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Yeah. That being said, I got more sympathy when I learned how absolutely absurd Gavin Newsom's reopening conditions were - halt reopening of a county until "No

Yeah. That being said, I got more sympathy when I learned how absolutely absurd Gavin Newsom's reopening conditions were - halt reopening of a county until "No more than one new COVID-19 case per 10,000 residents in the past 14 days" and "No COVID-19 deaths in the past 14 days". It seems much more logical to base it on the R-number (number of people infected on average by each infected person), like we do here in Norway. The more the R-number goes down, the more things can be reopened.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I do wonder if we will end up with R converging towards 1 in that case. Every time it falls people get gun-ho and start going out, then it rises until we see the figures get alarming again.
- kristofferR 6y ago
  I don't know where you're talking about, but at least here in Norway that hasn't happened. It might happen in places where people has been misled into thinking that reopening is a binary option, instead of a slow gradual process constantly re-evalutated based on data.
- plantain 6y ago
  That's exactly the plan in many countries with the current caseload well within the capacity of the healthcare system (i.e. Germany). Balancing overloading the healthcare system with reopening business.
  - mcv 6y ago
    You can't keep everything shut down until there's a cure. We need to find a way to live with it, and that means reopening those businesses that are the safest and most urgent to reopen, while testing extensively and keeping a close eye on whether it gets out of control again.
ashtonkem 6y ago
That would be a fair argument, if Elon made it. Sadly Elon is just calling it fascism on investor calls, so there goes all nuance out the window. The problem with basing it off R number is we can only estimate R0, which is why most reopening criteria are based around deaths and tests per capita.
mcv 6y ago
I think there's absolutely something to be said for allowing businesses to reopen if they can guarantee healthy working conditions with enough space, time and equipment to avoid infection. The problem is: merely checking those measures for every business is going to be a lot of work.
cameldrv 6y ago
Both things are important. The R number tells you which direction you're headed. If you're significantly below 1, you can relatively safely open up a little more and see where that leaves you. However, new case counts and new deaths matter a lot. Even with, say, R=0.8, with a big outbreak, people will continue to get sick and die. It also means that if you underestimate the effect of opening up and wind up with R>1, you can start running into capacity problems, either contact tracing, testing, or hospital capacity. It's best to get case counts low and declining, and then start opening things up.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

I do wonder if we will end up with R converging towards 1 in that case. Every time it falls people get gun-ho and start going out, then it rises until we see the figures get alarming again.

kristofferR 6y ago
I don't know where you're talking about, but at least here in Norway that hasn't happened. It might happen in places where people has been misled into thinking that reopening is a binary option, instead of a slow gradual process constantly re-evalutated based on data.
plantain 6y ago
That's exactly the plan in many countries with the current caseload well within the capacity of the healthcare system (i.e. Germany). Balancing overloading the healthcare system with reopening business.
- mcv 6y ago
  You can't keep everything shut down until there's a cure. We need to find a way to live with it, and that means reopening those businesses that are the safest and most urgent to reopen, while testing extensively and keeping a close eye on whether it gets out of control again.

ashtonkem 6y ago

That would be a fair argument, if Elon made it. Sadly Elon is just calling it fascism on investor calls, so there goes all nuance out the window. The problem with basing it off R number is we can only estimate R0, which is why most reopening criteria are based around deaths and tests per capita.

mcv 6y ago

I think there's absolutely something to be said for allowing businesses to reopen if they can guarantee healthy working conditions with enough space, time and equipment to avoid infection. The problem is: merely checking those measures for every business is going to be a lot of work.

cameldrv 6y ago

Both things are important. The R number tells you which direction you're headed. If you're significantly below 1, you can relatively safely open up a little more and see where that leaves you. However, new case counts and new deaths matter a lot. Even with, say, R=0.8, with a big outbreak, people will continue to get sick and die. It also means that if you underestimate the effect of opening up and wind up with R>1, you can start running into capacity problems, either contact tracing, testing, or hospital capacity. It's best to get case counts low and declining, and then start opening things up.