4 ms·

If it makes you feel any better, the lockdowns probably don't matter in the limit. 1) Individual behavior changed prior to the lockdowns (people don't want to

If it makes you feel any better, the lockdowns probably don't matter in the limit. 1) Individual behavior changed prior to the lockdowns (people don't want to die) 2) The government appears generally too incompetent to figure out how to lower R0 low enough to eradicate the virus 3) Since everyone can see that the govt is fucking this up, the marginal utility of hard lockdowns becomes less than the marginal pain. Some people will socialize, go to restaurants, etc. but... 4) It probably won't be more than a 50-75% return to normality because people don't want to die, and risk preferences vary so some will remain cautious. This will, crush small businesses, restaurants, bars, leisure, etc. So since the govt is too incompetent to bring the virus to actual 0, then formal lockdowns don't matter because you're not getting rid of the virus anyway and raising them doesn't matter much either, because you're not going back to normal.

mgleason_3 6y ago
Hacker News REALLY needs to get rid of the damn down-voting because it's causing HN to become little more than an echo chamber. In its place, people can make use of "reply" to air their viewpoint.
- AbrahamParangi 6y ago
  There's a lockdowns-are-destroying-America echo chamber and a republicans-are-killing-people echo chamber. These are probably both mostly wrong, but on the plus side things must be getting better because we're back to tribalism.
  - Gene_Parmesan 6y ago
    Here is what I don't understand. (I seriously don't, and would honestly appreciate some explanations or ideas. And keep in mind I am 100% on board with following any and all recommendations of the CDC.) When we were all sent to sit at home back in March, the word was "flatten the curve." The idea was that containment was no longer an option, as declared by the CDC/WHO. Epidemiologists were predicting that somewhere between 40% and 70% of the world's population were going to catch COVID19, at one point or another. So the paramount need was to ensure that the health systems did not get overrun. We socially distance and stay at home until we're sure the health systems are in the clear, and then we return to some mixed approximation to 'normal,' with the understanding we'd probably have to return a few weeks at a time at some points in the future as case counts climbed again. But at some point, almost every one I know has switched to believing that the real goal is eradication, that we need to be extremely socially distanced until case counts are near zero, or until a vaccine arrives. People now seem terrified at the thought of catching it, despite having no risk factors. What I don't understand is why this switch occurred. I think we have been seeing a lot of sensationalized headlines and statements from scientists taken out of context somewhat, but I don't think that in and of itself is enough to explain the switch. Since about early March, we have known or strongly believed that the virus was mostly harmless to most people, with the extreme vast majority of serious cases occurring in people with high risks factors. So I have trouble understanding the extreme pushback against moderate reopening I am seeing out of a lot of people I know. People say "but we need to keep case counts low." Yes, I agree, but I don't know how in the world we get them to zero. Containment was broken. If we're going to be angry, let's be angry about the fact that nothing was done to attempt full containment until it was far too late, not the fact that places are ready to fulfill the statements they made in March. We can't even count on a vaccine to ever come, because there are issues with some coronavirus vaccines. For instance, the vaccine for SARS become not recommended after research showed that, while it prevented future infections from SARS, it made infections from other coronaviruses more damaging. The last thing we want to do is rush a vaccine through human trials that ends up causing more harm than good, but that's what's going to happen if we believe we're all trapped in our houses until one comes. Anyways, I'm just not sure where the switch happened. Why are so many people I know now frantically talking about how they need to stay home through September or later, after being told just a mere 2 months ago that the goal was curve-flattening? In most areas in the US, it seems the curve has been flattened. Where I live (a mid-sized city), the health system was never remotely close to being stressed. Yes, case counts will increase if you reopen a bit, but remember, 40%-70% of the pop is going to catch it at some point. Those people are going to catch it whether they catch it now, or six months from now. If you can't tell from my comment, I think (as is usually the case) the right approach sits directly in between the "open now" and "keep everything shut down" camps. The virus is an extremely serious event, a terrible tragedy, and one that we need to ensure we keep from overwhelming hospitals. But where hospitals are not in any danger of being overwhelmed, I just don't know what good having everyone indefinitely locked at home is doing. Taking what seem to be unreasonably conservative stances now does not fix the bullshit actions by our governments 3 months ago; that ship is gone.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      There is a Presidential election in six months. That means there is a major element of politics in everything that happens between now and then. The incumbent candidate wants to reopen. Because the election is near, it's especially important for the other side to portray whatever he does as wrong and incompetent and life-threatening. So you then have a major political apparatus pushing the argument that reopening is dangerous and publicizing any instance of any authority saying anything negative about it. They don't benefit from a nuanced or moderate position. Some of the people you hear pushing this are the partisans themselves, but most of them are just the people who only listen to the media from one side and then repeat what they're told. Meanwhile if you listen to the President the economy is doing great and everything is fine and we'll all be back to normal in a month or two. The truth is, as always, complicated, and somewhere in the middle.
