12 ms·

California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

209 points by khartig 7y ago

aazaa 7y ago
Possibly relevant: > President Trump tweeted Monday that the "decision to open up the states" following shutdown measures taken to stop the spread of the coronavirus lies with him, not governors. https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-reopening-governors-states-3ce510ff-cd94-4b4a-89b8-58d8bca5d69f.html https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-reopening-governors-...
- r00fus 7y ago
  Is this me or does this someone who wants control but not responsibility?
  - jlj 7y ago
    It's really someone who wants to own the success of others and blame others for failures. Zero accountability yet still wanting to call the shots.
    - Loughla 7y ago
      It's wild watching someone who seems to just be a garbage manager be in charge of something as large as the nation. Micromanaging. Manage via publicity. PR instead of content. Agreement instead of actual thought and discussion. I've left jobs over a combination of two of those things, and it seems like we have all of them right now as a nation. I wish someone who has direct reported to Trump in the past was on this site and could give insights into his actual managerial style. edit: I'm not trying to talk politics, if that's why I'm being downvoted. My observations are that he is not a good manager. This is what I see in the news and what I read. Both from external media, the white house, and his own tweets. If you disagree, please explain why. I'm looking for hope and don't see any. I would love to.
      - erdos4d 7y ago
        I'm not the person you're looking for on that, but I have read a number of pieces by people who have been there and experienced it. In those articles, the word "gaslighting" appeared enough to prominenetly stick in my brain.
      - sandworm101 7y ago
        >> I wish someone who has direct reported to Trump in the past was on this site and could give insights into his actual managerial style. I've never worked with the man directly, but I work with people who take direction from him. It isn't an act. This is not a mad genius playing the befuddled character at the microphone (Boris J) only to become a cool dictator behind the scenes. The chaos and incoherence you see on TV and twitter is the 24/7 reality.
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    You're not the only one who has had the same immediate take.
  - devonkim 7y ago
    Ah, and the flipside that many of us are familiar with - all the responsibility, none of the authority to fix it. Great recipe for burning down entire companies and driving away talent.
- throwaway_USD 7y ago
  Ironically Trump refused to "shutdown" the States a decision he deferred to the Governors.
  - grey-area 7y ago
    I'm not sure why this is downvoted, as it is correct. https://apnews.com/c90b24e60a4853cebe96ec995b626f9b https://apnews.com/c90b24e60a4853cebe96ec995b626f9b
  - danhak 7y ago
    Yes, he wanted to dodge responsibility for the unpleasant job of shutting things down. Now he wants to enjoy positive publicity for opening things back up.
    - RandomTisk 7y ago
      He wanted to shut down travel from China in January, something he got reamed for politically by the media and the left. Damned if you do and all that.
      - danhak 7y ago
        I'm not able to find examples of that. Can you point to any mainstream media outlets "reaming" him over that decision?
        Thorondor 7y ago
        Not the person you're replying to, but here are a few examples. CNN: "Experts say travel restrictions the Trump administration put in place to stop the novel coronavirus from spreading could have unintended consequences that undermine that effort." (https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/health/coronavirus-travel-ban/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/health/coronavirus-travel-ban...) The Atlantic: "Guiding Trump’s response is a hardheaded nationalism... Critics from WHO and elsewhere have said the bans are unnecessary and could generate a racist backlash against Chinese people." (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/trump-response-coronavirus/606610/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/trump-r...)
- a3n 7y ago
  I think what's probably more relevant is the chaos of trying to get aid from the federal government, combined with Trump and Kushner's declaration that any national stockpile is for the federal government, not the states, even though nobody lives in the federal government, we all live in states or similar entities. I think they flipped the fuckit bit.
Doctor_Fegg 7y ago
Floreat Cascadia!
- klodolph 7y ago
  Not to be pedantic or anything but Cascadia definitely doesn’t include California. Nuh-uh, no way José, no siree.
  - domingobingo 7y ago
    It’s the economic core of Cascadia. It’s a necessary thing.
    - klodolph 7y ago
      Kind of like saying that the US is the “economic core” of Canada.
      - domingobingo 6y ago
        How do you figure?
  - bredren 7y ago
    Since Cascadia does not exist, compromise to include northern California is possible. The proposed Pacific State Jefferson would likely join a successful independent Cascadia if only to have easier succession to its own state down the line. Regardless, this can be seen as a shot in the arm toward Casacadia because it is a demonstration of cross-state regional cooperation that would be necessary to further an independence movement.
  - zw123456 7y ago
    Ya but I feel that California, Oregon and Washington are bound but many unique and common cultural ideals. Tech, ecology, etc. I live in Seattle and there is a lot of fun rivalry but if I didn't live here it would be Bay area, Portland, San Diego, LA, etc. The West Coast has a special culture in my view.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
zw123456 7y ago
http://nationofpacifica.com/ http://nationofpacifica.com/
themodelplumber 7y ago
Yes. I love this from an executive-action standpoint. They are _doing_ something about something, in the face of a lot of fearful messaging. And that gives the rest of us an even better "emotional/energy vector" which is based on a promise of government support and action in support of business. We are participants in the most creative and powerful world economy of all time. Regardless of geographical location, cultures are generally more unified and geared toward working together than ever. Markets have shown an impressive amount of resilience in the face of unprecedented fear messaging. People are ready to work hard; in fact they're wearing themselves out by working harder than they have before in many cases. This is exactly the kind of action we need right now.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
  Delusional take. The petrodollar system is collapsing. USD will not be the reserve currency for much longer.
  - themodelplumber 7y ago
    So you have this information and see only downsides? I'm curious if this is a perception-only exercise for you, or if you are taking steps to execute on that perception in a way that helps you and others prepare and pivot as needed. Or do you really see literally endless downside, and have thus decided to lock yourself out of actions you can take now to prepare for future upsides? If so that would suck, because this could line up an epic self-fulfilling prophecy on a personal level. Still, a lot of people do that, and regret it later. They may get a few prophet points here and there, but that's it. Now is the perfect time to take risks on a wide variety of factors, including those I mentioned above. But if you are only primed to foresee disaster, you probably can't do that. The comment seems to point at a low level of risk tolerance.
    - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
      If my hypothesis is correct, I have unlimited upside. It's hard being bearish in any market, but now's the best time to be one. Across many asset classes. Probably not stocks, because the Fed will continue to inflate those assets. But in real terms they will drop. GC >= 1800 EOM, CL <=20 EOW, SI >= 16.5 within 2 weeks are my predictions.
mullingitover 7y ago
This is great, and it's a big chunk of population, but I keep feeling like we could do better. For example, these three States could do a great job, but there's nothing stopping a bunch of the other States from bungling it (like, say, ignoring health experts and exempting certain groups from mass gathering restrictions). Then those States end up exporting infectious individuals into the States which are doing things right, and creating more clusters. If only we had some sort of united group of all the States, where the response could be coordinated and centralized for maximum effectiveness.
- davidw 7y ago
  "Like having a pool with a 'peeing section'" is how I've read this piecemeal approach described.
  - imustbeevil 7y ago
    I imagine it more like 3 people standing in the furthest corner from the person peeing because the lifeguard isn't enforcing any rules except "no one can leave the pool".
  - jschwartzi 7y ago
    Well when our federal government basically screws the pooch it's up to individual states to work together to limit the spread. And since most of the state governments seem to not really care about the health of their citizens, it makes sense that there would be small groups of states that do. Honestly I assumed that if the outbreak got really bad the PNW would eventually secede from the union because the federal government wasn't providing much aid. But this is a lot better than that.
  - techopoly 7y ago
