
Update to L.A.'s stay-at-home orders - CPLX
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-12/coronavirus-beaches-reopen-los-angeles-county-move-toward-new-normal
======
neonate
[https://archive.md/j8vY9](https://archive.md/j8vY9)

------
slg
I guess I will be the "Did you read the article?" guy because most of the
people in the comments here are really overreacting to what was said in the
article. This isn't a plan to maintain a full lockdown for the next 3 months.
It was simply a comment that the stay-at-home orders are unlikely to be
completely gone in three months. It is talking about the return to semi-normal
life. It isn't saying all non-essential businesses need to be closed for the
next 3 months. LA County has already moved to start opening up and this
article says they will continue on that path.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
I just don't buy it. If they were aiming to return to semi-normal life, they'd
announce we're transitioning away from "stay at home". It seems very much like
they're aiming to open up the bare minimum amount required to avoid riots or
economic collapse, and people will continue to be ordered to stay at home.

~~~
majormajor
What is the difference between your take and the parent take? All I see is you
assuming a negative - but not fully described - motive of _preferring_ to keep
people at home even if there wasn't a virus out there?

> “Our hope is that by using the data, we’d be able to slowly lift
> restrictions over the next three months,”

vs

>aiming to open up the bare minimum amount required to avoid riots or economic
collapse

why do you believe the root goal is "keep people at home" vs "respond to a
disease?"

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
I don't think it's a versus. I acknowledge that "keep people at home forever"
is a disease response measure, not some evil plan they cooked up for no
reason. But the fact that they have a reason does not make it an acceptable
measure.

It's especially frustrating because I've _repeatedly_ seen people argue that
it's a strawman, that nobody's really planning to stay at home forever. Even
in this comments section, about an article where LA county says "yeah we're
staying at home for the next 3 months at least", people insist they didn't
mean it!

------
Ididntdothis
There is no way that people will keep complying for such a long time. I am all
for mask wearing and work from home as much as possible but a lockdown for
such a long time is crazy. What’s the goal? Flattening the curve or no deaths
at all? We will probably see in a few months where things are going but from
the stats I have seen so far the connection between lockdowns and lower death
rates is not that strong. By now I would have thought that all hell would
break loose in Florida but it doesn’t seem to be happening.

~~~
halfmatthalfcat
How are you so sure people will stop complying? Is the risk of opening
everything up just to shut it down again really worth it?

I think people are smarter and more accepting of the status quo than those who
are making the most noise. As for those who are overburdened by the lockdown
(i.e. lost jobs), its on the governments to provide the safety net until we
have everything under control.

~~~
whalesalad
> How are you so sure people will stop complying? Is the risk of opening
> everything up just to shut it down again really worth it?

I live in California and I can tell you that people are already extremely over
this shit. Go out and about and hardly anyone is wearing masks, hardly anyone
is social distancing. Some people are trying ... but you are only as strong as
your weakest link. It's tough to keep up stringent personal standards when
everyone around you has said fuck it and given up.

So I completely 110% agree with the parent commenter that people have already
been demonstrating they don't want to comply. I mean, it's human nature. No
one wants to be told what to do.

The hospital boat off the shore is completely empty (it treated a total of 77
patients). Most of our hospitals are significantly below capacity. We've all
been sitting around twiddling our thumbs waiting for the apocalypse and
nothing is happening. Just crickets. Unavailable unemployment funds, closed
businesses, lost jobs.

The one thing everyone is learning from this is that the government will not
help you. It doesn't matter how liberal or conservative your state is, or
whether you believe most in federal or state governments ... everyone is doing
a shitty job in one way or another.

So if the government is not going to do fuck-all for me, why should I do fuck-
all for the government?

~~~
bcrosby95
> The hospital boat off the shore is completely empty. Most of our hospitals
> are significantly below capacity.

I think a lot of people don't realize this. My wife's friend is a nurse shift
supervisor at our local hospital. The hospital is practically empty because
there are no elective surgeries. They've been laying off nurses over the past
month. She had her hours reduced. She's expecting to be laid off soon too.

