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Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars

• decebalus1 7y ago
  Good. Seattle resident here. Have been ordering takeout for the past two weeks and honestly don't understand the large parties I've been seeing in local pubs for the past week. I find it sad that this needs a 'proclamation' from the Governor, when basic common sense is that you need to avoid crowds.
• caconym_ 7y ago
  Good. Aggressive steps like this are the only way we'll get a handle on what's happening. The alternative is exponential runaway and complete disaster. Full disclosure: I live in Seattle.
  • Analemma_ 7y ago
    Another Seattle resident here... I wonder if we're only a few days away from a Hubei/Italy-style lockdown where you can't go outside except for groceries and pharmaceuticals. Is there precedent for that in American history?
    • Animats 7y ago
      California is already there for people over 65.
      • wuunderbar 7y ago
        No. It is definitely not. It's a strong recommendation without enforcement. This however could change in the coming days and weeks. Source: https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/03/15/california-calls-for-all-seniors-to-stay-home-closure-of-bars-and-wineries-9421938 https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/03/15/...
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
    • cavisne 7y ago
      I think that is the next step in the official escalation plan https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/seattle-area-official-outlines-potential-next-steps-in-coronavirus-response-including-cancellation-of-events/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/seattle-are... There is very little precedent I could find, however baltimore did impose a curfew in 2015 for a short period of time.
    • jandrewrogers 7y ago
      No precedent for it, and a lot of Supreme Court precedent against it. Nonetheless, as an also Seattle resident, it has dramatically changed the city through voluntary behavior of the population. This has been an incredibly destructive blow to everyone in the formerly thriving restaurant and bar industry in the city.
      • philwelch 7y ago
        Citation? My understanding is that quarantine powers are well established in law. This isn’t the first epidemic. Furthermore, the lockdown of the Boston area after the marathon bombings is a very clear and recent precedent relating to a different public safety emergency. Worse comes to worst, I suspect we’ll see MRAPs on the streets first and any legal fallout, later.
        • PopePompus 7y ago
          The Boston "lockdown" was voluntary.
      • ncallaway 7y ago
        > No precedent for it, and a lot of Supreme Court precedent against it Could you cite some of that precedent? When I did my research around quarantines, the things I found said that precedent was very thin. What precedent there was typically was extremely deferential to government responses during emergencies and pandemic outbreaks. I didn't find any SCOTUS cases myself, so I would be very curious to read the SCOTUS precedent against it.
        • jandrewrogers 7y ago
          The precedent you are looking for is about the legal principles that limit the extent to which the government can prevent free travel, not quarantine per se. Quarantine must conform to that precedent, being one of many examples where the government may restrict travel. The No Fly List is a modern example of a government policy that violates free travel and has consistently suffered under judicial scrutiny -- it is insufficient for the government to deem someone a threat to public safety to deprive them of fundamental rights. You can no more violate rights because someone "might be a terrorist" than you can violate their rights because someone "might have COVID-19" absent strong and specific evidence. There is much more latitude to limit what people do than where they go or what they say. Americans have a strong Constitutional right to free movement within the country. As with free speech, suspending that right for an individual requires either due process or specific imminent threat to public safety to withstand judicial scrutiny. That is the calculus. A good test would be "can the government suspend free speech" in this scenario, as similar legal constraints will apply to free travel. That the specific case involves disease quarantine doesn't matter that much, as the Constitution makes no such exception. I don't follow freedom of travel case law closely, I am only aware that loads of it exists and that it is extremely biased in favor of the individual right. As a related point, in the US most quarantine authority resides with the States, not the Federal government. If the States don't enforce it, there is little the Federal government can do.
    • Balgair 7y ago
      Not at all. But, if the US is ~11 days behind Italy in terms of infection rate, then we can expect a lockdown by ... Friday, March 20. Good Lord.
  • turtlebits 7y ago
    Agreed. Wish people were more responsible and this wouldn't have to happen. Drove by the mall today and would have expected it to be a ghost town, but the parking lots were full and people were still walking and queueing close together.
• starpilot 7y ago
  Canlis (fine dining place, think Michelin) made a really interesting switch in order to keep the lights on. They shut down their restaurant and are starting a drive-thru burger stand, a bagel stand, and a meal delivery service, rather than lay off all their workers. I'm going to try their burgers tomorrow.
  • fg6hr 7y ago
    They must be making really fine burgers.
    • starpilot 7y ago
      I hope so. Bagels too. I have yet to find a decent crusty one in this town since moving here.
  • blendo 7y ago
    I'd suggest they put a couple of picnic tables out in the parking lot for take-out. Curious about other commercial operations that could satisfy the rule "... all gatherings under 50 participants are prohibited unless previously announced criteria for public health and social distancing are met"? Take-out biergarten? Silent disco?
