
New York Governor announces 100% workforce reduction for non-essential services - ajaviaad
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/20/new-york-governor-announces-100-workforce-reduction-for-non-essential-services/
======
throwaway5752
There is no doubt Cuomo should be the national point person for the response
to the crisis based on his performance so far. He is independently working
with regional manufacturing to retool to make critical medical PPE and
ventilators, and has organized a regional coalition including CT, NJ, and PA.
I have not agreed with him all the time, but his crisis management has been
exemplary and he will have saved many lives in NY by the time this is done.

~~~
ransom1538
Sorry what? His state has the highest infection rate and he just _NOW_ did a
100% workforce reduction. He hasn't even issued "a shelter in place" order.
BARS WERE OPEN MONDAY. Thousands of deaths will be on his hands. I think he
should be criminally prosecuted.

NY needs to be locked down _NOW_.

~~~
fennecfoxen
For good _and_ for ill, it is Constitutionally problematic to "lock down" an
entire state, as it is essentially placing millions of people under arrest,
which in the general case is a stupefyingly terrible power for any government
to wield.

On the other hand, the state can _totally_ shut down businesses. In
circumstances like this, it is not suspect in the least.

I will further note that for Cuomo to be criminally prosecuted, he would need
to commit some crime. Now, this happens sometimes in NY government (quite
often, really) but it usually involves corruption; I am not aware of any
particular law he has violated in acquitting his duties in this matter. Anger
may indeed be _quite_ justified, but when politicians are prosecuted for their
policies after the fact, this is usually more effective at turning a place
into a banana republic than it is at improving the quality of the policies.

~~~
henryfjordan
Under a declared emergency, the constitution turns more into "guidelines".
Almost no right in the constitution is unlimited.

Speech and movement can be restricted with good cause, and this virus
certainly counts. States right now very much have the legal power to say "no
gatherings of any sort, no leaving your house without good cause, etc".

~~~
flyingfences
> Under a declared emergency, the constitution turns more into "guidelines".

That's certainly the way it's treated nowadays. That doesn't make such
treatment right.

------
quartzite
It will be impossible for us to permanently stop the spread with half
measures. As viral spread continues due to half hearted social distancing,
when will we be able to return to normalcy? Given the characteristics of this
virus even a few cases floating around seem to be enough to reignite
contagion.

So we persist in stasis for a month or a year with no end in sight while the
economy begins to collapse, which will also destroy lives and lead to
humanitarian disaster?

And all of that on shoddy evidence which probably is not counting the true
case fatality rate due to woeful ignorance of the total number of infected
people?

This article from a Stanford Professor makes the case that COVID-19 mortality
is not as high as initial reports make it seem:

[https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-
making-a...](https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-
the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-
data/)

We also have potential treatments emerging that could alleviate much of the
strain on the healthcare system.

We need to make rational and strategic decisions here, not decisions based out
of fear.

Massive and systematic society wide testing is the first step, the second step
is the bulk manufacture of demonstrated COVID-19 treatments. The third is
ramping up hospital capacity.

All of this is so that we can reopen society in a reasonable amount of time
prepared to deal with the inevitable spread of this virus.

~~~
fennecfoxen
> It will be impossible for us to permanently stop the spread with half
> measures.

You're not going to like this, but at this point, no one expects anyone to
permanently stop the spread of the virus. It is very contagious, it has a very
effective stealth mode, and it is widespread. You should probably expect that
over half of the world population will contract this virus.

New York's restrictions are primarily to make people contract it more slowly,
so that the state (and other states) can deal with it more slowly.

~~~
frequentnapper
China claims to have stopped it in its tracks.

~~~
koheripbal
China effectively let everyone catch the disease so that now everyone is
either immune or dead.

~~~
baobabKoodaa
This is wildly untrue and unfounded.

------
treyfitty
To be clear, the governor unequivocally said this is not a shelter in place.
It is merely language telling employers that they are to not have workers
physically present.

The governor also said there will not be any civil penalties for individuals
that do not stay at home.

~~~
mattnewton
I think this will open the door for NYC to fully "shelter in place" lockdown,
however.