If the whole point of this is to buy time for hospitals, doing so to the point
where they have to start laying off staff members is a pretty dumb way to do
it.

~~~
__blockcipher__
And so many elective surgeries are out-patient meaning there was no reason to
pre-emptively suspend. If the capacity overwhelm that never happened had
actually happened, we could have suspend surgeries then. And frankly it should
be on a case-by-case basis. Some surgeries are more important than an extra
hospital bed-day.

I have a large labral tear in my shoulder, an impaction fracture on my
humerus, there’s a bone bruise with bone marrow leaking out, my glenohumeral
ligament is stripped from the glenoid rim, I have a new area of full-thickness
articular cartilage loss...

...And because CA suspended ALL elective surgeries statewide for a month, my
surgeon has a month backlog before he can get to me. Until then I cannot
perform any of the activities that keep me healthy and sane. Also my arm is at
risk of dislocating in my sleep until I get surgery

Suspending elective surgeries was the dumbest possible decision we could have
made yet our leaders won’t ever admit that they fucked up and completely
botched their covid response.

~~~
CamperBob2
I hear what you're saying, but my understanding is that PPE shortages were
behind the decision to suspend other medical activities.

Failure to maintain an adequate stockpile of PPE is probably what made the
lockdowns necessary, more than anything else. If everyone in the US could have
been given masks and instructed to keep their distance from other people, that
would probably have been enough to allow us to lock down only the most
vulnerable. At least we could have begun with that approach, and moved on to
heavier measures only if/when they proved necessary.

~~~
syshum
Some of that was/is pure speculation, they had data to say X number of people
would need to be hospitalized, so they need Y number of PPE

Y was more than they had to they panicked

When X was found to be a massive over estimation they still doubled down and
said "well in 2 week we will be over run"

2 weeks came, and it was "well in 2 weeks we will be over run"

2 weeks later and "well in 2 weeks...."

------
KerryJones
I'm genuinely concerned about rioting.

Many of my childhood friends (living in LA) have already been incredibly angry
at measures before this came out, and many other protests have already been
seen.

It seems strange to me to not try to do a partial reopening of businesses that
can guarantee social distancing guidelines -- and yet they're reopening
recreational activities, including the beach. This feels back-asswards, and I
really hope it works out well, but I think they need to think this through
really carefully.

~~~
skywhopper
Did you read the article? Because your concerns are addressed. The beaches are
planned to reopen soon, and there are procedures in place for partial
reopening of some businesses.

~~~
jeromegv
The fact you have to ask this question is the answer, of course the OP did not
read the article.

~~~
starik36
True, but the article title could have reflected the contents much better.

~~~
agitator
Yeah definitely click baity.

------
lsh123
I would like to get an official explanation for two things: 1) What is the
goal(s) of the "stay-at-home" order? 2) How well it is achieved compared to
other counties/countries with different policies?

~~~
ceejayoz
1\. To flatten the infection curve, in order to keep healthcare systems from
becoming overwhelmed like those in northern Italy.

2\. Thus far, it's worked to keep hospitals functioning. We're doing worse
than most other countries ([https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-
visualization/](https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/)).

~~~
icelancer
>> 1\. To flatten the infection curve, in order to keep healthcare systems
from becoming overwhelmed like those in northern Italy.

Very few regions have had anything close to overwhelmed hospitals. More
regions have had to lay off hospital staff than have been overwhelmed. Some
like UW medicine now face a $500 million budget shortfall due to the ban on
elective procedures.

Social distancing measures may have an effect on r_t as low as 0.1 per
analysis by Nate Silver. Others show a negative or no correlation between
government lockdowns and reduction of r_t.

It is fair to question if these lockdowns - as instituted - have done
anything.

~~~
ceejayoz
> More regions have had to lay off hospital staff than have been overwhelmed.