    • untog 7y ago
      > I'd suggest they put a couple of picnic tables out in the parking lot for take-out. Why, though? The whole point is to stop people gathering in public places. > Curious about other commercial operations that could satisfy the rule Again, why? These rules weren't put into place as a challenge for entrepreneurs.
      • blendo 7y ago
        I want to eat and drink with my family and friends. And it's spring, so I want to do it outdoors. A food truck with a couple of outdoor tables has got to be lower risk than a full-service bar/restaurant, while still giving us human companionship.
• marshallant 7y ago
  Can't wait to lose my job over this complete overreaction to this virus.
• cheunste 7y ago
  Welp, I guess my trip to Sakuracon is officially cancelled...again.
  • elliekelly 7y ago
    heaven forbid you miss a weekend of fun so that some of our fellow humans might live
    • dang 7y ago
      Personal attacks are not allowed on HN. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and please don't post like this here. Note this one: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
    • wpietri 7y ago
      We can allow people to express sadness at loss.
  • mjevans 7y ago
    Their official website doesn't have any update yet. I suggest checking it after everyone has the official wording and duration of the announcement tomorrow. http://sakuracon.org/ http://sakuracon.org/
• Merad 7y ago
  IMO the only question now is how long it takes the rest of the country to follow suite. Here in NC our governor announced the closing of all public schools on Friday, but I've heard from several friends that in my city (Raleigh) the downtown bars and restaurants were pretty much at normal capacity this weekend. I don't think the general public is going to truly take this seriously until they're told that they have to.
  • dhosek 7y ago
    Illinois announced restaurants and bars closed except for pickup/delivery effective after close of business on Monday.
    • heywire 7y ago
      Ohio as well.
    • listenallyall 7y ago
      Help me understand this logic... it's not OK for customers to be a few feet away from other people in the dining area of a restaurant, but it's OK for low-paid (and often undocumented) line cooks and chefs, etc, to be right next to each other, interacting, sweating and toiling away in a hot kitchen? These people are heroes if they choose to show up for work, especially since takeout orders hardly tip.
      • SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
        It’s more OK, because the pool of customers is constantly rotating while the pool of line cooks is mostly static. Incidental contact from picking up food is much less infectious than breathing the same air for an hour.
        • listenallyall 7y ago
          What? All the cooks are breathing the same air for an entire shift, in a smaller, hotter, enclosed area.
• acoderhasnoname 7y ago
  Great action, well done
• icelancer 7y ago
  As usual, these announcements never come with any promise or a plan of economic relief (or at least reference to plans already made) for businesses force closed, creating more panic. I don't understand why it's so hard to just say: "We will take care of the businesses affected by this policy and more details are forthcoming." Shutting them down is the right move. Taking care of small businessowners running on thin margins - like mom/pop restaurants - is also the right move. EDIT: Unless the government has no plans to help small businesses. Which is completely possible and probably even likely.
  • klipt 7y ago
    Can't restaurants still offer takeout/delivery?
    • miscPerson 7y ago
      Many of them, no. And bars, for instance, aren’t allowed to serve their primary purpose via delivery. Or movie theaters. Or music venues. Or retail. Or.... It’s gonna be a mess, because we already know the government is going to fail to alleviate the impact.
      • hawkice 7y ago
        Retail can't deliver... What is the primary non-deliverable thing you get from retail?
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
        • Marsymars 7y ago
          The context was in harm to retail stores that can't do delivery, not in problems for the consumer.
    • eyegor 7y ago
      The ones that can, yes. Specifically called out as such in this announcement > Restaurants will be allowed to provide take-out and delivery services
• DoreenMichele 7y ago
  “Restaurants will be allowed to provide take-out and delivery services but no in-person dining will be permitted. I live an SRO. I don't have a kitchen. I currently don't have a fridge. I have a small grill and some shelving to store stuff. I eat a lot of takeout. I'm glad to see I can still get takeout. But, wow. This is beginning to look pretty scary. I was homeless for a few years. The quarantine/containment measures are turning into a really big problem for the homeless population. I don't even know where to begin trying to talk about that. At this point, I find the whole homelessness in the US thing simply infuriating. We mostly need to solve our housing supply issue and people are wholeheartedly against that and it's just infuriating. I will add that Little Caesar's now has a "pizza portal" where you order online, pay online and enter a code to get your pizza yourself without ever interacting with a person. I don't know how to scream this from the rooftops so everyone gets the memo, but someone should.
