Posted on 05/01/2020 10:39:00 AM PDT by Kaslin
Time for reopening? Let's reframe the question. Time for what to reopen? With what precautions? In which states and counties and communities? Mandatory reopening or voluntary?
And who really decides? Governors, mayors, the president? Business owners or consumers? Does anyone really expect what economist Arnold Kling calls "patterns of sustainable specialization and trade" to snap back into pre-COVID-19 shape?
Any effort to address questions yields the lesson that one-size-fits-all answers are ill-suited for a nation of 329 million people, half in million-plus metropolitan areas and the other half thinly spread out over a continent-sized landmass.
Nonetheless, much of the public debate assumes, Twitter-style, that there is just one decision to be made, presumably by President Donald Trump. And partisan affiliation shapes many Americans' responses.
Democrats, usually boastful of respecting alternative lifestyles, tend to insist that lockdowns stay in place. Republicans, sometimes depicted as deferential to traditional authority, tend to favor reopening.
Both sides operate from a position of massive and unavoidable ignorance. So do even the most respected experts. Epidemiologists' projections of mass deaths have been far off; speculation about modes of virus transmission has been largely discredited; ventilators, initially considered vital, now seem ill-suited to the virus.
Lockdowns ordered by state governors and encouraged by Trump were premised on a need to avoid overwhelming hospitals and caregivers. But outside New York City, hospitals are half-empty, and caregivers are being laid off.
They've joined the 22 million who had filed for unemployment by mid-April -- Great Depression levels. Low-skill workers, whose wages have finally been rising more than average in the Trump years, have been hit hardest.
Polling shows majorities favor continued restrictions on reopening, especially if the question mentions the possibility of a second wave of infection. But there is also increasing evidence of people going out in public and chafing at restrictions.
The partisan tilt of responses reflects the incidence of the virus. It has struck hardest in New York and, though much less, in other large metro areas, and those able to continue working for pay tend to be white college graduates: mostly Democratic voters. Outside million-plus metros, it has caused few deaths, and those losing paychecks tend to be non-college grads: mostly Republican voters.
One-half of U.S. coronavirus deaths have been in New York and New Jersey. Nearly one-third have been in New York City, which, perhaps not coincidentally, has more than half of the nation's rail transit riders. In contrast, only 2 percent of U.S. deaths have been in Florida, whose lockdown was less stringent and imposed later but whose concentration was put on isolating the elderly.
Unlike the great influenza pandemic of 1918-19, which targeted young adults, COVID-19 has primarily killed the elderly, mostly those with aggravating medical conditions. For children, it's been no more deadly than the seasonal flu.
This points toward reopening schools and colleges and universities. As Purdue University President Mitch Daniels points out, COVID-19 "poses close to zero lethal threat" to young people. It points toward Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' policy of isolating and providing masks for senior citizens, and away from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's policy of sending COVID-19-infected patients back to nursing homes.
And COVID-19 isn't the only threat to American lives. As Heather Mac Donald points out in the Spectator, "Lives are being lost to the overreaction," including those of cardiac and cancer patients who have been avoiding hospitals, needed tests, chemotherapy and organ transplants. Job losses have probably led to suicides and opioid abuse.
No one knows, or can know, how high these losses are or weigh them against possible losses from reopenings. Science provides no answers, only fallible models and projections with enormous margins of error. Weighing the risks of the virus and the lockdown is a job for private sector leaders and elected officials.
That's officials -- plural. Trump detractors have suddenly come to appreciate that the Constitution leaves the police power to impose quarantines and lockdowns in the hands of state governors, not the federal government.
Andrew Cuomo, facing a grim situation in New York, seems unready to reopen. DeSantis in Florida and Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas, both with more people and far fewer COVID-19 deaths than New York, are moving ahead to launch a reopening.
The final say, however, goes to the American people, perhaps ultimately as voters but more immediately as consumers. They may avoid restaurants if they're "more awkward, more expensive, and less fun," as The Atlantic's Derek Thompson predicts, but throng to churches and gyms, weighing risks against rewards. Sensible people will presumably factor in experts' and officials' recommendations. But in a self-governing republic, they're likely to come to their own conclusions.
That photo is just damned ridiculous.
Wearing a mask, out in the woods, 20 yards from any other human?
The masks help to show those who are susceptible to Big Media’s fearmongering
... and there’s a lot
The idea of the cost / benefit analysis, has been lost with the imposition of these lockdowns.
I think at first, people were willing to live with a lockdown, because of the stated goal of bending the curve, so that hospitals would not be overwhelmed. We have achieved that goal of bending the curve.
