
The plans to reopen the economy are scary - Farbodkhz
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/10/21215494/coronavirus-plans-social-distancing-economy-recession-depression-unemployment
======
SpicyLemonZest
I'm extremely skeptical of any analysis that discusses political non-viability
at this point. If you asked any commentator 2 months ago whether it was
politically viable to issue general stay at home orders, or to give every
American a bunch of free money, or to pass a multi-trillion dollar stimulus
bill, they would have told you no.

~~~
ztjio
Giving every American a token cash handout is something Republicans have done
before, it's hardly unbelievable if you actually have historical context. And
by far most of that bill is corporate handouts. And the oversight has been
fired. Everything about this aligns exactly with what you'd expect
politically. It's a debacle.

Furthermore, while there has been a lot of shutdown, it's not equal across the
board. Tons of places are taking half measures or no measures still, and the
reasoning is entirely politically biased (business more important than people,
etc.) It's clearly a case of more right leaning areas taking less cautious
measures in favor of money.

In fact, I'd argue that everything that has happened, especially all the
horribly obvious "mistakes" (read: intentional, corruption riddle, failures in
the case of the federal administration) aligns with political viability as
expected and confirms in retrospect the claims about viability.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> It's clearly a case of more right leaning areas taking less cautious
> measures in favor of money.

While I see where you’re coming from with this statement, I’m not sure I
agree. From where I stand - a town of 13k people surrounded by a large rural
area - it makes sense that we’re taking less aggressive action because the
virus is not yet endemic here. Given the growth of confirmed cases in my area
(northern Arkansas), it seems those steps are working adequately to keep it
from becoming endemic as well.

I propose that areas with lower population density are taking less aggressive
action, and those areas are also predominately right-leaning.

~~~
ztjio
Literally everyone in this scenario thinks this way at first because they
can't comprehend exponential growth. Nobody can, there are actual studies that
show nobody can understand it so it's not a slight.

The only way you can convince me based on evidence elsewhere that your
scenario is going to be any better than anywhere else is if your leadership in
your area is doing aggressive testing, contact tracing and targeted isolation
protocols akin to South Korea.

~~~
burfog
Consider the R0 value that you're trying to reduce by social distancing.

New York City starts with a high value. People encounter each other in
apartment hallways, packed subways, crowded streets, and huge stadiums.

Rural places don't have any of that. People don't pass by any non-family when
going from home to car. Non-family don't share that car. The streets are
nearly empty of people, with just the occasional person out walking a dog.

There might not be exponential growth. If R0 is below 1, there is exponential
decay.

------
Mediterraneo10
The author considers letting the epidemic run its course on the demographics
most at risk, to be the most unrealistic outcome. He writes:

> I care about my privacy, but not nearly so much as I care about my mother.

Most people care about their own mother. But if lockdowns, unemployment and
poverty continue, I can definitely imagine people saying, "I don’t care about
_your_ mother, so why should I stay unemployed and confined to my home just to
keep her safe? I’m sure _my_ mother will be fine." Of course, believing that
one’s own parents will escape the epidemic might be mere wishful thinking, but
this is the way that human beings rationalize things in times of crisis.

~~~
mattmanser
In the UK they're now making noises about letting the 20-30 year olds who live
alone go back to work first.

I imagine this is really code for "if we infect all these low-risk people
first, we get a large proportion of our workforce immunised, for a fairly low
hospitalisation proportion".

I don't know enough about the models, but I also guess having a large chunk of
your low-risk population already immune reduces R0 for later waves too.

I can also see it back-firing when these same people think it's alright to nip
round Mum's to say hi and give her a quick hug, it's only 5 minutes after all.