  • zozbot234 7y ago
    > But, wow. This is beginning to look pretty scary. > I was homeless for a few years. The quarantine/containment measures are turning into a really big problem for the homeless population. How so? I assume that soup kitchens and the like will still be open.
    • DoreenMichele 7y ago
      You might be assuming wrong. https://www.reddit.com/r/homeless/comments/fipg6s/covid19_is_shutting_down_food_and_shelter_for_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/homeless/comments/fipg6s/covid19_is... (from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22580519 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22580519)
    • miscPerson 7y ago
      Also, the lack of sporting events jobs are going to push many people back into homelessness, as they’re used as a transitional stage out of it.
    • brightsize 7y ago
      All this hoarding is starting to affect these providers too: https://www.khq.com/news/spokane-nonprofit-collecting-toilet-paper-for-homeless-shelters/article_1e9da75e-665f-11ea-9110-8be4c553f4d3.html https://www.khq.com/news/spokane-nonprofit-collecting-toilet...
• miscPerson 7y ago
  It scares me how many Americans welcome authoritarianism the moment that something scary happens. I remember when, following the tragedy of 9/11, the PATRIOT act was passed. This is another shameful moment in American history.
  • bpodgursky 7y ago
    Anyone is insane if they don't 100% think that in 5 years, these shutdowns are going to be a weapon used to shut down rallies, protests, and potentially even elections that any current government doesn't feel like permitting.
    • Analemma_ 7y ago
      I do not think that in 5 years these shutdowns are going to be a weapon to shut down rallies and protests, and I think that you are tremendously ignorant of how creeping tyranny actually works in real life instead of comic books.
    • com2kid 7y ago
      The laws being used have been on the books for a century+, and past attempted misuse was shut down by the courts as it should be.
  • wpietri 7y ago
    You are seriously comparing long-lasting intrusive federal surveillance with... saying people can only get take-out for a while?
    • miscPerson 7y ago
      The PATRIOT act was special emergency powers in response to an “unprecedented” attack on our nation requiring periodic renewal. Here we are two decades later, with it renewed. Per Wiki: > Many of the act's provisions were to sunset beginning December 31, 2005, approximately four years after its passage. In the months preceding the sunset date, supporters of the act pushed to make its sun-setting provisions permanent, while critics sought to revise various sections to enhance civil liberty protections. In July 2005, the U.S. Senate passed a reauthorization bill with substantial changes to several of the act's sections, while the House reauthorization bill kept most of the act's original language. The two bills were then reconciled in a conference committee criticized by Senators from both the Republican and Democratic parties for ignoring civil liberty concerns. > [...] > Following a lack of Congressional approval, parts of the Patriot Act expired on June 1, 2015. With passing the USA Freedom Act on June 2, 2015, the expired parts were restored and renewed through 2019.
• tinyhouse 7y ago
  Also in MA and other states. But VERY important to note: "Restaurants will be allowed to provide take-out and delivery services".
• lsllc 7y ago
  Gov. Baker has done the same today in Massachusetts. A one month ban on on-site service starting Tuesday. Any food establishment will be allowed to do delivery or take out even if they didn't previously have a license for it. https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/03/15/charlie-baker-order-gatherings-25-dining-in-restaurants https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/03/15/charlie-ba... EDIT: It's until April 5th, so 3 weeks not a month: https://whdh.com/news/all-mass-restaurants-and-bars-ordered-closed-for-3-weeks-due-to-coronavirus-gatherings-limited-to-25-people/ https://whdh.com/news/all-mass-restaurants-and-bars-ordered-...
  • jimmaswell 7y ago
    A license needed for delivery/takeout? How is that justified?
    • Pfhreak 7y ago
      Handling food safely requires training and process. Delivering food is a totally different environment than serving it in house.
      • jimmaswell 7y ago
        There is nothing complicated about putting food in a delivery box and driving it somewhere.
        • Pfhreak 7y ago
          How many meals should you deliver in one delivery? In what order? Where can the food be in the car? (Is it ok to put it on the floor?) How long can the food be allowed to get cold before it's no longer ok to deliver? What are you expected to cover, insurance wise, for your delivery drivers? How is your business prepared if your delivery driver has an accident? How much do you need to contribute to vehicle maintenance? Who owns the vehicle? Yeah, I'd say it's definitely not just 'throw food in a box' and driving it somewhere.
