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I think its pretty clear that places where the economy shut down longer are affected more, at least in the US. In the midwest where I live everything is almost

I think its pretty clear that places where the economy shut down longer are affected more, at least in the US. In the midwest where I live everything is almost back to normal, Main difference is you have to put a piece of cotton over your face when you walk into a bar. Housing market is still strong and jobs are to be had. Meanwhile NYC and other shut down areas are seeing an exodus of the wealthy

kazagistar 6y ago
Its not over yet. I live in a rural area and we are seeing the worst spike yet.
addicted 6y ago
In the US places that were shut down longer were also places that were affected by the virus more. A more relevant comparison is Sweden with its neighbors. If you simply compare Sweden to Denmark (which was the worst performing Swedish neighbor), Sweden which never had an official lockdown, still saw its economy contract more than all its neighbors, had a death rate 5x that of Denmark (and 10x other neighbors) and a case rate 2x that of Denmark. Of course, it's hard to compare different economies, but the initial evidence indicates that not locking down does not help the economy either. Another interesting bit of evidence is that mobility data showed that in cities that were affected by the virus, reduction in economic activity preceded lockdowns. Which indicates that the economy would be affected negatively irrespective of the lockdown. It's also not all that surprising. The reality is that the majority of people are not gonna want to be active while a deadly disease for which we have no cure/vaccine is running rampant. So a lockdown effectively only affects the behavior of those at the margin. Their activity affects the economy linearly, but will affect the spread of the disease exponentially. The marginal linear economic benefit of not having a lockdown could very easily be dwarfed by the economic impact of the greater spread of the virus. That being said, now that we have a much better understanding of the virus and how it spreads (we had absolutely no idea in the beginning when the blanket lockdowns were issued), targeted and limited lockdowns should be more than sufficient in societies where people generally tend to follow rules.
- jariel 6y ago
  "eduction in economic activity preceded lockdowns." In Montreal, the coffee shops were almost empty when the PM's wife was diagnosed, some time before the official shut downs. It may very well be that social interaction is only partly controlled by 'shut downs'. I suggest that there is probably a 'form of staying open' that would actually limit COVID spread, and that if the communications used by government were more effective (i.e. 'instead of going to the coffee shop, make sure to buy coffee takeout) - we may have been able to 'have our cake and eat it' which is to say keep the economy running while limiting infections. The economic shock is real, I don't think people realize how upside down our system is right now. We've been basically avoiding total social meltdown by printing money out of thin air in historical proportions. If we don't play our cards right, and we screw this up, it will be 'Weimar Republic' all over again and things could melt down very badly. Someone much worse than Trump will come along and take advantage of that. Have a look here [1] In 10 years the US Fed has gone from 800B in assets to 7 Trillion. It's very scary. [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...
whimsicalism 6y ago
The evidence is strongly suggestive that consumer behavior has more of an impact on business success than lockdown, which is why business in Sweden suffered. You can't separate consumer sentiment and lockdown just by looking at the midwest. The question is more - in places where the population voted for people who did lockdown, would lifting the lockdown lead to a resumption of economic activity? The answer to that question appears to be a tentative no. The best way to resume normal activity is to control the pandemic.
kube-system 6y ago
High cost areas are seeing an exodus of the wealthy because they now have the ability to work from places where they don't have to pay $4000/mo for a tiny apartment.
nobody9999 6y ago
>Meanwhile NYC and other shut down areas are seeing an exodus of the wealthy I think you're not as informed as you think you are. I live in NYC and we started opening back up in late June. In fact, pretty much everything but indoor dining, gyms and large indoor gatherings have been open since August. We've had some hot spots recently which have necessitated geographically isolated restrictions, but the majority of the city is open, as is indoor dining and gyms. Sure, there has been a goodly bit of economic impact, as many continue to work from home (before the pandemic, the population of Manhattan would roughly double on a working day) which has impacted much of the hospitality industry. Broadway theaters, the Opera and the Philharmonic are all closed until at least next summer, but those require being in large groups indoors to be profitable. But museums are open. NYC is certainly not "back to normal," but in a place where the population density is 27,000/sq mi (what's the population density where you live?) that's not surprising. What is surprising is how low we've kept the infection rate since the end of May[0]. In fact, given the circumstances, once we got things under control (mid March- late May were horrific and deeply disturbing here), we've been doing really well. [0] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

kazagistar 6y ago

Its not over yet. I live in a rural area and we are seeing the worst spike yet.