I've also heard that a large fast food chain estimates it will take up to 8
weeks before they can get supply chains up and running again. As an example
the sheer quantities of lettuce they need aren't being planted because there's
no demand for them, and you can't just magic them out of thin air when someone
says 'you can open your stores again'.

~~~
loopz
Current plan for Norway is to start gradually opening up after Easter:

* Opening up kindergartens, physiotherapy, hair salons and allowing cottage holidays from 20th April

* Opening schools for 4 youngest classes, After School and some higher education in final years from 27th April

So you go after lowest-hanging fruits gradually, but it's a learning phase and
could need rollback if people don't follow restrictions enough to contain
contagion. This advice is a mix of political and expert analysis, after
observing decline of new cases and deaths, after timely though not early,
lockdown.

Norway is a small and nimble country, so could more easily be leading the
response in the West. Though a new normal will have to include pandemic
response in nearly all aspects of social life. The clustering and stochastic
nature of the spread may become somewhat managable, with enough tracking,
testing and preparations.

~~~
mattmanser
Does anyone know why I've seen various reports that they think opening schools
will have a low impact on the virus spread? Kids still get infected, so will
spread the disease (and I would assume more than most people being careful) as
well as then spread it to their households.

Is it because children rarely commute outside a community, so it wouldn't
spread between communities, just within communities already infected?

~~~
loopz
Contagion very rarely trace back to kindergarten and schools, kids have much
higher chance of mild infections and it is possible low amounts of virus
exposure are safer. Not enough evidence so leaders need to lead and experts
collect data and analysis, what measures may not contribute enough to justify.

------
makomk
One of the things the press seems to have had trouble grasping is that there
are _no good options_ , and quite possibly never were. (Short of stopping the
virus from spreading out of Wuhan in the first place, which might barely have
been possible if the world acted fast enough - but that was never going to
happen.)

~~~
wbl
It certainly could have if other countries had closed border with China early.
But some news outlets were running unfortunate headlines.

~~~
roywiggins
The US never really closed their border with China. Americans returning from
China were let back in with minimal checks, and some were probably
presymptomatic. Not only would it have had to be earlier, it would have had to
strand American citizens abroad until they could be tested, which was never on
the cards.

~~~
makomk
Quarantining all the Americans returning from China might've been sufficient,
though that would be politically (and maybe even legally) dicey.

------
siscia
For how much I understand the need to lower the curve and reduce the R0 of the
infection, I start to see also another argument.

We are basically pausing the life of younger people, indefinitely, to protect
the elders.

Again, since the quarantine started in my area I exist twice to buy groceries
and that's all. So I understand the need and the importance of it.

But should I really throw away on year of my life? Shouldn't we quarantine
only the elders? Would your opinion change if you were living by yourself with
your significant other locked up somewhere too far away to meet in two months?

And yes I am aware that also younger people died from the virus but the chance
are so much smaller that I don't believe is fair to compare it.

The opportunity cost is so much different and nobody is addressing the issue.

~~~
superkuh
>We are basically pausing the life of younger people, indefinitely, to protect
the elders.

No, we're pausing the life of everyone to protect everyone. If you overload
the hospital systems then everyone dies. If you pause and keep things barely
managable then mostly only old people die.

~~~
siscia
I believe we both agree that locking down 20/30 years old people who still
have to study, to meet people, to make experience, to find lovers and to find
themselves is very different that lock down 70/80 years old people right?

Then there is no doubts that the virus hit hardest the elders.

Again, what I am saying is that younger people are hit by the lockdown much
more than the elders while being the less concerned about the virus itself.

And we should talk also about this.

~~~
mistersquid
> Again, what I am saying is that younger people are hit by the lockdown much
> more than the elders while being the less concerned about the virus itself.

The problem with saying this is that it's incorrect. Many elders suffer during
lockdown in the exact same ways and in some cases to the exact same extent
that younger people do, including in the ways you imagine: socially, sexually,
economically.

Additionally, there are many young people (many of them here on HN) who do
just fine during lockdown because WFH and online interaction actually promote
their senses of well being. [0]

The insistence with which you have been asserting that young people are being
"punished" reveals adherence to an agenda more than an evenhanded analysis of
the facts.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22821256](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22821256)

~~~
nitrogen
_The insistence with which you have been asserting that young people are being
"punished" reveals adherence to an agenda more than an evenhanded analysis of
the facts._

I don't think that's fair to the OP. They seem to me to just be describing
what they see and feel.