That's a bit of a red herring. Hospitals aren't laying off ER and ICU staff.
They're furloughing in areas like dermatology, plastic surgery, and the like -
parts of the hospital that see largely elective procedures.

~~~
nostromo
> furloughing in areas like dermatology, plastic surgery, and the like

Stop. This is incredibly misleading.

Elective just means that you can choose the time to do the surgery. It doesn't
mean they are optional for health.

Elective surgeries include inguinal hernia surgery, cataract surgery,
mastectomy for breast cancer, kidney transplant, and hip surgery.

Most surgeries are elective.

Don't minimize this as a bunch of delayed facelifts.

~~~
ceejayoz
I'd be happy to wager there are substantially more dermatology visits in your
average hospital than there are kidney transplants.

There's a range of severity in "elective" procedures, certainly. There are a
_lot_ of procedures folks will willingly postpone right now, and it's not
surprising that hospitals are furloughing staff that service them.

It is disingenuous to suggest that furloughs in these elective areas
demonstrate an excess of capacity in the ER/ICU.

~~~
jdminhbg
Dermatology is real medicine with real consequences. Even Jerry Seinfeld found
out the hard way: [https://youtu.be/EmzM0bz3PWc](https://youtu.be/EmzM0bz3PWc)

~~~
ceejayoz
Certainly, but you'll likely find it has a higher proportion of elective
procedures that can be held off than, say, the NICU.

Which will mean that department's staff - docs, nurses, receptionists,
billers, cleaners, etc. - will be more likely to be on the furlough lists than
the ER or ICU.

------
IvyMike
Compliance is already way down; as someone who has to drive across LA a few
times a week (from one isolated situation to another) it has gone from "Night
of the Comet" ghost town to "not quite the normal traffic jams but sure a lot
of cars out there".

Someone else said he fears riots; I think that's unlikely. Much like when a
substitute teacher is there, it will just be more and more people slowly
pushing the rules until it's like there are no rules.

~~~
catalogia
This fits what I've been seeing. Road and sidewalk traffic is increasing,
almost back up to normal levels.

------
clairity
this will backfire on politicians.

the "better safe than sorry" line of reasoning is deeply flawed thinking. it's
a way to absolve politicians of the hard job of finding the best answer, the
best tradeoff. cutting off the extrema works in the confines of mathematical
optimization, but in real, human systems, hitting an extreme in one dimension
is never the right answer. the system is infinitely faceted and exponentially
interrelated.

for the general population, rather than lockdown, it would have been easy to
start back in early march with two simple rules:

1) physically distance, _or_ wear a mask when _inside_ public spaces (which
implies no large gatherings), and

2) if you're sick or have co-morbidities, self-quarantine.

as time went on, you could then deal with the harder edge cases like schools
(in socal, you could have "classrooms" out on playgrounds and fields under
large tents if necessary).

instead politicians have painted themselves into a corner and can't find their
way out.

------
subsubzero
This is absolutely insane, if LA wants to see a return to the bad old
days(think Rodney King/Watts riots/extreme levels of crime) keep up this
nonsense. This will absolutely destroy the middle/lower class along with a
huge chunk of the economy. This was not put up for a vote, and is being forced
down people's throats. There is no timeline for large scale antibody testing,
live testing is completely broken, expect to see a huge migration out of
California.

~~~
ceejayoz
> This was not put up for a vote

Very little is. That's why we elect executives at various levels of
government. If you want direct democracy, you'll need somewhere like
Switzerland, and even there, there's some concept of executive power in
emergencies.

~~~
creaghpatr
Incidentally, Switzerland is opening back up albeit with some basic
restrictions.

[https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/switzerland-
relaxing-...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/switzerland-relaxing-its-
coronavirus-lockdown-measures/)

------
jedberg
I see a lot of comments about "people will ignore this". I don't know if
that's true or not, but here is some interesting data:

If you look at Opentable's data [0] about dining reservations, you can see a
cliff on March 16th in all states across the country. March 16th is the day
after the very first SIP order was given (in Santa Clara county).

So in other words, despite not being locked down, most people around the
country were too afraid to go out.

[0] [https://www.opentable.com/state-of-
industry](https://www.opentable.com/state-of-industry)

~~~
agitator
...isn't that because people expected things to re-open on that date? All of
those businesses ceased operation. It's not because people didn't want to go
out. They couldn't even if they wanted to.