    Or a restaurant with a smoking section. Right next to the non-smoking section.
  - cactus2093 7y ago
    Yours is obviously just an analogy and I'm not making claims as far as the underlying argument, but we did used to have smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants, airplanes, etc. Clearly that was reasonable enough to people to be the way things were done for a few decades. Sometimes an 80% solution that seems almost comically flawed ends up being useful.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
As someone who lives in one of these states, I'm nonplussed at the announcement. It doesn't really seem to say anything concrete that I can tell. "We've agreed that we will use metrics...we are still deciding what these metrics will be." I thought the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order (in Washington state) wasn't unreasonable and wasn't just political babble, but I don't really know what to make of this piece. Anyone want to try to explain it like I'm five?
- kylemh 7y ago
  I think you're correct, but the announcement is still welcome. People are gonna be waiting forever for any semblance of federal guidance, so at least these 3 states has decided they'll make calls together.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    In this case, I would be vastly more comfortable if the answer were "No, Doreen, you really are as dumb as you think. Their plan is 1... 2.... 3...." The US governmental system has a long history of injecting bureaucratic nonsense that takes on a life of its own and ends up with outcomes like "teaching to the test" instead of being a net benefit. I would feel differently if this were an announcement of a joint task force for sharing data to help each state make the best decisions possible. But this sounds to me like it will just make it harder for each state to make a decision on their own and that it probably doesn't really add any value. And that concerns me.
    - wahern 7y ago
      Yeah, this falls far short of what these states should be saying, something like "We're feverishly working on building out the infrastructure for wide-scale population testing and tracing, but we will not lift shelter-in-place until we're confident the infrastructure is in place in all three states to contain any outbreaks". I have the same beef with Mayor Breed in San Francisco, who has otherwise shown standout leadership. She's publicly worried that people will let their guard done by assuming things are under control. Rather than worry about people's feelings and opinions, she should be setting expectations exactly as I described above.
nerfhammer 7y ago
Meanwhile, 7 northeastern states are forming a "multi-state council"
jcranmer 7y ago
Also relevant is that the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware made a similar pact today. Edit: Massachusetts has also joined this pact as well (I thought it was surprising that it hadn't when I first read the news).
- aioprisan 7y ago
  MA joined in as well on that pact
- yingw787 7y ago
  No Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts? I would think at least Massachusetts would want in.
  - gnulinux 7y ago
    MA joined the pact as well, now.
- elliekelly 7y ago
  Governor Baker is a Republican and Trump is big on “loyalty” and deference. Since the pact is a way for the Governors to collectively let Trump know who will actually be “restarting” the states I would guess the short delay in Massachusetts joining was so Baker could sort out the politics ahead of time with DC.
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    Baker (and Hogan, for that matter) are very popular Republican governors in pretty deep blue states. They haven't been big on kissing Trump's ass, both before and during this crisis.
    - elliekelly 7y ago
      Yes, I’m about as liberal as they come and I voted for Baker in the last election. Being well-liked on both sides of the aisle doesn’t happen by accident. Baker puts in considerable planning and effort to make that happen.
new_time 7y ago
I love the United States' flexible decentralized model. Different states have sufficient autonomy to tinker and try different approaches, allowing the best ideas to emerge from the collective. It's one reason why the US is such a dynamic place, similar to Europe but with the additional benefit of unified language, culture (broadly), economy, and high level regulations. It's truly a great system.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- wahern 7y ago
  It's not necessarily as flexible as to encompass such sub-federal cooperation: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause_3:_Compact_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_Stat... I'm curious if these recently announced state pacts will be challenged in court. But legal or illegal, it doesn't excuse the poor job of federal management.
  - codys 7y ago
    Yes, I'm curious about the way they're intending to handling this legally as well. A bit of searching shows a Supreme Court case Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U.S. 503 (1893) [1]. This restricts the application of that clause somewhat, but it isn't 100% clear to me that this Pact is a perfect match for the facts in that case. It also sounds like [2] things are rather flexible in what approval is and when it is obtained. It's plausible that they expect to ask for approval, or rely on it being unlikely that congress explicitly disapproves, or perhaps they expect to obtain approval in the future. [note: I've linked to a point in the opinion discussing Congressional approval] 1: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10388199763957366456&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr#p519 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=103881997639573... 2: https://www.gsgp.org/media/1313/understanding_interstate_compacts-csgncic.pdf https://www.gsgp.org/media/1313/understanding_interstate_com...
yingw787 7y ago
Well, that was quick. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22828354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22828354 Today it is pandemic resolution. I fear that tomorrow, it might be economic ties, lockstep voting at the federal level, and National Guard drills, deployments, and contingency planning, where the West Coast slowly splits away from the rest of the country, with other states teaming up and following suit. This isn't the end, and it's the only appropriate response to a federal government that cannot or will not execute on behalf of all states. It is, however, a reflection of the true state of our Union, and a sign of things to come if we don't reconcile our national identity. I'm saddened, but not surprised, that a step like this was necessary given the circumstances.
- spankalee 7y ago
  > I fear that tomorrow Why fear? This is my dream! The Senate is irreparably broken. There is no conceivable way that it can become more fairly representative of the people without a breakup of the United States. The smaller less populous states aren't going to just give up their outsized power voluntarily. California is suffering the most due to the Senate's structural unfairness, and it has the most to gain from succession. I hope it happens in my lifetime.
  - yingw787 7y ago
    Dude...if we're talking about secession, we're talking about civil war. In a country with the second most nuclear weapons in the world. With a federal government already looking to adversaries for cooperation. You're talking nuclear missiles or chemical weapons fired against San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle from land-based silos in the Dakotas, or mutinies aboard our SSBNs, or Russian troops landing en masse in South Carolina to offer foreign assistance. It will mean the Balkanization of the country, where California has to station permanent garrisons in the Sierra Nevada mountains to ward off invasions from Texas or Mexico. You're not talking about a 40% drop in GDP this quarter, you're talking about famine and starvation, and complete international irrelevance after the dust settles. If only tens of millions of Americans die, that probably counts as a win. "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
wahern 7y ago
If wonder if Barr will sue, arguing that the pact violates the Interstate Compact Clause, especially considering that Trump has recently tweeted that only he gets to decide when to lift restrictions.
- jameslevy 7y ago
  I hope he does, and in the process both increases his ownership of this fiasco and dispels any notions that his party still has any real support for "States' rights".
- mullen 7y ago
  The Interstate Compact Clause is not handled by the President, but Congress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_compact When Trump threaten to "shutdown" travel between the North East States, people had to tell him that he did not have the authority to do that.
bjt2n3904 7y ago
> Health outcomes and science – not politics – will guide these decisions. And I definitely promise you that my news organization will have no bias or slant, and will only report facts.
jokit 7y ago
Since CA has done nothing but cultivate disease for years now, I'm guessing this another one of those Orwellian names like "Patriot Act", or "No Child Left Behind, or whatever, that achieves the opposite of what is claimed.
jedberg 7y ago
I’m surprised they didn’t include Nevada given how much of California’s population travels to Nevada.
dahdum 7y ago
Stay at home is doing enormous economic damage, which indirectly will cause more deaths through decimated budgets of social and health programs. Especially in CA where high progressive taxation amplifies the impact of recessions. So there's a lot of pressure to reopen but no political cover to do so. I think the entire point of this pact is to provide that cover.
