Covid-19, Part VII - Staying On Topic...

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Originally Posted by Falls City Beer

That would NOT have happened. Maybe we didn’t know that in April. But we know it now. We’ve got to chart a path forward since Washington isn’t helping us out anymore. You’re employed and so am I. We’re lucky. 30 million Americans aren’t so lucky. They need checks. And the only route to that money is work. So the media needs to stop scaring young healthy people 24/7 and let any and all businesses that wish to open back up.

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I think we all agree we need a plan to deal with the unemployment problem, but that’s an easy solve. Washington needs to pass another stimulus plan.

That can be done during the current shutdown, there is no need to open businesses up further. Btw, the economy is rather open these days, there are very few businesses that are fully shutdown. Most experts believe we need to actually shut down more, not less right now.

Again, if we didn’t have this shutdown, the economy would be in much worse shape than it is now.

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Originally Posted by Wonderful Monds

I do kind of see the sense in peeling back a lot of restrictions whether or not a vaccine is widely available by next spring.

The entire point of lockdowns, quarantines and restrictions was supposedly to flatten the curve so hospitals don’t get overwhelmed. As far as I can tell, most hospitals are completely fine at this point, but we’re still taking a wrecking ball to the economy.

I’m not really sure why at this point we can’t offer COVID unemployment and assistance to the elderly and other high risk and for other people that live with them or work with them by necessity. I think hospitals would be fine at this point if we let young people live relatively normal lives and kept them separated from at risk populations. And by the time a vaccine arrived, we could integrate the high risk back into society once they’re vaccinated.

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That is what we are doing right now. I mean, outside of going to clubs, big concerts and sporting events, I think everyone’s life is back to relatively normal. The main sacrifice people are making these days is wearing masks and staying away from large groups.

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Originally Posted by Falls City Beer

Why can’t we open up with the knowledge we have now? Why do we need to maintain a recession?

I haven’t bemoaned masking or distancing. What are you talking about?

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What is closed right now that you think should be open? I can go out and buy anything I want at a store. I can eat at restaurants. I can go to parks. What else needs to be open?

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Originally Posted by 757690

That is what we are doing right now. I mean, outside of going to clubs, big concerts and sporting events, I think everyone’s life is back to relatively normal. The main sacrifice people are making these days is wearing masks and staying away from large groups.

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Not so much, at least here anyway. Restaurants, bars, small music venues, independent movie theaters, all those things are struggling pretty bad here. Restaurants and bars have to stop serving alcohol by 10 here in Ohio, which is completely arbitrary and should’ve been done away with as soon as the big urban counties lowered their risk level, but they’re still in place a couple months later. Venues around here can’t have shows for local bands due to capacity restrictions.

Things like that are going to drive hoards of small and local businesses under if they aren’t eased up sooner than later.

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Originally Posted by Falls City Beer

You’re an absolute troll at this point. Literally. Nothing more. We know far more now.

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What do we know? We know it's airborne. We know it's easy to spread if you don't mask and distance. We know those factors make it particularly contagious indoors. We registerr tens of thousands of new cases every day, which means we're nowhere close to being safe to operate like normal. Yet even at that rate of transmission it would take us years to reach the 200 million+ cases needed to reach herd immunity. You've ignored all of that in your fact-free posturing.

One pack of knuckleheads in Maine went to a wedding last month and now people who didn't attend it are dying - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-1...nked-7-deaths/. We can multiply that or prevent it. You're callous and dumb, so you're down for all the death COVID can dish out. But given what we know, it is murder. It's going to kill hundreds of thousands of people who didn't have to die if we follow the FCB plan.

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Originally Posted by Wonderful Monds

Not so much, at least here anyway. Restaurants, bars, small music venues, independent movie theaters, all those things are struggling pretty bad here. Restaurants and bars have to stop serving alcohol by 10 here in Ohio, which is completely arbitrary and should’ve been done away with as soon as the big urban counties lowered their risk level, but they’re still in place a couple months later. Venues around here can’t have shows for local bands due to capacity restrictions.

Things like that are going to drive hoards of small and local businesses under if they aren’t eased up sooner than later.

