New York City thinks up to half of restaurants will close permanently [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: New York City thinks up to half of restaurants will close permanently [pdf]

#71

Post by vmception » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:06 AM UTC

jhatemyjob wrote: post #57

vmception wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 10x still isn't that bad 10x means hospitals are paralyzed completely, how is that a rebuttal and at best case it means there are two bad flu seasons happening simultaneously which reaches the same result every country on the planet took similar approaches, even individual municipalities in Sweden, how is your warped version of reality for the United States possible and supportable?

In the United States 50k people die from the flu per year. 400k people die from cigarettes per year. 70k die from diabetes per year. 40k die from car crashes per year (2M injuries)

> In the United States 50k people die from the flu per year. 400k people die from cigarettes per year. 70k die from diabetes per year. 40k die from car crashes per year (2M injuries)

right, so we shouldn't add to that and paralyze hospitals to not be able to deal with those 2 million injuries.

again, almost every country in the world understood this logic and did a similar or holistic solution. not doing it would not be a holistic solution for the United States

Re: New York City thinks up to half of restaurants will close permanently [pdf]

#72

Post by Consultant32452 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:06 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #29

dilap wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are locking down far in excess of simply not overwhelming our hospitals.

Yes, but the point is to not have people get sick and die . Many people die even if they go to the hospital and there's plenty of respirator capacity - respirators are a last-ditch effort for someone who's hardest hit by the disease. This isn't an RPG with inns that always work and take you back to 100% health no matter what. If we want to say the lockdowns have been worse, let's start by answering: 1. What is the va…

10,000 children per month are starving to death due to second and third order effects of the lockdowns.

https://www.rt.com/news/496482-study-covid-hunger-children-l...

The median life-span of an American is 78. The median age of death from Covid is 82. The more rational statistic is life-years lost than # of deaths. If a toddler dies, they have lost 70+ years of life. If an 80 year old dies, they might have lost just a couple years of life. Economic hardships for young adults will reduce their lifespans by several years, not counting drug and alcohol addiction, suicide, etc.

If I could trade a few of my years at 80+ to ensure a better quality of life for my child I would take that in a second. Practically every parent would.

The right path forward is to take appropriate precautions to protect the vulnerable while everyone else goes back to work. We may still have a lot to learn, but we know so much more about this disease than we did when we took "14 days to slow the spread." It's time to open up.

Re: New York City thinks up to half of restaurants will close permanently [pdf]

#73

Post by paranoidrobot » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:06 AM UTC

Par_Avion wrote: post #46

dannyw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sydney resident here, been eating out, indoors, since May. Our suppression strategy has been working; we don't adopt a "close at all costs" strategy.

For the uninformed, would you mind explaining your suppression strategy? Anything beyond the "shutdown early/shutdown hard" combined with universal testing and contact tracing?

The poster you are replying to is leaving out the major parts as to why Sydney's strategy is working.

Borders (local+international) were closed before there was a major influx of infected persons.

We've had hotel quarantine for ~all entries into the state.

The level of infections has been low enough that contact tracing was never overwhelmed.

The level of testing has generally been very high where outbreaks occurred.

The level of compliance with stay at home/limit travel has generally been pretty good.

And a a major factor is that we've been very lucky.

Still, there's been a lot of businesses severely impacted. Those that were already on the edge and either unable or unwilling to adapt, or were not able to make their new processes profitable have gone under.

e:

Also, lets not forget that Victoria (Melbourne) had a broadly similar situation. They were unlucky in that their hotel quarantine process was poorly managed and there wasn't a strict adherance to quarantine protocols. This was a major trigger for their massive spike.

Anyone thinking this couldn't happen here in NSW (Sydney) is fooling themselves.

Re: New York City thinks up to half of restaurants will close permanently [pdf]

#74

Post by goodlifeodyssey » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:07 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #24

slimed wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a subtle (perhaps unintentional) sleight of hand here. 60% of all new restaurants close on the first year. That is very different than half of *all restaurants, even those that have been open for decades, closing in a single year.

Sure, but the same distinction is missing from the city's report. Which half of the city's restaurants are going to close permanently because of covid? Likely those that were on the edge of failure rather than well-established ones.

You are right that the 60% of restaurants that will fail are likely the ones that were on the edge anyway, however, this is a different distinction.

I think the more important distinction is that this is 60% of ALL restaurants, not 60% of the 10% of new restaurants (or 6% of restaurants).