In a cold, utilitarian sense, the ripple effects from messing up a young life
are many times more significant. If schooling, work, romance, and childbearing
of young people are all disrupted, you can expect to see that in the economy
for decades to come (just look at the name "baby boomers" for the opposite
case). But, again in the cold utilitarian sense, if the life of someone with
10-20 years left is disrupted, that disruption doesn't last as long.

------
ddevault
Oh my god, the system described by the CAP plan covered in this article
_cannot_ be allowed to come into being. Instant dystopian nightmare state.
This kind of tool can't be un-made.

~~~
jeffrallen
It does not have to be built that way:
[https://github.com/DP-3T/documents](https://github.com/DP-3T/documents)

This is what we'll hopefully be using in Switzerland.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Unfortunately, the PEPP-PT approach will not protect privacy in many European
countries. This is because an individual is linked to a phone number. Since
you cannot purchase a SIM card in many countries without showing ID (and a
copy of your ID is made and sent to the state authorities), the state is
easily able to match phone numbers with people’s real identities.
Consequently, the authorities will easily be able to track the user’s
movements, or at least track what other people that person interacted with
over a period of time, which is essentially the same thing.

If you read the PEPP-PT documentation closely, the “privacy protections” are
mainly keeping you anonymous to other ordinary people. But people should
reasonably want to remain anonymous from the state as well.

~~~
jeffrallen
I agree that PEPP-PT is not too clear on their commitment to protecting
privacy. I disagree that anything about the DP-3T system divulges SUM numbers.
Go read the 3 pager and see.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
In order to automatically send warning SMSs to everyone you have been in
contact with, the system has to link app users to phone numbers.

------
KoftaBob
Maybe I'm just fed up with how the news has been handling this situation, but
I find usage of words like "scary" in a title to be incredibly worthless. If I
can't even get to the end of the title without being told how to feel, it
speaks volumes about the intentions of the post.

This is just one of the numerous examples of lazy and bad intentioned attempts
to use anxiety to convince readers to click the article. The entire journalism
industry should be ashamed of how the absolutely miserable way in which
they've handled this event.

You need to take a hard look at yourself if your industry revolves around
damaging people's mental health in order to draw page views.

~~~
jmercouris
Very well said.

------
whatshisface
He's saying that such-and-such is politically unviable, but that's what we
were all saying about business shutdowns, too.

~~~
frockington1
In my state (Ohio) at least, protest are starting to form on the legality and
length of shutting down businesses. It's still only a handful of people but
seems to be growing every day. There is a very slim chance the government can
enact shut downs for long and still maintain authority

~~~
vturner
Where in Ohio is this? I'm not doubting, just like to read local news on it as
I'm in Ohio too.

I applaud DeWine for acting quickly, but I'm concerned that maybe for rural
and small city locations the shut down was too much. I wonder if we are
creating a cry wolf effect for non-metro areas. All the mass effects in my
area are purely from the response. Of course, one may say, what if we hadn't a
shut down; but, I think that argument is going to be harder to make to the
small businesses in a small city or rural area next time around.

~~~
itgoon
[https://www.nbc4i.com/community/health/coronavirus/dewine-
ac...](https://www.nbc4i.com/community/health/coronavirus/dewine-acton-
address-protestors-heard-shouting-during-thursday-coronavirus-update)

Hope this helps.

------
DanielBMarkham
As somebody who has been tracking and interested in this story since late
January, the one thing I can without qualifications is that whatever seems
true now will change in a few weeks' time.

In general the outlook has gotten better as the data got better and we were
able to compare notes, although there have been some setbacks, too.

I don't think we'll ever, ever get back to "normal" as this is the pandemic
we've been reading about and planning for over the last century. Nobody [alive
today] has ever lived through something like this and it is bound to have
lasting consequences.

But I would be cautious about reading long-term plans. I know everybody wants
to know how the story ends, but people who have engaged in long-range planning
over the last couple of months have consistently had to re-plan. I would
expect that trend to continue. We don't know exactly what small changes might
have large consequences. For instance, monitoring temperatures at points of
entry and exist for all businesses could have a major effect, or forms of
"frontier testing"

No doubt this is a period for the history books. We'll probably have to live
through it to finally figure out how it's all going to end.

~~~
abfan1127
what do you mean "nobody has ever lived through this?" We've had huge
pandemics in the past: the plague, Spanish Flu, measles, polio, smallpox. I
agree we should be cautious about reading long-term plans.