~~~
nostromo
Yeah, they're boiling the frog. Each incremental step is normalized over a few
days, and then there's a new, stricter mandate.

~~~
mentat
Except the virus is doubling over those days so completely ineffective.

~~~
Retric
Tests are a lagging indicator, the important factor is the R value. R1.5 is
vastly better than R2 in the short term but pales beside R0.95.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_modelling_of_infe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_modelling_of_infectious_disease)

Both South Korea and China have successfully gotten below R1, but it’s unclear
how long they can maintain that stance.

------
chadlavi
> Mass transit will remain operational and restaurants, food delivery and bank
> will remain in service.

This kind of article would really benefit from a quick bulleted list at the
top, I had to skim to get this essential info

~~~
aqme28
nyc.gov has a helpful list.

[https://esd.ny.gov/guidance-executive-
order-2026](https://esd.ny.gov/guidance-executive-order-2026)

I was worried, because I _just_ dropped my clothes off at the laundromat.

~~~
lonelappde
You don't need clothes at home.

------
jakear
So that’s CA and NY both with shelter in place. Strange that WA hasn’t
implemented it yet.

~~~
stronglikedan
This seems to be a reaction to people not doing it on their own sufficiently
enough, like what happened in Italy. Perhaps Washingtonians are taking the
recommendations more seriously, so they don't require an official mandate.
That decision can't be a light one, and I don't envy those that have to make
it.

~~~
docbrown
There is no law enforcement action being taken for the NY or CA order. They’re
relying on “social-pressure” to keep people inside.

~~~
CydeWeys
I've seen videos of NYPD going in and telling people in restaurants to clear
out (from days ago). I wouldn't be surprised to see NYPD telling people to
clear out for this too.

~~~
CydeWeys
Adding onto this, people are indeed being arrested and charged by the NYPD for
disorderly conduct and failing to disperse:
[https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-
state...](https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-state-pulls-
liquor-licence-of-restaurant-20200320-eyu7qlo5rndodpi3snfdx5bkzi-
story.html?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true)

More broadly, if you live in NYC and know the NYPD, then of course they're
going to respond in this manner when such orders come out. When they have
authority, they use it.

------
ddoolin
I'm glad that the favorite son could do the right thing for the state of NY,
particularly when their positive cases are exploding.

~~~
ahoy
Cuomo loves half-measures and taking credit for not doing much of anything.

There's no force of law behind this order.

Earlier this week he announced "mortgage relief," but its means-tested and
difficult to actually navigate. It won't help.

A year or 2 ago he rolled out his "free college for every new yorker" plan. It
benefits about 10% of the population.

Cuomo's only skill is talking a big game. He's exactly as bad as most other
neolibs.

~~~
codyb
10% of the population of NYS is 2 million people.

It may be falsely advertised if it was claimed as “free college for every New
Yorker” but I’m hard pressed to understand why people who support things like
tuition free college programs get so angry about steps in that direction.

Even if it’s only 10% of that 2 million people that actually need to go
college it’s still 200,000 Americans that are better off than they were
before.

And didn’t NY’s legislature not turn blue until November of 2019?

I may be wrong, but if helping hundreds of thousands of low income Americans
get access to higher education means your only skill is “talking a big game”
and makes you a “bad neolib” I’m not sure that’s a message I can get behind.

I don’t know all of Cuomo’s policies or history, he may indeed be a bad
Governor, but I really have trouble understand the people who shit on others
for moving us in a positive direction because it’s not 100% of the way there
yet.

------
fiftyfifty
It seems highly likely that the US is headed where the whole of Europe is now:
over 100,000 positives, over 5,000 deaths. We waited too long for actions like
this. It will take a month before we see a drop in cases and deaths

~~~
vehementi
A month? Wouldn't it be more like 1-2 weeks?

