34 ms·

The San Francisco Bay Area shelter-in-place order is being extended through May

349 points by tdhoot 6y ago

j79 6y ago
I told my wife that I've come assumed shelter-in-place IS in place until a vaccine has been developed. Either that, or herd immunity is to a point where going outside isn't a game of Russian roulette.
- jaywalk 6y ago
  Not a chance that will be the case.
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  The Bay area is not setting up the area for herd immunity -- there are only a hundred cases a day, so it would take many decades to get herd immunity (effectively never, given births and gradual loss of immunity).
  - brianwawok 6y ago
    100 reported cases. There could be anywhere from 5-100x that amount. Lots of people without or with very mild symptoms. Very hard to know without 10-100x the tests we are doing.
- glofish 6y ago
  it is a game of Russian roulette where there is one bullet per 100K empty chambers.
- skellington 6y ago
  As usual, American leaders are choosing OPTION 3 which is the worst option: OPTION 1. (SWEDEN) Control spread just enough to not overwhelm the health care system, but no more than that, in order to get to herd immunity as quickly as possible. This assumes that the area-under-the-curve will be very similar to any option that spreads the time-frame out. This level of lockdown is possible to implement for long periods of time because its impact on regular life is relatively moderate and it doesn't require extreme testing availability or extreme population compliance. OPTION 2. (S KOREA) Control with aggressive contact tracing in order to attempt to eradicate or outlive COVID. This assumes that COVID can be controlled and that doing so will ultimately reduce the area-under-the-curve (because if it didn't, spreading the time-frame out would be pointless). This level of lockdown is possible to implement for long periods of time because its impact on regular life is relatively moderate but it does require extreme testing availability and very high population compliance. We don't yet know what the full impact of 1 vs 2 will be because of externalities that are hard to model, but both seem like legitimate approaches. OPTION 3. (USA) Control spread aggressively so herd immunity won't be reached for a very long time, do this using a shelter-in-place model that will destroy the economy so you'll be forced to abandon it at some point, have no post shelter-in-place plan so resurgence is practically guaranteed since the goal isn't herd immunity nor aggressive contact tracing. Option 3 is the most destructive, so let's choose that one.
  - Skunkleton 6y ago
    We already missed the boat on options 1 and 2 due to various governmental incompetencies. Did you not notice that a full third of all cases globally have been in America?
    - kvetching 6y ago
      That just means that US has the most advanced testing regime.
      - JustResign 6y ago
        You wrote this with a straight face? Or this is a Trump quote?
    - landryraccoon 6y ago
      Cases is a very poor metric for this because a country that does zero tests will have zero cases, and therefore look very good. Total deaths IMHO is much more comparable statistic between countries. By that metric it looks a little better for the US, since we have slightly less than a third of the world death total.
      - dwaltrip 6y ago
        For a better comparison, I think you need to look at deaths per capita. The US is somewhere in the middle of the pack on this metric.
        Skunkleton 6y ago
        That doesn’t capture what’s important. There are plenty of places that could probably have never closed and not had any real spike in infections. It’s places where people live densely that are at the greatest risk. The Bay Area in particular probably isn’t at the top of that list, but it is still a higher risk area. Really we just need more testing, and randomized testing. I think we would all be able to move forward more intelligently if we had data.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
I'm lucky enough to have remote work. And I'm sure many HNers have a nice buffer of savings from their tech jobs to weather the storm or are getting paid time off. But can anyone share what it's like to not be in either of these situations? How are your rent lords handling things? I live abroad in a cheap country so I can handle zero income, but I wouldn't be able to last long if rent was $2000+/mo instead of the <$200/mo I currently pay. Yet when I read Redditors talk about quarantine, you'd think everyone in the world was getting paid time off to play Animal Crossing at home or they live at mom's house rent-free. And it seems like it's this crowd that's likely to be pushing for staying in lockdown with no end in sight.
- hysan 6y ago
  It's scary. I was laid-off this month due to COVID-19. Luckily, I am getting paid for one more month because of the WARN Act. I've been looking, but it has been difficult since I'm competing with all the more senior co-workers and peers who were also laid-off. So how is my budget? * I know that there will be a time gap between being able to apply for unemployment and receiving it. The unemployment systems in the US are still overwhelmed. * Since my wife is on my health insurance plan, COBRA is going to be very expensive. * We moved recently for my job, so a lot of the savings we had are already gone. We have some runway, but no where near enough to feel safe. We are one of those edge cases where we took a risk, it paid off and life was great, but it didn't last long enough for us save up again so things are looking grim. So finally... > Yet when I read Redditors talk about quarantine, you'd think everyone in the world was getting paid time off to play Animal Crossing at home or they live at mom's house rent-free. And it seems like it's this crowd that's likely to be pushing for staying in lockdown with no end in sight. We both still are 100% for maintaining the quarantine. No we are not living some relaxing lifestyle at home. I've been quite stressed out. However, I also know that I would never forgive myself if I contributed to breaking quarantine early and that caused a chain reaction of hospitals to be overrun again and leading to my parents, a relative, or an old friend to die because they could not get the proper treatment. There is a lot I want to rant about, but rather than that, I would like to leave these thoughts: Stop thinking of the solution as being so black and white. Lifting the quarantine isn't the only way to help everyone who has been impacted. For example, why not have the same government bodies that enacted the quarantine do something just as drastic to save those who were impacted? What other solutions are out there? Also, if lifting the quarantine leads to more deaths, then remember that there is an economic impact there too. Have you ever paid for a funeral? I have and at a young age too. It burned a hole in my savings. That set me back several years in saving and investing in myself. Imagine doing the same to the generation of young adults whose parents are in the risk factor group. Far too many of the comments I read, even on HN, are seeing things only through the lens of what politicians say. Outside of compiling raw statistics, I've seen very little independent thought on how to solve the current problems in society.
killion 6y ago
We are down 50% from the peak of Covid deaths in California. It seems likely we will have one or more days of zero Covid deaths before the end of May. That is the measure I assume they are going for at this point. Source: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/california https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/cali...
- vanniv 6y ago
  California has no intent to ever end the lockdowns. On February 26th, 2077, the Mayor of San Francisco and the Governor of California will sign an extension of the temporary emergency lockdown until "at least April 1st"
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    This is such a silly position.
    - vanniv 6y ago
      Watch Newsom's press conference yesterday. He said that he won't ever release the lockdown, no matter what people say or do.
- cactus2093 6y ago
  This is untrue. We may have plateaued but we haven't yet seen a significant drop from the peak yet. 4 days ago there were 115 deaths, then 93 the next day, then 89 the next, that's as high as the peak you're referring to. Source - daily department of health releases https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OPA/Pages/New-Release-2020.aspx https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OPA/Pages/New-Release-2020.... The drop you are inferring from your graph appears to be a be a reflection of a noisy data set, and the graph is a week out of date.