• js2 7y ago
  Aside, but I want to call out Miami Dade Public Schools for being the only public school system I'm aware of that has had a contingency plan in place for years: On rare occasions it may be necessary to close a school(s) due to weather or other emergency situations. If this occurs, the district will make every effort to ensure that our students' educational opportunities continue while at home. Throughout the years, the district has compiled a comprehensive collection of online content and digital resources. The district also provides mobile devices for students to check out for home use to ensure that district students (non charter) can continue their learning without interruption. ... The Instructional Continuity Plan (ICP) has three components: Content Delivery, Mobile Devices, and Internet Access. Content Delivery explains which resources students will use for core instruction and which materials can be used as supplemental resources to enhance core instruction. Mobile Devices provides the steps the district is taking to ensure that any student who needs a mobile device to access the instructional resources will be provided with one, upon request, for the duration of the schools' closure. ... Internet Access poses the greatest challenge to ensuring that M-DCPS students can continue their studies while at home. The district has taken steps throughout the years to assist students in getting access to the internet at home through projects such as The 1Million Project; however, partnerships with service providers is crucial to providing free or reduced-cost internet service to students should the district close in case of emergency situations. http://icp.dadeschools.net/#!/fullWidth/2943 http://icp.dadeschools.net/#!/fullWidth/2943 Also: Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) is continuing its efforts to provide support to students and their families during school closures, which begin tomorrow, March 16. From distance learning, to community feedings, to facilitating childcare for essential medical personnel, M-DCPS stands firm in its commitment to support the South Florida community during this time of uncertainty. A support hotline was established for teachers, students, and parents seeking assistance with distance learning. During school closures, students and families may pick up hot meals to go, both breakfast and lunch, between 9:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. A Mental Health Services hotline will be available for students. An Employee Assistance Program hotline will also be available. http://covid19.dadeschools.net/#!/fullWidth/3024 http://covid19.dadeschools.net/#!/fullWidth/3024 In contrast, I am extremely disappointed in how haphazard things are going in NC. I'm particularly disappointed in the UNC system which appears to have done zero advanced planning.
  • 7y ago
• alexmingoia 7y ago
  California Governor has just done the same: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589365
  • in_cahoots 7y ago
    California is letting restaurants operate at 50% capacity for now, it’s not the same as in Washington.
  • popz41 7y ago
    Gov. Newsom is only providing "guidance".... The local bars by me are promising to stay open since its not a legal order :(
• whiddershins 7y ago
  NYC too
• eyegor 7y ago
  This is going to be an economic catastrophe unless there's somehow a nationwide bailout to literally all brick and mortar businesses. I know of several local bar/restaurants that are considering shutting down for good, and a colleague near Melbourne told me of 4 that already have (I'm eastern US). Even if this all blows over in 3 months, we'll have a huge surge in homelessness and folks needing social assistance across the board.
  • castratikron 7y ago
    A restaurant near me already laid off 20 and we aren't even that far into this. A lot of restaurants, bars, and gyms are operating close to the edge of insolvency as it is. Oh and by the way the timetable on the retail apocalypse just got pushed up to this week.
  • bthrn 7y ago
    This is crazy to ponder given it’s only been a couple weeks. I feel terrible about so many smaller businesses teetering close to insolvency.
    • tjr225 7y ago
      This is the exact problem with rampant “capitalism” and Raeganomics. This is where we end up. Bailouts for the rich and corporations and that’s it. Things seem great until they don’t. And then it’s go fuck yourself. No matter how conservative you are I ask you to look in the mirror and ask yourself if this is really how you want your kids to live.
    • eyegor 7y ago
      It's less about insolvency and more about having a ton of savings. The entire business model is driven by customers, and they go from netting $2k/day to losing on salaries and rent. How long do you think a successful bar could survive hemorrhaging money on a daily basis, with no hopes of when customers would be allowed to return? What bank is going to write a loan that risky to keep them afloat?
      • 7y ago
• cozzyd 7y ago
  Illinois governor Pritzer announced the same about 8 hours ago starting tomorrow evening (takeout / delivery would remain open). Conveniently aligning with the closing of schools I guess. I strongly expect tomorrow will be my last day in the office for a while.
• jeffy 7y ago
  This is overall a good move if we want a chance to greatly slow the spread. However it needs to be coordinated with the rest of the country if we want to minimize the total downtime. Shutting down Washington now and having to wait weeks for Idaho to follow (where there are no reported cases) is just going to force Washington to extend theirs as long as it takes for the last state to shut down.
  • npo9 7y ago
    Small nit: Boise has one recorded case. It was recorded Friday.
    • graeme 7y ago
      How many tests have they done? The spread pretty clearly seems to be all over the US at this point.
      • npo9 7y ago
        Right, the actual number of cases is almost certainly over 1. The parent comment just said Idaho had no reported cases which is factually incorrect. The first reported case was on Friday.
