10 ms·
SF Bay Area Shelter-in-Place Orders Extended as Some Rules Ease
- jasonv 6y agoRead the whole thing... hoping disc golf and dog parks can resume. That'd be nice.
- rexpop 6y agoHave a sense of perspective.
- netllama 6y agoNot having thousands of people dying would be nice too. Hopefully you're not this tone deaf in real life too.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoI don't see how this is tone deaf. Are people not allowed to hope for fun things until the end of the pandemic?
- misscorona 6y agoAll construction activities...will be allowed to resume... This seems so arbitrary. Construction noise that you can hear and feel from home will be twice as maddening if you are stuck there. Speaking as someone whose apartment backs a sub basement deep-dig project. After a few days of quarantine one of my neighbors shouted some choice words from his balcony at the workers starting their banging and whistling at seven in the morning.
- GuiA 6y agoI’ve definitely been seeing and hearing construction (mission) the past month...
- hkmurakami 6y agoIt's been allowed if there was an affordable housing element.
- mikeg8 6y agoThat was only one of the many exceptions. Public works projects, anything supporting an essential business/service like healthcare, food production, schools etc. have all been allowed throughout the shutdown. And up here in Sonoma county, the construction of fire-rebuilds from the 2017 fires have also been allowed - none are affordable but all essential.
- gfodor 6y agoIt doesn't seem arbitrary to me, the thrust of these changes seems to be "if its done entirely outdoors, its OK, as long as there isn't an obvious, large transmission path."
- wpietri 6y agoI feel you on the noise, but it makes sense to me. Construction is one kind of work where worker density is low and people are already used to wearing PPE when needed.
- clairity 6y agoyah, easy call on construction reopening but no sympathy for whining about (legitimate construction) noise, which is often used by curmudgeons to adversely control all sorts of others’ behaviors. but 7am is a bit of an issue. the ordinance in LA for instance specifies construction noise can’t begin before 8am but that’s routinely broken here too.
- mikeg8 6y agoConstruction is a massive sector that supports a lot of working class families. It is/can be performed with maximum adherence to social distancing and use of respiratory masks/PPE is already standard practice. I can see how the additional noise will be an inconvenience to some, but not allowing construction would be, IMO, much more devastating to an already hammered economy/work-force. Disclaimer: I work in the construction industry.
- anonAndOn 6y agoLiving in a half-finished renovation, I have to disagree. The permitting and inspection process needs to resume so that I no longer have to shelter-at-a-construction-site.
- CydeWeys 6y agoConstruction is important. They're literally building future homes, offices, and infrastructure. This has a massive outsized economic impact going forwards.
- TylerE 6y agoIf anything, this is a unique, massive opportunity to get caught up on stuff like road construction - it's much easier to close off lanes and institute detours when traffic is well below normal levels.
- fasteddie31003 6y agoI can almost taste the privilege
- orblivion 6y agoAt any rate, it's a great time to do road construction! I noticed it pick up a bit here in New Hampshire.
- wessorh 6y agoI am utterly impressed by the area's residents inability to push back on this order. For your safety you will do what you are told. I thought the brainiacs in silicon valley could do math. Maybe you can and just forgot how to stand up for your rights. I expect all you young sheltering in place to do exactly what your government says next time they tell you to do something for your safety.
- nemothekid 6y agoWhat are you even trying to say? Would you drink bleach if the government said it was bad for you just to stick it to the man?
- battery_cowboy 6y agoSeveral of them did that recently.
- tinus_hn 6y agoWell not all of the government said it was a bad idea
- WorstSauce 6y agoI'll take the bait. Whilst I'm confused on what rights are being violated that need to be fought for. I'm more confused as to your comment about doing what the government says to do. Your comment paints following orders from the government for the sake of safety as an unheard of concept. Why do you think driver licenses are required to operate a motorized vehicle? To collect fees from license applications? Or to ensure that drivers on the road and pedestrians safety isn't in danger due to reckless drivers?
- seppin 6y ago> I'll take the bait. Don't. The Bay Areas infection numbers, despite their early exposure, are excellent. Early and aggressive shelter in place orders are to thank. Everything else is noise.