      - vkou 6y ago
        > The incumbent candidate wants to reopen. Because the election is near, it's especially important for the other side to portray whatever he does as wrong and incompetent and life-threatening. So you then have a major political apparatus pushing the argument that reopening is dangerous and publicizing any instance of any authority saying anything negative about it. They don't benefit from a nuanced or moderate position. This same debate is happening in every country in the world, including ones that don't have an election in six months. So, no, this is not just a bunch of political wankery that's aimed at making Orange Man look bad. It's a very clear consequence of what the two parties value.
        makomk 6y ago
        All of the stupid, cynical partisan bullshit that America's press comes up with to try and kick Trump out of office is spilling over to other countries and screwing up our ideas about our coronavirus responses, though. For example, early on the CDC screwed up its coronavirus test, delaying the rollout of wider testing. The press saw blood and started blaming all the American deaths on the Trump administration failing to test for coronavirus. The trouble is, this was fixed some months ago, so in order to keep this narrative going publications like the New York Times took increasingly massive levels of testing that no country had managed, such as testing everyone with symptoms or testing 10% of the population a day, and made them sound like things all countries had achieved but the US had missed due to Trump. This worked on a massive scale - the narrative spread, and people in every Western country became convinced that their government is failing at coronavirus testing compared to the rest of the work due to not being able to manage those things, and that it was killing people. I even had a discussion with a couple of Germans on here the other day who were convinced their coronavirus testing was abysmal, despite them having one of the biggest programs out there and being the country that the US and UK media currently point to in order to convince us that our governments are failing on testing. To make matters even more stupid, the US actually passed mass testing success story South Korea - the country which supposedly proves all those deaths could be avoided if you just had proper coronavirus testing - quite some time ago, and people didn't realize because the media carefully avoided updating people's beliefs since this changed. I keep seeing people point to the US supposedly having less per-capita testing than South Korea in HN comments as proof they should be able to do better, even now. Astoundingly, when Trump debunked this widespread, false belief in a recent press conference, this is how the New York Times summed it up in a headline "Trump Misrepresents Testing Record". (The "misrepresentation" was that even though what he said was true it wasn't true two months ago, and also the US hadn't beaten every single country on the planet on coronavirus testing. Seriously.) Also, the sides certainly aren't the same in all countries when it comes to the legal legitimacy of lockdowns. For example, in the UK our right-wing party is currently in power, which means that arguments that their lockdown rules are illegitimate and exceed their powers mostly come from supporters of the other, left-wing party. The justifications for why they're exceeding their powers actually look similar in many ways to the ones in this lawsuit.
- nelaboras 6y ago
  I see it as top comment, where is the echo chamber? I think downvoting unhealthy positions doesn't necessarily cause an echo chamber. Is it really necessary to address every irrational, stupid, inciting, ... posting? Is really every opinion worth being respected? I don't find the op offensive but it's been repeated here many times over - does each copy need a rebuttal or response? Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I don't believe in the mantra that everyone's opinion matters equally.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  If it helps: If you have view dead turned on in your privilege you’ll see dead comments. Also, if a comment is too grey for you to read, clicking the time stamp will ship it in regular black text. I occasionally vouch for dead comments if they seem reasonable to me, and on occasion that has immediately un-dead them.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    I have to agree. Downvotes are there but they don't censor the comment outright, you still can see them (and IIRC you can still upvote or vouch if it has not died dead yet) However I don't remember a comment that died that wasn't a crapfest. Everybody gets downvoted sometimes, most of the times I was downvoted it was either because I failed to convey my thoughts correctly (well, sometimes I don't have the time or will to go into detail) or just ended up ranting. Opinionated comments (but worded ok) sometimes gets downvoted and that is fine.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    That should have said “profile”, not “privilege”.
- fiblye 6y ago
  I really have to agree with you here. Ever since the pandemic started to ramp up, downvotes and hidden comments did as well. I'll see more greyed out comments in a single thread these days than I used to see all day just a year or two ago. Even I've gotten into a bad habit of using it, and I'm trying to avoid it. If a person posts something intentionally inflammatory or clearly just wants to pick a fight, the flag button works just fine.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    The most ironic instance of this was in one of the free speech discussions where at one point basically every comment in the whole thread was greyed out. Presumably because the anti-speech contingent is all too quick to downvote their opponents (consistent with their deleterious pro-censorship views), but then everyone who believes in speech sees every comment defending it greyed out, which makes them angry that their anti-censorship views are not being respected and unwilling to let the other side have an asymmetric weapon even if it goes against their principles, and the next thing you know every comment in the thread is grey. And that's the danger of censorship. Nobody is going to let the other side do it but not them, but then everybody does it and and then what are you left with?