• shartshooter 7y ago
  This is a good move. We’re obviously moving slower than we ought to and only time will tell how late we are. The one thing we, in the US, have been consistent in this is that we’re too slow to act. There’s obviously a risk of the pendulum swinging the other way but until we see a down tick in cases we have to assume we’ve got ground to make up. Case growth won’t start decreasing until social distancing is widely adopted.
  • marcosdumay 7y ago
    If a country discovers the measures are too strict, it can always reduce them a little bit. The US looks like just a pair of weeks away from disaster, acting now may be enough to make that disaster brief and having the situation under control shortly after.
    • ddingus 7y ago
      The next 10 days are prime. We do this right now, isolate hard, or it will look more like Italy than we would like.
• A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
  Similar measures were just mandated in IL. Basically, take out and delivery are your only real options. We are kinda stocked up, but we will both keep ordering in just to keep local businesses going. Our family unit is oddly priviledged during this outbreak. Tbh, I am slowly starting to get worried as recent FED move again focuses on banks and not on small business relief.
  • philwelch 7y ago
    The FED’s job is monetary policy. It isn’t to bail out businesses.
    • A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
      Yes and no. Its mandate is to keep the stability of the financial system, price stability, full employment.. As you can see, bailing out businesses, as you framed it, could be helpful in avoiding full fledged system collapse, which just happens to be their mandate. edit: corrected opening sentence
      • pbourke 7y ago
        Anything the fed does affects large and perhaps medium sized businesses directly. A couple of percent lower interest rate on their line of credit matters fuck all for small business facing a total collapse in demand. Same with SBA loans - how much paperwork will it take to owe a huge sum to the government with an uncertain business environment in a few months? A lot of small places will just close. Fiscal stimulus is the only approach to keep these businesses afloat. Honestly at this point it might be better to skip the middle man and cut checks to individuals.
• tayo42 7y ago
  How long does this go on for? Realistically we can't just live with the world shut down (can we?) with a vaccine far off, this can't be the new normal?
  • freeone3000 7y ago
    I think we're about to find out very quickly exactly how much labor is nonessential.
    • ken 7y ago
      We’re going to find out which can work remotely. The “I can haz cheeseburger”s will survive while every arts organization goes under.
  • marcosdumay 7y ago
    This goes on until enough people gets the disease to that natural contamination is slow enough not to overwhelm the health care infrastructure. I don't think anybody can give you any actual number. But it's not hard to test a sample of people and determine the virus rate of spread, so we will know it when it happens.
  • pbourke 7y ago
    If you do it properly (flattening the curve), it takes longer than getting hit with the full-height wave. You have to “keep your foot on the brakes” until the disease is no longer a threat. Take a look at countries where there is success - Taiwan, Mainland China outside Hubei, HK, Singapore, SK - they must keep whatever countermeasures are working for them in place to some degree or risk another wave of infections. I think the culture of wearing masks really helps, despite the public messaging to the contrary. It seems like it would be good if mask manufacturing spins up enough to totally saturate the world over the next few months, and western cultures get over themselves and start making it common to wear them in public.
• boznz 7y ago
  My Daughter was working as a temp between jobs and the work has now been stopped, she had two second interviews planned in Sydney this week now both positions have been retracted and nobody hiring or interviewing, she has about 7 weeks of cash savings and 4 months lease on a rental. Oh and no unemployment benefit or subsidies as she is New Zealander working in Australia. Young People at the lowest risk from this virus are going to be much worse off than just catching a fucking bad cold. The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods. Happy to be downvoted to nothing because I am so over this.
  • ncallaway 7y ago
    > The UK's answer to the problem is starting to look a lot more sensible than total economic chaos being caused by all other methods. The UK's answer to the problem may result in manyfold more dead than this approach. We won't be able to know until after the fact. In that state of unknown, I prefer the approach that values lives over dollars.
    • zzleeper 7y ago
      Has anyone thought about what will happen once other countries start getting better? They might as well quarantine the UK as a redzone area.
    • Polylactic_acid 7y ago
      Lives and dollars are not totally different things. How many lives will be ruined by total financial destruction? How many will commit suicide in the months and years after due to financial issues?
      • sb8244 7y ago
        Lives and money are not the same thing. Hard stop. I understand your point, but I just disagree with the expected outcomes here. Realistically how much would it cost to bail out these businesses and provide a safety net to people? I imagine the numbers are less than we'd first think. It's a choice. It's not inevitable.
• troydavis 7y ago
  Puerto Rico also started a curfew that restricts movement except going to/from work, grocery stores/pharmacies, or health care: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/us/coronavirus-puerto-rico.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/us/coronavirus-puerto-ric... I'm in Seattle and, other than these closures, complete movement restrictions would be the next step here.
