681 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=22588681&goto=item%3Fi...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- mattnewton 7y ago
sgustard 7y ago
No intelligent person who knows what is going on is visiting a restaurant or a personal trainer in the next few weeks, lockdown or no. The economic damage is inevitable. The only question is the difference between thousands or millions of deaths, and that is on the backs of healthy people to willingly separate themselves from others.
crooked-v 7y ago
> at zero risk of dying from COVID You're conflating the recorded fatality rate with the actual possibility for fatality, which is much higher. The fatality rate is low among people 60 and under because the ones who suffer severe cases can reliably survive it with the aid of ventilators and round-the-clock medical care. However, if the virus spreads enough to have a huge number of infections all at once, many of those severe cases that would have otherwise survived will die, because there's just not enough medical equipment or doctors for them. See Italy, where the fatality rate is at a whopping 7.3% percent (much higher than even the 4.9% at the heart of the outbreak in Wuhan), because no measures were taken to control the spread until too late and so parts of the country have completely run out of ICU beds.
- alexanderchr 7y ago
  From what I've understood the mortality rate in Italy is artificially high because they are not prioritizing testing mild/asymptomatic cases. Until there are serological tests available we can only make guesses about the proportion of mild cases, but looking at the data from South Korea and Diamond Princess it looks like they make up the overwhelming majority of cases.
  - zzleeper 7y ago
    In Both SK and DP sick people got the best treatment. Without having access to enough respirators, CFRs would have been way higher there, which is exactly his point.
    - alexanderchr 7y ago
      Definitely, lack of proper intensive care will pull the CFR in the opposite direction. But I don't think that is the main reason we see such high CFR's in Italy.
Marsymars 7y ago
I've got a friend who's been profitably running a small business for a couple years who's pretty concerned. If they can't open, without relief for rent and loan payments, the place probably goes under in short order. (And it's a bummer to me because the business is unique for the area and has built up a nice community of regular patrons who won't have any real alternatives.)
kirykl 7y ago
>And on April 7th it’s not like COVID will cease to exist... This is the most important part. Its not clear whats being done to prep for the end of lockdowns. Once everything resumes so will the spread (all) viruses
- stephenbez 7y ago
  We've seen in examples like South Korea that it is possible to keep the virus in check by doing extensive testing, contact tracing, and temperature checks. We don't have those available right now and are looking at disaster if we don't lock down. Our testing capacity will grow significantly and by later we can take those measures and get back closer to normal life.
- anoncake 7y ago
  Unless the lockdowns are extremely effective, a large part of those who will get sick will already have been and thus immune. They can also be extended beyond April 7th.
jstcad 7y ago
Couldn't these people take out a low-interest loan for this time period? At least in Canada, major banks are reaching out to people asking to contact them if you experience financial hardship because of the outbreak.
mattnewton 7y ago
I hear you absolutely that there needs to be economic assistance for the people affected here. They are going to be impacted well beyond the actual sicknesses. What I hope to convince you of though is that simply doing nothing and pretending people should continue to go out and about, could very well be like asking for good swimmers to stay back and keep shops open when there is flooding. > The vast majority of the people most directly impacted by all this are essentially at zero risk of dying from COVID. And on April 7th it’s not like COVID will cease to exist... “Locking everything down” is an incredibly damaging and nonsensical action for the vast majority of the population. Maybe, they are young and healthy. But unless they don't ever meet anyone with any comorbidities or advanced age, they will spread the virus to someone who isn't. Even if they are young and healthy and aren't aware of any risk factors, their immune system could overreact to the virus and kill them - its happened in china[0]. People who are afraid about the virus will not visit their establishment, or take classes from them, etc. This economic hit is not entirely artificial, it's coming for these people whether or not we close down service industry. I think we have to take these drastic measures and also ensure the government treats this like the natural disaster it is, ready to restart the economy after the downturn by injecting cash and forgiving debt. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/coronavirus-death-life.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/co...

