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New Stay-at-Home Order a 'Deathblow' to California's Small Businesses

29 points by Reedx 6y ago

ceejayoz 6y ago
An uncontrolled pandemic is also a deathblow to small businesses. It's telling that even Sweden is giving up on the #YOLO approach. https://www.wsj.com/articles/long-a-holdout-from-covid-19-restrictions-sweden-ends-its-pandemic-experiment-11607261658 https://www.wsj.com/articles/long-a-holdout-from-covid-19-re... > After a late autumn surge in infections led to rising hospitalizations and deaths, the government has abandoned its attempt—unique among Western nations—to combat the pandemic through voluntary measures. > Like other Europeans, Swedes are now heading into the winter facing restrictions ranging from a ban on large gatherings to curbs on alcohol sales and school closures—all aimed at preventing the country’s health system from being swamped by patients and capping what is already among the highest per capita death tolls in the world. > The clampdown, which started last month, put an end to a hands-off approach that had made the Scandinavian nation a prime example in the often heated global debate between opponents and champions of pandemic lockdowns.
- tempsy 6y ago
  cases are not hospitalizations are not deaths. San Francisco had their first death in 9 days this week.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    They are not the same thing, no. Pretending they aren’t related is insanity.
    - emerged 6y ago
      In many places they aren’t even correlated due to changes in testing prevalence and other factors. So even saying “related” is only sometimes true and not in a way which is easy to distinguish.
      - watwut 6y ago
        In which "many places"? Cause like all graphs I have seen trail each other pretty close with cca 2 weeks delay. The testing prevalence don't just jump without reason - it is predictable at this point.
- dabbledash 6y ago
  It’s a real shame “Yolo” and “shut down everything” are the only options!
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    There aren’t the only options. Health officials should be monitoring the data and recommending only those measures most likely to help.
    - dabbledash 6y ago
      Should have included the “/s”
      - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
        Ah, yeah. :) My state seems to be doing pretty well, mostly. They break everything up by region and county, so they can monitor available beds, new cases, new hospitalizations, etc. They are doing contact tracing so as they change the rules I assume they are using that data to make sure the rules actually are affecting the places where people are getting infected. So far, the hospitals aren’t getting overwhelmed so it looks like they are doing it right.
- guenthert 6y ago
  > An uncontrolled pandemic is also a deathblow to small businesses. How so? At worst 5% of the population are expected to die, mostly the old and infirm. Not doing anything against it would clearly be a deathblow to nursing homes, but which other businesses would greatly suffer?
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    As an example from early on: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-is-hitting-restaurants-hard-even-in-states-that-havent-shut-them-down/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-is-hitting-... > But even before DeWine’s March 15 order, restaurants were already feeling the impact of the coronavirus as customers began to avoid crowded areas in their cities. > But no matter whether the governor has issued an order or not, restaurants in every state available in the OpenTable data set have experienced declining dining attendance over the last two weeks. As public pleas for social distancing get louder, diners are forced to order food for take-away or delivery, or simply to cook at home. We saw the same in Sweden: Despite a fairly laissez-faire approach and fairly minimal restrictions, the economy still suffered greatly as people voluntarily said "it's not worth it" to things like indoor dining. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c... > This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better. > And Swedish people responded to the fear of the virus by limiting their shopping — not enough to prevent elevated deaths, but enough to produce a decline in business activity.
    - guenthert 6y ago
      So fear-mongering is bad for business? Who'd thought.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        There are legitimate reasons to fear an uncontrolled pandemic.
tzs 6y ago
> That will include one bill reopening schools in the state, and another one preventing state agencies from revoking licenses for businesses that violated pandemic restrictions unless that agency can prove a business was responsible for COVID-19 transmission Wait...so if someone visits several businesses that are all ignoring pandemic restrictions and gets COVID from one of them, but there is no way to prove which particular one they got it at, all of the businesses get away with ignoring the restrictions?

29 points by Reedx 6y ago

An uncontrolled pandemic is also a deathblow to small businesses. It's telling that even Sweden is giving up on the #YOLO approach. https://www.wsj.com/articles/long-a-holdout-from-covid-19-restrictions-sweden-ends-its-pandemic-experiment-11607261658 https://www.wsj.com/articles/long-a-holdout-from-covid-19-re... > After a late autumn surge in infections led to rising hospitalizations and deaths, the government has abandoned its attempt—unique among Western nations—to combat the pandemic through voluntary measures. > Like other Europeans, Swedes are now heading into the winter facing restrictions ranging from a ban on large gatherings to curbs on alcohol sales and school closures—all aimed at preventing the country’s health system from being swamped by patients and capping what is already among the highest per capita death tolls in the world. > The clampdown, which started last month, put an end to a hands-off approach that had made the Scandinavian nation a prime example in the often heated global debate between opponents and champions of pandemic lockdowns.

tempsy 6y ago
cases are not hospitalizations are not deaths. San Francisco had their first death in 9 days this week.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  They are not the same thing, no. Pretending they aren’t related is insanity.
  - emerged 6y ago
    In many places they aren’t even correlated due to changes in testing prevalence and other factors. So even saying “related” is only sometimes true and not in a way which is easy to distinguish.
    - watwut 6y ago
      In which "many places"? Cause like all graphs I have seen trail each other pretty close with cca 2 weeks delay. The testing prevalence don't just jump without reason - it is predictable at this point.
dabbledash 6y ago
It’s a real shame “Yolo” and “shut down everything” are the only options!
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  There aren’t the only options. Health officials should be monitoring the data and recommending only those measures most likely to help.
  - dabbledash 6y ago
    Should have included the “/s”
    - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
      Ah, yeah. :) My state seems to be doing pretty well, mostly. They break everything up by region and county, so they can monitor available beds, new cases, new hospitalizations, etc. They are doing contact tracing so as they change the rules I assume they are using that data to make sure the rules actually are affecting the places where people are getting infected. So far, the hospitals aren’t getting overwhelmed so it looks like they are doing it right.
guenthert 6y ago
> An uncontrolled pandemic is also a deathblow to small businesses. How so? At worst 5% of the population are expected to die, mostly the old and infirm. Not doing anything against it would clearly be a deathblow to nursing homes, but which other businesses would greatly suffer?
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  As an example from early on: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-is-hitting-restaurants-hard-even-in-states-that-havent-shut-them-down/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-is-hitting-... > But even before DeWine’s March 15 order, restaurants were already feeling the impact of the coronavirus as customers began to avoid crowded areas in their cities. > But no matter whether the governor has issued an order or not, restaurants in every state available in the OpenTable data set have experienced declining dining attendance over the last two weeks. As public pleas for social distancing get louder, diners are forced to order food for take-away or delivery, or simply to cook at home. We saw the same in Sweden: Despite a fairly laissez-faire approach and fairly minimal restrictions, the economy still suffered greatly as people voluntarily said "it's not worth it" to things like indoor dining. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c... > This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better. > And Swedish people responded to the fear of the virus by limiting their shopping — not enough to prevent elevated deaths, but enough to produce a decline in business activity.
  - guenthert 6y ago
    So fear-mongering is bad for business? Who'd thought.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      There are legitimate reasons to fear an uncontrolled pandemic.

tzs 6y ago

> That will include one bill reopening schools in the state, and another one preventing state agencies from revoking licenses for businesses that violated pandemic restrictions unless that agency can prove a business was responsible for COVID-19 transmission Wait...so if someone visits several businesses that are all ignoring pandemic restrictions and gets COVID from one of them, but there is no way to prove which particular one they got it at, all of the businesses get away with ignoring the restrictions?