~~~
fiftyfifty
The problem we are going to have in the US is some states are responding
better than others. NY looks bad right now because they are testing a lot.
States like Florida, Louisiana and Georgia are already in double digit deaths
each and don't have the positive cases to account for them. Going forward the
rate of deaths will be far more indicative of what's happening than just the
positive cases and that is going to continue to climb for at least 4 more
weeks. Will we see a ban on interstate travel? What happens when one state
gets the outbreak under control while another state's cases are still
increasing? I'm extremely doubtful that any one state in the US will see a
significant slowdown in cases in the next 4 weeks. No European country has
yet...

~~~
redisman
As you can see with WA, deaths is not a perfect metric either. Florida also
has a lot of retirement homes and one getting hit will skew that metric a lot.

~~~
ImaCake
Yeah, I am _very_ skeptical of extrapolation from deaths to get total cases.
Just looking at China's numbers province by province reveals that the death
rate varies quite a bit. Hubei has a very high mortality rate compared to the
provinces surrounding it. Most provinces around Hubei had roughly 1 death per
1000 cases. But Henan, to the north had 22 deaths per thousand. There doesn't
seem to be such a thing as a titular mortality rate for these viruses.

------
mjmdavis
Why does the guidance linked from the article here:
[https://esd.ny.gov/guidance-executive-
order-2026](https://esd.ny.gov/guidance-executive-order-2026) mention a 75%
reduction and the actual order linked from there:
[https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/no-2026-continuing-
temporar...](https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/no-2026-continuing-temporary-
suspension-and-modification-laws-relating-disaster-emergency) mention 50%?

Are they updating the order minute to minute?

~~~
CapriciousCptl
> Are they updating the order minute to minute?

Yes. That was 2 days ago. It's a fluid, uncertain situation.

~~~
bdefore
And is now 100%

------
Konack
Similar article that covers the issue
[https://www.courthousenews.com/teetering-on-lockdown-
cuomo-n...](https://www.courthousenews.com/teetering-on-lockdown-cuomo-new-
york-on-pause/)

------
ilamont
_There is currently no plan in place to penalize individuals for gathering
socially_

Then people won't take the rules seriously.

Lots of people in this country still don't believe or understand how much
damage this virus can inflict.

~~~
munificent
Man, I hate this take. I get where it's coming from. In times of significant
stress, it's important that we all pull together and do work to benefit
society as a whole. And part of the way we incentivize that is by calling out
people who don't do their part. I get it.

But we are already inundated by outrage journalism, cancel culture, and public
shaming. The last thing we need is more of that. We've already got enough
things to be stressed, worried, anxious, and angry about.

The vast majority of people will respect the good advice coming from
leadership, and those people are the ones who deserve our attention, in a
positive way.

Look at this like engineering. With a large enough system, you are always
going to have some components that fail. When your network has a million
machines, you don't get upset when a server goes down, you just engineer some
tolerance into your network, define processes to handle them, and go on with
your life.

I have been constantly gratified by how many people are doing the _right_
thing and those are the people that I want to focus my own attention on. I
think we will all get through this with a little more sanity and emotional
health if we can take a break from the perennial game of torches and
pitchforks for a while.

~~~
circlefavshape
I am absolutely sick to death of outrage culture, and I thoroughly agree - in
fact I think the outrage probably encourages the bravado of people who are
engaging in risky behaviour atm

~~~
aalleavitch
A great way to get rid of outrage culture, btw, would be to get rid of all the
systems generating the outrage.

~~~
Veen
That assumes outrage is motivated primarily by flawed systems and not the
psychological and social benefits that accrue to those who express the most
outrage. It may also be true that outrage is not the best way to solve
systemic problems.

~~~
tosser0001
I think in some cases though there are systems that funnel people into places
that seem designed to evoke engagement and often the engagement triggers
outrage.

I wish Jack Dorsey at Twitter would take a look at the absolute shit-show that
is "Trends for You" in the Explore section. It's nothing but the most outraged
people trying to whip everyone into a frenzy. I try to resist going in there,
but every once in a while can't help but be sucked in and almost always regret
it.

~~~
munificent
_> take a look at the absolute shit-show that is "Trends for You" in the
Explore section._

I finally figured out a good solution for that. Click the gear and turn off
personalized trends. Then set the country to a language you don't speak.

I don't know a lick of Latvian, but now Twitter is all about telling me what's
going on over there.