by zaroth 7y ago

brown9-2 7y ago

death is also pretty damaging

zaroth 7y ago
Who under 35 is dying from COVID. Like 10 cases the whole world over. So you tell me which is more damaging?
- blondin 7y ago
  i understand what you are trying to say. but people aren't concerned with young folks being at risk. they are concerned that they will spread it. that's why schools are closed. they wanna "plateau the curve" or whatever they call it. curious, can't personal training happen online? via i dunno, skype or slack? if not, well, someone needs to make it happen.
- en-us 7y ago
  The people in at-risk groups are people too. You're acting like their lost lives don't matter.
- edmundsauto 7y ago
  People under 35 who take extra risks to protect their economic interests are being negligent. This behavior will harm vulnerable populations, and also impact health system availability, hurting everyone. We need to figure out something, fast, for these workers. The economics are terrifying and require resolve to accept that we will economically damage ourselves to protect others in our communities.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  As someone who's over 35, I dont know what to make of your comment... Are those of us over 35 somehow worthless? Should we segregate the entire population based on age until the vaccine is deployed in 18 months?
  - zaroth 7y ago
    A couple generations ago there were “Measles Parties” to expose kids to measles because it was not risky to children. This was before a vaccine was available, and made sense at the time to build herd immunity. Until a vaccine is available, as someone over 35, and who has parents who are 70/72, I want as many 0-55 year olds to get COVID as soon as possible to establish herd immunity and ultimately limit the risk to the elderly population. The 0-55 population by and large isn’t going to the ICU when they get exposed to this coronavirus. Most will report that they “don’t even know they had it”. After they get it, the data we have shows that they won’t be able to get it again, or spread it.
    - ec109685 7y ago
      What’s stopping all those <55 year olds from giving it to >55?
      - zaroth 7y ago
        Self isolation on the part of the at-risk population.
      - war1025 7y ago
        lockdown of at risk populations
    - lazyasciiart 7y ago
      This is incredibly uninformed. It doesn’t matter what happens “by and large”. There aren’t enough hospital beds for even a minority of them.
      - 7y ago
- brown9-2 7y ago
  There are people under 35 who might have immune or other underlying conditions. Also a lot of us have family over 35 that we care about.
- pcestrada 7y ago
  Younger people die from the flu too. This is several times more dangerous.
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  Who under 35 is going to die because when they need to go to the ER for a non-COVID life-threatening issue, the hospital has their hands full dealing with a pandemic?

amscanne 7y ago

How would your personal trainer friend have paid for groceries if he’d gotten a serious flu and had to stay home for two weeks? Or if he was unable to work for one of a million other reasons? A prolonged shutdown warrants government intervention, but people should at least be prepared to have disruptions in their income for a few weeks or ideally, months. The abdication of personal responsibility there is impressive. I hope we come out of this without major damage, but there will certainly be some hard lessons learned.

zaroth 7y ago
The vast majority of 25-45 year olds will never have to miss an entire month of work due to an illness. Now with this action, an entire segment of the economy is being wiped out for at least a month, and it happens to correspond to a segment which is extremely unlikely to have any PTO or sick time policy. Most 25-35 year olds are not prepared to lose a month of income without suffering serious financial hardship. That’s reality. Not an “abdication of personal responsibility” at all. The people taking it on the chin here are simply not the people at risk from this virus. Do I think they will literally starve? No, likely not. But they will be suffering serious financial hardship as a result of these actions, when they are in fact extremely unlikely to suffer health consequences from COVID.
- Touche 7y ago
  Realistically most people can get by on credit in an emergency such as this.
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    If they have credit to begin with. Without employment it is difficult. Do you think credit-card companies are looking forward to this?
    - icedchai 7y ago
      Credit card companies (really, banks issuing credit) survived 2008. Pretty sure they'll be fine this time around.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rocketpastsix 7y ago

Unfortunately it is not non-sensical. People in this country are currently showing us that they dont have the self control to just lay low for a while and let this pass by. Look at the video going around from the bar on Broadway in Nashville from last night. People are shoulder to shoulder. This is why we are having such a hard time containing this thing, so drastic measures need to be put in place. I feel for your friends. However, if they dont have a 3 to 6 month emergency fund that's on them. This is an emergency in every sense of the word, and they should be saving money to weather a storm like this. And just because someone is not at risk of dying from COVID-19 doesn't mean they can't catch it and spread it around, thus possibly contributing to someone else dying. That's an incredibly naive statement for you to make.