- jb775 6y ago
  HN should require a reply in order to downvote, and downvoting should cause multiple lost points for the down-voter....and maybe down-votes should be publicly visible. I come here primarily to read discussion and to provide my unfiltered critical thought....but what I'm seeing recently is petty downvoting with little discussion or replies.
  - dang 6y ago
    We're not going to do that because it would lead to an explosion of bickering, nitpicking, and other low-value comments. You can't force people to do things like give good reasons. The downvote system has its disadvantages to be sure, but HN would be far, far worse off without it. Anyone who thinks otherwise is underestimating the need for anti-dreck measures on the internet. The key word in what you wrote is 'seeing'. You notice the cases you dislike, but the other ones in some sense go unseen: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... In other words you count the cost of the system but not its benefits. I don't mean you personally! we all do this. It's a cognitive bias that strongly (I mean extremely strongly) affects people's perceptions of HN. In reality, the ability of this site to support your intention ("I come here primarily to read discussion and to provide my unfiltered critical thought") depends utterly on the downvotes, just as the body depends on its white blood cells.
    - jb775 6y ago
      100% agree that human confirmation bias is VERY strong and impacts HN. This is partially the reason why I'm so concerned with (human) moderators having the ability to impact visibility of stories/comments[1]. Also, definitely agree that HN would be worse off without downvotes. I just think the system badly needs improvement. Below is a previous related comment of mine: I think "downvoting for disagreement" generally works on discussion related to non-sensitive topics, but starts to break down once discussion enters the political realm. It turns into a numbers game. Since the dev community tends to lean to the left, the "downvote" numbers are skewed in that direction. It leads to non-left users getting frustrated and possibly no longer visiting the site (including myself), creating an echo chamber and eroding the overall quality of HN. Why not set a max of 3 downvotes a day? Or subtract 5 karma points IF you don't include a reply with your downvote? There's gotta be a way to improve this. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223555#23225685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223555#23225685
nelaboras 6y ago
That's just an irrational position. Of course it matters as now companies can tell workers to come or be fired. All irresponsible people can go out, spread the virus further, overwhelm healthcare and kill thousands more. And the way it is done just showd how the US is going bananas: > Republicans who brought the lawsuit had asked the justices to side with them but to stay their ruling for about a week so legislators and Evers could work out a new plan to deal with the pandemic. > The justices declined to do that and had their ruling take effect immediately. ... > With no COVID-19 policies in place, bars, restaurants and concert halls are allowed to reopen — unless local officials implement their own restrictions. That raises the prospect of a patchwork of policies, with rules varying significantly from one county to the next.
icelancer 6y ago
Points #1 and #4 are evident in states who have already re-opened for business: Restaurants are seeing 80% reduction regarding in-room dining year over year, SIP orders being lifted be damned. Point #1 was reinforced by looking at OpenTable data as well. de Blasio told people to go to restaurants, and on that same day he urged people to congregate in close quarters, reservations were down 34% year over year and had been trending down for 2 weeks. People aren't stupid despite what the media reports, picking out groups of people to prove a point they want to push. Furthermore, the lockdowns moved the Overton window for a lot of people, hammering it in their head that they need to practice social distancing. It's not likely going to get any stronger with government-mandated half-measure lockdowns continuing.
mellavora 6y ago
Except if you have children. Because without a lockdown order you (may) need to send them to school. (depends on legality of homeschool in your jurisdiction, most of Europe forbids it, also depends on your ability to provide it) Or a job/employer who requires physical presence. Hello, Elon!
enumjorge 6y ago
Your 2nd and 3rd points illustrate the cultural problem the parent comment mentioned. The “the government is incompetent” trope contributes to the distrust that’s making it harder to deal with the virus. Like when you say the government is fucking things up, what are talking about here. Federal, state, city level? Because they each have approached the pandemic very differently and it’s unfair to put them all under the same umbrella. I’m pretty happy with the way my local government has responded. It hasn’t been perfect, but I also don’t expect them to deal with a once-in-a-century pandemic without hiccups. I know at least here in the US it’s common to paint “the government” as incompetent, and overpaid. But when parts of the population are angrily protesting that they can’t get haircuts and flying to FL to party during spring break, it’s no wonder it hasn’t been easy to get this under control. I don’t envy the positions of some government officials.
standardUser 6y ago
"The government appears generally too incompetent to figure out how to lower R0 low enough to eradicate the virus" There is no universe where that was ever going to happen absent herd immunity. It was never a declared goal by any major government and I doubt you could find a single quote from a qualified professional suggesting that is a realistic approach.

