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I'm in Austin TX, it looked empty like that a month ago. It was nice, not to have to sit around in traffic for once... OTOH, it took about a week before the ro

I'm in Austin TX, it looked empty like that a month ago. It was nice, not to have to sit around in traffic for once... OTOH, it took about a week before the roads/stores were full again. Around here there are plenty of closed businesses too, but the ones that are open seem about as busy (if not more) so than usual. While the idea of shutting everything down during a pandemic to keep from wiping out 50% of the population/whatever might be a good idea. It was pretty apparent early on that this was low single digit % and overwhelmingly people with existing serious conditions. Telling those people to self quarantine really was the only solution. Its readily apparently that nothing actually changed in the month we stayed at home in TX. No vaccine, no additional personal protective equipment, nothing. So we all just sat at home and destroyed a large part of the economy for nothing. Particularly since to have done it "right" we would all still be sitting at home waiting for a vaccine or whatever. Given the current time-frame it might be another 6+ months. Even the testing hasn't gotten good enough to test everyone in contact, much less even find everyone who has been in contact. Maybe the one thing we now know is just how effective good masks can be. Not that anyone is even wearing masks anymore at some places (home depot for one). So, big waste, nothing gained, and states saying closed until something changes are going to be in a world of hurt. I predict they will be forced open by politics long before either the testing/tracing or vaccine situation changes sufficiently to make a difference.

willvarfar 6y ago
Just playing devils advocate, but if only those at risk were supposed to quarantine, would those at risk but not financially secure lie to keep working, and would those at risk lose their jobs? Basically, "you're at risk, so go home and be unemployed and sit there waiting for the world to move on without you and strip you of everything"? I'm not saying there's a right or wrong answer, I'm just wondering about how selective quarantining would have worked in practice.
- StillBored 6y ago
  Well, hopefully some solid unemployment funding would have been sufficient (or at least a good start). Not that I consider the current unemployment checks to be particularly helpful given how at least in austin they are 1/2 of the average wage. You would be talking a few percent of people staying home collecting unemployment (say 2-4%) which is about 1/3 of the current national unemployment. Yes, there probably would be a decline in restaurant/etc business because people were "social distancing" but nothing like stopping everything that wasn't a grocery store. But even then it would not be as bad. Overwhelmingly the older generation is the one at risk, and is already retired and staying home. It was the young 20 somethings working "service industry" that were all sent home. The ones with the lowest health risk, and the largest financial need. AKA, it would be a big recession, but nothing like what we are about to experience.
sharkmerry 6y ago
> So, big waste, nothing gained, Are you asserting that case count in the US would be the exact same without Shelter in place?
- StillBored 6y ago
  We are "flattening the curve", which AFAIK isn't actually yet changing the area under the curve. About the only thing that is changing WRT medical treatment (AFAIK) seems to be putting fewer people on ventilators. Because it turns out its not a good idea to be putting people who are surviving on O2 on a ventilator just because their O2 saturation is a bit low. A change that would have happened naturally if we ran out of ventilators. There might also be some drug studies coming along that provide some better treatment guidelines as well, but those don't seem to be particularly positive either. So maybe in a year we will be able to decrease the mortality rate by 50%, but again, you have to slow it sufficiently to save those 50%. So, yes we might be saving lives, but that is a small fraction of the total rates. Aka, we might be changing the death rate from 2% to 1.8%.. But, since we are mostly talking about the aged and infirm, its a herd culling. So you might be giving .2% another year or two to live until they die from other causes. Which is why, there is a persistent bit of pessimism being heard from certain parts of the research community warning that this might be more like the flu than we are willing to admit. AKA, its possibly going to be with us for a long time. We have spent the last 100 years working on flu vaccines and treatments and lowered the fatality rate by maybe 90%. That 60k deaths a year in the US are with large parts of the population being vaccinated, and piles of treatment options.

willvarfar 6y ago

Just playing devils advocate, but if only those at risk were supposed to quarantine, would those at risk but not financially secure lie to keep working, and would those at risk lose their jobs? Basically, "you're at risk, so go home and be unemployed and sit there waiting for the world to move on without you and strip you of everything"? I'm not saying there's a right or wrong answer, I'm just wondering about how selective quarantining would have worked in practice.

StillBored 6y ago
Well, hopefully some solid unemployment funding would have been sufficient (or at least a good start). Not that I consider the current unemployment checks to be particularly helpful given how at least in austin they are 1/2 of the average wage. You would be talking a few percent of people staying home collecting unemployment (say 2-4%) which is about 1/3 of the current national unemployment. Yes, there probably would be a decline in restaurant/etc business because people were "social distancing" but nothing like stopping everything that wasn't a grocery store. But even then it would not be as bad. Overwhelmingly the older generation is the one at risk, and is already retired and staying home. It was the young 20 somethings working "service industry" that were all sent home. The ones with the lowest health risk, and the largest financial need. AKA, it would be a big recession, but nothing like what we are about to experience.

sharkmerry 6y ago

> So, big waste, nothing gained, Are you asserting that case count in the US would be the exact same without Shelter in place?

StillBored 6y ago
We are "flattening the curve", which AFAIK isn't actually yet changing the area under the curve. About the only thing that is changing WRT medical treatment (AFAIK) seems to be putting fewer people on ventilators. Because it turns out its not a good idea to be putting people who are surviving on O2 on a ventilator just because their O2 saturation is a bit low. A change that would have happened naturally if we ran out of ventilators. There might also be some drug studies coming along that provide some better treatment guidelines as well, but those don't seem to be particularly positive either. So maybe in a year we will be able to decrease the mortality rate by 50%, but again, you have to slow it sufficiently to save those 50%. So, yes we might be saving lives, but that is a small fraction of the total rates. Aka, we might be changing the death rate from 2% to 1.8%.. But, since we are mostly talking about the aged and infirm, its a herd culling. So you might be giving .2% another year or two to live until they die from other causes. Which is why, there is a persistent bit of pessimism being heard from certain parts of the research community warning that this might be more like the flu than we are willing to admit. AKA, its possibly going to be with us for a long time. We have spent the last 100 years working on flu vaccines and treatments and lowered the fatality rate by maybe 90%. That 60k deaths a year in the US are with large parts of the population being vaccinated, and piles of treatment options.