  - bengebre 6y ago
    Yeah that's definitely a day-of-week/reporting dump effect making that spike. The 7 day rolling data for deaths shows CA is only 6% below the most recent peak: https://www.deptofnumbers.com/covid19/california/#deaths https://www.deptofnumbers.com/covid19/california/#deaths nb: that's my site
marcell 6y ago
Blanket lockdown has to end. This policy has outlived its usefulness, and is harming people's quality of life without a clear goal. The initial premise of the "flatten the curve" memes was to avoid overwhelming hospitals. The shelter-in-place has not only had this effect, it's been too effective. Hospital utilization in the bay area is at around 10% when you count surge capacity that has been added [1]. Meanwhile, data is coming out to show that coronavirus has a very low fatality risk to anyone under the age of 50, and to anyone without pre-existing health conditions. A blanket shutdown does not make any sense when the vulnerable demographic has been clearly identified. How is it moral to order people to shelter in place when their risk of death is around 0.01% for 18-45 year olds. Blanket lockdown doesn't make sense anymore. There is no risk posed to the majority of the population from covid-19. We need to switch to targeted approach, and let people get back to their lives. Our political leaders (in California) are being fearful, afraid to take leadership and base their decisions on data. [1] https://www.smchealth.org/post/san-mateo-county-covid-19-data-1 https://www.smchealth.org/post/san-mateo-county-covid-19-dat... [2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page#download https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page#downl... and https://www.6sqft.com/new-york-covid-antibody-test-preliminary-results/ https://www.6sqft.com/new-york-covid-antibody-test-prelimina...
- gotoeleven 6y ago
  Hopefully this will be the impetus we need to finally start living underground like mole people.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    How well do we know mole viruses?
- anorphirith 6y ago
  Agreed, these are simply political moves
- jamroom 6y ago
  Our society includes people who are over 50 - how do ensure that YOU do not transmit coronavirus to them if you are under 50 and asymptomatic? I know a lot of people are pretty upset but it's not just about YOU. It's about everyone you come in contact with.
microdrum 6y ago
Absurd. This is illogical. Expect this now to be challenged in court.
killion 6y ago
I just noticed that it’s 75 days between March 17 and May 31. Wuhan’s lockdown was 76 days long.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  The Wuhan lockdown was also far more strict.
  - suyash 6y ago
    Wuhan was also the biggest epicenter in China and that is where it originated with lot more cases than in the Bay Area.
  - dpau 6y ago
    And measures were not limited to Wuhan. By the time restrictions were lifted in Wuhan, the Chinese government had implemented quarantines, surveillance, contact tracing and testing procedures throughout the entire country. While here in the US we have a hodge-podge of approaches from each state with varying success, and no restriction of movement. Not saying we should adopt authoritarian policies, but we'll only have the virus under control when every US state has it under control.
Uhhrrr 6y ago
San Francisco has only had 18 COVID-19 deaths in the last 30 days, and only 2 in the last week. [0] That seems amazingly low to me. I'm leaning towards thinking non-essential businesses should be opened up there, provided they function under the same restrictions as grocery stores etc. [0] https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/blob/master/csse_covid_19_data/csse_covid_19_time_series/time_series_covid19_deaths_US.csv https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/blob/master/csse_...
- wpietri 6y ago
  You could argue it the other way from the same data. Given that public health officials jumped on it early and got us such a low death rate, maybe we should keep trusting their judgment and let them decide when it's safe to reopen.
  - kvetching 6y ago
    That's insane. If they're hesitant to open up now, they will never feel comfortable opening up.
    - wpietri 6y ago
      Or perhaps they know more about the topic than we random HN readers and have a plan that they're following.
      - adingus 6y ago
        If that is the case then they could communicate that plan a little better. At the end of the day it's their fault if people don't understand why they are taking the actions they are.
        anigbrowl 6y ago
        I take you're listening to the daily state briefings and similar county press conferences. I have not been having a problem understanding them.
KorematsuFred 6y ago
This is absolute nuts. There is no data that is being provided for such heavy handed measures. Virus can kill but that does not mean we should hide indoors for foreseeable future.
forrestthewoods 6y ago
Serious question: if restrictions aren’t lifted now then will they be? What will be meaningfully different June 1st rather than May 1st? Is it shelter-in-place until we get more testing? Or the AppleGoogle contact tracing? Or is it shelter-in-place until a vaccine... in 18 months? What are the conditions required to start slowly relaxing the shutdown? Edit: I don’t understand the downvotes. I haven’t left my home for two full months. I started preparing for the worst in early February. There are many options in between “full lockdown” and “fully open”. We won’t be in full lockdown for 18 months. So, what are the requirements to start slowly lifting.
- jupp0r 6y ago
  Here are the conditions for lifting the CA stay at home orders: https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/California-Roadmap-to-Modify-the-Stay-at-Home-Order.pdf https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/California... It basically comes down to being able to contain disease spread by contact tracing and testing.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    The recently stated goal is to decay to 1 infection per million residents so that robust contact tracing works. Back of the envelope math puts that between 6 and 18 months of continued progress of the health order to get it to this level. (60 or so in Santa Clara County ICU == ~6000 infections. ICU occupancy decaying by 40% per month; 0.6^15 months * 6000 = ~3 ) If you look at hospital admissions, instead, it's a bit less than a 40% decay per week. So we get something more like 5-6 months. I don't see either of these as plausible. And even if we have lowered Rt to this point of decay for most subpopulations, I'm better there's a few where it's higher and that will eventually shallow out the decline. Not to mention the risks from areas with lower controls. The IMHE model is very influential, but it has been forecasting an unrealistically quick decline in cases that has encouraged public health officials to seriously consider trying to get to this minimal level of cases.
    - icelancer 6y ago
cs702 6y ago
If many people get very sick simultaneously, they would not only overwhelm hospitals, they would also inflict a disorderly, involuntary shutdown of large swaths of the economy, driven by fear -- instead of the orderly, voluntary shutdown we have at present, driven by government mandate. We all want to avoid that.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  On the flip side, NYC just showed us they can suffer through 20% of the population becoming infected at about the same time without their hospitals utterly collapsing. There is probably some happy medium somewhere. For certain, flattening the curve so much that there are just a few new infections every week is not how we end the lock down.
  - mrfusion 6y ago
    It’s up to 25% with the latest study. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/cuomo-outlines-reopening-roadmap-for-new-york-as-daily-deaths-hit-lowest-level-in-weeks/2390949/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/cuomo-outlines-reopeni...
  - gdilla 6y ago
    And? That was the point. It's better than 40% of the population becoming infected at the same time AND the hospitals totally collapsing.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      I'm sorry you misunderstood. ~20% was my upper bound, ~0 the lower bound, and my opinion that we should find a middle ground.