mgleason_3 6y ago

Hacker News REALLY needs to get rid of the damn down-voting because it's causing HN to become little more than an echo chamber. In its place, people can make use of "reply" to air their viewpoint.

AbrahamParangi 6y ago
There's a lockdowns-are-destroying-America echo chamber and a republicans-are-killing-people echo chamber. These are probably both mostly wrong, but on the plus side things must be getting better because we're back to tribalism.
- Gene_Parmesan 6y ago
  Here is what I don't understand. (I seriously don't, and would honestly appreciate some explanations or ideas. And keep in mind I am 100% on board with following any and all recommendations of the CDC.) When we were all sent to sit at home back in March, the word was "flatten the curve." The idea was that containment was no longer an option, as declared by the CDC/WHO. Epidemiologists were predicting that somewhere between 40% and 70% of the world's population were going to catch COVID19, at one point or another. So the paramount need was to ensure that the health systems did not get overrun. We socially distance and stay at home until we're sure the health systems are in the clear, and then we return to some mixed approximation to 'normal,' with the understanding we'd probably have to return a few weeks at a time at some points in the future as case counts climbed again. But at some point, almost every one I know has switched to believing that the real goal is eradication, that we need to be extremely socially distanced until case counts are near zero, or until a vaccine arrives. People now seem terrified at the thought of catching it, despite having no risk factors. What I don't understand is why this switch occurred. I think we have been seeing a lot of sensationalized headlines and statements from scientists taken out of context somewhat, but I don't think that in and of itself is enough to explain the switch. Since about early March, we have known or strongly believed that the virus was mostly harmless to most people, with the extreme vast majority of serious cases occurring in people with high risks factors. So I have trouble understanding the extreme pushback against moderate reopening I am seeing out of a lot of people I know. People say "but we need to keep case counts low." Yes, I agree, but I don't know how in the world we get them to zero. Containment was broken. If we're going to be angry, let's be angry about the fact that nothing was done to attempt full containment until it was far too late, not the fact that places are ready to fulfill the statements they made in March. We can't even count on a vaccine to ever come, because there are issues with some coronavirus vaccines. For instance, the vaccine for SARS become not recommended after research showed that, while it prevented future infections from SARS, it made infections from other coronaviruses more damaging. The last thing we want to do is rush a vaccine through human trials that ends up causing more harm than good, but that's what's going to happen if we believe we're all trapped in our houses until one comes. Anyways, I'm just not sure where the switch happened. Why are so many people I know now frantically talking about how they need to stay home through September or later, after being told just a mere 2 months ago that the goal was curve-flattening? In most areas in the US, it seems the curve has been flattened. Where I live (a mid-sized city), the health system was never remotely close to being stressed. Yes, case counts will increase if you reopen a bit, but remember, 40%-70% of the pop is going to catch it at some point. Those people are going to catch it whether they catch it now, or six months from now. If you can't tell from my comment, I think (as is usually the case) the right approach sits directly in between the "open now" and "keep everything shut down" camps. The virus is an extremely serious event, a terrible tragedy, and one that we need to ensure we keep from overwhelming hospitals. But where hospitals are not in any danger of being overwhelmed, I just don't know what good having everyone indefinitely locked at home is doing. Taking what seem to be unreasonably conservative stances now does not fix the bullshit actions by our governments 3 months ago; that ship is gone.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    There is a Presidential election in six months. That means there is a major element of politics in everything that happens between now and then. The incumbent candidate wants to reopen. Because the election is near, it's especially important for the other side to portray whatever he does as wrong and incompetent and life-threatening. So you then have a major political apparatus pushing the argument that reopening is dangerous and publicizing any instance of any authority saying anything negative about it. They don't benefit from a nuanced or moderate position. Some of the people you hear pushing this are the partisans themselves, but most of them are just the people who only listen to the media from one side and then repeat what they're told. Meanwhile if you listen to the President the economy is doing great and everything is fine and we'll all be back to normal in a month or two. The truth is, as always, complicated, and somewhere in the middle.