I rescheduled a haircut to the 16th because I figured that's when they will
start cutting hair again.

~~~
jedberg
No, this was in March. No one was closed yet except Santa Clara county. The
restaurants were open but their reservations dropped off a cliff.

------
cpncrunch
It's interesting to compare responses:

UK police stopping people from sitting on Brighton beach:

[https://uk.news.yahoo.com/brighton-beach-police-
checkpoint-l...](https://uk.news.yahoo.com/brighton-beach-police-checkpoint-
lockdown-coronavirus-172845913.html)

LA saying you can go to the beach, but you're not allowed to sit down or take
an umbrella:

[https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-12/coronavi...](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-12/coronavirus-
beaches-reopen-los-angeles-county-move-toward-new-normal)

In Vancouver people are flocking to the beach, but mostly following social
distancing, and BC's chief health officer is fine with that (she has said in
the past that people should get outside, as the risk of catching the virus
while walking past someone outside is infinitessimal):

[https://bc.ctvnews.ca/just-how-crowded-are-b-c-beaches-
pictu...](https://bc.ctvnews.ca/just-how-crowded-are-b-c-beaches-pictures-
highlight-how-perspectives-can-mislead-1.4935162)

I think BC's response is the only one that is based on science, logic and
reason, whereas the UK, San Francisco and LA seem to be having a more extreme
lockdown that isn't really based on any kind of logic and is just going to
piss people off and negatively affect mental health.

------
iphone_elegance
This is getting dumb and to mixed in with politics; it's a bad but not
catastrophic illness and we have to have a bit of adjustment to further
mitigate but these generic-stay-at-home orders are just dumb

~~~
ianleeclark
> This is getting dumb and to mixed in with politics

In what world could a government shelter orders ever not be involved with
politics? I see this comment day-in and day-out on HN and I just can't even
begin to conceptualize a world wherein there's some sterile, politics-free
zone.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
There are plenty of places in the world where it isn't so politicised. America
does tend to get its knickers in a twist over things the rest of the world
barely takes any notice of.

~~~
ianleeclark
> There are plenty of places in the world where it isn't so politicised

Is "politically polarized" what "politics" means to you?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
No, well not in the sense that things have become so tribal.

------
ummonk
> “Our hope is that by using the data, we’d be able to slowly lift
> restrictions over the next three months,” she said. But without widely
> available therapeutic testing for the coronavirus or rapid at-home versions
> that would allow people to test themselves daily, it seems unlikely that
> restrictions would be completely eased.

It sounds like they will lift most restrictions but some restrictions (e.g.
bans on very large events) will still be in place.

------
buboard
What's the rationale behind the criteria of LA ? "No death in the past 14
days" ? That's nuts. the rest of the criteria might be workable.

European countries have opened up with less than that, and it hasn't been a
disaster so far.

This is also just dumb: Face coverings will be required when not in the water,
and sunbathing won’t be allowed.