- theferalrobot 7y ago
  Right on the nose. Even when reopening is clearly the right thing to do nobody will want to personally take the fall. It's the reason the US has a high incarceration rate, nobody wants to be the one to release a ton of people from jail even if it's the right thing to do.
- triceratops 7y ago
  > which indirectly will cause more deaths through decimated budgets of social and health programs. Do you have any actual data for this?
  - dahdum 7y ago
    Unless you're arguing the budgets won't be cut or frozen, the data is the success metrics of those programs.
    - triceratops 7y ago
      You're saying that cutting (meaning reducing, not zeroing) budgets of social and health programs can kill up to 0.5% of the entire population of a state? Because that's the CFR of the virus. You're aware that even programs on reduced budgets can offer a reduced set of services, and prioritize the ones with most impact? (i.e. most lifesaving potential). And that their work will be far easier if there are fewer total sick people in the system? Have you balanced the effects of that versus letting the virus run amok so that the tax receipts aren't impacted? That's why I'm asking for numbers. Otherwise "a bad economy will kill more people" is a fuzzy assertion that sounds "cool" and "contrarian" but has no actual substance. Here are my numbers btw: "Our finding that all-cause mortality decreased during the Great Recession is consistent with previous studies. Some categories of cause-specific mortality, notably cardiovascular disease, also follow this pattern, and are more pronounced for certain gender and age groups. Our study also suggests that the recent recession contributed to the growth in deaths from overdoses of prescription drugs in working-age adults in metropolitan areas. Additional research investigating the mechanisms underlying the health consequences of macroeconomic conditions is warranted."[1] In the last big recession, deaths due to certain causes went up but overall mortality decreased. So what you're saying definitively did not happen in the only other comparable situation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28772108 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28772108
supernova87a 7y ago
Regardless of how sad a situation this reflects, I regard it at least as a positive sign of some resilience of our federal structure. Criticize the state/federal model though you might for how it sometimes dilutes the ability to get things done in a unified way, at least in times of national or federal-level dysfunction, the people who can step in locally to provide some guidance and coordination are able to do so, and not actually be stymied or prevented from doing so by some authoritarian framework. Imagine instead if we lived in a country with more organized / powerful central control, but was both authoritative and incompetent. We would be really fucked.
ambivalents 7y ago
Naive question: how is this better than each of these states doing its own thing (even if those things end up looking similar)? What does California gain by teaming up with WA and OR, for example?
- kevingadd 7y ago
  Better coordination between the states helps reduce chaos at the borders between the states. If OR opens a week before WA the people living near the border will be in a weird limbo, especially if they need to cross the border for work etc.
- alkonaut 7y ago
  Look at the Netherlands and Belgium screaming at each other and threatening to close borders because one felt the other had too little restrictions. Let’s just say it’s very much bad for your neighborhood of states to have that kind of situation. Closing borders or having diplomatic disasters isn’t worth it. It’s better to reach a common decision.
  - rlt 7y ago
    I'd rather everyone close their borders for now (except for cargo and essential travel, with testing/quarantine) and countries/states/regions respond however they see fit for their own populations. The regions with the best responses can be examples for the others to follow.
whatsmyusername 7y ago
They should do a shared healthcare system as well. The future is states working together on their own thing, while letting chudland sink further into poverty.
Nuzzerino 7y ago
From article 1, section 10 of the U.S. Constitution: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." This scares me a bit. This agreement seems innocuous at first, but the constitution expressly forbids these (and all) kinds of agreements between states for a reason. A small pact like this today could tomorrow become leverage for secessionism or otherwise a power struggle with the federal government.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  "State" in that context clearly refers to foreign nations (states) not states as in The United States Of America. Foreign power is distinct because it would refer to things like governments-in-exile or perhaps resistance groups.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - whichquestion 7y ago
    > No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. It seems to me that it states “with another State”, as in a capital S State or a member State of the United States. Then explicitly calls out as another option, “or with a foreign power”. Furthermore, the title of Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution is “Powers Prohibited of States”.
  - rlt 7y ago
    Why would they use two different meanings of "State" (capitalized, no less) in the same sentence?
  - Fjolsvith 7y ago
    Then why would the constitution forbid a foreign nation (state) from entering into an agreement with another foreign power?
nostromo 7y ago
> We need to see a decline in the rate of spread of the virus before large-scale reopening, and we will be working in coordination to identify the best metrics to guide this. What's the end game here? If you slow the spread, and then reopen, it'll spread again. Nothing will have changed, you'll just have delayed it a bit.
- oliv__ 7y ago
  Just let everyone get it. Problem solved.
  - triceratops 7y ago
    Yes, that is the end goal. It's the timeline over which everyone gets it that matters.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  If you read the announcement: > Ensuring an ability to care for those who may become sick with COVID-19 and other conditions. This will require adequate hospital surge capacity and supplies of personal protective equipment. Delaying it is the point, it ensures we have enough hospital capacity and PPE to handle the inevitable burst of cases when reopening. This is what people mean when they say "flatten the curve". If we simply open whenever and aren't prepared we'll have a massive spike in cases that exceeds hospital capacity, vs the current situation where the case growth is slower and hospitals are less burdened.
  - nostromo 7y ago
    At the current rate of infection that plan will require many years of quarantine. We need more people exposed, not fewer.
    - kelnos 7y ago
      That assumes no investment in upgrading our hospital capacity and testing & PPE production. At one end of the spectrum you have (mythically) infinite hospital capacity and staffing, testing capacity, and contact tracing ability. In that world, you reopen everything, and let people go about their lives. At current capacity, we need to slow things down. If we can increase capacity enough in the coming weeks and months, we'll need to slow things down much less.
TheGrim-888 7y ago
This comment thread is one long chain of "the federal government has failed us", "Trump has failed us", etc. Can one of you actually provide some rationale for why you think that? Do you just have no context on the State/Fed divide? Do you think that because everybody else is saying that, or because mass media is saying that, but don't actually have any facts to back it up? Seriously, what do you expect Trump to do? What would you have him do? He didn't sneak into CDC labs and botch the first round of tests. He can't just snap his fingers and will millions of pounds of PPE into existence, he's not even the person actually coordinating any of this stuff and trying to get things done, he's just a figurehead. If Trump did try to go to any greater lengths, the House would just scream that he was abusing his powers and try to Impeach him again. Please explain your reasoning, I'm getting so tired of it, I'm convinced it's just partisan-driven mass hysteria combined with mass propaganda at this point. Don't like me to opinion pieces of somebody giving their opinion about how horrible Trump is. Link me to data, and tell me facts about what you would want him to do differently.
redis_mlc 7y ago
> Protecting the general public by ensuring any successful lifting of interventions includes the development of a system for testing, tracking and isolating. The states will work together to share best practices. If there is a reasonable expectation of that happening in the next couple of weeks, then ok. If this is just "hope", then we should end the lockdown and let the flu run its course, like every year. The overall mortality rate is about 2%, which may be unavoidable in the US even with social distancing, since I don't see any way for the US to emulate S. Korea's testing and tracing success. Does anybody have any logical reason for thinking that the US can copy S. Korea? Does the US have any way to do up to 600 million tests per week and see the result in an hour?
- mulmen 7y ago
  Why would we need to test everyone twice a week?
brewdad 7y ago
