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If people are scared and won't go to restaurants and bars then why continue to keep them closed? You are saying that patronage is already down so why even rest

If people are scared and won't go to restaurants and bars then why continue to keep them closed? You are saying that patronage is already down so why even restrict them? Give people and businesses a choice in the matter. This is about letting individuals and businesses make their own decisions without the government forcing them to close.

bmn__ 6y ago
That would be fine and dandy if the decision to engage in risky behaviour only affects the individuals and businesses making them. However, this is not the case in reality.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dwaltrip 6y ago
This isn’t about people making decisions for themselves. It’s about preventing the spread of infectious disease. You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. That being said, I’m not sure what the best policy is. It doesn’t seem feasible to have a complete lockdown that extends for many months. So we have to be clever, keep learning, and find good solutions. We can minimize the risks and prioritize health while allowing society to function in an altered fashion.
- just-juan-post 6y ago
  > This isn’t about people making decisions for themselves Making decisions for ones self is exactly the principal that the USA was founded on. > You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. See also: Drinking, condom-less sex, smoking, and junk food. All of these things directly or indirectly harm others and if this is about public safety then it's time yourself and others start movements to ban them. The "you may be hurting people indirectly" argument never worked and it's getting more brittle with time. Have a good laugh with me this Sunday night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko
  - dwaltrip 6y ago
    Have you thought about how many people need to die for you to change your mind on this one? Just curious where you draw the line.
    - just-juan-post 6y ago
      I'm fine with 1 million. One million is 99.7% of the USA. Multiple studies have shown that the fatality rate is about .3%.
    - scottlocklin 6y ago
      Have you considered that your favored interventions are, in addition to being extremely harmful to society in every measurable way, probably also completely ineffective in altering the outcomes? Sweden didn't do a thing and is basically done with this nonsense, presumably for all time from the looks of the plots; Massachusetts is still mostly locked down and has 4x the death rate. Lockdown fetishists should be greeted with "citations needed."
      - bmn__ 6y ago
        > Sweden […] is basically done False, confirmed cases have grown 4.4% since the start of September. > Massachusetts is still mostly locked down and has 4x the death rate [of Sweden] False, us/ma has 1.42‰ and se has 0.58‰. That's a ratio of only 2.45. > "citations needed." https://covid.observer/se/ https://covid.observer/se/ https://covid.observer/us/ma/ https://covid.observer/us/ma/
        jeffreyrogers 6y ago
        > False, confirmed cases have grown 4.4% since the start of September. And yet they've more or less had zero deaths per day since the start of August. So yeah, they basically are done.
        bmn__ 6y ago
- logicchains 6y ago
  There is a lot of things that can indirectly harm others. Unless you can show that opening up is much more dangerous to others than those other things, it makes no sense to selectively ban opening up. Given bars and restaurants are already open in other states (and other countries) without any significant increase in deaths compared to California and New York, where's the data showing opening up bars and restaurants is dangerous?
- Yetanfou 6y ago
  Once SARS2 is history it will be interesting to compare the approach in places like NYC to those in e.g. Florida. I suspect the latter will come out on top when it comes to efficacy of the approach while the former will end up both bankrupt as well as looking for a new mayor and governor. Especially given the number of retirees living in Florida these results are remarkable, when the epidemic (as in 'local version of the pandemic') began I suspected FL would end up topping the mortality lists. A number of bad decisions were made in the beginning - e.g. allowing infected elderly people to be sent into care homes where they infected others - which have been haunting state and local government ever since and probably gave rise to the continued lockdown measures - a classical example of someone closing the barn doors after the horses escaped. I live in Sweden where similar mistakes were made in the beginning, in this case mostly caused by personnel in care facilities not following the mandated personal protection measures which caused them to spread the infection between infected and 'clean' departments, facilities and people. In contrast to NYC this has not led to more draconic lockdown measures, probably because the problems in those care facilities were recognised. Unfortunately they were not dealt with in time which has led to a large number of vulnerable people getting infected. Apart from these (grave) mistakes it now looks like the Swedish approach might start to show its merits given the low infection rates here compared to surrounding countries. Things can still change but currently the number of new infections in Sweden is lower than that in surrounding countries.