~~~
nostromo
Thank you, this context is important. Swine flu killed between 150,000 to
575,000 globally in 2009, and almost nobody even remembers it. HIV is a recent
pandemic that many living people have lived through, from discovery to
treatment.

And of course the flu, which is different than SARSCoV2, kills between 250,000
and 500,000 each and every year. If you're 30 years old, between 7 and 15
million people have died from flu in your lifetime.

~~~
viklove
Coronavirus has already killed 100k, and we're still in the first quarter.

~~~
crispyambulance
Yep, and also we don't have overloaded hospitals, young people critically ill,
mass graves, and unplugged global economy for the flu.

It's hard to argue that this isn't _VASTLY_ worse than the flu in both scope
and intensity.

------
desc
Bad shit happens to a minority of people every day, permanently disrupting
their lives and forcing them to abandon long-term plans. The majority remain
oblivious and see an enduring status quo.

Suddenly a Black Swan craps on everyone at once, and a great many people are
whining 'why is this happening to me' and 'when will someone fix this so I can
go back to my routine'.

Guess what? Your routine is probably fucked. Throw it out, get used to the new
normal, and accept that _no one knows how to fix this_ (yet?), just like every
other time we get hit by a context-changing problem.

Of course some people get too attached to their context, and those who come
later and find their remains might label such events as 'out-of-context
problems'...

------
elephantscan
When are we just going to admit that our choices are:

1) indefinite lockdown 2) everyone gets the virus

Between a 0.5% chance of dying, and life imprisonment, I'd take my chances.

~~~
fuckknows
Here's the thing though, that binary choice is predicated on what we know
right now, tomorrow we may know more, and we will definitely know more in a
few weeks, in a month or two we may know enough that we have better choices to
make. Our ability to treat this virus is very limited right now, but that may
not be true in a month, so just throwing up your hands and saying let everyone
die now when we don't have good treatment options is basically just signing
peoples death warrant for no good reason.

~~~
mcfunk
This, precisely. Maybe we find better treatment (especially treatment that
reduces the incidence of patients needing hospitalization or ventilators).
Maybe we get testing technology widespread enough that we don't have to treat
everyone like they're positive unless proven otherwise. Maybe we get antibody
tests that allow us to figure out who isn't immunologically naive to the
virus. Maybe we learn more about how it spreads. Maybe we learn more about why
some people are asymptomatic.

Basically there are countless ways in which quality of life can be improved
over time as we continue to maximize efforts to contain spread.

------
chapium
As long as our political leaders are elected for ignoring science, society
will face big problems that we rely on science to keep at bay.

------
altoidaltoid
Cynically, since the morbidity is mostly in the elderly parts of the
population vs. the younger ( a la 1918 ), I can see the Lt. Gov of Texas's
attitude of " let the olds make their sacrifice" be the driving principle...

~~~
threatofrain
Not simply just old people [1]. Texas has also categorized religious
gatherings of 50 as an essential service, whereas abortion clinics have been
closed.

Texas is taking a very different approach from California.

------
vearwhershuh
If we tolerate any of these plans, we get what we deserve.

Louis CK's "OF COURSE... but maybe" skit:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLGzFQg_1xc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLGzFQg_1xc)

