6 ms·

I don't know why we're so hesitant to just close bars and restaurants everywhere, pay the staff generously, and leave the rest of the economy open. At least in

I don't know why we're so hesitant to just close bars and restaurants everywhere, pay the staff generously, and leave the rest of the economy open. At least in the UK I think it would have stopped us from having a second lockdown.

matz1 6y ago
Close for what? The lockdown is not needed in the first place. The case number may be high but the case number is not useful because it doesn't tell if a person actually sick.
ntsplnkv2 6y ago
Because no one wants to pay them - it's the age old problem.
1123581321 6y ago
The hesitancy is due to the cost and the desire some restaurants and some of their customers have for them to remain open. This is especially the case in non-island nations that cannot control their borders as easily.
CincinnatiMan 6y ago
Interesting thought. How much would that cost? And is it only restaurant direct staff that is compensated or also other industries that are negatively impacted by their closure?
FuckButtons 6y ago
There's an inherent tension, on the one hand, we cant afford to pay the wages of a 100 billion pound a year industry out of tax revenue. On the other hand we completely fucked up any of the potential ways we could have avoided doing that.
- r00fus 6y ago
  Why can’t we pay them?
vondur 6y ago
Well, sure they get paid, but what about the people who are deemed essential and still have to work? Seems kind of unfair to those people doesn't it? It's not an easy problem to solve...
clairity 6y ago
> "I don't know why we're so hesitant to just close bars and restaurants everywhere..." because despite the fearful hype, there's no evidence restaurants are significant sources of spread. bars, at least, are more plausible (because of social dynamics, not fluid or viral ones), but still not conclusively proven to be significant transmission localities. transmission is primarily happening in private social gatherings, not in public places like restaurants, gyms, or grocery stores where we see so much attention being misdirected. this paper, like similar others, paints a possible but unlikely picture of how a couple infection cases might be related, out of probably thousands (millions? billions?) of other possibilities. it's a classic case of availability bias--creating an explanation based on the limited observed information at our disposal, while expressly ignoring the much vaster array of information we don't, or can't, observe. it's clues tied together to create a pat narrative, not conclusive, nor even particularly persuasive, proof on how transmission happened in this scenario. it's only one possibility among many.
- xapata 6y ago
  I'm not familiar with the research on transmission occurring primarily in private social gatherings. In fact, I've seen some researchers suggest the opposite. Do you happen to have any helpful links or search pointers?
  - clairity 6y ago
    no good pointers offhand, but the likeliest source is contact tracing programs. they understandably seem to be more focused on tracing over paper-writing. in any case, here's one published study from hunan: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/11/23/science.abe2424 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/11/23/scie... this quote sums up their findings: > "The average risk of transmission scales positively with the closeness of social interactions: the average per-contact risk is lowest for community exposures (including contacts in the public transportation system and at food and entertainment venues), intermediate for social and extended family contacts, and highest in the household. The average transmission risk in the household is further elevated when intense physical distancing is enforced, and for contacts that last longer." the intuition is also pretty straightforward--we let our guard around those closest to us, who also happen to be those we spend the most time with. those are the two primary factors (closeness and contact time) for transmission. social gatherings are that layer just beyond the household where we are most exposed on those dimensions.
carabiner 6y ago
Do you want to pay them?
- dlp211 6y ago
  Yes. The money isn't coming from my pocket our yours. It comes from a Central Bank punching keys --literally in the case of America's Federal Reserve-- on a keyboard and updating a ledger balance.
  - cft 6y ago
    Then why not pay everyone, not just restaurant workers? And as much as one needs or wants?
    - Filligree 6y ago
      Because then the work wouldn't get done. Some work still needs to get done. Society won't work if everyone sits on their bum for a year, pandemic or not. Among the jobs which need to be done, however, there are no restaurant workers.
    - dlp211 6y ago
      For the same reason that a tourniquet is not a long-term solution to a severed artery. It is a short-term solution to a specific problem and it has a shelf life.
  - voisin 6y ago
    This is a terrifying and yet all too common view. When the central bank punches keys and creates money out of thin air this DOES come from your pocket and mine, but in a way that is not entirely as obvious as the way other costs are. It reduces the value of what was already in our pocket via inflation. The money in our pocket can no longer buy the same amount. That’s a cost. God I wish we would go back to the gold standard so that the cost of government expenditures would be more obvious to the general public via payment from increased taxes or from allocation away from some other government expense. Instead, people are left thinking the government could magically solve all of our problems by printing more money, but for some reason doesn’t because it doesn’t care.
schwartzworld 6y ago
It could be even simpler. Suspend mortgage and rents so that people can afford to stay home or at least work less.

matz1 6y ago

Close for what? The lockdown is not needed in the first place. The case number may be high but the case number is not useful because it doesn't tell if a person actually sick.

ntsplnkv2 6y ago

Because no one wants to pay them - it's the age old problem.

