
Tesla is not essential business as defined in the Alameda County Health Order - olivermarks
https://twitter.com/ACSOSheriffs/status/1240062681635123201
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pkaye
I live close to that plant. I hope they don't just keep spreading that virus
and negate the effort we are doing by the "shelter in place". I'm a dialysis
patient myself and have no idea what this virus will do to me. I'll probably
be cannon fodder if the health system is overloaded.

~~~
manicdee
Are you in contact with people from the plant or do you use separate toilets,
cafes, and supermarkets?

Shelter in place is about preventing person-to-person spread of the disease
through direct contact or via intermediary such as a bench, chair or physical
currency.

COVID-19 is not going to spread from the plant to your house without some kind
of transmission mechanism.

~~~
kragen
It could plausibly spread between workers at the plant, whether while working,
while commuting, while on break, while passing through doors, or via touch
surfaces such as doorknobs.

~~~
manicdee
Same everywhere. Grocers are still going to be open.

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jsight
Why is the Sheriff the one pointing this out on Twitter?

EDIT: The earlier coverage included this quote: "What’s essential about
automobile manufacturing in the midst of a viral pandemic? “That’s a good
question,” said spokesman Ray Kelly, promising more information would be
forthcoming. “We’re in uncharted waters right now.”"

There are different ways to interpret that, but they seemingly were not
confident at the time. Still a strange way to "correct" it, though.

~~~
HumblyTossed
Isn't Twitter where official government business is handled now?

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seanmcdirmid
Have other car factories had to shut down, or is the Tesla plant unique for
being in an urban area?

The UAW seems to be trying to get Michigan/Midwest plants shutdown, and of
course the southern plants aren’t union.

~~~
bluGill
Some are shutting down. Tesla is different because all their cars are ordered
by someone and so shutting down impacts customers. Others are just building
for market and since people are not buying now they are more interested in
shutting down production because it just builds up inventory that they need to
sell (often meaning a sale).

I'm not going to comment on if they should shut down. With the right provision
it is safer to go to work than stay home bored and tempted to go out and do
something. this assumes many things not all that I'm aware of, and they might
or might not be possible in the factory

~~~
justapassenger
Tesla stopped building cars to order long time ago. They do keep inventory
like anyone else. Smaller than others but still.

~~~
bluGill
If you are correct I stand corrected.

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dntbnmpls
We've already had a few tesla related posts on this exact topic the past few
hours alone.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22606140)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22607357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22607357)

~~~
jsight
Those were about Tesla's decision. This is the government saying that Tesla's
decision was unlawful, which is a different subject.

------
jsight
To be fair to Tesla, they are much less likely to spread the virus than some
of the "essential" services that are allowed to remain open.

To be fair to the county, finding that perfect balance of what is essential
and what is not is impossible. I can't blame them for coming down on this side
of things.

~~~
gentleman11
To be fair to the employees, it’s nice to be able to stay safe

~~~
elcritch
Won’t they pretty much all get it eventually? The quarantine is more about
reducing the rate of infection not preventing infection to reduce load on
healthcare system.

~~~
airstrike
And getting it later as opposed to now falls under the definition of "safe",
as cases with complications will have greater odds of being properly treated.

------
olivermarks
[https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/elon-musk-chooses-
keep-...](https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/elon-musk-chooses-keep-teslas-
fremont-factory-open-despite-alameda-county-lockdown)

------
a3n
> Aw, you mean @elonmusk actually has to follow some rules?

No. No he doesn't. Privilege has its privileges.

------
dang
The previous thread on this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22607357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22607357)

------
blendo
Are there any other factories in the SF Bay Area that require 10,000 on-site
workers?

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generalpass
It will cost Tesla less money to fight the quarantine order than to shut down
production.

Odds are Tesla wins in court and the authorities also know this, so won't
actually do anything because they don't want the precedent.

I'm not clear on how the Sheriff can act without a warrant or something, but
sure he can tweet.

------
bdcravens
Sad how most of the comments on that thread are focused around it being a
conspiracy to affect Tesla's stock price.

~~~
duxup
The Tesla fans are true believers.

On another site any comment or story that even seems negative is swarmed by
fans there to tell you how it is.

I asked a question a few times out of honest curiosity...the fans were there
to tell me all about how the thing I didn't say was wrong and that I was
surely a troll. Nobody bothered to answer.

------
treparist
Im really very tired of people who want to help me to save my life. I am not
asking anybody to visit some places, but they don't want me to visit them too.
And thats its basically a global hysteria, global stupidity and what happens
when office have so much power to declare a lockdown. So so so stupid.

~~~
lmeyerov
It isn't about you, especially if you're healthy and below 50. I do care about
the people you'll help infect, including my wife who works in a hospital, the
elderly in my home, my colleagues, my elderly parents, and plenty of other
people I care about. I and others should absolutely go to bat for the health
of their loved ones and dependents.

It's disappointing technologists interested in building things doesn't get the
community aspect of that, but not my fight.

~~~
logicchains
What about the people you care about who lose their jobs, get evicted, lose
the businesses they spent years to build, suffer the permanent long-term
effects of impoverishment (even temporary periods of unexpected unemployment
still have a lasting negative effect on health outcomes)? Or maybe you're in
the upper middle class, like most readers here, and don't know what life's
like for the restaurant workers, hairdressers and the like who are about to
lose their livelihoods.

The lockdown is essentially asking the younger generations to make a massive
sacrifices to support the older generation that has demonstrated very little
willingness to make sacrifices to support the younger generation (accept a
slightly lower standard of living to fight climate change).

~~~
jlokier
The older generation is not one homegeneous group.

There are a _lot_ of impoverished older generation people. No cash, no house
or no liquidity, tiny pension if that.

Those people are seriously at risk, and there is nothing they could have done
for younger people along the lines you have described.

Do we treat the impoverished old like their lives don't matter as much, let
them die because they happen to be in the same arbitrary statistical grouping
as other, unrelated old people you feel could have sacrificed more?

Couldn't you come up with a fairer statistical grouping for "could have
sacrificed more" at least, e.g. the rich?

The younger generation is not a homogeneous group either.

Among them are a _lot_ of vulnerable young. People with respiratory problems,
reduced lung function, among many other conditions, or lacking physical or
mental capacity to look after themselves. Also every young person who needs
hospital care for things like dialysis, when hospitals are unable to provide
it.

Do we just not care about the physically vulnerable young either?

The lockdown is about protecting an _extremely large_ number of vulnerable or
unlucky people of all kinds. It's that simple.

Some of those are children, some young, more middle-aged, and most old,
although we are currently not sure how the statistics pan out for middle-aged
and below when hospitals are severely overrun.

~~~
logicchains
>Do we treat the impoverished old like their lives don't matter as much, let
them die because they happen to be in the same arbitrary statistical grouping
as other, unrelated old people you feel could have sacrificed more?

Something used in public policy is Quality Adjusted Life Years. An 80 years
has a much smaller expected lifespan than a 10 year old, so something that
reduces the 80 year old's expected lifespan by e.g. 2 years could be compared
to the effect that poverty or environmental damage has on the 70+ expected
years of the 10 year old's life.

>Some of those are children, some young, more middle-aged, and most old,
although we are currently not sure how the statistics pan out for middle-aged
and below when hospitals are severely overrun.

We have this from the Wuhan numbers, where hospital beds were completely
insufficient at least for the first month.