      - throwaway1777 6y ago
jkasdflklzxcv 6y ago
A word to the wise - we are keeping a blacklist of all the fascists on this site in favor of the illegal, unconstitutional "shelter-in-place" 'order'. The support you have voiced here will be long remembered. It is becoming painfully clear now this is only political. Open the Country Now! Lock Gavin Newsom Up!
microdrum 6y ago
Why does he have the right to do this? https://www.smchealth.org/bio/scott-morrow-md https://www.smchealth.org/bio/scott-morrow-md
nickysielicki 6y ago
Everyone in here is arguing about data and forgetting the context -- we entered this whole mess in a country that has never been so divided. Of course that's relevant. Of course that doesn't go away. The only question that you have to ask is whether you're on Team Fauci or Team Trump. Why the hell would anyone ever expect the SF local government to ever find themselves on Team Trump, if given the option?
- Skunkleton 6y ago
  What are you talking about? The federal government has been basically a no show in this crisis. The state government is doing its best to avoid the scenario that Wuhan experienced where the hospitals were overwhelmed and the mortality rate shot up to 17%. I’m sure that there are other approaches, but this is the one most of the world is taking, and is their best guess at how to arrive at a good long term outcome.
greendave 6y ago
The problem is that the shelter-in-place rule is already limited in effectiveness due to a very lengthy list of exceptions plus many people not observing the spirit of the rule. Compliance will only drop over time as people see that 1) Their actions are having no obvious impact and 2) There is no clear end in sight. If the primary goal of extending the order is to give local governments time to build out infrastructure, that's fine (though they would do well to communicate this progress to the public). But if the primary goal is to further reduce transmission, I can't see it being successful.
- mlyle 6y ago
  The stated goal is to decay to 1 infection per million residents so that robust contact tracing works. Back of the envelope math puts that between 6 and 18 months of continued progress of the health order to get it to this level. (60 or so in Santa Clara County ICU == ~6000 infections. ICU occupancy decaying by 40% per month; 0.6^15 months * 6000 = ~3 )
  - holler 6y ago
    so you think 6-18 months of SIP is going to work? I think that could lead us to a dire situation. > robust contact tracing works Doesn't that rely on the individual opting in/using it? I have a feeling most people don't want the government tracing their every move (even though it already is geographically).
    - mlyle 6y ago
      > so you think 6-18 months of SIP is going to work? I think that could lead us to a dire situation. No, I don't. I think it's implausible. But this is what those in local public health are calling for. Granted, there's the IMHE model, which somehow fantastically thinks the virus will mostly be gone in Santa Clara County in mid-May, but it's shown very little agreement with the actual data and is nearly as bad as saying the Easter Bunny will take the virus away. > Doesn't that rely on the individual opting in/using it? I have a feeling most people don't want the government tracing their every move (even though it already is geographically). No, if you get the infection count low enough, you can investigate each individual case to death like Singapore has been doing it (though cases are growing beyond Singapore's ability to maintain this).
pjdemers 6y ago
Lockdowns are like rounds of layoffs. Better to have one too big than several too small.
glofish 6y ago
When I was younger I could never understand why anyone would vote republican. Today I understand.
- jshevek 6y ago
  Both parties are corrupt, and both advocate for reasonable and unreasonable policies. Part of their power derives from convincing much of their base to despise the "other side", to never properly listen to the other side, and never fairly consider the other side's position. Politicians on both sides benefit from inflaming this dynamic.
  - rajup 6y ago
    A very apt and unfortunately true characterization.
- favorited 6y ago
  Because their Dear Leader thinks that UV light & Lysol is going to play a role in treating COVID-19 patients?
  - glofish 6y ago
    that does not affect me at all passing various restrictive rules completely disregarding the realities on the ground does
walterbell 6y ago
People forget that there is no law which can put everyone under house arrest. This is all done voluntarily. Why is it ok for people to shop at Walmart and not at their local small business that sells the same goods and is better equipped to enforce social distancing, with customers explicitly opting in to visit the smaller store? If a small business can protect workers and customers, and a comparable large business is already open, the small business can consider opening and preparing to litigate all the way to the Supreme Court. With video cameras ready. There may be a few hundred bored lawyers who remember the US constitution and would take their case pro bono. The federal government recently said it is willing to join lawsuits against states, on constitutional grounds. Obviously, the business in question should be carefully chosen to maximize health, legal and business outcomes. But with many businesses shutdown, there's a large pool of candidates to be triaged.
- nradov 6y ago
  If nothing else, at least we'll come out of this pandemic with some clear Supreme Court decisions to clarify what emergency powers state and local governments actually have. One nuance that people seem to miss is that timing matters. So a very short restriction on Constitutional rights may be acceptable, but the court places increasing scrutiny on those restrictions the longer they remain in place.
  - walterbell 6y ago
    From https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494892-barr-tells-prosecutors-to-watch-for-pandemic-restrictions-that https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494892-barr-tell... > Attorney General William Barr on Monday directed federal prosecutors to “be on the lookout” for public health measures put in place amid the coronavirus pandemic that might be running afoul of constitutional rights. In a two-page memorandum to the 93 U.S. attorneys, Barr cautioned that some state and local directives could be infringing on protected religious, speech and economic rights. “If a state or local ordinance crosses the line from an appropriate exercise of authority to stop the spread of COVID-19 into an overbearing infringement of constitutional and statutory protections, the Department of Justice may have an obligation to address that overreach in federal court,” Barr wrote.
Lramseyer 6y ago
If I am reading the data correctly, considering total number of cases, and current rates of growth, the Bay Area is doing really well compared to the rest of the USA in terms of preventing the spread. [1] There will inevitably be areas that will recover sooner than others, and I could see the Bay Area being one of those places. How is the Bay Area going to handle that? Are these places going to station cops on county lines and screen people wanting to come into a "recovered" region? [1] https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-case...
- greendave 6y ago
  This problem generalizes to state-lines as well. Moreover, restrictions are not uniform. For example, San Mateo county restricts movement to within 5 miles of one's residence. Other bay area counties like Santa Clara do not. So legally somebody from Santa Clara county can visit San Mateo county (for exercise), but not the other way around. A well-managed response would include curbs on movement, be it at the state or county level.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    Definitely. A friend had been working in Malaysia and surrounding areas when all this got going. He had to quarantine 2 weeks in Malaysia before he was allowed on a plane back to his home in Amsterdam, and now has to self-quarantine for another 2 weeks there given the airports he passed through. I could easily see similar restrictions. E.g., anybody wanting to enter a Western Pact state might be required to quarantine 2 weeks upon arrival.
- kvetching 6y ago
  Which is why it makes no sense to continue the lockdown.
anm89 6y ago