------
yibg
Seems so piecemeal. We have models that work in parts of the world like Korea,
Taiwan and Singapore. Is there any reason why the US and Europe can’t follow
their model?

~~~
therealdrag0
A lot of it might just be preparation. Not only "run-books" and hardware, but
also wetware. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess those places have a lot
more humans per case investigating-network-affects/supporting quarantine. US
seems to just be working on getting hardware ramped up. I haven't heard
anything about tracing case histories to quarantine contacts.

My impression is that like Taiwan didn't even shut down schools. They just
locked down boarders and aggressively quarantined the infected.

~~~
yibg
That’s my impression for Taiwan as well. Life there seems to be more or less
normal and the virus also seems to be contained. The measures are focused on
fast and pervasive testing, contact tracing and specific isolation rather than
blanket social distancing.

I’m not knowledgeable enough to say either way but is there a reason that
model doesn’t work in the US or Europe?

------
tyingq
Do they have a definition of what constitutes non-essential?

~~~
emddudley
Yes, the order has a specific list.

EDIT: Here is the order.

[https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/no-2026-continuing-
temporar...](https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/no-2026-continuing-temporary-
suspension-and-modification-laws-relating-disaster-emergency)

> Any essential business or entity providing essential services or functions
> shall not be subject to the in-person restrictions. This includes essential
> health care operations including research and laboratory services; essential
> infrastructure including utilities, telecommunication, airports and
> transportation infrastructure; essential manufacturing, including food
> processing and pharmaceuticals; essential retail including grocery stores
> and pharmacies; essential services including trash collection, mail, and
> shipping services; news media; banks and related financial institutions;
> providers of basic necessities to economically disadvantaged populations;
> construction; vendors of essential services necessary to maintain the
> safety, sanitation and essential operations of residences or other essential
> businesses; vendors that provide essential services or products, including
> logistics and technology support, child care and services needed to ensure
> the continuing operation of government agencies and provide for the health,
> safety and welfare of the public;

------
Whut
I feel like we should just do this nation wide.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
USA is huge, and the virus is hitting different areas with different
intensities. Its spread is heavily impacted by population density and rates of
random social encounters. A Nationwide lockdown might make sense if the goal
was to snuff the infection out, but as of now the goal is to lower the peak of
the curve. If you lock down too early, you extend the infection to a length of
time that makes the lockdown impossible.

~~~
vehementi
> If you lock down too early, you extend the infection to a length of time
> that makes the lockdown impossible.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

~~~
syshum
This virus will be with everyone for 18+ months, the point of the lockdown is
allow the Health system to catch up

If you lock down early you irreparably harm the local economy and simply delay
a spike instead of "flattening the curve" unless you are willing to except a
year long lock down, massive economic depression and the colapse of the US
Dollar

~~~
40four
This is happening in my area right now. The number of cases is little to none,
but the governor threw a blanket lock down on bars and restaurants, etc, over
the whole state. It was too early for my area for sure. So in the meantime,
businesses and people's livelihoods are already being destroyed.

~~~
mythrwy
The number of infected though is unknown because we haven't tested many
people. When it is known then lock down on bars restaurants etc. will be too
late.

~~~
40four
I live in South Carolina [https://www.scdhec.gov/monitoring-testing-
covid-19](https://www.scdhec.gov/monitoring-testing-covid-19). You are correct
testing is still low, but I don't think that data is useless. I don't agree
with the notion that it 'will be too late'.

As others have said, the point of a lock down should to prevent the hospitals
from getting overwhelmed, prevent ventilator shortages, etc. Nobody even knows
if a preemptive lock down can 'squash' the virus. While testing is being
ramped up, aren't there other ways to determine outbreaks? Can't our leaders
communicate with hospitals and find out number of open beds, ventilators, an
influx of patients with _suspected_ symptoms?

It is still going to be around once we come of of hiding, whenever that is, so
it's possible we are just delaying the acceleration phase and we end up with
the same result later instead of facing it now. I'm not saying there is never
a time for a lock down, I just wonder if my local leaders panicked and did it
to early, because they didn't know what else to do?

