Earlier quoted context omitted.
Suspend rent payments
Without work, I can’t make hours to keep my health insurance, so I’ll be forced to buy COBRA, which is just as expensive as rent. (Or I could risk going without, while living at this continent’s ground zero for a pandemic.) Entire industries are being shut down. There are no easy answers here.
Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars
271–280 of 568 posts
Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is either a straw man argument, or I disagree that there should be long term unemployment here. Govt programs and laws will probably be needed to provide that safety net. I'm not saying that death rate and unemployment are unrelated (equating lives and money together). I am saying that we should prioritize lives first, and figure out the money once we stop the damage.
>> I am saying that we should prioritize lives first, and figure out the money once we stop the damage. False dichotomy. There are plenty of economists and accountants and others who can work on the economic relief package and do so in a meaningful way while scientists and medical teams (plus politicians) handle the lifesaving operations. There is no reason they cannot run in parallel.
This whole comment is about the approach to covid-19 where life goes on as normal and you don't practice social distancing at all. One argument for people that do that is that they can't take off work because their businesses are open and will fire them. I believe the businesses should be forced into social distancing and provided financial help if unable to do that. We're actively going to see this happen in the next week—it started tonight—will it be late?
Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Alaska cruise season will likely not happen this year. The Canadian government has banned cruise ships from Canadian ports until 1 July. Legally, the foreign-flagged ships of major cruise lines must call at a foreign port between calls at US ports. All Alaska cruises call at Vancouver on their way from Seattle to Alaska. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/canada-suspends-cr...
Maybe they'll sail under the US flag?
Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
Current total deaths are 6,000 with China already saying the worst is behind them. Why the US would have 4M deaths?
Probably means 4M assuming that no containment measures are taken. Like someone said on twitter, “In the end, it will be impossible to know if we overreacted or did too much, but it will be QUITE apparent if we under reacted or did too little.”
Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars
#275When talking about economic damage it is also worth thinking about what we are trying to avoid in the US- if SARS-Cov2 gets to 60% of the population, then at a 2% case fatality rate we are looking at 4 million excess deaths. Most importantly, that is a humanitarian tragedy that we must avoid. However, having numbers also let’s us put an economic value out there for what we are trying to save. A 1% reduction in the ca…
Current total deaths are 6,000 with China already saying the worst is behind them. Why the US would have 4M deaths?
Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
No precedent for it, and a lot of Supreme Court precedent against it. Nonetheless, as an also Seattle resident, it has dramatically changed the city through voluntary behavior of the population. This has been an incredibly destructive blow to everyone in the formerly thriving restaurant and bar industry in the city.
> No precedent for it, and a lot of Supreme Court precedent against it Could you cite some of that precedent? When I did my research around quarantines, the things I found said that precedent was very thin. What precedent there was typically was extremely deferential to government responses during emergencies and pandemic outbreaks. I didn't find any SCOTUS cases myself, so I would be very curious to read the SCOTUS…
Americans have a strong Constitutional right to free movement within the country. As with free speech, suspending that right for an individual requires either due process or specific imminent threat to public safety to withstand judicial scrutiny. That is the calculus. A good test would be "can the government suspend free speech" in this scenario, as similar legal constraints will apply to free travel. That the specific case involves disease quarantine doesn't matter that much, as the Constitution makes no such exception. I don't follow freedom of travel case law closely, I am only aware that loads of it exists and that it is extremely biased in favor of the individual right.
As a related point, in the US most quarantine authority resides with the States, not the Federal government. If the States don't enforce it, there is little the Federal government can do.
Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars
#277For places that don't want to close restaurants. Would it be legal in America for the restaurants to check everyone's temperature before they enter the premise (guests+ cooks+ waiters). Wouldn't be perfect but could slow transmission down while giving them a way to earn money.
Right now matters, this is why:
https://old.reddit.com/r/WeAreNotAsking/comments/fitsej/covi...
Basically, we have one shot at this. Max number of unidentified transmitters coupled with max number of potential infected people.
Depending on how many of us will, can isolate hard, 20 days from now the wave of sick, and weaker people hit the hospitals.
We have a 5th the beds per 1000 compared to many of our peer nations.
Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars
#278I’m probably in the minority but I lean towards the UK model. My suspicion is that the mortality rate is lower due to inadequate testing. Call me a cynic but after 9/11 I’m weary of temporary measures that become permanent in one way or another.
Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars
#279Anyone found any good info on the risks of food itself. Eg kitchen staff is infected, coughs into meal 1. Do you get if it’s cold food, like a salad or sushi? 2. If yes, do you get it if it’s warm food, like indian food? 3. If yes, do you get if you reheat/microwave the food? If so, what is required/ Have not seen a lot of discussion about this. Did see that in china restaurants would certify the body temperatures of…
Containers are a big risk though. Be sure to handle carefully and wash your hands afterwards.
Re: Washington governor announces shutdown of restaurants, bars
#280This is a good move. We’re obviously moving slower than we ought to and only time will tell how late we are. The one thing we, in the US, have been consistent in this is that we’re too slow to act. There’s obviously a risk of the pendulum swinging the other way but until we see a down tick in cases we have to assume we’ve got ground to make up. Case growth won’t start decreasing until social distancing is widely adop…
If a country discovers the measures are too strict, it can always reduce them a little bit. The US looks like just a pair of weeks away from disaster, acting now may be enough to make that disaster brief and having the situation under control shortly after.