• grosales 7y ago
  I have lived in the US for 20 years now - I am a millennial. I am originally from Peru. When all of this started I thought the US was going to handle it. We all were going to rally together and take care of each other. We would exercise social isolation and hold this virus off. The rate the trend is going should be scary for anyone (at least the people reading hacker news). I am surprised of people thinking this won't affect them. If widespread and out of control, it will affect everyone. Funny enough that my country of birth, Peru, just declared a national emergency and declared quarantine for everyone in the country. Peru is a democratic country - at least for the last 20 years - but it had to enact this to stop the virus from spreading. It's a bold move, it's not a popular one, but it's the right one imho. We should be doing the same, our current leader is - unfortunately - a coward who will always be afraid of taking a risk. It's on us then, as responsible citizens to make sure we don't go out unless we really need to for a while - at least that we can control. Just my two cents.
  • ryanobjc 7y ago
    Americans are going to be handling it but the POTUS has multiple well known weaknesses that was always going to cripple response. Weird you expected better out fo him.
• graeme 7y ago
  Anyone found any good info on the risks of food itself. Eg kitchen staff is infected, coughs into meal 1. Do you get if it’s cold food, like a salad or sushi? 2. If yes, do you get it if it’s warm food, like indian food? 3. If yes, do you get if you reheat/microwave the food? If so, what is required/ Have not seen a lot of discussion about this. Did see that in china restaurants would certify the body temperatures of all involved.
  • cavisne 7y ago
    Would love to hear more on this. Official wording is something like “there have been no documented cases of transmission through food or food packaging” however it seems impossible to actually trace transmission anyway.
  • dpcan 7y ago
    It transmits in several ways, including droplets: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/transmission.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/transmissi... And WHO says it lives on surfaces for a couple hours up to several days. https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses So, personally, I'm not eating anything if someone coughs on it or around it. I'm not even buying fresh fruit and veggies at the store right now. I can't find any information about heating the virus to kill it.
    • ebg13 7y ago
      > I'm not even buying fresh fruit and veggies at the store right now. Just cook it.
      • dpcan 7y ago
        Apples? Lettuce? I mean, I cook some carrots, potatoes, broccoli, yes, but I don't want to risk cross contamination at this time.
        • DoreenMichele 7y ago
• dang 7y ago
  It's probably best if we aggregate these links in one place rather than having a separate thread for each new location. (Similarly to what we did at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22550840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22550840) NYC: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22589463 California ("calls for", not enforced): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22587062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22587062 Others?
  • DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Someone has already posted a California announcement somewhere.
    • dang 7y ago
      That was a recommendation rather than a requirement, so I thought we wouldn't include it. But you're right, it's substantially the same story. I'll add it above.
  • kijeda 7y ago
    LA: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-03-15/coronavirus-close-los-angeles-restaurants https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-03-15/coronaviru...
  • tobias2014 7y ago
    Illinois: https://twitter.com/GovPritzker/status/1239387572884905988 https://twitter.com/GovPritzker/status/1239387572884905988 https://www2.illinois.gov/Pages/news-item.aspx?ReleaseID=21254 https://www2.illinois.gov/Pages/news-item.aspx?ReleaseID=212... https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-illinois-20200316-pisinqlypbbgrjjovxfx4hdvme-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-il...
  • ihuman 7y ago
    DC: https://twitter.com/MayorBowser/status/1239247668347633664 https://twitter.com/MayorBowser/status/1239247668347633664
  • 7y ago
• dkdk8283 7y ago
  I’m probably in the minority but I lean towards the UK model. My suspicion is that the mortality rate is lower due to inadequate testing. Call me a cynic but after 9/11 I’m weary of temporary measures that become permanent in one way or another.
  • ncallaway 7y ago
    I'm going to go ahead and call you a cynic here. Do you really think there's any way that the State of Washington will be permanently banning events over 50 people? Do you really think there's any way that the State of Washington will be permanently preventing the operation of bars, dine-in restaurants, and entertainment facilities? I'm generally pretty skeptical of creeping government powers myself, but this just...doesn't seem like a place where the government is going to keep these things shut down permanently. Which of these enacted bans are you concerned about becoming permanent?
    • ryanobjc 7y ago
      Maybe they’re worried that sick pay for all workers will become permanent?
    • mardifoufs 7y ago
      No, but it could normalize doing all of that in the future. Giving up rights once usually make these rights less untouchable in the future which doesn't have to mean that the current measures will be permanent.
      • graeme 7y ago
        Counterpoint: the west has had quarantine measures in its traditions for centuries, while developing the individual rights approach. We haven’t had to use them much in living memory, but they were not permanent in the past. Quarantine has been a necessary fact of human life for centuries. We just lived in a blessed time.