So in my area, the hospitals are fine. People are not flooding in the doors.
Meanwhile thousands of jobs & businesses are being torched. My mom is a
massage therapist, and is out of work for the foreseeable future. I just think
there are smarter ways to go about it.

------
y-c-o-m-b
At this point wouldn't it be better to just implement a Chinese-style martial
law lock-down? The damage to the economy is already here. Might as well shut
things down for 3-4 weeks and slowly open up sections of a city. That seems
better to me then dragging this thing out for 3 months or longer. I feel like
these "stages" of lock-down are doing nothing but delaying the inevitable
which will cause more damage in the long run.

~~~
carlosdp
I don't think authoritarian tactics like that, while effective, would fly in
the US. I for one would not be ok with that. Once the government takes that
authority once, who knows what they end up doing with it when they see they
can get away with it.

~~~
sodafountan
I agree, as alarming as it sounds I think we'd need something much higher than
a 2% fatality rate to justify completely giving up our civil liberties.

If anything it should be the elderly and vulnerable that are forced to isolate
while the rest of society slows down for awhile, but even that I think is too
egregious at this point.

~~~
mokus
Lincoln used marshal law during the civil war and even that was deemed
unconstitutional in some areas. As long as there are functioning civil courts,
marshal law is not considered justified, as I understand it.

~~~
schoen
It's "martial"
([https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/martial#English](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/martial#English))
rather than "marshal"
([https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/marshal#English](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/marshal#English)).
The two are homophones, but the first means 'military' and the second is a
particular rank or role within an army or government.

------
alephnan
Is there a non-paywalled link?

~~~
SoylentOrange
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/nyregion/coronavirus-
new-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-
update.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage)

------
SilasX
This submission and this one should merge:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22638396](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22638396)

~~~
dang
Done. Thanks!

------
rdruxn
Why are the subways still open? Seems like low hanging fruit to close those.

~~~
lainga
On an interesting corollary, knowing what dangerously little I know about the
MTA and its unions, are drivers griping about disease exposure? The NY subway
is fairly labour-intensive as mass transit systems go...

~~~
jrockway
I think the workers are going to be fine. The drivers and conductors have
compartments. Station attendants have booths. The subway unions had to deal
with the near-constant crime of the 70s and 80s, and didn't really want their
workers out interacting with the general public. That turns out to be helpful
in this case.

------
SoylentOrange
Quote from NYTimes:

> For days, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City has pushed for a “shelter in
> place” order and the governor has repeatedly dismissed the idea, saying he
> would not quarantine New Yorkers in their homes.

He also spoke on a popular podcast earlier this week about DEFINITELY NOT
taking this kind of action

~~~
BoiledCabbage
The side effects of exponential growth. It changes minds quickly.

~~~
40four
I think the growth is a result of a focused effort to ramp up testing.
Meanwhile if we are to have any confidence in the numbers (we probably
shouldn't), according to the John's Hopkins counts, New York state currently
has a surprisingly low CFR.

38 deaths / 5715 cases = 0.7% CFR

~~~
neuronexmachina
Given the exponential growth curves, wouldn't it be more appropriate to
compare the number of deaths right now to the number of cases a few days ago?
On March 16 (4 days ago) there were 950 identified cases in New York state,
yielding a 4% CFR.

[https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/2020/03/how-fast-is-
cor...](https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/2020/03/how-fast-is-coronavirus-
growing-in-new-york-chart-shows-dramatic-rise-in-cases.html)

~~~
40four
Good point. As someone else said, deaths might not have caught up yet. But if
we keep it together, I think we can hope to land at numbers similar to South
Korea. They are well into deceleration phase, and are currently sitting at
about 1%. Same for Switzerland.

------
HocusLocus
I think it would be hilarious if the first reporter to ask a question asks,
"Sir, what was that percentage of workforce reduction again?" and writes the
number down on a pad meticulously. Then the next, "Are you sure it's not 101
or 98 or something like that?" "Sure I'm sure! And I mean everyone!" And the
reporters keep asking for the percentage again, while groping for writing pads
as if they are terrified they will not remember or transcribe it correctly.