    - vkou 6y ago
      > The incumbent candidate wants to reopen. Because the election is near, it's especially important for the other side to portray whatever he does as wrong and incompetent and life-threatening. So you then have a major political apparatus pushing the argument that reopening is dangerous and publicizing any instance of any authority saying anything negative about it. They don't benefit from a nuanced or moderate position. This same debate is happening in every country in the world, including ones that don't have an election in six months. So, no, this is not just a bunch of political wankery that's aimed at making Orange Man look bad. It's a very clear consequence of what the two parties value.
      - makomk 6y ago
        All of the stupid, cynical partisan bullshit that America's press comes up with to try and kick Trump out of office is spilling over to other countries and screwing up our ideas about our coronavirus responses, though. For example, early on the CDC screwed up its coronavirus test, delaying the rollout of wider testing. The press saw blood and started blaming all the American deaths on the Trump administration failing to test for coronavirus. The trouble is, this was fixed some months ago, so in order to keep this narrative going publications like the New York Times took increasingly massive levels of testing that no country had managed, such as testing everyone with symptoms or testing 10% of the population a day, and made them sound like things all countries had achieved but the US had missed due to Trump. This worked on a massive scale - the narrative spread, and people in every Western country became convinced that their government is failing at coronavirus testing compared to the rest of the work due to not being able to manage those things, and that it was killing people. I even had a discussion with a couple of Germans on here the other day who were convinced their coronavirus testing was abysmal, despite them having one of the biggest programs out there and being the country that the US and UK media currently point to in order to convince us that our governments are failing on testing. To make matters even more stupid, the US actually passed mass testing success story South Korea - the country which supposedly proves all those deaths could be avoided if you just had proper coronavirus testing - quite some time ago, and people didn't realize because the media carefully avoided updating people's beliefs since this changed. I keep seeing people point to the US supposedly having less per-capita testing than South Korea in HN comments as proof they should be able to do better, even now. Astoundingly, when Trump debunked this widespread, false belief in a recent press conference, this is how the New York Times summed it up in a headline "Trump Misrepresents Testing Record". (The "misrepresentation" was that even though what he said was true it wasn't true two months ago, and also the US hadn't beaten every single country on the planet on coronavirus testing. Seriously.) Also, the sides certainly aren't the same in all countries when it comes to the legal legitimacy of lockdowns. For example, in the UK our right-wing party is currently in power, which means that arguments that their lockdown rules are illegitimate and exceed their powers mostly come from supporters of the other, left-wing party. The justifications for why they're exceeding their powers actually look similar in many ways to the ones in this lawsuit.
nelaboras 6y ago
I see it as top comment, where is the echo chamber? I think downvoting unhealthy positions doesn't necessarily cause an echo chamber. Is it really necessary to address every irrational, stupid, inciting, ... posting? Is really every opinion worth being respected? I don't find the op offensive but it's been repeated here many times over - does each copy need a rebuttal or response? Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I don't believe in the mantra that everyone's opinion matters equally.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