1123581321 6y ago

The hesitancy is due to the cost and the desire some restaurants and some of their customers have for them to remain open. This is especially the case in non-island nations that cannot control their borders as easily.

CincinnatiMan 6y ago

Interesting thought. How much would that cost? And is it only restaurant direct staff that is compensated or also other industries that are negatively impacted by their closure?

FuckButtons 6y ago

There's an inherent tension, on the one hand, we cant afford to pay the wages of a 100 billion pound a year industry out of tax revenue. On the other hand we completely fucked up any of the potential ways we could have avoided doing that.

r00fus 6y ago
Why can’t we pay them?

vondur 6y ago

Well, sure they get paid, but what about the people who are deemed essential and still have to work? Seems kind of unfair to those people doesn't it? It's not an easy problem to solve...

clairity 6y ago

> "I don't know why we're so hesitant to just close bars and restaurants everywhere..." because despite the fearful hype, there's no evidence restaurants are significant sources of spread. bars, at least, are more plausible (because of social dynamics, not fluid or viral ones), but still not conclusively proven to be significant transmission localities. transmission is primarily happening in private social gatherings, not in public places like restaurants, gyms, or grocery stores where we see so much attention being misdirected. this paper, like similar others, paints a possible but unlikely picture of how a couple infection cases might be related, out of probably thousands (millions? billions?) of other possibilities. it's a classic case of availability bias--creating an explanation based on the limited observed information at our disposal, while expressly ignoring the much vaster array of information we don't, or can't, observe. it's clues tied together to create a pat narrative, not conclusive, nor even particularly persuasive, proof on how transmission happened in this scenario. it's only one possibility among many.

xapata 6y ago
I'm not familiar with the research on transmission occurring primarily in private social gatherings. In fact, I've seen some researchers suggest the opposite. Do you happen to have any helpful links or search pointers?
- clairity 6y ago
  no good pointers offhand, but the likeliest source is contact tracing programs. they understandably seem to be more focused on tracing over paper-writing. in any case, here's one published study from hunan: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/11/23/science.abe2424 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/11/23/scie... this quote sums up their findings: > "The average risk of transmission scales positively with the closeness of social interactions: the average per-contact risk is lowest for community exposures (including contacts in the public transportation system and at food and entertainment venues), intermediate for social and extended family contacts, and highest in the household. The average transmission risk in the household is further elevated when intense physical distancing is enforced, and for contacts that last longer." the intuition is also pretty straightforward--we let our guard around those closest to us, who also happen to be those we spend the most time with. those are the two primary factors (closeness and contact time) for transmission. social gatherings are that layer just beyond the household where we are most exposed on those dimensions.

carabiner 6y ago

Do you want to pay them?

dlp211 6y ago
Yes. The money isn't coming from my pocket our yours. It comes from a Central Bank punching keys --literally in the case of America's Federal Reserve-- on a keyboard and updating a ledger balance.
- cft 6y ago
  Then why not pay everyone, not just restaurant workers? And as much as one needs or wants?
  - Filligree 6y ago
    Because then the work wouldn't get done. Some work still needs to get done. Society won't work if everyone sits on their bum for a year, pandemic or not. Among the jobs which need to be done, however, there are no restaurant workers.
  - dlp211 6y ago
    For the same reason that a tourniquet is not a long-term solution to a severed artery. It is a short-term solution to a specific problem and it has a shelf life.
- voisin 6y ago
  This is a terrifying and yet all too common view. When the central bank punches keys and creates money out of thin air this DOES come from your pocket and mine, but in a way that is not entirely as obvious as the way other costs are. It reduces the value of what was already in our pocket via inflation. The money in our pocket can no longer buy the same amount. That’s a cost. God I wish we would go back to the gold standard so that the cost of government expenditures would be more obvious to the general public via payment from increased taxes or from allocation away from some other government expense. Instead, people are left thinking the government could magically solve all of our problems by printing more money, but for some reason doesn’t because it doesn’t care.

schwartzworld 6y ago

It could be even simpler. Suspend mortgage and rents so that people can afford to stay home or at least work less.