~~~
csense
What's the alternative? Let the virus rage, totally overwhelm the medical
system and kill a whole bunch of people? Stay on lockdown for years until a
vaccine's ready?

~~~
vearwhershuh
That's a false dichotomy.

We could have locked down the vulnerable (60+ and those with pre-existing
conditions), and anyone with a temperature, focused our healthcare efforts on
them and let everyone else go about their business with more caution (masks +
hand washing).

We would have built societal (cows are a herd, humans are a society) immunity
by this point and could slowly return to normal for the at-risk crowd.

As it stands, we haven't built up any social immunity and will have to wait
over a year for a vaccine which, by definition, we will not know the long term
effects of.

------
credit_guy
For what it's worth, CUNY (City University of New York), which has more than
250k students, decided that their Fall semester will be online. At least in
New York City, things will not go back to normal in 2020.

------
Barrin92
> _" The CAP and Harvard plans both foresee a digital pandemic surveillance
> state in which virtually every American downloads an app to their phone that
> geotracks their movements, so if they come into contact with anyone who
> later is found to have Covid-19, they can be alerted and a period of social
> quarantine can begin."_

If this refers to the bluetooth supported apps I've seen developed by several
institutions, does this not sound like a horrible idea? Let's say two people
walk past each other on the street or stand close in a shop, as far as we know
the risk of transmission is non-existent or extremely low. Are you just going
to build a connected graph and then ping everyone if one person gets sick?
You'd be pinging half the population of a dense city after one day.

Before putting these surveillance measures into place I'd like to know if
they're not causing more harm and paranaoia then they help.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
I don't mean to rip on you, it's important to notice problems, but that seems
very solvable. Just require some minimum duration of proximity before you
alert.

~~~
Barrin92
It's not that easy. Social networks, particular urban dense ones have the
characteristics of small world networks ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-
world_network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-world_network)). The
distance between every person in a city is maybe 5-6 individuals. You can
imagine how many hundred people you stand next to, how many people they stand
next to, and so on.

So if say, the chance of being infected in an interaction is say 5%, then the
chance at a distance of two is 0.25%, the chance for someone at a distance of
3 is merely 0.01%, etc..

Do you really think it's a rational use of resources or your attention that if
you're one of the countless 'distance 3' people to alert you? Unless you had
some mysterious ability to determine with extremely high fidelity that
infection has occured from metadata alone, which doesn't exist, it's a tool
for mass panic.

Bluetooth will give you a match for up to 10 meters. The official safe
distance is 6 feet. You can't even tell from a bluetooth match if people were
close enough _at all_.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
No, that doesn't seem rational. Only the distance 1 people should be alerted -
that's how it works in existing contact tracing systems.

------
indymike
This is a silly article. Every plan made to date has been laid to waste by
reality.

------
coliveira
> Any feasible plan starts with massive testing, completely subsidized by the
> government. And yet just yesterday the president claimed we don’t need mass
> testing.

This is something I've been saying from day 1: short of universal vaccination,
the only way to get back to some form of normalcy is widespread testing of the
population. Any government with some sense of reality would spend billions in
testing, to avoid losing trillions in the economy. Unfortunately it doesn't
seem that the US government has any notion of how (or desire) to do this.

~~~
IanDrake
Testing when?

When you have symptoms? Too late.

330 million people testing weekly? Not possible.

There is no realistic way to mass test everyone in a meaningful way.

~~~
agarden
How much money would it take to make testing everyone a realistic possibility?
How much money are we losing by just shutting everything down? Which one costs
more?

~~~
IanDrake
I'm not sure it's a function of money, probably more likely capacity and time
to create capacity.

------
alkonaut
What level of normalcy? Free domestic movement, business open, schools open?
That will probably work with some restrictions if social distancing works.
Countries are trying different levels of restrictions so it will soon be
obvious what works and what doesn’t.

International travel, sports events and other large gatherings I’m not
optimistic will be back to normal in 2020 unless something big changes.

------
LocalH
“Normal” is a wild goose chase. Society is too fluid to call “normal” at any
time. It’s just _different_.

------
naveen99
It’ll be interesting to see if public k—12 schools will let older teachers
teach from home, while forcing students to show up to the physical virus
breeding grounds.

~~~
threatofrain
I think this whole phenomena has led to a nuanced discrimination of age in the
essential services workforce.

------
vl
This article should have been titled: “There is No Plan”.

------
RickJWagner
It seems 98% of all people who get Covid-19 recover.

Some countries like Sweden are doing fine, open for business.

I don't think it's quite as dire as the author thinks.

------
redis_mlc
I started studying the US news reports of Covid-19 related to ventilators
weeks ago when I realized there were no interviews with survivors, and ignored
the speculation around partial testing results and R0 calculations because of
the lack of hard data, and exponential rate of infection making analysis moot.