~~~
Trasmatta
Somebody else linked Goodhart's law in this thread, and I think that's pretty
applicable. Using these measures as strict criteria rather than looking at the
bigger picture that they paint seems like a huge mistake. All of LA can't open
if just a single 95 year old person dies of COVID in the past two weeks?

~~~
wahern
You're complaining about a metric--"No death in the past 14 days"\--that
doesn't exist and merely posed rhetorically.

The principle metric in California, as almost anywhere else, is access to
widespread testing. Testing resources are only a fraction of what they need to
be in order for the state to be able to even theoretically contain outbreaks
under ideal circumstances. The Federal government _should_ have been all over
this months ago, but it refuses to accept responsibility even though it's the
only entity in the nation that can make it happen anytime soon.

Secondly, daily reported cases are continuing to rise in California. So to
suggest the criteria is no new deaths is ridiculous. Rather, it appears they
were originally hoping to wait for a cessation in the _increase_ in daily
deaths, but that appears to not be in the cards given how shelter-in-place
compliance will never be as good as it was a few weeks ago.

The dilemma here is either playing with people's livelihoods vs playing with
their lives. These are two different things, as anyone who's lived in a war
zone or famine would attest. I'm pretty sure I know which one most people
would choose if they were faced with the stark choice, but they're rarely
faced with that choice, or if they are they deny it and move on. That's basic
human behavior and I don't expect that change, but it's important to
understand the distinction when criticizing a public leader making population-
wide choices.

FWIW, nearly 1/3 of Americans are 55+. It's amazing how quickly we turn to
infighting. How ironic, yet entirely unsurprising, that most of the people
we're so quickly willing to sacrifice are the ones who literally went to war--
WWII, Korea, and Vietnam--for the United States.

~~~
buboard
The criteria are stated in the presentation linked in the article

~~~
wahern
I stand corrected. Leaving my comment unedited so I suffer the embarrassment
in perpetuity.

FWIW, the 14 day criteria is for moving from stage II to stage III (or quasi
stage-III--it's a stage II "variance"). Stage III reopens places like gyms and
movie theaters. But in stage II most places can open, including factories, so
long as they maintain social distancing. Stage II appears to be where China,
etc, are still at.

~~~
Trasmatta
That's a good point on the criteria being for Stage III, in which case it
seems more reasonable. I do still hope that when the decision comes to move to
that stage, that they look at the full picture rather than relying just on the
metric.

------
dsfyu404ed
It'll be interesting to see how this goes in terms of compliance. You miss
mother's day, ok, fine, call her and send her something. You miss memorial
day, eh, I guess it's for a good cause. You can't have your annual 4th of July
BBQ now your kinda annoyed. You can't do anything all summer and you can't
send the kids away to summer camp either, well now you're pissed off. The
fewer the local number of cases the harder it is to justify obeying the order
in people's minds (especially if they see pics on FB and Instagram of their
friends/relatives in other states out and about) and the more people are gonna
just disregard the order.

~~~
ketzo
Yeah. Nate Silver has tweeted a few times about disliking beach shutdowns -- a
lot of evidence says outdoor transmission is pretty negligible, and you gotta
weigh that against the "cost" to public opinion. People wanna go to the beach
pretty bad right now.

At some point, people are gonna wanna stop paying the cost, and will simply
stop complying with lockdown -- so you gotta ask, where do you trade a little
extra risk in return for greater compliance to the rest of the rules?

~~~
wilshiredetroit
The problem with opening up the beaches.. are the congregation of large groups
of people at choke points such as crosswalk intersections and such places.

heres an update on Florida.. [https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavirus/os-
ne-coronaviru...](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavirus/os-ne-
coronavirus-tuesday-may-12-20200512-eb56lsaxanarrec5qync2fn4hy-story.html)

~~~
testfoobar
Bathrooms & restaurants. You can bring your own food or get takeout - but
where are you going to relieve yourself?

How do you socially distance at a beach bathroom? Does everyone hit up the
same fast-food bathrooms nearby - concentrating the risk?

~~~
catalogia
Piss in the ocean? Fish do it.

------
vmception
> Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, warned
> Congress that states that push too quickly to ease orders could undo
> progress that would trigger an outbreak.

Its not about strictly avoiding triggering an outbreak, its about the
hospitals having capacity to deal with the inevitable outbreaks, _plural_!

We aren't going to tolerate Mayors, Governors and Public Health agencies
picking business types one by one forever. This was always about slowing
exposure, not preventing it. In Norcal we have been very tolerant and
cooperative, but I'm watching Socal as a precursor.