- supernova87a 6y agoI guess the longer term question is -- As mentioned in the daily governor's briefing, there is some kind of 2D matrix (or map) of places vs. types of activities or businesses that can be incrementally allowed to open or get to different levels of restrictions lifted. (or I hope this is the case, and not just a talking point) How are people to know / track this? Is there some visual dashboard that everyone can refer to daily and hopefully have consistent definitions to know whether their business is covered? Press conferences (and press releases in inevitable text form) are an inefficient method having to speak the words of each change in circumstance as this continues to evolve. New Zealand seems to have a clear system of Level 1/2/3/4 that everyone has the definitions of. This is going to have to go on for months, remember.
- LinearEntropy 6y agoEven in New Zealand the definitions of each level aren't entirely clear. To the point that our Health minister has been caught out multiple times breeching our lockdown conditions. A few days ago we reduced alert level and many people and businesses have been witnessed breaking the conditions. Some people were always going to do whatever they want, but there are many other that have been confused by rules that change day to day.
- discgolf187 6y ago> Whether we have the capacity to investigate all COVID-19 cases and trace all of their contacts, isolating those who test positive and quarantining the people who may have been exposed. We're all going to be inside for a long time ...
- vkou 6y agoWe have 20 million unemployed Americans, many of whom are currently getting paid to sit at home and play Animal Crossing. Surely, a well-functioning society would figure out how to employ some of them to be contact tracers. Why hasn't this happened yet?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- baggy_trough 6y agoState incompetence at all levels.
- vkou 6y agoWhat makes you think that to be the cause? Surely, in a country with over four thousand state, county, and major city governments, there have to be a few who are competent. Voters across so many different regions, across so many different levels of government, can't be so consistently incapable of electing competent officials. There has to be more to this.
- paxys 6y agoYou are touching upon a real problem here. America hasn't had excess labor for decades now, and so there are no systems in place to rapidly mobilize it. Governments in countries like China and India can scale from zero to millions of temporary employees for any project or effort in a matter of days. Even if San Francisco wants to pay people to stand at every intersection of the city and conduct tests, it will be months before they can even fill out the employment forms and finalize the logistics.
- wpietri 6y agoDown toward the bottom they have a link to 5 indicators that they will be using to evaluate progress: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/bay-area-health-officer-indicator.aspx https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/bay-area-health-o... I like that they have clear numerical targets for all of them.
- newacct583 6y agoYeah, this seems to be about the right direction. California as a whole (I don't have access to Bay Area data specifically) is clearly at a relatively stable peak, but the new infection rate hasn't dropped much and there's comparatively little room for error. Other states are looking better[1]. Vermont, Alaska, Montana and Hawaii are all well below their peak infection rates and still dropping. Those are the places that should start relaxing rules earlier. [1] Some are looking much worse, of course. Watch Nebraska in particular: their new infection rate has been growing at close to 10% per day for almost three weeks, and at that rate they'll be at a New York scale outbreak in just two more. I haven't seen any coverage of what's going on there (i.e. whether it's a specific local outbreak like the Smithfield one in SD).
- r00fus 6y agoVermont and Montana are sparse states so not surprising. Hawaii - that is interesting. Are those numbers accurate?
- CydeWeys 6y agoPeople give too much weight to overall sparsity/density, discounting how much human behavior has a role in creating personal density even in seemingly sparse areas. You can see massive infections in very sparse rural areas so long as people are congregating and not taking precautions. That seems to be what's happening in Nebraska. Behavior matters more. Here in Manhattan we're past the peak solely because of changes in behavior. It doesn't matter how sense the built environment is when most people are barely leaving their homes.
- dylz 6y ago
- nsnick 6y agoReopening childcare facilities seems very risky.
- trimbo 6y agoMillions of people can't work on reopening other things without reopening those first.
- m463 6y agoThe other method I've noticed people using is to leave the kids with the grandparents. I wonder if once people go to work/childcare if the kids will ever see their grandparents again.
- bittercynic 6y agoTHere'sno denying the importance of child care, but it seems just about guaranteed that if there is a case in one family it will spread to the other (up to) 11 families in the child's "stable group"
- rtkwe 6y agoThat's always going to be the risk until we have a working vaccine though and it's really hard to reopen without childcare in place. Without it a lot of people will have to choose between losing their jobs when their employer reopens or getting adhoc in home childcare.