- thu2111 6y ago
  You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. No, this is a rumour that was long since debunked. Asymptomatic transmission does not exist. Basically no cases have been traced back to that and the WHO no longer supports the concept. WHO officials months ago pointed out this was "very rare" (read: doesn't happen, considering how noisy testing and contact tracing are). This story summarises: https://bgr.com/2020/08/31/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-risk-study-china/ https://bgr.com/2020/08/31/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-r... They (the WHO) distinguish this from "pre-symptomatic transmission" which means you will develop symptoms in a day or two, but are infectious a bit before that happens. This happens with many viruses. It's entirely normal. In the UK right now flu is twice as deadly as COVID, same is true of many other places. So you have a choice. You can never go out again in case you are about to come down with flu and un-knowingly, via a long and complex chain of events, kill a disabled child. Or you can accept that there's nothing unusual currently happening beyond media and government hysteria, and go to a restaurant before they're all gone.
watwut 6y ago
> If people are scared and won't go to restaurants If people are responsible and won't go to restaurants ... Or long form: If people know there is infectious disease around with asymptomatic transmission and rationally decide not to go to restaurant to ... Framing does a lot.
- just-juan-post 6y ago
  > If people are responsible and won't go to restaurants See here's the thing: Just because you and others like you have a certain definition of "responsible" doesn't mean it should or does apply to everyone. Should we ban skydiving because it's irresponsible? Condom-less sex? This is about choice. Re-open and let people and businesses choose. Have a laugh with me tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko
  - 666lumberjack 6y ago
    If it were possible to ensure everyone who would potentially be exposed to covid-19 as a result of your decision to engage in high-risk activities had given informed consent, I'd be fine with letting people decide for themselves. Since that isn't the case, your comparison is patently absurd. Skydiving isn't contagious.
  - piva00 6y ago
    No, this is about the common good, where personal choices might have a disproportionate impact unto others. I don't care if you don't care about getting infected or not, I do care if you get infected and spread that to others that don't hold your values. Society and populations don't work well with personal responsibility when their actions' impacts are too far removed from their personal sphere, if you kill someone 3rd hand because you infected someone who worked in a care facility: how are you going to know and act accordingly? This bullshit about personal freedoms and responsibility in the middle of a pandemic tells me more about the people who don't have a holistic view of society but this ideologue monologue about personal freedom, this is your value, this isn't how society work yet.
  - watwut 6y ago
statop 6y ago
This is a story about the ability of human kind to work together to defeat a common enemy. So far we have failed. The reasons for that failure are many, but it has become clear over this 6+ months that a coordinated top-down plan is what we’re lacking. The “libertarian” approach like you mentioned has been tried- every relaxation of covid restrictions has been followed by acceleration in the case count. Turns out prayers and positive thinking were unsuccessful in limiting virus transmission. Be honest Juan, when was the last time you really made your own decision anyhow?
TomSwirly 6y ago
Epidemiology is not accomplished by allowing people to make personal choices, because your average guy has no understanding of either epidemiology or statistics. As we have already seen, what actually happens is that a small number of people with vocal delusional beliefs do wildly risky things that endangers everyone else.
zamadatix 6y ago
Ignoring the whole "we should open/we should close" debate (I'm not an expert in economics or virology) it's perfectly possible for the vast majority of people to not want to go to bars/restaurants and to need to chose, as a group instead of individual, to close them to lower spread. I.e. >50% doesn't always have the same outcome as 100% People do get a choice in the matter but part of that is people get a choice whether they want to act independently or enforce a choice (to some level) as a group.
maxerickson 6y ago
Most people advocating for reopening would kick restaurant employees off of unemployment. Those employees are the people in the equation with the least power, and the most exposed to the risk.
loco5niner 6y ago
> If people are scared and... You're framing this the wrong way. It's not about being scared, its about being careful.