------
vernie
It was cool when the same director of public health decided to shut down
restaurants selling groceries because they lacked grocery store licenses.

------
qwe098cube
I miss a precise goal what this extended lockdown should achieve. Is it
adequate medical support or stopping the virus and the deaths? The latter
seems highly unlikely given the metric of 14 days without deaths. What if
there are still a lot of cases in July, lockdown indefinitely?

------
aazaa
> Los Angeles County’s stay-at-home orders will “with all certainty” be
> extended for the next three months, county Public Health Director Barbara
> Ferrer acknowledged during a Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday.

Oddly, the article never links to the order nor gives a summary. Here it is:

[http://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/lac/1070029_COVID-19_Safer...](http://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/lac/1070029_COVID-19_SaferAtHome_HealthOfficerOrder_20200319_Signed.pdf)

------
und3rth3iP
Not in LA county but another urban center and I'm personally beginning to
mentally prepare for a virtual holiday season and just hoping I'm wrong. :/

------
simonbarker87
It seems like most commenters haven’t read the article.

The opening described in this article happening this week is more extensive
than all of the UK and Italy have at the moment.

The quotes read to me as officials are opening things up but leaving enough
wiggle room in comments about the future that they can point back to if a big
flare up requires them to slow down or rollback.

------
raz32dust
This is a big deal, especially given the apparent polarization on this issue.
I would love to (1) See the statistics being used by the government, with
clear goals when stay-at-home orders can be lifted. (2) How does the govt.
plan to enforce this? People in LA weren't following it very well as it is.

------
lorsting
I hoped America will bring some sanity in this panicked world. I’m not sure
this will happen anymore.

What next?

------
fasteddie31003
As time goes on Sweden's approach to the virus is looking better and better.

~~~
greendave
So far, they have double the fatality rate of LA county.

~~~
partiallypro
This is totally fair, however the reason everyone in the US were told to stay
home was to flatten the curve to not overwhelm hospitals, and to buy time.
That has been done. Hospitals are no where near capacity and new case counts
are falling week over week. We have a lot of testing now, a lot of
ventilators, a lot more PPE. We are better prepared now. Now the new thing
seems to be for stay at home orders to exist so that we have no cases at all.
That's not realistic. Politicians need to wake up to the reality that this
can't go on. Even if our best case scenario is to avoid all the death we
can...it's just not feasible. Not economically, morally, etc. The only real
choice is a mixed policy that just have strict guidelines for businesses
serving customers. It's the only way.

~~~
jlebar
> The only real choice is a mixed policy that just have strict guidelines for
> businesses serving customers.

How is this different from what the article proposes?

------
SpicyLemonZest
I hate to deliver triumphant "told you so" messages, but I hope that all the
people who say "nobody wants to lock down forever" are starting to understand
they've been misled.

~~~
the-pigeon
I was 100% behind the initial lockdowns. We had next to no testing and we were
seeing disturbing surges. We needed to lockdown to get a handle on what was
going on.

But now we know what's going on and we don't seem to have a goal to deal with
it. Some are going after 0 deaths. Some are going after don't overwhelm
hospitals. And some don't destroy the economy.

I think we are at a point that every government restriction needs to have a
very clear goal attached to it.

~~~
orangecat
Welcome to group 3
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23160511](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23160511)).
There are dozens of us!

------
dmode
This is a weird article. The headline is derived from a random board meeting
and not even an official statement. It seems like the plan is to open up
slowly

------
Alan05
This feels like quite the extension, especially given how other countries are
extending lockdowns by several weeks at a time

------
testfoobar
What are the odds that a similar extension happens in the Bay Area? Any
rumblings from the local health departments?

------
justaguy88
Compliance is about to take a nosedive

------
throwaway122378
No where in the article are any mention of the methods or statistics used by
PUBLIC officials to make this decision. No mention about California’s or LA
County’s current infections (68,000) and or deaths (3,000).

Relative to the stats, this is a tyrannical power grab by the public officials
of a state with the population of more than 40,000,000.

------
anonAndOn
Meanwhile, parents and kids alike are starting to feel their blood boil...

------
ww520
Actually how are the county level officials got into office? City and state
officials are elected. What's the process to install a county officials in CA?