        • kerng 7y ago
• topkai22 7y ago
  When talking about economic damage it is also worth thinking about what we are trying to avoid in the US- if SARS-Cov2 gets to 60% of the population, then at a 2% case fatality rate we are looking at 4 million excess deaths. Most importantly, that is a humanitarian tragedy that we must avoid. However, having numbers also let’s us put an economic value out there for what we are trying to save. A 1% reduction in the case fatality rate saves roughly 2M people. Let’s assume that each would live another 10 years and that each person year is worth $100k. That means a 1% reduction in the case fatality rate is worth 2 trillion dollars. That’s roughly 10% of GDP. You can play with the numbers a bit, it’s hard not to end up in the “taking a multi year recession might be worth it” territory. Obviously, there are decreasing marginal returns to various actions, but the it’s important to keep in mind the scale of what we are trying to avoid.
  • ryanobjc 7y ago
    Actually then CFR would probably be like 5% if medical services would be overcome. So more like 11m excess deaths.
    • topkai22 7y ago
      I picked a lower number to get less quibbles from any doubters. But yeah, bringing CFR from 5% to 2% at 60% infection you can justify actions that otherwise seem nuts.
      • willis936 7y ago
        Honestly, the number I take issue with is the $100k. In terms of household income, this is far above the median.
        • topkai22 7y ago
          The actuarial value of a human life is difficult to calculate, but it is definitely above the economic output. There are large 2nd order effects- the pain of those left behind. I picked $100k because it made the math easy, but it's also between the $50k and $129k numbers i grabbed off Wikipedia. Also, this is one of the rare times it does makes sense to go with mean as the measure of center.
• Alex_P13 7y ago
  but why?
• gnulinux 7y ago
  This is good. You can find in this thread that other states are following the suit. This might, just might if we're lucky, that the curve will start becoming quadratic and then logarithmic.
• CriticalCathed 7y ago
  It has been refreshing to see the mask come off of those feigning care about "undesirables" who would be disproportionately affected by this virus. At the end of the day we come down to economic calculations to decide whether to let hundreds of thousands to millions of people die in this country. The moral choice isn't always the most efficient one. I wonder if we will have the courage to make the moral choice?
• Leary 7y ago
  For places that don't want to close restaurants. Would it be legal in America for the restaurants to check everyone's temperature before they enter the premise (guests+ cooks+ waiters). Wouldn't be perfect but could slow transmission down while giving them a way to earn money.
  • ddingus 7y ago
    People are contagious the entire time. Right now matters, this is why: https://old.reddit.com/r/WeAreNotAsking/comments/fitsej/covid19_next_week_is_critical_isolate_to_the/ https://old.reddit.com/r/WeAreNotAsking/comments/fitsej/covi... Basically, we have one shot at this. Max number of unidentified transmitters coupled with max number of potential infected people. Depending on how many of us will, can isolate hard, 20 days from now the wave of sick, and weaker people hit the hospitals. We have a 5th the beds per 1000 compared to many of our peer nations.
• nimbius 7y ago
  one has to wonder. If this virus didnt disproportionately target baby boomers...would we still see this level of response?
• ryanSrich 7y ago
  This feels like a much worse outcome than just taking the virus on the chin and letting 40-70% of the population get sick. That may seem contrarian, but this panic feels worse than the actual virus. More people will die from economic hardship than from COVID.
  • natalyarostova 7y ago
    I guess people would rather lower the gdp than have their parents die.
    • ryanSrich 7y ago
      Destroying the economy at this rate will bring much more death than Corona. 10s of thousands of businesses are being crippled. The government will do nothing aside from bailing out institutions they’ve bailed out countless times before. Leaving the lower and middle class absolutely gutted.
      • alkonaut 7y ago
        People presumably still want the recession form of death than the pandemic one, it's not even a competition. There is no amount of evidence you can present to the public that would make this call even a close one. "ten times as many will die from the recession unless we let X people die now" doesn't work.
      • marvin 7y ago
        Rather an economic crisis than losing some of your loved ones a decade or two before their time. Get the authorities in place to be the safety net and take the measures required. Preventing a major GDP bump downwards is not worth millions of lives.