Essentially, ICU admission for ventilators, and subsequent deaths, are the
most complete and factual data we have.

The solid information we have is that 66% - 90% of ventilator patients die, as
reported for both China and the US. Interviews with doctors all report that
ventilators are supposed to be used for up to a week, not 3 weeks.

Although the occasional patient makes it off a ventilator, from a public
healthcare policy standpoint, ventilators just don't work well enough, so
there's no reason to "flatten the curve" now (April 10, 2020) aside from
accumulating PPE (masks, gowns, gloves for hospital staff.) (A cure will
likely take 18 months to invent and approve, so that's not something to put on
a roadmap.)

The plan should be this:

1\. have our healthcare policy experts (CDC, etc.) study today's reported data
on patient mortality and PPE supplies for a couple days

2\. inform seriously ill, high-risk corona hospital patients about the risks
of ventilators (ie. you're probably going to die on one anyway, and horribly)

3\. have dedicated quarantine and palliative buildings for moderately ill
confirmed corona patients with O2 available (like the Javits Center in NY, as
an example for discussion, or an anchored cruise ship moored off each major
city). Recovered people can work there safely it appears.

4\. have dedicated hospitals for corona ICU patients if they choose to try a
ventilator (China has dedicated hospitals)

5\. lift the US lockdown and treat corona like any other seasonal flu, mainly
because it is, and also to avoid destruction of our economy and related
uncertainty

6\. the exception is passenger airline flights, which should be grounded until
further notice. develop a plan to make airliners safer to fly (hepa filters,
etc.) Cities shouldn't be under lockdown, but airlines are almost certainly a
major disease vector and need to be treated as such.

(FYI: Wuhan has an international airport only 2 hours flying time to Shanghai
Pudong International, which is a major hub. So that's likely how it spread
world-wide.)

The impediments for the US to implement this plan are:

1\. as a society, the US has lost the ability to formulate and execute policy
at the highest level, whether healthcare, hurricane response or
infrastructure. At this time, we need experts (like the CDC) to lead.

2\. Trump should not be involved in any way, since he doesn't care about
facts.

(The reasons California Governor Newsom broke contact this week with the
federal government are essentially the above.)

I'll add my collection of supporting links later today. They are all
consistent with each other, so the facts I outlined above are not in dispute.

Although the information from China was publicized late, it appears overall to
be accurate and helpful. They used their previous experience with corona and
bird flu infections to move fairly assertively on Covid-19 - a far better
response than the US or Europe.

Please leave a comment if you want an area of my outline above to be fleshed
out more.

If somebody could look into how Sweden and Germany have fared with less social
distancing, that would be helpful. Please leave a comment about that.

AMA.

~~~
makomk
The big problem with this plan is that it would require giving up and letting
a large number of Americans die, which is a political and social nonstarter
given current expectations around life, death and healthcare. (Well, at least
amongst the secular parts of America. Some of the more religious communities
seem to still hold the view that it's futile and arrogant to think this is
something we can fight, much to the anger and bemusement of secular society.)

~~~
redis_mlc
For herd immunity, the number discussed is 80% of the population getting
Covid-19. Since there are cases world-wide, I don't see containment at this
point working.

To even consider containment succeeding, we would need a way to test 300
million people a couple times a week. Since we can't do even 1 million tests a
day, the math doesn't add up.

"Giving up" is a strange way to look at it. We have various flus annually.
There will be a time limit to lockdown of several weeks, not 18 months.

So it's important to look at the data and make an informed public healthcare
policy decision.

------
IanDrake
As we enter summer, the question no one is asking is:

Can mosquitoes transmit this virus like they do malaria?

~~~
catalogia
I don't know enough about them to say for sure, but I haven't heard of any
sort of virus being transmitted by mosquitoes. Malaria is caused by a
parasite, not a virus.

~~~
IanDrake
EEE then. That's a virus transmitted by mosquitoes. Malaria was a bad example.

------
basch
This will be a good chance for state governments to show how well they
function and coordinate absent federal guidance.