bmn__ 6y ago

That would be fine and dandy if the decision to engage in risky behaviour only affects the individuals and businesses making them. However, this is not the case in reality.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dwaltrip 6y ago

This isn’t about people making decisions for themselves. It’s about preventing the spread of infectious disease. You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. That being said, I’m not sure what the best policy is. It doesn’t seem feasible to have a complete lockdown that extends for many months. So we have to be clever, keep learning, and find good solutions. We can minimize the risks and prioritize health while allowing society to function in an altered fashion.

just-juan-post 6y ago
> This isn’t about people making decisions for themselves Making decisions for ones self is exactly the principal that the USA was founded on. > You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. See also: Drinking, condom-less sex, smoking, and junk food. All of these things directly or indirectly harm others and if this is about public safety then it's time yourself and others start movements to ban them. The "you may be hurting people indirectly" argument never worked and it's getting more brittle with time. Have a good laugh with me this Sunday night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  Have you thought about how many people need to die for you to change your mind on this one? Just curious where you draw the line.
  - just-juan-post 6y ago
    I'm fine with 1 million. One million is 99.7% of the USA. Multiple studies have shown that the fatality rate is about .3%.
  - scottlocklin 6y ago
    Have you considered that your favored interventions are, in addition to being extremely harmful to society in every measurable way, probably also completely ineffective in altering the outcomes? Sweden didn't do a thing and is basically done with this nonsense, presumably for all time from the looks of the plots; Massachusetts is still mostly locked down and has 4x the death rate. Lockdown fetishists should be greeted with "citations needed."
    - bmn__ 6y ago
      > Sweden […] is basically done False, confirmed cases have grown 4.4% since the start of September. > Massachusetts is still mostly locked down and has 4x the death rate [of Sweden] False, us/ma has 1.42‰ and se has 0.58‰. That's a ratio of only 2.45. > "citations needed." https://covid.observer/se/ https://covid.observer/se/ https://covid.observer/us/ma/ https://covid.observer/us/ma/
      - jeffreyrogers 6y ago
        > False, confirmed cases have grown 4.4% since the start of September. And yet they've more or less had zero deaths per day since the start of August. So yeah, they basically are done.
        bmn__ 6y ago
logicchains 6y ago
There is a lot of things that can indirectly harm others. Unless you can show that opening up is much more dangerous to others than those other things, it makes no sense to selectively ban opening up. Given bars and restaurants are already open in other states (and other countries) without any significant increase in deaths compared to California and New York, where's the data showing opening up bars and restaurants is dangerous?
Yetanfou 6y ago
Once SARS2 is history it will be interesting to compare the approach in places like NYC to those in e.g. Florida. I suspect the latter will come out on top when it comes to efficacy of the approach while the former will end up both bankrupt as well as looking for a new mayor and governor. Especially given the number of retirees living in Florida these results are remarkable, when the epidemic (as in 'local version of the pandemic') began I suspected FL would end up topping the mortality lists. A number of bad decisions were made in the beginning - e.g. allowing infected elderly people to be sent into care homes where they infected others - which have been haunting state and local government ever since and probably gave rise to the continued lockdown measures - a classical example of someone closing the barn doors after the horses escaped. I live in Sweden where similar mistakes were made in the beginning, in this case mostly caused by personnel in care facilities not following the mandated personal protection measures which caused them to spread the infection between infected and 'clean' departments, facilities and people. In contrast to NYC this has not led to more draconic lockdown measures, probably because the problems in those care facilities were recognised. Unfortunately they were not dealt with in time which has led to a large number of vulnerable people getting infected. Apart from these (grave) mistakes it now looks like the Swedish approach might start to show its merits given the low infection rates here compared to surrounding countries. Things can still change but currently the number of new infections in Sweden is lower than that in surrounding countries.
thu2111 6y ago
You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. No, this is a rumour that was long since debunked. Asymptomatic transmission does not exist. Basically no cases have been traced back to that and the WHO no longer supports the concept. WHO officials months ago pointed out this was "very rare" (read: doesn't happen, considering how noisy testing and contact tracing are). This story summarises: https://bgr.com/2020/08/31/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-risk-study-china/ https://bgr.com/2020/08/31/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-r... They (the WHO) distinguish this from "pre-symptomatic transmission" which means you will develop symptoms in a day or two, but are infectious a bit before that happens. This happens with many viruses. It's entirely normal. In the UK right now flu is twice as deadly as COVID, same is true of many other places. So you have a choice. You can never go out again in case you are about to come down with flu and un-knowingly, via a long and complex chain of events, kill a disabled child. Or you can accept that there's nothing unusual currently happening beyond media and government hysteria, and go to a restaurant before they're all gone.