The reddit hive mind has become terrifying. It has seriously had a tangible effect on my faith in humanity. I never got onto Twitter but I assume it's about the same.
- ultrarunner 6y ago
  I intentionally moved from reddit to HN after this same specific realization. After a few years it seemed like reddit would be a good place for hyper local info on covid, but I quickly saw the same effect— misanthropy in the face of so many people trying to do the best they could for others during hard times. It’s off topic here, but I seriously wonder what specifically caused reddit to adopt the largely toxic culture it has.
  - dustingetz 6y ago
    Reddit was the only place with covid info in January! And then in Feb, HN penalized coronavirus keyword as fake news.
    - ultrarunner 6y ago
      Reddit was a good source early on, by it was fairly quickly overrun with doomsayers.
      - buboard 6y ago
        /r/covid19 is a great place to find the latest curated research reddit is great, if you avoid the popular but juvenile places
  - exmadscientist 6y ago
    There were three huge changes to Reddit culture that I noticed. I might have these out of chronological order, but that's not material to the changes themselves. The first was when posts started showing thumbnails. This made image content much more viable. Unfortunately, while there's plenty of awesome image content, it's also one of the lowest-effort routes for "shitposts" (the definition of which is left to the reader). The second was the growth of subreddits. This allowed the community to split and silo itself. As a clichéd example, you can pick your left-wing politics subreddit or your right-wing politics subreddit, and you never have to mix with the other, bad one! And the third was the death of Digg, which sent a huge influx of people Reddit's way. That one's got a lot of folk mythology behind it and little hard data, so I'll say no more.
annoyingnoob 6y ago
Seems like we will need more Fed dollars flowing. Seems like recovery is going to be slow with more pain to come.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  If we intend to keep the lockdown going until we reach herd immunity, then Congress needs to open the taps and let the basic income flow. Trillions upon trillions of dollars, for as long as it takes. And they might want to get medicaid eligibility ramped up as well. We don't have to call it single payer.
01100011 6y ago
I'm surprised we're not seeing plans for some businesses to reopen with restrictions. I think it will be a while before we allow haircuts and manicures again, but I see no reason why we can't increase the types of businesses allowed open. Limiting occupancy, requiring PPE, and enforcing social distancing appear to be reasonable requirements. I hope the politicians and government workers are busy trying to find a middle-ground and not just playing it safe to cover their asses.
- abfan1127 6y ago
  why haircuts and manicures? Its a low population setting (1:1). If there is proper hand washing between clients, each new client gets a squirt of sanitizer, and both clients and stylists wear a mask? Require every haircut to start with a shampoo for mechanical disinfection.
  - 01100011 6y ago
    That's a decision for those in government, but personally I see it as a balance of risk vs reward. There is a high risk of infection and relatively little benefit. It is probably better, for society as a whole, to pay the unemployment payments and have long hair for a while. Shampoo doesn't remove the virus from one's lungs or exhalations. I'm not sure what benefit shampoo would have over, say, gloves. PPE is good but hairstylists aren't usually trained in its proper use. I would hope dentists' offices reopen before hairstylists. Dentists are presumably more able to properly use PPE and disinfectants.
    - irq11 6y ago
      ” There is a high risk of infection and relatively little benefit. It is probably better, for society as a whole, to pay the unemployment payments and have long hair for a while.” Citation absolutely required. We’re talking about people’s lives here, and there’s zero evidence for this kind of intervention. Everyone says they’re “listening to the science” to make these kinds of decisions, but where is it? Why can’t we be letting people get haircuts while wearing masks? Particularly in a place like San Francisco, where there have been 1,400 cases total and 23 deaths. It’s simply irrational now, and a lot closer to virtue signaling than anything with a scientific basis. Don’t just downvote: provide affirmative evidence.
cavisne 6y ago
States should have let the feds make this decision. The states who hate the feds (california, washington, new york) are also the ones who have the trickiest political decision to make, as reopening in dense cities is always going to be a tradeoff. The states who like the feds (middle america, texas) have the easiest decision as their states aren't dense. Now Democrat politicians, who prefer to make intersectional, empathetic decisions have to make the toughest political choice imaginable.
davidw 6y ago
There's a good quote cited often on Strong Towns: "problems have solutions, predicaments have outcomes". We're in a predicament. We blew weeks, maybe months ignoring the problem at the federal level, so now we don't have the PPE or testing and tracing infrastructure we could have had at this point that would allow some cautious, yet safe reopening in places. The stay home orders work, but they're devastating to the economy. Reopening in an unsafe way would be devastating to both the economy and public health: smart people are going to stay home anyway because they don't want to get sick and die. There are no 'good' options at this point. Something like this plan seems like the best bet, but we need to get supplies and infrastructure on line as quickly as possible, and understand that the federal government isn't likely to be of much help. https://www.nga.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/NGA-Report.pdf https://www.nga.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/NGA-Report.pd...
lipbisque 6y ago
This is bizarre... There is a statewide stay-at-home order in effect until further notice. Any less-restrictive orders, such as San Francisco's, are null and void.
- vmception 6y ago
  Yes, just in case the state curbs their's abruptly.
- favorited 6y ago
  It does allow them to implement more specific restrictions. For example, with today's extension, SF is closing more street to cars inside Golden Gate Park to allow people to exercise outdoors while maintaining a safe distance.
mrfusion 6y ago
Anyone thinking of moving out?
- m463 6y ago
  I can't help but wonder - is the bay area housing crisis being resolved now?
  - favorited 6y ago
    Nah, there's enough tech people with $$ in the bank and reliable RSUs that it's not going to break. Unfortunately.
joyceschan 6y ago
If this continues until fall. I'd live somewhere else where the economy is open, and take all necessary precautions to protect others and myself.
redis_mlc 6y ago
When you wanna run for the Whitehouse, you gotta play it safe.
fasteddie31003 6y ago
I hate how the idea of reopening has split down political party lines. This is definitely not the time for partisanship. Now that Republicans have come out as pro-reopening, San Francisco will be the last city to reopen in the country. 0 COVID-19 infections will be too many.
- pgsbathhouse2 6y ago
  Are you okay?
  - fasteddie31003 6y ago
    What is that supposed to mean?
  - dang 6y ago
    We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines. Could you please not create accounts to do that with? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- aabhay 6y ago
  The new order includes several approved low risk activities and transparent indicators that will be used to gauge safety to further reopen. Is there something about this you don’t feel is backed by science?
  - avalys 6y ago
    Do you have a link to this new order?
  - nradov 6y ago
    The original order was never based on any sound science to begin with. That doesn't necessarily mean it was a bad policy. But it was a faith based policy, not evidence based.
    - 6y ago
djdjfjfjfjfj 6y ago
I am going to kill myself if this goes on another day
ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
Is this surprising? I'd expect the shelter-in-place to be extended until at least the end of the summer.
Animats 6y ago
" The new order will include limited easing of specific restrictions for a small number of lower-risk activities." Wonder what the details are? Maybe we can get some parks re-opened.