~~~
surfpel
Pretty much everyone in charge is elected

------
not_a_moth
This isn’t policy based on data or reason. Just some summary thoughts

Cost of lockdowns:

a) lack of preventative care ; lack of trips to hospital when would otherwise
; missed vaccines

b) mental health issues ; suicides

c) child and spousal abuse

d) vitamin D deficiency from staying indoors extra hours, weakening immune
system ; lack of regular pathogen exposure also weakening the immune system

e) metabolic issues from sitting extra hours each day

f) economy wise, destruction of businesses and livelihood, with new huge pile
of national debt risking long term economic problems and inflation

Sweden:

Sweden has claimed they will reach herd immunity the month. The mortality per
capita in Sweden is less than France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherland,
Switzerland. 3k deaths total, that’s less than the seasonal flu in Sweden,
with average age being above the average age of life expectancy (same in US
too).

CFR in US:

We know it’s far lower than what’s reported due to sampling of asymptomatic
(and common sense - it started perhaps as early as October with any
significant screening or testing only staring 3-4 months later), as well as
because “died with Covid” is merged with “died from Covid” in official stats
in US. If you need further proof look at places like Singapore where it’s <
.1% CFR despite 25k cases/ large volum of new cases per day.

Politics in the US:

Watching this unfold in recent weeks it's hard not to be cynical and conclude
this is perhaps the only reason someone would extend these lockdowns for 3
months.

------
btian
Sounds like a terrible idea.

Doesn't closing SpaceX also have national security implications?

~~~
Rebelgecko
SpaceX isn't closed. All of the LA County defense contractors have exemptions
for "essential" personnel, which for SpaceX seems to include their preschool
workers as well

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mydongle
Fuck man, are we gonna go through the panic buying again?

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kyleblarson
It is terrifying to see the voracity with which these bureaucrats eat up and
wield more and more power.

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nostromo
This is insanity. California is weeks away from bankruptcy. Newsom is banking
on a federal bailout that isn't coming.

[https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/05/10/california-
ju...](https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2020/05/10/california-just-
revealed-a-543-billion-deficit--signaling-deep-cuts-ahead)

~~~
throwaway122378
Newsom is playing a win/win. Close it down and go deeper in the red and force
the federal government to pay out.

1) Federal govt pays, he wins 2) Federal govt doesn’t pay, he blames the chaos
on the federal govt. He wins

This guy needs to be removed from office for gambling with peoples lives

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eschulz
I don't think Newsom wins on your second scenario. He might think he could
win, but he would be mistaken.

~~~
throwaway122378
I hope your right. Lots of people waking up to the lies we’ve been told

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mnm1
This is a reasonable and necessary response because testing still hasn't
ramped up yet. The lockdown's purpose is not only to flatten the curve but to
get to a point where trace and test is a viable strategy. It is unfortunate
that the US is still only at around half the absolute minimum of daily tests
(300k vs 500k) so we still have a long way to go before reopening is actually
viable. If authorities wanted to open earlier, they should have increased the
testing capacity. Unfortunately, that was not done. It doesn't even matter why
at this point and that is a debate for another time and place. The fact of the
matter is, we don't have enough testing to reopen in the US. I'm glad at least
one county sees that.

~~~
ripberge
Testing has indeed "ramped up" in Los Angeles. Last time I checked there were
39 locations in Los Angeles where you could get a free test, no symptoms
necessary. That count does not include going to your doctor or to a private
lab. Would love to see the models behind 300k-500k test count and what that
achieves. The goal is unclear in Los Angeles.

~~~
mnm1
Are they are testing everyone with symptoms and tracing/quarantining all their
contacts? Because if not, you need around 300 million tests a day.

~~~
ripberge
If your goal is complete eradication?