So we're going to need a new name for this future sovereignty. Sierra Cascadia? New Pacifica?
- ummwhat 7y ago
  California and Cascadia Republic. Put a tree on the bear flag and call it a day.
  - runarberg 7y ago
    Something like this? https://imgur.com/a/tEkyAXt https://imgur.com/a/tEkyAXt
iloveyouocean 7y ago
Waiting for the announcement of the formation of the 'Confederacy of Southern States' (I don't believe for a moment that Trump and the Republicans would hesitate to seize the opportunity and claim that it's simply 'parity'). In these times of hyper-partisanship, in the midst of a global pandemic, on the tip of a great recession or depression with untold economic hardship; I shudder at the potential for what politically aligned states banding together could lead to. I hope I am overreacting, but my parameters for what I used to consider normal and possible have been shifted significantly and there seems to have formed a great open space of terrible possibility to be filled.
- tmh79 7y ago
  in the current moment, the "confederacy of southern states" is the federal government. I do not expect to see them different from a federal response due to their loyalty to trump.
- sketchyj 7y ago
  What about this inspired you to compare it to the civil war? Seems hyperbolic given states cooperate in similar ways all the time. It makes sense for bordering states to be on the same page here, especially given the erratic behavior exhibited by federal officials who will remain nameless.
maerF0x0 7y ago
I have yet to see a cogent validation of the total lives saved by lockdown when considering all other health impacts such as suicide rates from isolation, heart disease/stroke/diabetes from extra sedentary lifestyle etc. not to mention the suicide by fentanyl in a subsequent economic recession/depression. Any aware of such an analysis?
- kelnos 7y ago
  I'm generally worried about this sort of thing as well, and wish people were looking into this. However, we have pretty good estimates on how many people will die if we don't shelter and isolate, and I think that trumps what would inevitably be some very vague guesses as to how many people might die as side effects of sheltering and isolation. And regardless, many of those potential deaths could be preventable with the right focus on mental health and financial support during and after the lockdown. (Not saying we do have the right focus; I expect we definitely don't. But that's not a reason to give up on isolation.)
  - maerF0x0 7y ago
    > we have pretty good estimates on how many people will die if we don't shelter and isolate This is a fantastic point/rebuttal and has helped shift my perspective somewhat. We can do things about tomorrow's suicides, heart attacks and diabetes later, though not too too much later.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      Right, I think it's a "one thing at a time" sort of situation. Like: we have a clear problem with a potential solution that will mitigate the problem immediately. That solution may create other problems, but we do have some time (though, as you suggest, not a lot) to try to fix that up after dealing with the first problem.
- palmtree3000 7y ago
  Here's one: https://www.pandemiceconomist.com/2020/04/costs-and-benefits-of-government.html https://www.pandemiceconomist.com/2020/04/costs-and-benefits... TL;DR (copied directly from the post): With these values, if a lockdown of two years or less will stop the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a good idea. With the current research into treatments and vaccines and the development of testing and tracing strategies, I believe that there will be a medical or public health way to stop the pandemic in less than two years. Notably, the net benefit of a decision to initiate or sustain lockdown goes up over time, because the time remaining until medical countermeasures are available keeps going down.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
andresramon60 7y ago
WEBSPYCODE computer security services Do you need a qualified and honest HACKER for hire? im giving this big chance sincerely to anyone who needs any hacking service . they specializes in this areas most e.g. Spy on your spouse or partner Mobile Hacking, remotely, tracking location, secure balance top up of creditcard or debitcard,Social Media Hack, School grades changing, credit scores, Clearing of criminal records, Password sniffing, Bitcoin wallet recover, contact them via webspycode@gmail. com or Whatsapp and text +1 740 212 1250.
jMyles 7y ago
I'm in Oregon. My first read: CTRL-F for "test" to see if there's any new statement on serological testing. Nothing. This is all we want right now. This is the first priority, and whatever is second is somewhat distant. Not having widespread serological testing to understand the prevalence in our communities really gives a feeling of being in a third-world country. It's awesome that Drs. Bhattacharya and Bendavid have pushed the Stanford study forward (hopefully we have results this week). But seriously, there's no excuse for not having already done a round of random testing in every city, several times.
- alkonaut 7y ago
  Serological testing is really bleeding edge still. It’s only done as part of research projects as far as I heard, and you can’t really buy the capacity to do it on an industrial scale yet. Perhaps this varies between countries (where manufacturers exist and so on) but many countries in Europe still have few or no serological tests done, and we are weeks ahead of the US in terms of the epidemic progress.
  - jMyles 7y ago
    Yeah, that's the point right there. Why the heck is this so bleeding edge? A small team at Stanford made it happen rather quickly. With a small budget. And yet our leaders aren't even talking about it. Where's the will to do this obvious first priority?
seemslegit 7y ago
Some historians go as early as 2020 and see the "Western States Pact" as the first establishing document for the Pacific Union and the beginning of the unraveling of the USA. Nt Rly though.
sandworm101 7y ago
In my area (Vancouver Island, just north of this "pact") we are seeing something very odd. People are going out. Families are having BBQs in local parks. Restaurants aren't letting people dine in, but the grocery stores are operating essentially normally. I'm near the water and am seeing kayaks and boats out like any normal weekend. Vacation properties are in use. RV parks have customers. I see groups of old people chatting on the street like normal. I think we are on a tipping point. Government directive or no, people are coming out of isolation. I don't think the local authorities have much choice at this point. Either they make some clear changes and/or issue timetables, or they risk loosing any control. These are Canadians, a people with national healthcare and a general respect for government authority. When this attitude hits America, a country that prides itself on individualism, things may move from lockdown to "what lockdown?" in a matter of days.
- alkonaut 7y ago
  Because people realize that kayaking isn’t a risk so why would they avoid it? This is why no restrictions should be imposed that don’t have a very clear and obvious effect. If that means they must rely on people’s ability to do the right thing (e.g not take the bus to go kayaking, not go places where it’s crowded) then so be it. It’s better to have a sustainable and accepted lockdown that is 95% water tight, than an unsustainable and less accepted lockdown. Otherwise, as you say, once people stop accepting the lockdowns anyway.
  - robocat 7y ago
    New Zealand has banned any sports where someone could require emergency services: so no sea sports, no mountain sports, no hunting etc. This is in addition to other restrictions. Everybody is too busy to help, and helping rescue others puts the rescuers at risk of Covid.
  - sandworm101 7y ago
    We are told not to travel unless necessary. Kayaking is never necessary. The Canadian military, the people responsible for search and rescue over HUGE areas, are themselves locked into extraordinary isolation measures. Many are living far from loved ones specifically to maintain operational readiness for real national emergencies. They aren't going to be very happy if they have to break isolation to rescue a kayak party too bored to stay home when asked so to do by their government.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jeffdavis 7y ago
I'm a little disturbed that I feel like the country has been tearing apart for a while. There is a major political bifurcation, and now pacts between states. Right now the pacts are for the pandemic, but what else might these coalitions be used for in the future? I'm not saying that they'll be used for some nafarious purpose, but the fact that they are like-minded politically makes it more likely to deepen the divides.
- atomi 7y ago
  Because, Conservatives have completely lost their minds. If they want to commit to a suicide run to try and sustain the market then competent states have the imperative to not follow them into the abyss. You have to remember, each state is tasked with the welfare of their citizenry, not the furtherance of the political ambitions of a federal administrator.
  - jeffdavis 6y ago
    I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying "good riddance, let's just split the country in a few pieces and get it over with"? Or do you see some path toward unifying the two factions again? I guess you could reasonably say that groups with different political allegiances should just split up. But what's weird about that to me is it's basically like the states' rights platform, sans Constitution.

