4 ms·

I see many other comments in this thread saying that this was preventable, how so ? Looks like California tried a lot of things (stay at own orders, business cl

I see many other comments in this thread saying that this was preventable, how so ? Looks like California tried a lot of things (stay at own orders, business closures etc) and they are not in a better shape than more "relaxed" states.

raziel2701 6y ago
Cut people a check so that they could have afforded to stay inside in a bubble.
slg 6y ago
A real national commitment to testing and contact tracing early on. A full lockdown which probably needed to be done at a national level since states can't restrict travel. Pay everyone to stay home. I simply don't get the "we couldn't have done anything" mindset when we see countries like South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand with deaths per capita as little as 1%-3% of what it is here.
- jandrewrogers 6y ago
  The Federal government has severely circumscribed authority to restrict travel, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly determined it to be a fundamental Constitutional right on the same level as freedom of speech. You can’t suspend that right without narrowly tailored due process for each of 330 million Americans. (This cuts both ways — there are several things that are effectively impossible because “due process” doesn’t scale regardless of the purpose.) This is the reason no State implemented real “lockdowns”, the Supreme Court has overturned such attempts many times historically, it is settled law at this point. States actually have fewer restrictions than the Federal government in this regard. Similarly, effective contact tracing by the government is illegal in the US, ignoring that the disease was endemic before anyone even noticed. It isn’t just illegal, the US infrastructure is intentionally designed to make it extremely difficult to do at a technical implementation level, with the idea that it would hinder potential abuses. You could modify the systems to make contact tracing work, ignoring legality, but it would require at least a year of lead time to do the technical implementation. Many senior people in US government did ask about this early in the year and were repeatedly told that implementation would require a very long time both legally and technically. So they dropped the idea. No amount of “real national commitment” will address these issues, and denying that these limitations exist isn’t the basis for a constructive policy.
  - slg 6y ago
    You are speaking as if you have indisputable facts on your side which doesn't appear to be the case. The Federal government has broad power to respond to communicable diseases and the full extent of those powers can only really be known as new court cases are decided. There are also steps between what we did and the type of martial law style lockdowns and quarantining done in places like China. You don't need 100% participation in lockdowns or coverage for contact tracing to get the R0 below 1 which will lead to dropping case numbers.
    - jandrewrogers 6y ago
      These are indisputable facts, there is a lot of case law on the limits of travel restrictions in many contexts. They can’t even use regulatory powers to implement de facto restrictions on travel by common conveyance (e.g. closing all the roads or prohibiting the sale of gasoline) — that has already been decided broadly by the Supreme Court in multiple cases. Restrictions on freedom of travel, as laid down by the Supreme Court, are similar as for freedom of speech: the state must have a reasonable belief and compelling interest that a specific individual is an imminent threat to other people. You can’t quarantine a broad class of people over wide geographies on vague grounds, it requires clearing evidentiary hurdles that a narrowly targeted group of people harbors the disease. As a concrete example, this is the legal basis for how people remove their names from the No Fly List; having terrorist sympathies does not make one an imminent threat, and so the right to travel by common conveyance is upheld. (Unfortunately, the government has been successful at removing standing from everyone that challenges the Constitutionality of the No Fly List, but USSC justices have already made public statements that they take a very dim view of the legality of the practice.) And this is why there were no real lockdowns. The AG in every State is well-aware that broad prohibitions on travel aren’t Constitutional and would lead to an instant court injunction. It has been tried in the past on many occasions. The most they can do is strongly disincentivize travel using their regulatory power over public establishments i.e. give people no reason to leave their house.
  - pbourke 6y ago
    > t isn’t just illegal, the US infrastructure is intentionally designed to make it extremely difficult to do at a technical implementation level, with the idea that it would hinder potential abuses You think that the country which went from never leaving the earth to landing on the moon in 8 years, from 0 to hundreds of planes and dozens of ships per month in a few short months (WW2) couldn’t stand up a national infrastructure for contact tracing? Don’t confuse lack of will with lack of capability.

raziel2701 6y ago

Cut people a check so that they could have afforded to stay inside in a bubble.

slg 6y ago

A real national commitment to testing and contact tracing early on. A full lockdown which probably needed to be done at a national level since states can't restrict travel. Pay everyone to stay home. I simply don't get the "we couldn't have done anything" mindset when we see countries like South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand with deaths per capita as little as 1%-3% of what it is here.

jandrewrogers 6y ago
The Federal government has severely circumscribed authority to restrict travel, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly determined it to be a fundamental Constitutional right on the same level as freedom of speech. You can’t suspend that right without narrowly tailored due process for each of 330 million Americans. (This cuts both ways — there are several things that are effectively impossible because “due process” doesn’t scale regardless of the purpose.) This is the reason no State implemented real “lockdowns”, the Supreme Court has overturned such attempts many times historically, it is settled law at this point. States actually have fewer restrictions than the Federal government in this regard. Similarly, effective contact tracing by the government is illegal in the US, ignoring that the disease was endemic before anyone even noticed. It isn’t just illegal, the US infrastructure is intentionally designed to make it extremely difficult to do at a technical implementation level, with the idea that it would hinder potential abuses. You could modify the systems to make contact tracing work, ignoring legality, but it would require at least a year of lead time to do the technical implementation. Many senior people in US government did ask about this early in the year and were repeatedly told that implementation would require a very long time both legally and technically. So they dropped the idea. No amount of “real national commitment” will address these issues, and denying that these limitations exist isn’t the basis for a constructive policy.
- slg 6y ago
  You are speaking as if you have indisputable facts on your side which doesn't appear to be the case. The Federal government has broad power to respond to communicable diseases and the full extent of those powers can only really be known as new court cases are decided. There are also steps between what we did and the type of martial law style lockdowns and quarantining done in places like China. You don't need 100% participation in lockdowns or coverage for contact tracing to get the R0 below 1 which will lead to dropping case numbers.
  - jandrewrogers 6y ago
    These are indisputable facts, there is a lot of case law on the limits of travel restrictions in many contexts. They can’t even use regulatory powers to implement de facto restrictions on travel by common conveyance (e.g. closing all the roads or prohibiting the sale of gasoline) — that has already been decided broadly by the Supreme Court in multiple cases. Restrictions on freedom of travel, as laid down by the Supreme Court, are similar as for freedom of speech: the state must have a reasonable belief and compelling interest that a specific individual is an imminent threat to other people. You can’t quarantine a broad class of people over wide geographies on vague grounds, it requires clearing evidentiary hurdles that a narrowly targeted group of people harbors the disease. As a concrete example, this is the legal basis for how people remove their names from the No Fly List; having terrorist sympathies does not make one an imminent threat, and so the right to travel by common conveyance is upheld. (Unfortunately, the government has been successful at removing standing from everyone that challenges the Constitutionality of the No Fly List, but USSC justices have already made public statements that they take a very dim view of the legality of the practice.) And this is why there were no real lockdowns. The AG in every State is well-aware that broad prohibitions on travel aren’t Constitutional and would lead to an instant court injunction. It has been tried in the past on many occasions. The most they can do is strongly disincentivize travel using their regulatory power over public establishments i.e. give people no reason to leave their house.
- pbourke 6y ago
  > t isn’t just illegal, the US infrastructure is intentionally designed to make it extremely difficult to do at a technical implementation level, with the idea that it would hinder potential abuses You think that the country which went from never leaving the earth to landing on the moon in 8 years, from 0 to hundreds of planes and dozens of ships per month in a few short months (WW2) couldn’t stand up a national infrastructure for contact tracing? Don’t confuse lack of will with lack of capability.