- throwaway3neu94 6y agoIf we're adapting anyway, one change could be gradually leaving kids home alone for longer times. "Kids always need supervision" is a US thing. Leaving kids alone for some time works just fine in other countries. Of course there would have to be law/regulation/policy changes (to keep CPS away) but so what.
- fluxsauce 6y agoSome are already open, but with strict limitations. It won't be the same as re-opening as it was before; there are restrictions on capacity (12 max per teacher), sanitizing procedures, PPE for staff, guidelines around child health and reasons for exclusion, drop-off/pick-up procedures, and so forth. It's also not a carte-blanche reopening for all; the focus is still on essential workers.
- captaincole 6y agoReading between the lines here "Other activities that can resume under the new order include residential moves and the use of certain shared outdoor recreational facilities that were previously ordered closed, like skate parks, but not others that involve shared equipment or physical contact." -- I believe this means they will open up parks that were previously closed and allow people to visit again.
- joepatel09 6y agoWe also need to focus on what this pandemic had meant to us and what we can consider essential and non essential in the long run and use the lessons learnt to our benefit. Certainly the nature of work for a large number of people in Silicon Valley is such that it can be absolutely done remotely. I seriously hope and wish that unless it is absolutely necessary companies like FANG or Intel or NVIDIA or all other tech companies continue to honestly (not just on paper) encourage their employees to work from home. I am sure there are many roles that can continue to work from home in the foreseeable future : - Software engineers - Software development Managers - Product Managers - DevOps - SREs - Accountants and Finance - Marketing - Solution ArchitectS It is entirely possible for all these categories of people to WFH with the help of VPN, FaceTime/zoom or other Video and chat/messaging software. Companies should also stop new constructions or building new office spaces. It is time that tech companies understand that new office spaces are not a tool to increase productivity. Also in the long run having people work from home as much as possible will significantly improve Bay Area traffic and reduce pollution. I understand that some folks does not have the space in their home to WFH peacefully , but with childcare facilities opening up and eventually schools ... it can be easily worked out where members of such households establish a rotating schedule and WFH on a partial basis (ie 2-4 days a week).
- google234123 6y agoBut office spaces do increase productivity...
- la6471 6y agoCollaboration increases productivity and building new offices continuously is not the only way to increase collaboration, specially for the kind of work that SV companies does. I think from that perspective the OPs post bears merit. However it is also a matter of job security and if you don’t have to go to an office physically you may feel insecure inside ....
- didibus 6y agoThat's true, I think a lot more can be done for the WFH perspective. If companies offered all employees a good home setup, good desk, chair, screen, keyboard, mouse, headphones, good mic, good webcam, a good whiteboarding solution as well like maybe an iPad + pencil. And there was an app allowing remote share, remote control, remote whiteboard, and subsidize cost of a good internet. I feel I'd be even more productive at home with all that in place.
- suyash 6y agoThe most important question : Are Barbershops going to be Open or Not? :)
- bittercynic 6y agoI don't have an answer, but I'd encourage you to continue paying your barber on whatever schedule you used to get a haircut!
- usaar333 6y agoNo. Not for a long time in fact
- freepor 6y agoI have never seen this scale of sacrifice for this scale of Quality Adjusted Life Years. Just the impact on the kids missing school will be worse than the impact from the virus.
- netllama 6y agoJust because you've not seen something doesn't mean its not happened. The sad reality is that people all over the world have lived like this forever. Warzones, undeveloped countries, etc. Afghanistan hasn't been safe or stable enough for literally decades. Syria has had a civil war for many years. Much of Mali has been under the grip of religious extremists for years.
- freepor 6y agoI don’t think you and I are talking about the same thing. I’m talking about a societal/governmental decision to sacrifice the quality of life of the entire society for the benefit of some vulnerable group. Not civil wars or ethnic cleansing or other atrocities.
- wpietri 6y agoWhat, in your expert opinion, would be the total impact of letting the virus run out of control?
- freepor 6y agoThere's a large gap between "let run out of control" and "stay locked indoors when the disease has been controlled." A gradual reopening starting now can find the place on the spectrum that works.
- wpietri 6y agoGood thing that this very article announces a gradual reopening started now, then.