349 points by tdhoot 6y ago

j79 6y ago

I told my wife that I've come assumed shelter-in-place IS in place until a vaccine has been developed. Either that, or herd immunity is to a point where going outside isn't a game of Russian roulette.

jaywalk 6y ago
Not a chance that will be the case.
bpodgursky 6y ago
The Bay area is not setting up the area for herd immunity -- there are only a hundred cases a day, so it would take many decades to get herd immunity (effectively never, given births and gradual loss of immunity).
- brianwawok 6y ago
  100 reported cases. There could be anywhere from 5-100x that amount. Lots of people without or with very mild symptoms. Very hard to know without 10-100x the tests we are doing.
glofish 6y ago
it is a game of Russian roulette where there is one bullet per 100K empty chambers.
skellington 6y ago
As usual, American leaders are choosing OPTION 3 which is the worst option: OPTION 1. (SWEDEN) Control spread just enough to not overwhelm the health care system, but no more than that, in order to get to herd immunity as quickly as possible. This assumes that the area-under-the-curve will be very similar to any option that spreads the time-frame out. This level of lockdown is possible to implement for long periods of time because its impact on regular life is relatively moderate and it doesn't require extreme testing availability or extreme population compliance. OPTION 2. (S KOREA) Control with aggressive contact tracing in order to attempt to eradicate or outlive COVID. This assumes that COVID can be controlled and that doing so will ultimately reduce the area-under-the-curve (because if it didn't, spreading the time-frame out would be pointless). This level of lockdown is possible to implement for long periods of time because its impact on regular life is relatively moderate but it does require extreme testing availability and very high population compliance. We don't yet know what the full impact of 1 vs 2 will be because of externalities that are hard to model, but both seem like legitimate approaches. OPTION 3. (USA) Control spread aggressively so herd immunity won't be reached for a very long time, do this using a shelter-in-place model that will destroy the economy so you'll be forced to abandon it at some point, have no post shelter-in-place plan so resurgence is practically guaranteed since the goal isn't herd immunity nor aggressive contact tracing. Option 3 is the most destructive, so let's choose that one.
- Skunkleton 6y ago
  We already missed the boat on options 1 and 2 due to various governmental incompetencies. Did you not notice that a full third of all cases globally have been in America?
  - kvetching 6y ago
    That just means that US has the most advanced testing regime.
    - JustResign 6y ago
      You wrote this with a straight face? Or this is a Trump quote?
  - landryraccoon 6y ago
    Cases is a very poor metric for this because a country that does zero tests will have zero cases, and therefore look very good. Total deaths IMHO is much more comparable statistic between countries. By that metric it looks a little better for the US, since we have slightly less than a third of the world death total.
    - dwaltrip 6y ago
      For a better comparison, I think you need to look at deaths per capita. The US is somewhere in the middle of the pack on this metric.
      - Skunkleton 6y ago
        That doesn’t capture what’s important. There are plenty of places that could probably have never closed and not had any real spike in infections. It’s places where people live densely that are at the greatest risk. The Bay Area in particular probably isn’t at the top of that list, but it is still a higher risk area. Really we just need more testing, and randomized testing. I think we would all be able to move forward more intelligently if we had data.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

I'm lucky enough to have remote work. And I'm sure many HNers have a nice buffer of savings from their tech jobs to weather the storm or are getting paid time off. But can anyone share what it's like to not be in either of these situations? How are your rent lords handling things? I live abroad in a cheap country so I can handle zero income, but I wouldn't be able to last long if rent was $2000+/mo instead of the <$200/mo I currently pay. Yet when I read Redditors talk about quarantine, you'd think everyone in the world was getting paid time off to play Animal Crossing at home or they live at mom's house rent-free. And it seems like it's this crowd that's likely to be pushing for staying in lockdown with no end in sight.

hysan 6y ago
It's scary. I was laid-off this month due to COVID-19. Luckily, I am getting paid for one more month because of the WARN Act. I've been looking, but it has been difficult since I'm competing with all the more senior co-workers and peers who were also laid-off. So how is my budget? * I know that there will be a time gap between being able to apply for unemployment and receiving it. The unemployment systems in the US are still overwhelmed. * Since my wife is on my health insurance plan, COBRA is going to be very expensive. * We moved recently for my job, so a lot of the savings we had are already gone. We have some runway, but no where near enough to feel safe. We are one of those edge cases where we took a risk, it paid off and life was great, but it didn't last long enough for us save up again so things are looking grim. So finally... > Yet when I read Redditors talk about quarantine, you'd think everyone in the world was getting paid time off to play Animal Crossing at home or they live at mom's house rent-free. And it seems like it's this crowd that's likely to be pushing for staying in lockdown with no end in sight. We both still are 100% for maintaining the quarantine. No we are not living some relaxing lifestyle at home. I've been quite stressed out. However, I also know that I would never forgive myself if I contributed to breaking quarantine early and that caused a chain reaction of hospitals to be overrun again and leading to my parents, a relative, or an old friend to die because they could not get the proper treatment. There is a lot I want to rant about, but rather than that, I would like to leave these thoughts: Stop thinking of the solution as being so black and white. Lifting the quarantine isn't the only way to help everyone who has been impacted. For example, why not have the same government bodies that enacted the quarantine do something just as drastic to save those who were impacted? What other solutions are out there? Also, if lifting the quarantine leads to more deaths, then remember that there is an economic impact there too. Have you ever paid for a funeral? I have and at a young age too. It burned a hole in my savings. That set me back several years in saving and investing in myself. Imagine doing the same to the generation of young adults whose parents are in the risk factor group. Far too many of the comments I read, even on HN, are seeing things only through the lens of what politicians say. Outside of compiling raw statistics, I've seen very little independent thought on how to solve the current problems in society.

killion 6y ago

We are down 50% from the peak of Covid deaths in California. It seems likely we will have one or more days of zero Covid deaths before the end of May. That is the measure I assume they are going for at this point. Source: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/california https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/cali...