    • dang 7y ago
      "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." The argument about economic effects vs. health effects is getting nastier and could get a lot worse. Please find ways to make your substantive points that don't nudge HN threads in that direction. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• Leary 7y ago
  I know this probably won't be enough, but how about tax exemption for all business affected by shutdown order in 2020 paid by the federal government
• sytelus 7y ago
  Most restaurants around here already had 1/4th of customers and almost never over 10 at a time sufficiently distanced away. It still provided workers to come in any way and get whatever minimum wage they can. I feel this move is boneheaded and is just a knee jerk reaction without actually knowing the above fact. Most folks working in restaurants don't even have a week worth of savings. They don't have investments or own homes. They still have to pay rents pretty soon. Governer is ignoring all of these to make an appearance that he is making swift aggressive action. He has made zero provisions for all of these people who will be on the verge of losing their roof. The least he could have done would be to mandate no evictions during these closures so the financial load is transferred to rich rent collectors and investors with sufficient fat as opposed to these poor people.
• Shivetya 7y ago
  I expect many fast food to just follow Chik fil-a's example of going drive through only. I was wondering when a state would take that option themselves. Still like comments about original restrictions of larger gatherings, many grocery stores and big box stores can have more people in them than a restaurant and touching more items too
• dang 7y ago
  All: the debate about economic effects vs. health effects is turning nasty in places and could get a lot worse. Let's not go there. Please find ways to make your substantive points that don't nudge HN threads in that direction. If you comment, make sure you're up to date the site guidelines. Note this one: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • hef19898 7y ago
    Very important guideline, and one that's way to easy to forget! Ask me how I know it...
  • generalpass 7y ago
    I just upvoted Dang. These, indeed, are troubled times. ;-)
  • hirundo 7y ago
    > All: the debate about economic effects vs. health effects is turning nasty in places and could get a lot worse. Let's not go there. I disagree. I don't think the fact that a subject is a launchpad for abuse in some threads is sufficient grounds for suppressing it elsewhere. Those are frequently the subjects that need the most, and most non-nasty discussion. Yes, very much, please, head the advice to steel-man your debate opponents relentlessly. That's the proper response, not banning the whole conversation. dang, I love you man, but your tendency to preemptively kill stories on controversial topics, not so much. I can see that it makes moderation easier, but the cost is high.
    • dang 7y ago
      Ah, I see I could have been clearer. By "go there" I mean let's not go further into nastiness. I don't mean let's not debate—quite the opposite. Nobody's killing the story or the discussion. The point is to discuss it in a way that doesn't destroy the container, which is our ability to keep discussing things in the future.
• Phylter 7y ago
  They've done this in Illinois too. What's happened is people are self-isolating to prevent the spread even though government is pleading with them to do so. So, they're having to force the issue. If people still don't get the hint they'll have to put curfews in place.
  • Phylter 7y ago
    At this point I hope they do. I'm sick of seeing the governor pleading on television and people not taking him seriously. I have friends that literally don't get that this is much more serious than the flu. There are daily posts on Facebook about how it's a conspiracy of the government to control us or there's posts about how this illness isn't worse than any flu that's come through and it's going to bankrupt people. Just sick, ignorant people that don't give a rats.
• thrownaway954 7y ago
  not trying to be a wise ass in anyway, a legitimate question .. i'm wondering do you have to shutdown a bar that still allows smoking? can the virus even survive on surfaces and in the air if tobacco smoke is present?
  • disgruntledphd2 7y ago
    Smokers are a higher risk group for Covid-19, so you should probably avoid such bars, even if they weren't going to be shutdown.
• sershe 7y ago
  This may get downvoted, but I think the following judgement-free statement is true: this is starting to look scary/serious /solely/ because of the measures the governments are taking, and the media circus around it. Otherwise (while it would have almost certainly "started to look serious" eventually, probably for a short time), at this point, you would not have even noticed given the actual numbers.
  • throwanem 7y ago
    Your suggestion here and elsewhere has been that it would be ultimately less harmful overall to let the disease run unchecked, even if it kills millions in a few weeks that way, than to attempt to control it in the ways our various levels of government are doing. I have yet to see you substantiate that claim in any way.
    • umvi 7y ago
      AFAIK, covid-19 is basically a "slightly worse flu". Most people are not at risk of dying and in fact most people don't even need to go to the hospital to recover. Surely there has to be a balance between protecting the vulnerable at the cost of ruining the economy and protecting the economy at the cost of ruining the vulnerable. How about instead of shutting down planet earth we advise people over the age of 60 to self-quarantine for a few months. The disease will run its course and then they will be protected by herd immunity. Neighbors and friends can drop off supplies on the front doorstep during this time.
      • satya71 7y ago
        Sorry this is not a "slightly worse flu". The "Spanish Flu" was both less virulent and less deadly and killed ~50 million world-wide. This is the mostly deadly pandemic since the "Black Death" of medieval times.
        • nostromo 7y ago
          It’s not more deadly. The fatality rate is 0.6% or so, and almost entirely focused on the very old or il.
• jakeogh 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22583594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22583594