209 points by khartig 7y ago

Possibly relevant: > President Trump tweeted Monday that the "decision to open up the states" following shutdown measures taken to stop the spread of the coronavirus lies with him, not governors. https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-reopening-governors-states-3ce510ff-cd94-4b4a-89b8-58d8bca5d69f.html https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-reopening-governors-...

r00fus 7y ago
Is this me or does this someone who wants control but not responsibility?
- jlj 7y ago
  It's really someone who wants to own the success of others and blame others for failures. Zero accountability yet still wanting to call the shots.
  - Loughla 7y ago
    It's wild watching someone who seems to just be a garbage manager be in charge of something as large as the nation. Micromanaging. Manage via publicity. PR instead of content. Agreement instead of actual thought and discussion. I've left jobs over a combination of two of those things, and it seems like we have all of them right now as a nation. I wish someone who has direct reported to Trump in the past was on this site and could give insights into his actual managerial style. edit: I'm not trying to talk politics, if that's why I'm being downvoted. My observations are that he is not a good manager. This is what I see in the news and what I read. Both from external media, the white house, and his own tweets. If you disagree, please explain why. I'm looking for hope and don't see any. I would love to.
    - erdos4d 7y ago
      I'm not the person you're looking for on that, but I have read a number of pieces by people who have been there and experienced it. In those articles, the word "gaslighting" appeared enough to prominenetly stick in my brain.
    - sandworm101 7y ago
      >> I wish someone who has direct reported to Trump in the past was on this site and could give insights into his actual managerial style. I've never worked with the man directly, but I work with people who take direction from him. It isn't an act. This is not a mad genius playing the befuddled character at the microphone (Boris J) only to become a cool dictator behind the scenes. The chaos and incoherence you see on TV and twitter is the 24/7 reality.
- jcranmer 7y ago
  You're not the only one who has had the same immediate take.
- devonkim 7y ago
  Ah, and the flipside that many of us are familiar with - all the responsibility, none of the authority to fix it. Great recipe for burning down entire companies and driving away talent.
throwaway_USD 7y ago
Ironically Trump refused to "shutdown" the States a decision he deferred to the Governors.
- grey-area 7y ago
  I'm not sure why this is downvoted, as it is correct. https://apnews.com/c90b24e60a4853cebe96ec995b626f9b https://apnews.com/c90b24e60a4853cebe96ec995b626f9b
- danhak 7y ago
  Yes, he wanted to dodge responsibility for the unpleasant job of shutting things down. Now he wants to enjoy positive publicity for opening things back up.
  - RandomTisk 7y ago
    He wanted to shut down travel from China in January, something he got reamed for politically by the media and the left. Damned if you do and all that.
    - danhak 7y ago
      I'm not able to find examples of that. Can you point to any mainstream media outlets "reaming" him over that decision?
      - Thorondor 7y ago
        Not the person you're replying to, but here are a few examples. CNN: "Experts say travel restrictions the Trump administration put in place to stop the novel coronavirus from spreading could have unintended consequences that undermine that effort." (https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/health/coronavirus-travel-ban/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/07/health/coronavirus-travel-ban...) The Atlantic: "Guiding Trump’s response is a hardheaded nationalism... Critics from WHO and elsewhere have said the bans are unnecessary and could generate a racist backlash against Chinese people." (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/trump-response-coronavirus/606610/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/trump-r...)
a3n 7y ago
I think what's probably more relevant is the chaos of trying to get aid from the federal government, combined with Trump and Kushner's declaration that any national stockpile is for the federal government, not the states, even though nobody lives in the federal government, we all live in states or similar entities. I think they flipped the fuckit bit.

Doctor_Fegg 7y ago

Floreat Cascadia!

klodolph 7y ago
Not to be pedantic or anything but Cascadia definitely doesn’t include California. Nuh-uh, no way José, no siree.
- domingobingo 7y ago
  It’s the economic core of Cascadia. It’s a necessary thing.
  - klodolph 7y ago
    Kind of like saying that the US is the “economic core” of Canada.
    - domingobingo 6y ago
      How do you figure?
- bredren 7y ago
  Since Cascadia does not exist, compromise to include northern California is possible. The proposed Pacific State Jefferson would likely join a successful independent Cascadia if only to have easier succession to its own state down the line. Regardless, this can be seen as a shot in the arm toward Casacadia because it is a demonstration of cross-state regional cooperation that would be necessary to further an independence movement.
- zw123456 7y ago
  Ya but I feel that California, Oregon and Washington are bound but many unique and common cultural ideals. Tech, ecology, etc. I live in Seattle and there is a lot of fun rivalry but if I didn't live here it would be Bay area, Portland, San Diego, LA, etc. The West Coast has a special culture in my view.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

zw123456 7y ago

http://nationofpacifica.com/ http://nationofpacifica.com/

themodelplumber 7y ago

Yes. I love this from an executive-action standpoint. They are _doing_ something about something, in the face of a lot of fearful messaging. And that gives the rest of us an even better "emotional/energy vector" which is based on a promise of government support and action in support of business. We are participants in the most creative and powerful world economy of all time. Regardless of geographical location, cultures are generally more unified and geared toward working together than ever. Markets have shown an impressive amount of resilience in the face of unprecedented fear messaging. People are ready to work hard; in fact they're wearing themselves out by working harder than they have before in many cases. This is exactly the kind of action we need right now.

0x8BADF00D 7y ago
Delusional take. The petrodollar system is collapsing. USD will not be the reserve currency for much longer.
- themodelplumber 7y ago
  So you have this information and see only downsides? I'm curious if this is a perception-only exercise for you, or if you are taking steps to execute on that perception in a way that helps you and others prepare and pivot as needed. Or do you really see literally endless downside, and have thus decided to lock yourself out of actions you can take now to prepare for future upsides? If so that would suck, because this could line up an epic self-fulfilling prophecy on a personal level. Still, a lot of people do that, and regret it later. They may get a few prophet points here and there, but that's it. Now is the perfect time to take risks on a wide variety of factors, including those I mentioned above. But if you are only primed to foresee disaster, you probably can't do that. The comment seems to point at a low level of risk tolerance.
  - 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
    If my hypothesis is correct, I have unlimited upside. It's hard being bearish in any market, but now's the best time to be one. Across many asset classes. Probably not stocks, because the Fed will continue to inflate those assets. But in real terms they will drop. GC >= 1800 EOM, CL <=20 EOW, SI >= 16.5 within 2 weeks are my predictions.

mullingitover 7y ago

This is great, and it's a big chunk of population, but I keep feeling like we could do better. For example, these three States could do a great job, but there's nothing stopping a bunch of the other States from bungling it (like, say, ignoring health experts and exempting certain groups from mass gathering restrictions). Then those States end up exporting infectious individuals into the States which are doing things right, and creating more clusters. If only we had some sort of united group of all the States, where the response could be coordinated and centralized for maximum effectiveness.

davidw 7y ago
"Like having a pool with a 'peeing section'" is how I've read this piecemeal approach described.
- imustbeevil 7y ago
  I imagine it more like 3 people standing in the furthest corner from the person peeing because the lifeguard isn't enforcing any rules except "no one can leave the pool".
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  Well when our federal government basically screws the pooch it's up to individual states to work together to limit the spread. And since most of the state governments seem to not really care about the health of their citizens, it makes sense that there would be small groups of states that do. Honestly I assumed that if the outbreak got really bad the PNW would eventually secede from the union because the federal government wasn't providing much aid. But this is a lot better than that.
- techopoly 7y ago
  Or a restaurant with a smoking section. Right next to the non-smoking section.
- cactus2093 7y ago
  Yours is obviously just an analogy and I'm not making claims as far as the underlying argument, but we did used to have smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants, airplanes, etc. Clearly that was reasonable enough to people to be the way things were done for a few decades. Sometimes an 80% solution that seems almost comically flawed ends up being useful.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