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I’m a huge supporter of the arts and definitely am missing it.

But that is a tiny part of the economy, and can easily be sustained through government action.

More importantly, people in crowded places for long periods of time has been one of the biggest driver of Covid cases and hospitalizations. Opening them up would result in a bigger shutdown, hurting even more businesses.

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Originally Posted by 757690

I’m a huge supporter of the arts and definitely am missing it.

But that is a tiny part of the economy, and can easily be sustained through government action.

More importantly, people in crowded places for long periods of time has been one of the biggest driver of Covid cases and hospitalizations. Opening them up would result in a bigger shutdown, hurting even more businesses.

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I know that was the case early in the pandemic, but now that we know a lot more about it, that’s what I’m wondering if it still has to be the case now. If we can’t help out at least some of those sectors by getting creative with aggressive targeted policies and quarantines rather than blanket options.

That stats that I’ve read show that people 0-40 are exceedingly unlikely to be hospitalized and the IFR is something vanishingly small like under .01. If we allowed people in that age range for example a greater latitude to get back to normal, then would hospitals still end up getting overwhelmed?

I AM curious what others want to see opened up that's not currently open. I'm been back at the office (with the most of the rest of the company) for 2 months. Our kids are going to school in person. Restaurants and bars are largely open (with some relatively minor restrictions). We had a delayed but generally full youth baseball season that included fans in the stands. All other sports (soccer, football, volleyball), etc. are in full swing (though very limited attendance allowed for high school sports). We've played in two cycles of pickleball leagues, and the leagues (and parks with courts around town) are as full as ever. Pools were open all summer (opened a week or so late). I've been to the dentist and the barber shop. My gym is open. Traffic appears to be almost completely back to normal.

I think we're probably an outlier in a lot of that (though I'm not sure), so it's interesting to me to hear what is NOT open in other places that people are missing.

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Originally Posted by Boston Red

I AM curious what others want to see opened up that's not currently open. I'm been back at the office (with the most of the rest of the company) for 2 months. Our kids are going to school in person. Restaurants and bars are largely open (with some relatively minor restrictions). We had a delayed but generally full youth baseball season that included fans in the stands. All other sports (soccer, football, volleyball), etc. are in full swing (though very limited attendance allowed for high school sports). We've played in two cycles of pickleball leagues, and the leagues (and parks with courts around town) are as full as ever. Pools were open all summer (opened a week or so late). I've been to the dentist and the barber shop. My gym is open. Traffic appears to be almost completely back to normal.

I think we're probably an outlier in a lot of that (though I'm not sure), so it's interesting to me to hear what is NOT open in other places that people are missing.

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We are at Level One still, no parks are open, no kids leagues, Pools never opened all year, bars are all social distant only, schools are remote... probably not going back to the office this year, essentially where we were in June and prior

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Originally Posted by Boston Red

I AM curious what others want to see opened up that's not currently open. I'm been back at the office (with the most of the rest of the company) for 2 months. Our kids are going to school in person. Restaurants and bars are largely open (with some relatively minor restrictions). We had a delayed but generally full youth baseball season that included fans in the stands. All other sports (soccer, football, volleyball), etc. are in full swing (though very limited attendance allowed for high school sports). We've played in two cycles of pickleball leagues, and the leagues (and parks with courts around town) are as full as ever. Pools were open all summer (opened a week or so late). I've been to the dentist and the barber shop. My gym is open. Traffic appears to be almost completely back to normal.

I think we're probably an outlier in a lot of that (though I'm not sure), so it's interesting to me to hear what is NOT open in other places that people are missing.

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I’m not super gung ho about opening anything in particular, but loosening up some of the restrictions here would be nice. At the very least let bars stay open normal hours at this point.

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Originally Posted by Wonderful Monds

Not so much, at least here anyway. Restaurants, bars, small music venues, independent movie theaters, all those things are struggling pretty bad here. Restaurants and bars have to stop serving alcohol by 10 here in Ohio, which is completely arbitrary and should’ve been done away with as soon as the big urban counties lowered their risk level, but they’re still in place a couple months later. Venues around here can’t have shows for local bands due to capacity restrictions.