vanniv 6y ago
California has no intent to ever end the lockdowns. On February 26th, 2077, the Mayor of San Francisco and the Governor of California will sign an extension of the temporary emergency lockdown until "at least April 1st"
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  This is such a silly position.
  - vanniv 6y ago
    Watch Newsom's press conference yesterday. He said that he won't ever release the lockdown, no matter what people say or do.
cactus2093 6y ago
This is untrue. We may have plateaued but we haven't yet seen a significant drop from the peak yet. 4 days ago there were 115 deaths, then 93 the next day, then 89 the next, that's as high as the peak you're referring to. Source - daily department of health releases https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OPA/Pages/New-Release-2020.aspx https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OPA/Pages/New-Release-2020.... The drop you are inferring from your graph appears to be a be a reflection of a noisy data set, and the graph is a week out of date.
- bengebre 6y ago
  Yeah that's definitely a day-of-week/reporting dump effect making that spike. The 7 day rolling data for deaths shows CA is only 6% below the most recent peak: https://www.deptofnumbers.com/covid19/california/#deaths https://www.deptofnumbers.com/covid19/california/#deaths nb: that's my site

marcell 6y ago

Blanket lockdown has to end. This policy has outlived its usefulness, and is harming people's quality of life without a clear goal. The initial premise of the "flatten the curve" memes was to avoid overwhelming hospitals. The shelter-in-place has not only had this effect, it's been too effective. Hospital utilization in the bay area is at around 10% when you count surge capacity that has been added [1]. Meanwhile, data is coming out to show that coronavirus has a very low fatality risk to anyone under the age of 50, and to anyone without pre-existing health conditions. A blanket shutdown does not make any sense when the vulnerable demographic has been clearly identified. How is it moral to order people to shelter in place when their risk of death is around 0.01% for 18-45 year olds. Blanket lockdown doesn't make sense anymore. There is no risk posed to the majority of the population from covid-19. We need to switch to targeted approach, and let people get back to their lives. Our political leaders (in California) are being fearful, afraid to take leadership and base their decisions on data. [1] https://www.smchealth.org/post/san-mateo-county-covid-19-data-1 https://www.smchealth.org/post/san-mateo-county-covid-19-dat... [2] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page#download https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page#downl... and https://www.6sqft.com/new-york-covid-antibody-test-preliminary-results/ https://www.6sqft.com/new-york-covid-antibody-test-prelimina...

gotoeleven 6y ago
Hopefully this will be the impetus we need to finally start living underground like mole people.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  How well do we know mole viruses?
anorphirith 6y ago
Agreed, these are simply political moves
jamroom 6y ago
Our society includes people who are over 50 - how do ensure that YOU do not transmit coronavirus to them if you are under 50 and asymptomatic? I know a lot of people are pretty upset but it's not just about YOU. It's about everyone you come in contact with.

microdrum 6y ago

Absurd. This is illogical. Expect this now to be challenged in court.

killion 6y ago

I just noticed that it’s 75 days between March 17 and May 31. Wuhan’s lockdown was 76 days long.

BurningFrog 6y ago
The Wuhan lockdown was also far more strict.
- suyash 6y ago
  Wuhan was also the biggest epicenter in China and that is where it originated with lot more cases than in the Bay Area.
- dpau 6y ago
  And measures were not limited to Wuhan. By the time restrictions were lifted in Wuhan, the Chinese government had implemented quarantines, surveillance, contact tracing and testing procedures throughout the entire country. While here in the US we have a hodge-podge of approaches from each state with varying success, and no restriction of movement. Not saying we should adopt authoritarian policies, but we'll only have the virus under control when every US state has it under control.

Uhhrrr 6y ago

San Francisco has only had 18 COVID-19 deaths in the last 30 days, and only 2 in the last week. [0] That seems amazingly low to me. I'm leaning towards thinking non-essential businesses should be opened up there, provided they function under the same restrictions as grocery stores etc. [0] https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/blob/master/csse_covid_19_data/csse_covid_19_time_series/time_series_covid19_deaths_US.csv https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/blob/master/csse_...

wpietri 6y ago
You could argue it the other way from the same data. Given that public health officials jumped on it early and got us such a low death rate, maybe we should keep trusting their judgment and let them decide when it's safe to reopen.
- kvetching 6y ago
  That's insane. If they're hesitant to open up now, they will never feel comfortable opening up.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    Or perhaps they know more about the topic than we random HN readers and have a plan that they're following.
    - adingus 6y ago
      If that is the case then they could communicate that plan a little better. At the end of the day it's their fault if people don't understand why they are taking the actions they are.
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        I take you're listening to the daily state briefings and similar county press conferences. I have not been having a problem understanding them.

KorematsuFred 6y ago

This is absolute nuts. There is no data that is being provided for such heavy handed measures. Virus can kill but that does not mean we should hide indoors for foreseeable future.

forrestthewoods 6y ago

Serious question: if restrictions aren’t lifted now then will they be? What will be meaningfully different June 1st rather than May 1st? Is it shelter-in-place until we get more testing? Or the AppleGoogle contact tracing? Or is it shelter-in-place until a vaccine... in 18 months? What are the conditions required to start slowly relaxing the shutdown? Edit: I don’t understand the downvotes. I haven’t left my home for two full months. I started preparing for the worst in early February. There are many options in between “full lockdown” and “fully open”. We won’t be in full lockdown for 18 months. So, what are the requirements to start slowly lifting.

jupp0r 6y ago
Here are the conditions for lifting the CA stay at home orders: https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/California-Roadmap-to-Modify-the-Stay-at-Home-Order.pdf https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/California... It basically comes down to being able to contain disease spread by contact tracing and testing.
- mlyle 6y ago
  The recently stated goal is to decay to 1 infection per million residents so that robust contact tracing works. Back of the envelope math puts that between 6 and 18 months of continued progress of the health order to get it to this level. (60 or so in Santa Clara County ICU == ~6000 infections. ICU occupancy decaying by 40% per month; 0.6^15 months * 6000 = ~3 ) If you look at hospital admissions, instead, it's a bit less than a 40% decay per week. So we get something more like 5-6 months. I don't see either of these as plausible. And even if we have lowered Rt to this point of decay for most subpopulations, I'm better there's a few where it's higher and that will eventually shallow out the decline. Not to mention the risks from areas with lower controls. The IMHE model is very influential, but it has been forecasting an unrealistically quick decline in cases that has encouraged public health officials to seriously consider trying to get to this minimal level of cases.
  - icelancer 6y ago

cs702 6y ago

If many people get very sick simultaneously, they would not only overwhelm hospitals, they would also inflict a disorderly, involuntary shutdown of large swaths of the economy, driven by fear -- instead of the orderly, voluntary shutdown we have at present, driven by government mandate. We all want to avoid that.

rootusrootus 6y ago
On the flip side, NYC just showed us they can suffer through 20% of the population becoming infected at about the same time without their hospitals utterly collapsing. There is probably some happy medium somewhere. For certain, flattening the curve so much that there are just a few new infections every week is not how we end the lock down.
- mrfusion 6y ago
  It’s up to 25% with the latest study. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/cuomo-outlines-reopening-roadmap-for-new-york-as-daily-deaths-hit-lowest-level-in-weeks/2390949/ https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/cuomo-outlines-reopeni...
- gdilla 6y ago
  And? That was the point. It's better than 40% of the population becoming infected at the same time AND the hospitals totally collapsing.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    I'm sorry you misunderstood. ~20% was my upper bound, ~0 the lower bound, and my opinion that we should find a middle ground.
    - throwaway1777 6y ago

jkasdflklzxcv 6y ago

A word to the wise - we are keeping a blacklist of all the fascists on this site in favor of the illegal, unconstitutional "shelter-in-place" 'order'. The support you have voiced here will be long remembered. It is becoming painfully clear now this is only political. Open the Country Now! Lock Gavin Newsom Up!

microdrum 6y ago

Why does he have the right to do this? https://www.smchealth.org/bio/scott-morrow-md https://www.smchealth.org/bio/scott-morrow-md

nickysielicki 6y ago

Everyone in here is arguing about data and forgetting the context -- we entered this whole mess in a country that has never been so divided. Of course that's relevant. Of course that doesn't go away. The only question that you have to ask is whether you're on Team Fauci or Team Trump. Why the hell would anyone ever expect the SF local government to ever find themselves on Team Trump, if given the option?