If it helps: If you have view dead turned on in your privilege you’ll see dead comments. Also, if a comment is too grey for you to read, clicking the time stamp will ship it in regular black text. I occasionally vouch for dead comments if they seem reasonable to me, and on occasion that has immediately un-dead them.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  I have to agree. Downvotes are there but they don't censor the comment outright, you still can see them (and IIRC you can still upvote or vouch if it has not died dead yet) However I don't remember a comment that died that wasn't a crapfest. Everybody gets downvoted sometimes, most of the times I was downvoted it was either because I failed to convey my thoughts correctly (well, sometimes I don't have the time or will to go into detail) or just ended up ranting. Opinionated comments (but worded ok) sometimes gets downvoted and that is fine.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  That should have said “profile”, not “privilege”.
fiblye 6y ago
I really have to agree with you here. Ever since the pandemic started to ramp up, downvotes and hidden comments did as well. I'll see more greyed out comments in a single thread these days than I used to see all day just a year or two ago. Even I've gotten into a bad habit of using it, and I'm trying to avoid it. If a person posts something intentionally inflammatory or clearly just wants to pick a fight, the flag button works just fine.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  The most ironic instance of this was in one of the free speech discussions where at one point basically every comment in the whole thread was greyed out. Presumably because the anti-speech contingent is all too quick to downvote their opponents (consistent with their deleterious pro-censorship views), but then everyone who believes in speech sees every comment defending it greyed out, which makes them angry that their anti-censorship views are not being respected and unwilling to let the other side have an asymmetric weapon even if it goes against their principles, and the next thing you know every comment in the thread is grey. And that's the danger of censorship. Nobody is going to let the other side do it but not them, but then everybody does it and and then what are you left with?
jb775 6y ago
HN should require a reply in order to downvote, and downvoting should cause multiple lost points for the down-voter....and maybe down-votes should be publicly visible. I come here primarily to read discussion and to provide my unfiltered critical thought....but what I'm seeing recently is petty downvoting with little discussion or replies.
- dang 6y ago
  We're not going to do that because it would lead to an explosion of bickering, nitpicking, and other low-value comments. You can't force people to do things like give good reasons. The downvote system has its disadvantages to be sure, but HN would be far, far worse off without it. Anyone who thinks otherwise is underestimating the need for anti-dreck measures on the internet. The key word in what you wrote is 'seeing'. You notice the cases you dislike, but the other ones in some sense go unseen: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20notice%20dislike&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... In other words you count the cost of the system but not its benefits. I don't mean you personally! we all do this. It's a cognitive bias that strongly (I mean extremely strongly) affects people's perceptions of HN. In reality, the ability of this site to support your intention ("I come here primarily to read discussion and to provide my unfiltered critical thought") depends utterly on the downvotes, just as the body depends on its white blood cells.
  - jb775 6y ago
    100% agree that human confirmation bias is VERY strong and impacts HN. This is partially the reason why I'm so concerned with (human) moderators having the ability to impact visibility of stories/comments[1]. Also, definitely agree that HN would be worse off without downvotes. I just think the system badly needs improvement. Below is a previous related comment of mine: I think "downvoting for disagreement" generally works on discussion related to non-sensitive topics, but starts to break down once discussion enters the political realm. It turns into a numbers game. Since the dev community tends to lean to the left, the "downvote" numbers are skewed in that direction. It leads to non-left users getting frustrated and possibly no longer visiting the site (including myself), creating an echo chamber and eroding the overall quality of HN. Why not set a max of 3 downvotes a day? Or subtract 5 karma points IF you don't include a reply with your downvote? There's gotta be a way to improve this. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223555#23225685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223555#23225685