watwut 6y ago

> If people are scared and won't go to restaurants If people are responsible and won't go to restaurants ... Or long form: If people know there is infectious disease around with asymptomatic transmission and rationally decide not to go to restaurant to ... Framing does a lot.

just-juan-post 6y ago
> If people are responsible and won't go to restaurants See here's the thing: Just because you and others like you have a certain definition of "responsible" doesn't mean it should or does apply to everyone. Should we ban skydiving because it's irresponsible? Condom-less sex? This is about choice. Re-open and let people and businesses choose. Have a laugh with me tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko
- 666lumberjack 6y ago
  If it were possible to ensure everyone who would potentially be exposed to covid-19 as a result of your decision to engage in high-risk activities had given informed consent, I'd be fine with letting people decide for themselves. Since that isn't the case, your comparison is patently absurd. Skydiving isn't contagious.
- piva00 6y ago
  No, this is about the common good, where personal choices might have a disproportionate impact unto others. I don't care if you don't care about getting infected or not, I do care if you get infected and spread that to others that don't hold your values. Society and populations don't work well with personal responsibility when their actions' impacts are too far removed from their personal sphere, if you kill someone 3rd hand because you infected someone who worked in a care facility: how are you going to know and act accordingly? This bullshit about personal freedoms and responsibility in the middle of a pandemic tells me more about the people who don't have a holistic view of society but this ideologue monologue about personal freedom, this is your value, this isn't how society work yet.
- watwut 6y ago

statop 6y ago

This is a story about the ability of human kind to work together to defeat a common enemy. So far we have failed. The reasons for that failure are many, but it has become clear over this 6+ months that a coordinated top-down plan is what we’re lacking. The “libertarian” approach like you mentioned has been tried- every relaxation of covid restrictions has been followed by acceleration in the case count. Turns out prayers and positive thinking were unsuccessful in limiting virus transmission. Be honest Juan, when was the last time you really made your own decision anyhow?

TomSwirly 6y ago

Epidemiology is not accomplished by allowing people to make personal choices, because your average guy has no understanding of either epidemiology or statistics. As we have already seen, what actually happens is that a small number of people with vocal delusional beliefs do wildly risky things that endangers everyone else.

zamadatix 6y ago

Ignoring the whole "we should open/we should close" debate (I'm not an expert in economics or virology) it's perfectly possible for the vast majority of people to not want to go to bars/restaurants and to need to chose, as a group instead of individual, to close them to lower spread. I.e. >50% doesn't always have the same outcome as 100% People do get a choice in the matter but part of that is people get a choice whether they want to act independently or enforce a choice (to some level) as a group.

maxerickson 6y ago

Most people advocating for reopening would kick restaurant employees off of unemployment. Those employees are the people in the equation with the least power, and the most exposed to the risk.

loco5niner 6y ago

> If people are scared and... You're framing this the wrong way. It's not about being scared, its about being careful.