Also, at first, the strong implication was that these lockdowns would last for a couple of weeks. I think people thought they could live with that for a couple of weeks.
But now we see expiration dates of lockdowns being extended in some places, with no end in sight, even as some states are reopening.
I think people are getting “cabin fever” as well as becoming more and more concerned about whether they will have a job to return to; how they will pay their bills and living expenses. And they see these lockdowns continuing with reasons that don’t entirely make sense.
It sure is.
Strapping a maxi pad on your face when literally no one else is near you is stupid and useless. It’s either virtue signalling attention whoring, or neurotic germophobia.
Those maxipad masks don’t protect you from anything. Their use is strictly to prevent you from coughing sneeze spray and lung butter or ejecting spittle while talking if you are in close proximity to someone else, or near things (like produce) that someone may touch and eat. The Japanese have had a much more reasonable culture about this. If you’re actually sick and coughing, or think you may be sick, then stay home. When you MUST go out, like to pick up food or a prescription, wear a mask, because giving someone else your cold or other bug is a dick move. That’s it. Anything else is just useless.
Even if you’re infected, if you’re not coughing and you don’t get close to other people, this virus is NOT truly airborne like measles. People are catching this like any other cold or flu, by touching contaminated surfaces then touching sensitive areas like the nose or eyes. Wash your hands frequently, and DON’T TOUCH YOUR FACE DURING AN OUTBREAK. Take those simple measures and you’ve already mitigated 99% of the risk for very little trouble.
And I do actually wear a mask right now in large stores where lots of people frequent because there is a chance I and others are asymptomatic and people in stores tend to pick up products (especially produce) and put them back. But that counts as a lot of “close proximity”. Out alone for a walk.. No need for a mask, and honestly just a waste of a mask.
And that poor old fool will probably wear a mask and gloves for what’s left of his life. Maybe in a year or two (if he’s still around), he’ll grow enough b*lls to actually hug his grandchildren...
Barone invariably states the obvious and never comes to a genuine conclusion of his own. He is by no means alone in this fence-sitting writing approach.
I think that’s the point!
Does anyone see anything on Indiana? Holcomb’s press conference ended about 30 minutes ago and I can’t find anything on what he said,
I finally found this. Holcomb is going to start opening things up a bit at a time. Glory Hallelujah!
CAll your legislators. Call your governor. Call your Members of Congress (both houses.) Call the president.
If you don’t get through, call tehm at night and leave a message.
When you’re through, find their district offices (the constituent-service offices) and call them.
Then email every one of the above.
Surgical masks in public have become the adult equivalent of a child's security blanket. It serves no real purpose other than to give the wearer the psychological comfort of being "protected" or showing how concerned they are about not potentially spreading a virus. In the latter case; it is probably only necessary in tight quarters like stores, or public transit, but if you think you may be contagious with anything; just stay home.
Here in the PRNJ, we are mandated to wear masks in grocery stores, so I play along because I need to buy groceries, but other than that; no mask and no apologies. That being said I will gladly shake the hand of anyone I come across on my daily walks if they wish to do so. No takers so far though :)
I refuse to accept this as a "new normal".
Most super spreading events that I have looked into: Biogen, funerals, many of the nursing homes, and Detroit bus were indoors and someone was sick. I'm sure a large portion of the subway was sick people. Yes, they coughed on surfaces and people touched those. But no, there's no way it was not airborne. Not like measles only because it doesn't infect as easily as measles. But it was clearly airborne and got a lot of people.
Ok, now that I have that fact out of the way, the people who spread the virus were sick, with symptoms causing virus shed. The people went to those events because they had traveled from Italy, or were not going to miss the funeral, or got on the bus sick and coughed openly because they didn't care. Second, if those people had masks that would have greatly reduced the spread.
As long as there is room in the hospital, let it rip.
My wife and I have been distancing from last October, so we have another month or so. Then I want to go see my granddaughter and play. FaceTiming a sick month old doesn’t cut it.
Open it up and cross you fingers. If you open it up and Covid cases and deaths spike then they’ll blame Trump. If you keep it closed and the economy continues to crater then they’ll blame Trump. If you open it up and deaths don’t take off but the economy improves a bit then they’ll still find something to blame Trump for.
What is this job-less talk? Were all those staying home fired? Restaurants who had to close their doors didn’t fire their employees. City employees who had to stay home weren’t fired were they? Jobless?
“Restaurants who had to close their doors didn’t fire their employees.”
You got this information where exactly?
Take special note of the last paragraph. The DOJ says it's working with state and local governments.
No mention of their citizenry.
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