As someone who lives in one of these states, I'm nonplussed at the announcement. It doesn't really seem to say anything concrete that I can tell. "We've agreed that we will use metrics...we are still deciding what these metrics will be." I thought the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order (in Washington state) wasn't unreasonable and wasn't just political babble, but I don't really know what to make of this piece. Anyone want to try to explain it like I'm five?

kylemh 7y ago
I think you're correct, but the announcement is still welcome. People are gonna be waiting forever for any semblance of federal guidance, so at least these 3 states has decided they'll make calls together.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  In this case, I would be vastly more comfortable if the answer were "No, Doreen, you really are as dumb as you think. Their plan is 1... 2.... 3...." The US governmental system has a long history of injecting bureaucratic nonsense that takes on a life of its own and ends up with outcomes like "teaching to the test" instead of being a net benefit. I would feel differently if this were an announcement of a joint task force for sharing data to help each state make the best decisions possible. But this sounds to me like it will just make it harder for each state to make a decision on their own and that it probably doesn't really add any value. And that concerns me.
  - wahern 7y ago
    Yeah, this falls far short of what these states should be saying, something like "We're feverishly working on building out the infrastructure for wide-scale population testing and tracing, but we will not lift shelter-in-place until we're confident the infrastructure is in place in all three states to contain any outbreaks". I have the same beef with Mayor Breed in San Francisco, who has otherwise shown standout leadership. She's publicly worried that people will let their guard done by assuming things are under control. Rather than worry about people's feelings and opinions, she should be setting expectations exactly as I described above.

nerfhammer 7y ago

Meanwhile, 7 northeastern states are forming a "multi-state council"

jcranmer 7y ago

Also relevant is that the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware made a similar pact today. Edit: Massachusetts has also joined this pact as well (I thought it was surprising that it hadn't when I first read the news).

aioprisan 7y ago
MA joined in as well on that pact
yingw787 7y ago
No Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts? I would think at least Massachusetts would want in.
- gnulinux 7y ago
  MA joined the pact as well, now.
elliekelly 7y ago
Governor Baker is a Republican and Trump is big on “loyalty” and deference. Since the pact is a way for the Governors to collectively let Trump know who will actually be “restarting” the states I would guess the short delay in Massachusetts joining was so Baker could sort out the politics ahead of time with DC.
- jcranmer 7y ago
  Baker (and Hogan, for that matter) are very popular Republican governors in pretty deep blue states. They haven't been big on kissing Trump's ass, both before and during this crisis.
  - elliekelly 7y ago
    Yes, I’m about as liberal as they come and I voted for Baker in the last election. Being well-liked on both sides of the aisle doesn’t happen by accident. Baker puts in considerable planning and effort to make that happen.

new_time 7y ago

I love the United States' flexible decentralized model. Different states have sufficient autonomy to tinker and try different approaches, allowing the best ideas to emerge from the collective. It's one reason why the US is such a dynamic place, similar to Europe but with the additional benefit of unified language, culture (broadly), economy, and high level regulations. It's truly a great system.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
wahern 7y ago
It's not necessarily as flexible as to encompass such sub-federal cooperation: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause_3:_Compact_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_One_of_the_United_Stat... I'm curious if these recently announced state pacts will be challenged in court. But legal or illegal, it doesn't excuse the poor job of federal management.
- codys 7y ago
  Yes, I'm curious about the way they're intending to handling this legally as well. A bit of searching shows a Supreme Court case Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U.S. 503 (1893) [1]. This restricts the application of that clause somewhat, but it isn't 100% clear to me that this Pact is a perfect match for the facts in that case. It also sounds like [2] things are rather flexible in what approval is and when it is obtained. It's plausible that they expect to ask for approval, or rely on it being unlikely that congress explicitly disapproves, or perhaps they expect to obtain approval in the future. [note: I've linked to a point in the opinion discussing Congressional approval] 1: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10388199763957366456&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr#p519 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=103881997639573... 2: https://www.gsgp.org/media/1313/understanding_interstate_compacts-csgncic.pdf https://www.gsgp.org/media/1313/understanding_interstate_com...

yingw787 7y ago

Well, that was quick. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22828354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22828354 Today it is pandemic resolution. I fear that tomorrow, it might be economic ties, lockstep voting at the federal level, and National Guard drills, deployments, and contingency planning, where the West Coast slowly splits away from the rest of the country, with other states teaming up and following suit. This isn't the end, and it's the only appropriate response to a federal government that cannot or will not execute on behalf of all states. It is, however, a reflection of the true state of our Union, and a sign of things to come if we don't reconcile our national identity. I'm saddened, but not surprised, that a step like this was necessary given the circumstances.

spankalee 7y ago
> I fear that tomorrow Why fear? This is my dream! The Senate is irreparably broken. There is no conceivable way that it can become more fairly representative of the people without a breakup of the United States. The smaller less populous states aren't going to just give up their outsized power voluntarily. California is suffering the most due to the Senate's structural unfairness, and it has the most to gain from succession. I hope it happens in my lifetime.
- yingw787 7y ago
  Dude...if we're talking about secession, we're talking about civil war. In a country with the second most nuclear weapons in the world. With a federal government already looking to adversaries for cooperation. You're talking nuclear missiles or chemical weapons fired against San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Seattle from land-based silos in the Dakotas, or mutinies aboard our SSBNs, or Russian troops landing en masse in South Carolina to offer foreign assistance. It will mean the Balkanization of the country, where California has to station permanent garrisons in the Sierra Nevada mountains to ward off invasions from Texas or Mexico. You're not talking about a 40% drop in GDP this quarter, you're talking about famine and starvation, and complete international irrelevance after the dust settles. If only tens of millions of Americans die, that probably counts as a win. "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

wahern 7y ago

If wonder if Barr will sue, arguing that the pact violates the Interstate Compact Clause, especially considering that Trump has recently tweeted that only he gets to decide when to lift restrictions.

jameslevy 7y ago
I hope he does, and in the process both increases his ownership of this fiasco and dispels any notions that his party still has any real support for "States' rights".
mullen 7y ago
The Interstate Compact Clause is not handled by the President, but Congress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_compact When Trump threaten to "shutdown" travel between the North East States, people had to tell him that he did not have the authority to do that.

bjt2n3904 7y ago

> Health outcomes and science – not politics – will guide these decisions. And I definitely promise you that my news organization will have no bias or slant, and will only report facts.

jokit 7y ago

Since CA has done nothing but cultivate disease for years now, I'm guessing this another one of those Orwellian names like "Patriot Act", or "No Child Left Behind, or whatever, that achieves the opposite of what is claimed.

jedberg 7y ago

I’m surprised they didn’t include Nevada given how much of California’s population travels to Nevada.

dahdum 7y ago

Stay at home is doing enormous economic damage, which indirectly will cause more deaths through decimated budgets of social and health programs. Especially in CA where high progressive taxation amplifies the impact of recessions. So there's a lot of pressure to reopen but no political cover to do so. I think the entire point of this pact is to provide that cover.