tenacious_tuna 7y ago
> if they don't have a 3 to 6 month emergency fund that's on them A lot of my friends are fresh college grads, moving into the world, and suddenly finding themselves without job opportunities. They haven't had time to get established in a career, much less build up a 3 to 6 month emergency fund. There are plenty of people in the US who are living paycheck to paycheck, where an unexpected $500 expense would be financially difficult for them [1]. From a position of security and with the benefit of hindsight it's very easy to say "oh well, they just didn't prepare enough, it's their own fault" when in context that's a rather shortsighted take. Part of it is poor financial literacy, I'll grant you that. We should take strides as a country to improve that. But perhaps a larger potion is that simply most people don' t have the luxury of advanced financial planning, or the ability to actual act upon that planning. Please have more compassion for your neighbors. See also, this other comment from this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22588601 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22588601 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=22588681&goto=item%3Fid%3D22588035%2322588681 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=22588681&goto=item%3Fi...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
mattnewton 7y ago

sgustard 7y ago

No intelligent person who knows what is going on is visiting a restaurant or a personal trainer in the next few weeks, lockdown or no. The economic damage is inevitable. The only question is the difference between thousands or millions of deaths, and that is on the backs of healthy people to willingly separate themselves from others.

crooked-v 7y ago

> at zero risk of dying from COVID You're conflating the recorded fatality rate with the actual possibility for fatality, which is much higher. The fatality rate is low among people 60 and under because the ones who suffer severe cases can reliably survive it with the aid of ventilators and round-the-clock medical care. However, if the virus spreads enough to have a huge number of infections all at once, many of those severe cases that would have otherwise survived will die, because there's just not enough medical equipment or doctors for them. See Italy, where the fatality rate is at a whopping 7.3% percent (much higher than even the 4.9% at the heart of the outbreak in Wuhan), because no measures were taken to control the spread until too late and so parts of the country have completely run out of ICU beds.

alexanderchr 7y ago
From what I've understood the mortality rate in Italy is artificially high because they are not prioritizing testing mild/asymptomatic cases. Until there are serological tests available we can only make guesses about the proportion of mild cases, but looking at the data from South Korea and Diamond Princess it looks like they make up the overwhelming majority of cases.
- zzleeper 7y ago
  In Both SK and DP sick people got the best treatment. Without having access to enough respirators, CFRs would have been way higher there, which is exactly his point.
  - alexanderchr 7y ago
    Definitely, lack of proper intensive care will pull the CFR in the opposite direction. But I don't think that is the main reason we see such high CFR's in Italy.

Marsymars 7y ago

I've got a friend who's been profitably running a small business for a couple years who's pretty concerned. If they can't open, without relief for rent and loan payments, the place probably goes under in short order. (And it's a bummer to me because the business is unique for the area and has built up a nice community of regular patrons who won't have any real alternatives.)

kirykl 7y ago

>And on April 7th it’s not like COVID will cease to exist... This is the most important part. Its not clear whats being done to prep for the end of lockdowns. Once everything resumes so will the spread (all) viruses

stephenbez 7y ago
We've seen in examples like South Korea that it is possible to keep the virus in check by doing extensive testing, contact tracing, and temperature checks. We don't have those available right now and are looking at disaster if we don't lock down. Our testing capacity will grow significantly and by later we can take those measures and get back closer to normal life.
anoncake 7y ago
Unless the lockdowns are extremely effective, a large part of those who will get sick will already have been and thus immune. They can also be extended beyond April 7th.

jstcad 7y ago

Couldn't these people take out a low-interest loan for this time period? At least in Canada, major banks are reaching out to people asking to contact them if you experience financial hardship because of the outbreak.

mattnewton 7y ago

I hear you absolutely that there needs to be economic assistance for the people affected here. They are going to be impacted well beyond the actual sicknesses. What I hope to convince you of though is that simply doing nothing and pretending people should continue to go out and about, could very well be like asking for good swimmers to stay back and keep shops open when there is flooding. > The vast majority of the people most directly impacted by all this are essentially at zero risk of dying from COVID. And on April 7th it’s not like COVID will cease to exist... “Locking everything down” is an incredibly damaging and nonsensical action for the vast majority of the population. Maybe, they are young and healthy. But unless they don't ever meet anyone with any comorbidities or advanced age, they will spread the virus to someone who isn't. Even if they are young and healthy and aren't aware of any risk factors, their immune system could overreact to the virus and kill them - its happened in china[0]. People who are afraid about the virus will not visit their establishment, or take classes from them, etc. This economic hit is not entirely artificial, it's coming for these people whether or not we close down service industry. I think we have to take these drastic measures and also ensure the government treats this like the natural disaster it is, ready to restart the economy after the downturn by injecting cash and forgiving debt. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/coronavirus-death-life.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/co...