Skunkleton 6y ago
What are you talking about? The federal government has been basically a no show in this crisis. The state government is doing its best to avoid the scenario that Wuhan experienced where the hospitals were overwhelmed and the mortality rate shot up to 17%. I’m sure that there are other approaches, but this is the one most of the world is taking, and is their best guess at how to arrive at a good long term outcome.

greendave 6y ago

The problem is that the shelter-in-place rule is already limited in effectiveness due to a very lengthy list of exceptions plus many people not observing the spirit of the rule. Compliance will only drop over time as people see that 1) Their actions are having no obvious impact and 2) There is no clear end in sight. If the primary goal of extending the order is to give local governments time to build out infrastructure, that's fine (though they would do well to communicate this progress to the public). But if the primary goal is to further reduce transmission, I can't see it being successful.

mlyle 6y ago
The stated goal is to decay to 1 infection per million residents so that robust contact tracing works. Back of the envelope math puts that between 6 and 18 months of continued progress of the health order to get it to this level. (60 or so in Santa Clara County ICU == ~6000 infections. ICU occupancy decaying by 40% per month; 0.6^15 months * 6000 = ~3 )
- holler 6y ago
  so you think 6-18 months of SIP is going to work? I think that could lead us to a dire situation. > robust contact tracing works Doesn't that rely on the individual opting in/using it? I have a feeling most people don't want the government tracing their every move (even though it already is geographically).
  - mlyle 6y ago
    > so you think 6-18 months of SIP is going to work? I think that could lead us to a dire situation. No, I don't. I think it's implausible. But this is what those in local public health are calling for. Granted, there's the IMHE model, which somehow fantastically thinks the virus will mostly be gone in Santa Clara County in mid-May, but it's shown very little agreement with the actual data and is nearly as bad as saying the Easter Bunny will take the virus away. > Doesn't that rely on the individual opting in/using it? I have a feeling most people don't want the government tracing their every move (even though it already is geographically). No, if you get the infection count low enough, you can investigate each individual case to death like Singapore has been doing it (though cases are growing beyond Singapore's ability to maintain this).

pjdemers 6y ago

Lockdowns are like rounds of layoffs. Better to have one too big than several too small.

glofish 6y ago

When I was younger I could never understand why anyone would vote republican. Today I understand.

jshevek 6y ago
Both parties are corrupt, and both advocate for reasonable and unreasonable policies. Part of their power derives from convincing much of their base to despise the "other side", to never properly listen to the other side, and never fairly consider the other side's position. Politicians on both sides benefit from inflaming this dynamic.
- rajup 6y ago
  A very apt and unfortunately true characterization.
favorited 6y ago
Because their Dear Leader thinks that UV light & Lysol is going to play a role in treating COVID-19 patients?
- glofish 6y ago
  that does not affect me at all passing various restrictive rules completely disregarding the realities on the ground does

walterbell 6y ago

People forget that there is no law which can put everyone under house arrest. This is all done voluntarily. Why is it ok for people to shop at Walmart and not at their local small business that sells the same goods and is better equipped to enforce social distancing, with customers explicitly opting in to visit the smaller store? If a small business can protect workers and customers, and a comparable large business is already open, the small business can consider opening and preparing to litigate all the way to the Supreme Court. With video cameras ready. There may be a few hundred bored lawyers who remember the US constitution and would take their case pro bono. The federal government recently said it is willing to join lawsuits against states, on constitutional grounds. Obviously, the business in question should be carefully chosen to maximize health, legal and business outcomes. But with many businesses shutdown, there's a large pool of candidates to be triaged.

nradov 6y ago
If nothing else, at least we'll come out of this pandemic with some clear Supreme Court decisions to clarify what emergency powers state and local governments actually have. One nuance that people seem to miss is that timing matters. So a very short restriction on Constitutional rights may be acceptable, but the court places increasing scrutiny on those restrictions the longer they remain in place.
- walterbell 6y ago
  From https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494892-barr-tells-prosecutors-to-watch-for-pandemic-restrictions-that https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/494892-barr-tell... > Attorney General William Barr on Monday directed federal prosecutors to “be on the lookout” for public health measures put in place amid the coronavirus pandemic that might be running afoul of constitutional rights. In a two-page memorandum to the 93 U.S. attorneys, Barr cautioned that some state and local directives could be infringing on protected religious, speech and economic rights. “If a state or local ordinance crosses the line from an appropriate exercise of authority to stop the spread of COVID-19 into an overbearing infringement of constitutional and statutory protections, the Department of Justice may have an obligation to address that overreach in federal court,” Barr wrote.

Lramseyer 6y ago

If I am reading the data correctly, considering total number of cases, and current rates of growth, the Bay Area is doing really well compared to the rest of the USA in terms of preventing the spread. [1] There will inevitably be areas that will recover sooner than others, and I could see the Bay Area being one of those places. How is the Bay Area going to handle that? Are these places going to station cops on county lines and screen people wanting to come into a "recovered" region? [1] https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-case...

greendave 6y ago
This problem generalizes to state-lines as well. Moreover, restrictions are not uniform. For example, San Mateo county restricts movement to within 5 miles of one's residence. Other bay area counties like Santa Clara do not. So legally somebody from Santa Clara county can visit San Mateo county (for exercise), but not the other way around. A well-managed response would include curbs on movement, be it at the state or county level.
- wpietri 6y ago
  Definitely. A friend had been working in Malaysia and surrounding areas when all this got going. He had to quarantine 2 weeks in Malaysia before he was allowed on a plane back to his home in Amsterdam, and now has to self-quarantine for another 2 weeks there given the airports he passed through. I could easily see similar restrictions. E.g., anybody wanting to enter a Western Pact state might be required to quarantine 2 weeks upon arrival.
kvetching 6y ago
Which is why it makes no sense to continue the lockdown.

anm89 6y ago

The reddit hive mind has become terrifying. It has seriously had a tangible effect on my faith in humanity. I never got onto Twitter but I assume it's about the same.