Things like that are going to drive hoards of small and local businesses under if they aren’t eased up sooner than later.

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That's the problem with half-assed. If we'd done like Canada, more places would be open now and those establishments/workers would have been kept liquid. We tried to hover in the middle and haven't effectively stamped out the virus. That comes with severe economic consequences. And the consequences mount as we allow the disease to fester. I live near some great independent theaters and small concert venues. This is brutal for them. I'll be crushed if they shutter up because they're among my favorite places to frequent. Yet if they all threw open their doors tomorrow, good luck getting people to go. They've opened some movie theaters in this region but business is sparse. Restaurants are making their money on takeout/delivery and outdoor seating. They're allowed to operate limited indoor seating and can't come close to filling even that.

There's no declaration or easing of restrictions that's going to save those businesses. Their survival rests on us driving down the spread of the virus to minimal numbers. The entire virus vs. business construct is nonsensical. Small businesses are reliant upon consumer confidence and consumers will not frequent the in sufficient numbers during a public health crisis.

A semi-famous punk rock venue/bar in my town called Mahall’s had to start a gofundme to stay open. They got 3x as much as they needed. It’s great they are going to survive, but a bummer it had to happen.

There is no easy answer on this.

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Originally Posted by M2

That's the problem with half-assed. If we'd done like Canada, more places would be open now and those establishments/workers would have been kept liquid. We tried to hover in the middle and haven't effectively stamped out the virus. That comes with severe economic consequences. And the consequences mount as we allow the disease to fester. I live near some great independent theaters and small concert venues. This is brutal for them. I'll be crushed if they shutter up because they're among my favorite places to frequent. Yet if they all threw open their doors tomorrow, good luck getting people to go. They've opened some movie theaters in this region but business is sparse. Restaurants are making their money on takeout/delivery and outdoor seating. They're allowed to operate limited indoor seating and can't come close to filling even that.

There's no declaration or easing of restrictions that's going to save those businesses. Their survival rests on us driving down the spread of the virus to minimal numbers. The entire virus vs. business construct is nonsensical. Small businesses are reliant upon consumer confidence and consumers will not frequent the in sufficient numbers during a public health crisis.

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I know what you mean, but just anecdotally speaking I’ve also seen quite a few bars and restaurants that I’ve felt safe enough to go to do some pretty good business lately, to the extent that they’re allowed to have people.

It might not do normal business, but most 20 and 30 somethings I know at this point don’t seem to feel super threatened by covid at this point. I feel like that demographic could keep quite a few establishments afloat for the time being.

Idk maybe I’m wrong, but I’m not sure why we can’t effectively separate the portion of the population who has very little risk from this away from those who would be in danger. I would take some creativity, but I don’t necessarily understand why it’s completely impossible.

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Originally Posted by M2

Small businesses are reliant upon consumer confidence and consumers will not frequent the in sufficient numbers during a public health crisis.

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I think this varies by geography. I was sitting at a bar with a huge outdoor patio (as well as an indoor bar/restaurant) last Saturday night. For most of the night, I wasn't within 6 feet of anyone other than our waiter. But at about 11pm as I went inside to go to the bathroom, the bar was absolutely packed, and as I was walking out the whole place (even the outdoor area) was pretty frighteningly packed with more people pouring in. I'm far from the most conservative/careful person in this pandemic, but I was startled by the crowd.

I'm pretty sure that's not what we're looking to encourage, but I do think it's safe to say that your statement above is not absolute truth.

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Originally Posted by M2

There's no declaration or easing of restrictions that's going to save those businesses. Their survival rests on us driving down the spread of the virus to minimal numbers. The entire virus vs. business construct is nonsensical. Small businesses are reliant upon consumer confidence and consumers will not frequent the in sufficient numbers during a public health crisis.

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x100. I'm not flying anywhere this summer not because planes aren't flying, but I'm just not ready to get on an airplane yet. I go to dozens of live concerts a year, but I'm not ready to go to one right now, especially an indoors show, even if they suddenly lifted all the restrictions. Step 1 should have always been to control the virus. The rest will take care of itself.