nelaboras 6y ago

That's just an irrational position. Of course it matters as now companies can tell workers to come or be fired. All irresponsible people can go out, spread the virus further, overwhelm healthcare and kill thousands more. And the way it is done just showd how the US is going bananas: > Republicans who brought the lawsuit had asked the justices to side with them but to stay their ruling for about a week so legislators and Evers could work out a new plan to deal with the pandemic. > The justices declined to do that and had their ruling take effect immediately. ... > With no COVID-19 policies in place, bars, restaurants and concert halls are allowed to reopen — unless local officials implement their own restrictions. That raises the prospect of a patchwork of policies, with rules varying significantly from one county to the next.

icelancer 6y ago

Points #1 and #4 are evident in states who have already re-opened for business: Restaurants are seeing 80% reduction regarding in-room dining year over year, SIP orders being lifted be damned. Point #1 was reinforced by looking at OpenTable data as well. de Blasio told people to go to restaurants, and on that same day he urged people to congregate in close quarters, reservations were down 34% year over year and had been trending down for 2 weeks. People aren't stupid despite what the media reports, picking out groups of people to prove a point they want to push. Furthermore, the lockdowns moved the Overton window for a lot of people, hammering it in their head that they need to practice social distancing. It's not likely going to get any stronger with government-mandated half-measure lockdowns continuing.

mellavora 6y ago

Except if you have children. Because without a lockdown order you (may) need to send them to school. (depends on legality of homeschool in your jurisdiction, most of Europe forbids it, also depends on your ability to provide it) Or a job/employer who requires physical presence. Hello, Elon!

enumjorge 6y ago

Your 2nd and 3rd points illustrate the cultural problem the parent comment mentioned. The “the government is incompetent” trope contributes to the distrust that’s making it harder to deal with the virus. Like when you say the government is fucking things up, what are talking about here. Federal, state, city level? Because they each have approached the pandemic very differently and it’s unfair to put them all under the same umbrella. I’m pretty happy with the way my local government has responded. It hasn’t been perfect, but I also don’t expect them to deal with a once-in-a-century pandemic without hiccups. I know at least here in the US it’s common to paint “the government” as incompetent, and overpaid. But when parts of the population are angrily protesting that they can’t get haircuts and flying to FL to party during spring break, it’s no wonder it hasn’t been easy to get this under control. I don’t envy the positions of some government officials.

standardUser 6y ago

"The government appears generally too incompetent to figure out how to lower R0 low enough to eradicate the virus" There is no universe where that was ever going to happen absent herd immunity. It was never a declared goal by any major government and I doubt you could find a single quote from a qualified professional suggesting that is a realistic approach.