theferalrobot 7y ago
Right on the nose. Even when reopening is clearly the right thing to do nobody will want to personally take the fall. It's the reason the US has a high incarceration rate, nobody wants to be the one to release a ton of people from jail even if it's the right thing to do.
triceratops 7y ago
> which indirectly will cause more deaths through decimated budgets of social and health programs. Do you have any actual data for this?
- dahdum 7y ago
  Unless you're arguing the budgets won't be cut or frozen, the data is the success metrics of those programs.
  - triceratops 7y ago
    You're saying that cutting (meaning reducing, not zeroing) budgets of social and health programs can kill up to 0.5% of the entire population of a state? Because that's the CFR of the virus. You're aware that even programs on reduced budgets can offer a reduced set of services, and prioritize the ones with most impact? (i.e. most lifesaving potential). And that their work will be far easier if there are fewer total sick people in the system? Have you balanced the effects of that versus letting the virus run amok so that the tax receipts aren't impacted? That's why I'm asking for numbers. Otherwise "a bad economy will kill more people" is a fuzzy assertion that sounds "cool" and "contrarian" but has no actual substance. Here are my numbers btw: "Our finding that all-cause mortality decreased during the Great Recession is consistent with previous studies. Some categories of cause-specific mortality, notably cardiovascular disease, also follow this pattern, and are more pronounced for certain gender and age groups. Our study also suggests that the recent recession contributed to the growth in deaths from overdoses of prescription drugs in working-age adults in metropolitan areas. Additional research investigating the mechanisms underlying the health consequences of macroeconomic conditions is warranted."[1] In the last big recession, deaths due to certain causes went up but overall mortality decreased. So what you're saying definitively did not happen in the only other comparable situation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28772108 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28772108

supernova87a 7y ago

Regardless of how sad a situation this reflects, I regard it at least as a positive sign of some resilience of our federal structure. Criticize the state/federal model though you might for how it sometimes dilutes the ability to get things done in a unified way, at least in times of national or federal-level dysfunction, the people who can step in locally to provide some guidance and coordination are able to do so, and not actually be stymied or prevented from doing so by some authoritarian framework. Imagine instead if we lived in a country with more organized / powerful central control, but was both authoritative and incompetent. We would be really fucked.

ambivalents 7y ago

Naive question: how is this better than each of these states doing its own thing (even if those things end up looking similar)? What does California gain by teaming up with WA and OR, for example?

kevingadd 7y ago
Better coordination between the states helps reduce chaos at the borders between the states. If OR opens a week before WA the people living near the border will be in a weird limbo, especially if they need to cross the border for work etc.
alkonaut 7y ago
Look at the Netherlands and Belgium screaming at each other and threatening to close borders because one felt the other had too little restrictions. Let’s just say it’s very much bad for your neighborhood of states to have that kind of situation. Closing borders or having diplomatic disasters isn’t worth it. It’s better to reach a common decision.
- rlt 7y ago
  I'd rather everyone close their borders for now (except for cargo and essential travel, with testing/quarantine) and countries/states/regions respond however they see fit for their own populations. The regions with the best responses can be examples for the others to follow.

whatsmyusername 7y ago

They should do a shared healthcare system as well. The future is states working together on their own thing, while letting chudland sink further into poverty.

Nuzzerino 7y ago

From article 1, section 10 of the U.S. Constitution: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." This scares me a bit. This agreement seems innocuous at first, but the constitution expressly forbids these (and all) kinds of agreements between states for a reason. A small pact like this today could tomorrow become leverage for secessionism or otherwise a power struggle with the federal government.

kevingadd 7y ago
"State" in that context clearly refers to foreign nations (states) not states as in The United States Of America. Foreign power is distinct because it would refer to things like governments-in-exile or perhaps resistance groups.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- whichquestion 7y ago
  > No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. It seems to me that it states “with another State”, as in a capital S State or a member State of the United States. Then explicitly calls out as another option, “or with a foreign power”. Furthermore, the title of Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution is “Powers Prohibited of States”.
- rlt 7y ago
  Why would they use two different meanings of "State" (capitalized, no less) in the same sentence?
- Fjolsvith 7y ago
  Then why would the constitution forbid a foreign nation (state) from entering into an agreement with another foreign power?

nostromo 7y ago

> We need to see a decline in the rate of spread of the virus before large-scale reopening, and we will be working in coordination to identify the best metrics to guide this. What's the end game here? If you slow the spread, and then reopen, it'll spread again. Nothing will have changed, you'll just have delayed it a bit.

oliv__ 7y ago
Just let everyone get it. Problem solved.
- triceratops 7y ago
  Yes, that is the end goal. It's the timeline over which everyone gets it that matters.
kevingadd 7y ago
If you read the announcement: > Ensuring an ability to care for those who may become sick with COVID-19 and other conditions. This will require adequate hospital surge capacity and supplies of personal protective equipment. Delaying it is the point, it ensures we have enough hospital capacity and PPE to handle the inevitable burst of cases when reopening. This is what people mean when they say "flatten the curve". If we simply open whenever and aren't prepared we'll have a massive spike in cases that exceeds hospital capacity, vs the current situation where the case growth is slower and hospitals are less burdened.
- nostromo 7y ago
  At the current rate of infection that plan will require many years of quarantine. We need more people exposed, not fewer.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    That assumes no investment in upgrading our hospital capacity and testing & PPE production. At one end of the spectrum you have (mythically) infinite hospital capacity and staffing, testing capacity, and contact tracing ability. In that world, you reopen everything, and let people go about their lives. At current capacity, we need to slow things down. If we can increase capacity enough in the coming weeks and months, we'll need to slow things down much less.

TheGrim-888 7y ago

This comment thread is one long chain of "the federal government has failed us", "Trump has failed us", etc. Can one of you actually provide some rationale for why you think that? Do you just have no context on the State/Fed divide? Do you think that because everybody else is saying that, or because mass media is saying that, but don't actually have any facts to back it up? Seriously, what do you expect Trump to do? What would you have him do? He didn't sneak into CDC labs and botch the first round of tests. He can't just snap his fingers and will millions of pounds of PPE into existence, he's not even the person actually coordinating any of this stuff and trying to get things done, he's just a figurehead. If Trump did try to go to any greater lengths, the House would just scream that he was abusing his powers and try to Impeach him again. Please explain your reasoning, I'm getting so tired of it, I'm convinced it's just partisan-driven mass hysteria combined with mass propaganda at this point. Don't like me to opinion pieces of somebody giving their opinion about how horrible Trump is. Link me to data, and tell me facts about what you would want him to do differently.

redis_mlc 7y ago

> Protecting the general public by ensuring any successful lifting of interventions includes the development of a system for testing, tracking and isolating. The states will work together to share best practices. If there is a reasonable expectation of that happening in the next couple of weeks, then ok. If this is just "hope", then we should end the lockdown and let the flu run its course, like every year. The overall mortality rate is about 2%, which may be unavoidable in the US even with social distancing, since I don't see any way for the US to emulate S. Korea's testing and tracing success. Does anybody have any logical reason for thinking that the US can copy S. Korea? Does the US have any way to do up to 600 million tests per week and see the result in an hour?

mulmen 7y ago
Why would we need to test everyone twice a week?

brewdad 7y ago

So we're going to need a new name for this future sovereignty. Sierra Cascadia? New Pacifica?