ultrarunner 6y ago
I intentionally moved from reddit to HN after this same specific realization. After a few years it seemed like reddit would be a good place for hyper local info on covid, but I quickly saw the same effect— misanthropy in the face of so many people trying to do the best they could for others during hard times. It’s off topic here, but I seriously wonder what specifically caused reddit to adopt the largely toxic culture it has.
- dustingetz 6y ago
  Reddit was the only place with covid info in January! And then in Feb, HN penalized coronavirus keyword as fake news.
  - ultrarunner 6y ago
    Reddit was a good source early on, by it was fairly quickly overrun with doomsayers.
    - buboard 6y ago
      /r/covid19 is a great place to find the latest curated research reddit is great, if you avoid the popular but juvenile places
- exmadscientist 6y ago
  There were three huge changes to Reddit culture that I noticed. I might have these out of chronological order, but that's not material to the changes themselves. The first was when posts started showing thumbnails. This made image content much more viable. Unfortunately, while there's plenty of awesome image content, it's also one of the lowest-effort routes for "shitposts" (the definition of which is left to the reader). The second was the growth of subreddits. This allowed the community to split and silo itself. As a clichéd example, you can pick your left-wing politics subreddit or your right-wing politics subreddit, and you never have to mix with the other, bad one! And the third was the death of Digg, which sent a huge influx of people Reddit's way. That one's got a lot of folk mythology behind it and little hard data, so I'll say no more.

annoyingnoob 6y ago

Seems like we will need more Fed dollars flowing. Seems like recovery is going to be slow with more pain to come.

rootusrootus 6y ago
If we intend to keep the lockdown going until we reach herd immunity, then Congress needs to open the taps and let the basic income flow. Trillions upon trillions of dollars, for as long as it takes. And they might want to get medicaid eligibility ramped up as well. We don't have to call it single payer.

01100011 6y ago

I'm surprised we're not seeing plans for some businesses to reopen with restrictions. I think it will be a while before we allow haircuts and manicures again, but I see no reason why we can't increase the types of businesses allowed open. Limiting occupancy, requiring PPE, and enforcing social distancing appear to be reasonable requirements. I hope the politicians and government workers are busy trying to find a middle-ground and not just playing it safe to cover their asses.

abfan1127 6y ago
why haircuts and manicures? Its a low population setting (1:1). If there is proper hand washing between clients, each new client gets a squirt of sanitizer, and both clients and stylists wear a mask? Require every haircut to start with a shampoo for mechanical disinfection.
- 01100011 6y ago
  That's a decision for those in government, but personally I see it as a balance of risk vs reward. There is a high risk of infection and relatively little benefit. It is probably better, for society as a whole, to pay the unemployment payments and have long hair for a while. Shampoo doesn't remove the virus from one's lungs or exhalations. I'm not sure what benefit shampoo would have over, say, gloves. PPE is good but hairstylists aren't usually trained in its proper use. I would hope dentists' offices reopen before hairstylists. Dentists are presumably more able to properly use PPE and disinfectants.
  - irq11 6y ago
    ” There is a high risk of infection and relatively little benefit. It is probably better, for society as a whole, to pay the unemployment payments and have long hair for a while.” Citation absolutely required. We’re talking about people’s lives here, and there’s zero evidence for this kind of intervention. Everyone says they’re “listening to the science” to make these kinds of decisions, but where is it? Why can’t we be letting people get haircuts while wearing masks? Particularly in a place like San Francisco, where there have been 1,400 cases total and 23 deaths. It’s simply irrational now, and a lot closer to virtue signaling than anything with a scientific basis. Don’t just downvote: provide affirmative evidence.

cavisne 6y ago

States should have let the feds make this decision. The states who hate the feds (california, washington, new york) are also the ones who have the trickiest political decision to make, as reopening in dense cities is always going to be a tradeoff. The states who like the feds (middle america, texas) have the easiest decision as their states aren't dense. Now Democrat politicians, who prefer to make intersectional, empathetic decisions have to make the toughest political choice imaginable.

davidw 6y ago

There's a good quote cited often on Strong Towns: "problems have solutions, predicaments have outcomes". We're in a predicament. We blew weeks, maybe months ignoring the problem at the federal level, so now we don't have the PPE or testing and tracing infrastructure we could have had at this point that would allow some cautious, yet safe reopening in places. The stay home orders work, but they're devastating to the economy. Reopening in an unsafe way would be devastating to both the economy and public health: smart people are going to stay home anyway because they don't want to get sick and die. There are no 'good' options at this point. Something like this plan seems like the best bet, but we need to get supplies and infrastructure on line as quickly as possible, and understand that the federal government isn't likely to be of much help. https://www.nga.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/NGA-Report.pdf https://www.nga.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/NGA-Report.pd...

lipbisque 6y ago

This is bizarre... There is a statewide stay-at-home order in effect until further notice. Any less-restrictive orders, such as San Francisco's, are null and void.

vmception 6y ago
Yes, just in case the state curbs their's abruptly.
favorited 6y ago
It does allow them to implement more specific restrictions. For example, with today's extension, SF is closing more street to cars inside Golden Gate Park to allow people to exercise outdoors while maintaining a safe distance.

mrfusion 6y ago

Anyone thinking of moving out?

m463 6y ago
I can't help but wonder - is the bay area housing crisis being resolved now?
- favorited 6y ago
  Nah, there's enough tech people with $$ in the bank and reliable RSUs that it's not going to break. Unfortunately.

joyceschan 6y ago

If this continues until fall. I'd live somewhere else where the economy is open, and take all necessary precautions to protect others and myself.

redis_mlc 6y ago

When you wanna run for the Whitehouse, you gotta play it safe.

fasteddie31003 6y ago

I hate how the idea of reopening has split down political party lines. This is definitely not the time for partisanship. Now that Republicans have come out as pro-reopening, San Francisco will be the last city to reopen in the country. 0 COVID-19 infections will be too many.

pgsbathhouse2 6y ago
Are you okay?
- fasteddie31003 6y ago
  What is that supposed to mean?
- dang 6y ago
  We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the HN guidelines. Could you please not create accounts to do that with? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
aabhay 6y ago
The new order includes several approved low risk activities and transparent indicators that will be used to gauge safety to further reopen. Is there something about this you don’t feel is backed by science?
- avalys 6y ago
  Do you have a link to this new order?
- nradov 6y ago
  The original order was never based on any sound science to begin with. That doesn't necessarily mean it was a bad policy. But it was a faith based policy, not evidence based.
  - 6y ago

djdjfjfjfjfj 6y ago

I am going to kill myself if this goes on another day

ccktlmazeltov 6y ago

Is this surprising? I'd expect the shelter-in-place to be extended until at least the end of the summer.

Animats 6y ago

" The new order will include limited easing of specific restrictions for a small number of lower-risk activities." Wonder what the details are? Maybe we can get some parks re-opened.