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We are arguing over two different things. I am arguing the direct response to the virus. How the lockdowns were implemented, where and for who. I agree that the

We are arguing over two different things. I am arguing the direct response to the virus. How the lockdowns were implemented, where and for who. I agree that the federal response was bad all over, and now it is most obvious in the lack of financial assistance to both individuals and states. Please keep in mind also, that for states that are not in (NY, NJ, CA, MI, LA) there hasn't been a _first wave_. We need to keep that in mind before we point to states like FL and GA as having a 2nd wave. Their waves were largely curtailed by the stay-home orders in place. We need to either admit we want these orders to last until there is a vaccine, or increase our threshold for acceptable case levels.

matthewdgreen 6y ago
I don’t actually think we disagree that much. The problem is that we were supposed to use our early lockdowns in the “high cases” states (NY/NJ/CA) to control the epidemic and bring it down to manageable levels. At least in NY/NJ this seems to have worked. We were supposed to use our lockdowns in the “low cases” states to bring the caseload down near zero. This has not really worked that well, largely because the lockdowns were poorly implemented, and because states ended them before they had really crushed community spread to a level where testing and tracing could work. Now there’s superficial (early) evidence that many of the low-cases states are entering a second stage of exponential growth. There may not be much room for us to simply manage the caseload at some “acceptable level” if those states really catch fire. The problem is that the only tool we have to manage this — if indeed it bears out and hospitals become overwhelmed - is another lockdown. But the lockdowns have become a political hot potato, and at least one side is dead-set against them. It seems unlikely that we’ll be able to use this tool again until things get Very Bad. Compare this to most of continental Europe, where both high-case and low-case nations have succeeded with lockdowns, and governments are moving into a phase where careful management is likely to control the epidemic entirely going forward.

matthewdgreen 6y ago

I don’t actually think we disagree that much. The problem is that we were supposed to use our early lockdowns in the “high cases” states (NY/NJ/CA) to control the epidemic and bring it down to manageable levels. At least in NY/NJ this seems to have worked. We were supposed to use our lockdowns in the “low cases” states to bring the caseload down near zero. This has not really worked that well, largely because the lockdowns were poorly implemented, and because states ended them before they had really crushed community spread to a level where testing and tracing could work. Now there’s superficial (early) evidence that many of the low-cases states are entering a second stage of exponential growth. There may not be much room for us to simply manage the caseload at some “acceptable level” if those states really catch fire. The problem is that the only tool we have to manage this — if indeed it bears out and hospitals become overwhelmed - is another lockdown. But the lockdowns have become a political hot potato, and at least one side is dead-set against them. It seems unlikely that we’ll be able to use this tool again until things get Very Bad. Compare this to most of continental Europe, where both high-case and low-case nations have succeeded with lockdowns, and governments are moving into a phase where careful management is likely to control the epidemic entirely going forward.