ummwhat 7y ago
California and Cascadia Republic. Put a tree on the bear flag and call it a day.
- runarberg 7y ago
  Something like this? https://imgur.com/a/tEkyAXt https://imgur.com/a/tEkyAXt

iloveyouocean 7y ago

Waiting for the announcement of the formation of the 'Confederacy of Southern States' (I don't believe for a moment that Trump and the Republicans would hesitate to seize the opportunity and claim that it's simply 'parity'). In these times of hyper-partisanship, in the midst of a global pandemic, on the tip of a great recession or depression with untold economic hardship; I shudder at the potential for what politically aligned states banding together could lead to. I hope I am overreacting, but my parameters for what I used to consider normal and possible have been shifted significantly and there seems to have formed a great open space of terrible possibility to be filled.

tmh79 7y ago
in the current moment, the "confederacy of southern states" is the federal government. I do not expect to see them different from a federal response due to their loyalty to trump.
sketchyj 7y ago
What about this inspired you to compare it to the civil war? Seems hyperbolic given states cooperate in similar ways all the time. It makes sense for bordering states to be on the same page here, especially given the erratic behavior exhibited by federal officials who will remain nameless.

maerF0x0 7y ago

I have yet to see a cogent validation of the total lives saved by lockdown when considering all other health impacts such as suicide rates from isolation, heart disease/stroke/diabetes from extra sedentary lifestyle etc. not to mention the suicide by fentanyl in a subsequent economic recession/depression. Any aware of such an analysis?

kelnos 7y ago
I'm generally worried about this sort of thing as well, and wish people were looking into this. However, we have pretty good estimates on how many people will die if we don't shelter and isolate, and I think that trumps what would inevitably be some very vague guesses as to how many people might die as side effects of sheltering and isolation. And regardless, many of those potential deaths could be preventable with the right focus on mental health and financial support during and after the lockdown. (Not saying we do have the right focus; I expect we definitely don't. But that's not a reason to give up on isolation.)
- maerF0x0 7y ago
  > we have pretty good estimates on how many people will die if we don't shelter and isolate This is a fantastic point/rebuttal and has helped shift my perspective somewhat. We can do things about tomorrow's suicides, heart attacks and diabetes later, though not too too much later.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    Right, I think it's a "one thing at a time" sort of situation. Like: we have a clear problem with a potential solution that will mitigate the problem immediately. That solution may create other problems, but we do have some time (though, as you suggest, not a lot) to try to fix that up after dealing with the first problem.
palmtree3000 7y ago
Here's one: https://www.pandemiceconomist.com/2020/04/costs-and-benefits-of-government.html https://www.pandemiceconomist.com/2020/04/costs-and-benefits... TL;DR (copied directly from the post): With these values, if a lockdown of two years or less will stop the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a good idea. With the current research into treatments and vaccines and the development of testing and tracing strategies, I believe that there will be a medical or public health way to stop the pandemic in less than two years. Notably, the net benefit of a decision to initiate or sustain lockdown goes up over time, because the time remaining until medical countermeasures are available keeps going down.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

andresramon60 7y ago

WEBSPYCODE computer security services Do you need a qualified and honest HACKER for hire? im giving this big chance sincerely to anyone who needs any hacking service . they specializes in this areas most e.g. Spy on your spouse or partner Mobile Hacking, remotely, tracking location, secure balance top up of creditcard or debitcard,Social Media Hack, School grades changing, credit scores, Clearing of criminal records, Password sniffing, Bitcoin wallet recover, contact them via webspycode@gmail. com or Whatsapp and text +1 740 212 1250.

jMyles 7y ago

I'm in Oregon. My first read: CTRL-F for "test" to see if there's any new statement on serological testing. Nothing. This is all we want right now. This is the first priority, and whatever is second is somewhat distant. Not having widespread serological testing to understand the prevalence in our communities really gives a feeling of being in a third-world country. It's awesome that Drs. Bhattacharya and Bendavid have pushed the Stanford study forward (hopefully we have results this week). But seriously, there's no excuse for not having already done a round of random testing in every city, several times.

alkonaut 7y ago
Serological testing is really bleeding edge still. It’s only done as part of research projects as far as I heard, and you can’t really buy the capacity to do it on an industrial scale yet. Perhaps this varies between countries (where manufacturers exist and so on) but many countries in Europe still have few or no serological tests done, and we are weeks ahead of the US in terms of the epidemic progress.
- jMyles 7y ago
  Yeah, that's the point right there. Why the heck is this so bleeding edge? A small team at Stanford made it happen rather quickly. With a small budget. And yet our leaders aren't even talking about it. Where's the will to do this obvious first priority?

seemslegit 7y ago

Some historians go as early as 2020 and see the "Western States Pact" as the first establishing document for the Pacific Union and the beginning of the unraveling of the USA. Nt Rly though.

sandworm101 7y ago

In my area (Vancouver Island, just north of this "pact") we are seeing something very odd. People are going out. Families are having BBQs in local parks. Restaurants aren't letting people dine in, but the grocery stores are operating essentially normally. I'm near the water and am seeing kayaks and boats out like any normal weekend. Vacation properties are in use. RV parks have customers. I see groups of old people chatting on the street like normal. I think we are on a tipping point. Government directive or no, people are coming out of isolation. I don't think the local authorities have much choice at this point. Either they make some clear changes and/or issue timetables, or they risk loosing any control. These are Canadians, a people with national healthcare and a general respect for government authority. When this attitude hits America, a country that prides itself on individualism, things may move from lockdown to "what lockdown?" in a matter of days.

alkonaut 7y ago
Because people realize that kayaking isn’t a risk so why would they avoid it? This is why no restrictions should be imposed that don’t have a very clear and obvious effect. If that means they must rely on people’s ability to do the right thing (e.g not take the bus to go kayaking, not go places where it’s crowded) then so be it. It’s better to have a sustainable and accepted lockdown that is 95% water tight, than an unsustainable and less accepted lockdown. Otherwise, as you say, once people stop accepting the lockdowns anyway.
- robocat 7y ago
  New Zealand has banned any sports where someone could require emergency services: so no sea sports, no mountain sports, no hunting etc. This is in addition to other restrictions. Everybody is too busy to help, and helping rescue others puts the rescuers at risk of Covid.
- sandworm101 7y ago
  We are told not to travel unless necessary. Kayaking is never necessary. The Canadian military, the people responsible for search and rescue over HUGE areas, are themselves locked into extraordinary isolation measures. Many are living far from loved ones specifically to maintain operational readiness for real national emergencies. They aren't going to be very happy if they have to break isolation to rescue a kayak party too bored to stay home when asked so to do by their government.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jeffdavis 7y ago

I'm a little disturbed that I feel like the country has been tearing apart for a while. There is a major political bifurcation, and now pacts between states. Right now the pacts are for the pandemic, but what else might these coalitions be used for in the future? I'm not saying that they'll be used for some nafarious purpose, but the fact that they are like-minded politically makes it more likely to deepen the divides.

atomi 7y ago
Because, Conservatives have completely lost their minds. If they want to commit to a suicide run to try and sustain the market then competent states have the imperative to not follow them into the abyss. You have to remember, each state is tasked with the welfare of their citizenry, not the furtherance of the political ambitions of a federal administrator.
- jeffdavis 6y ago
  I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying "good riddance, let's just split the country in a few pieces and get it over with"? Or do you see some path toward unifying the two factions again? I guess you could reasonably say that groups with different political allegiances should just split up. But what's weird about that to me is it's basically like the states' rights platform, sans Constitution.