addicted 6y ago

In the US places that were shut down longer were also places that were affected by the virus more. A more relevant comparison is Sweden with its neighbors. If you simply compare Sweden to Denmark (which was the worst performing Swedish neighbor), Sweden which never had an official lockdown, still saw its economy contract more than all its neighbors, had a death rate 5x that of Denmark (and 10x other neighbors) and a case rate 2x that of Denmark. Of course, it's hard to compare different economies, but the initial evidence indicates that not locking down does not help the economy either. Another interesting bit of evidence is that mobility data showed that in cities that were affected by the virus, reduction in economic activity preceded lockdowns. Which indicates that the economy would be affected negatively irrespective of the lockdown. It's also not all that surprising. The reality is that the majority of people are not gonna want to be active while a deadly disease for which we have no cure/vaccine is running rampant. So a lockdown effectively only affects the behavior of those at the margin. Their activity affects the economy linearly, but will affect the spread of the disease exponentially. The marginal linear economic benefit of not having a lockdown could very easily be dwarfed by the economic impact of the greater spread of the virus. That being said, now that we have a much better understanding of the virus and how it spreads (we had absolutely no idea in the beginning when the blanket lockdowns were issued), targeted and limited lockdowns should be more than sufficient in societies where people generally tend to follow rules.

jariel 6y ago
"eduction in economic activity preceded lockdowns." In Montreal, the coffee shops were almost empty when the PM's wife was diagnosed, some time before the official shut downs. It may very well be that social interaction is only partly controlled by 'shut downs'. I suggest that there is probably a 'form of staying open' that would actually limit COVID spread, and that if the communications used by government were more effective (i.e. 'instead of going to the coffee shop, make sure to buy coffee takeout) - we may have been able to 'have our cake and eat it' which is to say keep the economy running while limiting infections. The economic shock is real, I don't think people realize how upside down our system is right now. We've been basically avoiding total social meltdown by printing money out of thin air in historical proportions. If we don't play our cards right, and we screw this up, it will be 'Weimar Republic' all over again and things could melt down very badly. Someone much worse than Trump will come along and take advantage of that. Have a look here [1] In 10 years the US Fed has gone from 800B in assets to 7 Trillion. It's very scary. [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...

whimsicalism 6y ago

The evidence is strongly suggestive that consumer behavior has more of an impact on business success than lockdown, which is why business in Sweden suffered. You can't separate consumer sentiment and lockdown just by looking at the midwest. The question is more - in places where the population voted for people who did lockdown, would lifting the lockdown lead to a resumption of economic activity? The answer to that question appears to be a tentative no. The best way to resume normal activity is to control the pandemic.

kube-system 6y ago

High cost areas are seeing an exodus of the wealthy because they now have the ability to work from places where they don't have to pay $4000/mo for a tiny apartment.

nobody9999 6y ago

>Meanwhile NYC and other shut down areas are seeing an exodus of the wealthy I think you're not as informed as you think you are. I live in NYC and we started opening back up in late June. In fact, pretty much everything but indoor dining, gyms and large indoor gatherings have been open since August. We've had some hot spots recently which have necessitated geographically isolated restrictions, but the majority of the city is open, as is indoor dining and gyms. Sure, there has been a goodly bit of economic impact, as many continue to work from home (before the pandemic, the population of Manhattan would roughly double on a working day) which has impacted much of the hospitality industry. Broadway theaters, the Opera and the Philharmonic are all closed until at least next summer, but those require being in large groups indoors to be profitable. But museums are open. NYC is certainly not "back to normal," but in a place where the population density is 27,000/sq mi (what's the population density where you live?) that's not surprising. What is surprising is how low we've kept the infection rate since the end of May[0]. In fact, given the circumstances, once we got things under control (mid March- late May were horrific and deeply disturbing here), we've been doing really well. [0] https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page