(I made up the 10%, but I'm sure it is small.)

Re: New York City thinks up to half of restaurants will close permanently [pdf]

#75

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:07 AM UTC

vincentmarle wrote: post #10

The long term trend of restaurants being closed in favor of ghost kitchens has just been accelerated due to COVID. It's just not sustainable to keep paying for brick and mortar when everything's moving online and to on-demand delivery. Retail is next.

I mean, why don't we all just live in our bedrooms forever? We can order everything we need from Amazon, order our groceries and meals online, and zoom with our coworkers. Who needs physical human contact?

Re: New York City thinks up to half of restaurants will close permanently [pdf]

#76

Post by tehjoker » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #50

tehjoker wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We may have to aim for virus extinction. Simply flattening the curve means we are aiming for herd immunity, but there are worrying signs that immunity may only last a few months, making it possible to recirculate. The science isn't settled, but I think until we know more we should be more conservative. https://bgr.com/2020/08/11/coronavirus-immunity-common-cold-...

No expert I'm familiar with believes that it's possible to drive the virus extinct, at least not without decades of work.

Well, give me another strategy in the case that re-circulation is possible. We can wait for a vaccine, which sometimes (highly variable!) is better than getting the bug itself, but that's all I can think of.

Re: New York City thinks up to half of restaurants will close permanently [pdf]

#77

Post by mattigames » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:09 AM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #45

The lockdowns are also disproportionately affecting smaller businesses. McDonalds can afford to be closed, while the local diner can’t. Expect MegaCorp to grab even more market share.

Could you imagine a world where the trillion dollars corporate bailout went to those small restaurantes and others small businesses instead? Or maybe where businesses booming -thanks to the quarantine- such as Amazon where forced to pay taxes instead of using legal loopholes to avoid paying any? Maybe both changes at the same time? Oh but that sounds too much like socialism and we can't have that devil around do we?

It's a good time as any to remember this website where each pixel represents $1000 so you can get a good grip about how money is being hoarded by the ultra-rich: https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

Re: New York City thinks up to half of restaurants will close permanently [pdf]

#78

Post by tehjoker » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #69

tehjoker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can reopen a restaurant but can you reopen a human being?

It's really not that simple. The economy isn't a force of nature that will inevitably return - sometimes, a dead economy stays dead and a formerly rich region becomes poor.

This is somewhat true, but our labor force isn't going anywhere and can be reemployed. It's the capital that people worry about more, but we don't have to live by capital's whims if we choose not to.

Re: New York City thinks up to half of restaurants will close permanently [pdf]

#79

Post by AlanSE » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

dilap wrote: post #14

Scipio_Afri wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one should realize that because lockdowns are to contain and minimize impacts of the virus and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests no matter what the economy gets impacted, this is the way to reduce harm to economic activity the best. Without restricting high spread activities the economy suffers even more as everyone gets sick and hospitals get overwhelmed. What you’re saying is just like saying evacuation order…

We are locking down far in excess of simply not overwhelming our hospitals.

You're right. I've felt a little bitter about the messaging ever since March.

From the get-go, there were articles pointing out the numerical reality that it would take 10 years to reach herd immunity with a curve flattened to match ICU capacity. Those calculations were slightly too pessimistic due to a myopic focus on ventilators, and the therapeutics have evolved since then.

So we were flattening the curve to delay a mass spread until a vaccine? Doesn't add up. Masks are as effective as the candidate vaccines will be at 100% use. Not everyone will get vaccinated. Maybe we delay until masks+vaccine push R0Look, it's hard to summarize a strategy when there is no strategy. There's just been reaction.

Re: New York City thinks up to half of restaurants will close permanently [pdf]

#80

Post by jhatemyjob » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

vmception wrote: post #71

jhatemyjob wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the United States 50k people die from the flu per year. 400k people die from cigarettes per year. 70k die from diabetes per year. 40k die from car crashes per year (2M injuries)

> In the United States 50k people die from the flu per year. 400k people die from cigarettes per year. 70k die from diabetes per year. 40k die from car crashes per year (2M injuries) right, so we shouldn't add to that and paralyze hospitals to not be able to deal with those 2 million injuries. again, almost every country in the world understood this logic and did a similar or holistic solution. not doing it would not…

Think about it, instead of shutting down the world economy and ruining hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of people's lives, they could have put stronger regulations on cigarettes/nicotine (or make it outright illegal)

And you don't have to repeat yourself