Maybe they will form their own federation to circumvent the current
federations ineffectiveness.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-09/governors...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-09/governors-
consider-supply-consortium-to-skirt-fema-dysfunction)

That's at least one emergent non-California nation state coming to be. Maybe
we could call it the Great States. Toronto can come too.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Megalopolis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Megalopolis)

Culturally; North Central, The North, Midland, St Louis Cooridor, Inland
North, W. Pa.; make a nice package.
[https://www.wbez.org/stories/_/9054d7a4-f876-4c53-8ce1-08ada...](https://www.wbez.org/stories/_/9054d7a4-f876-4c53-8ce1-08adae048d28)

~~~
frockington1
States shouldn't need federal guidance and should prefer not to receive it.
Without federal oversight, states and municipalities can tailor policy to
their own area

~~~
basch
I don't disagree, absent a well stocked National Stockpile, the Great States
should build their own emergency reserve for Natural Disaster and Pandemic.
Each state building its own stockpiles of some things that don't hit all areas
equally could be wasteful. Keep close relationships with manufacturing firms
who are prepared to be ready on short notice.

This is as much a failure of planlessness as it is policy.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Although it should be noted that many states _did_ have adequate stockpiles
and haven't had their health care systems overloaded.

------
mymythisisthis
Lots of business are converting to delivery. I think this is good. The
warehouse style of store, prevalent since the 1960s is an outdated model.

Schools are moving more courses online. Another major upgrade.

The restaurant experience hasn't been rewarding for a long time. People should
learn to cook at home. Experiment with fancier cuts of organic meat.

Movie theaters have been terrible for decades. Sticky floors, too many
commercials, overpriced food. Now many film festivals are moving online.

Fast fashion was just a way of getting people to buy poorly made clothes from
sweat shops.

So much of the crap people bought recently was just excessive junk; causing an
environmental disaster.

We should just pay people to stay home and learn new skills. Why not pay
people to taking online biology courses though the pandemic? There should be a
startup that pays people to stay home and take biology courses. Exams can be
online and for real verification done over video conference with an examiner.
The startup then can get a % of your salary when you start working. Or, be
paid through advertising from medical companies.

~~~
jmt_
But isn't there something to be said about the kind of human experiences each
of the "outdated" industries you mentioned provide? Namely schools, stores,
going to movie theaters with friends, etc. People like seeing and being around
other people. Some really, really don't, but most do. Moving the majority of
activities indoors forever will have a negative impact on the psyche of the
most people.

I agree that what most people buy is junk and that there is waste in the
spaces you mentioned. But I'm not sure how "natural" is will feel for people
to do all that isolated in their homes with a small amount of people
indefinitely...

~~~
mymythisisthis
What I see happening. People are indoors and pursing something that they are
really interested in. Maybe knitting, trumpet playing, etc. They are connected
with new people online who share the same interests as them. In a few months
people will be connecting in person with these people. Modernity will do what
modernity always does...connect people who have distinct, unique, interests
together. As a society I think that we've outgrown the idea of just going to a
movie theater and hanging out with friends. I think that the older model
society will re-emerge...fraternities, social clubs, members only places,
hackerspaces. Let's say you get passionate about a hobby right now, lets say
playing an instrument. You'll want to find a safe space to meet. Maybe a few
people will pitch in some cash and just rent a space to turn into a private
hangout club. With the coming recession space will become cheaper.

~~~
shaneprrlt
You really think everybody is enjoying being isolated inside, alone, with no
human contact, no mass gatherings like concerts or games?

> As a society I think that we've outgrown the idea of just going to a movie
> theater and hanging out with friends.

This is an antisocial and unhealthy perspective. We've yet to see the mental
health ramifications from this extended period of isolation. We're not built
to sit inside by ourselves all day. Even as great as online connections can
be, they are no replacement for the real presence of a human being. Saying
we've "outgrown" it is preposterous.

~~~
mymythisisthis
In some societies people don't have much a say of what they do, who they hang
out with, what jobs they do. In a small rural society everybody was/is
expected to conform. Modernity lets us hangout with people that we share
interests with. This crisis will push that even further. We'll hang out more
with people that share our interests, and less just hanging out randomly.

