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California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

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Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#261

Post by kelnos »

nostromo wrote: post #191
kevingadd wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the announcement: > Ensuring an ability to care for those who may become sick with COVID-19 and other conditions. This will require adequate hospital surge capacity and supplies of personal protective equipment. Delaying it is the point, it ensures we have enough hospital capacity and PPE to handle the inevitable burst of cases when reopening. This is what people mean when they say "flatten the curve". If…

At the current rate of infection that plan will require many years of quarantine. We need more people exposed, not fewer.

That assumes no investment in upgrading our hospital capacity and testing & PPE production.

At one end of the spectrum you have (mythically) infinite hospital capacity and staffing, testing capacity, and contact tracing ability. In that world, you reopen everything, and let people go about their lives.

At current capacity, we need to slow things down. If we can increase capacity enough in the coming weeks and months, we'll need to slow things down much less.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#262

Post by yellowapple »

mrfusion wrote: post #131
JPKab wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother lives in Oregon. He was complaining to me the other day that Oregon's requirement that you are not allowed to pump your own gas is an obvious COVID transmission vector. To get gas in Oregon, he follows these steps: 1.) pull up to gas station 2.) Roll down window to hand attendant (who isn't wearing a mask, nor is required to) his debit card. 3.) Get card back from attendant. 4.) Sanitize the debit card 5.)…

People aren’t trained to operate a gas pump. That’s what they told me last time I visited Oregon.

For all they know I could be a Certified Petrol Pump Master™.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#263

Post by akiselev »

tathougies wrote: post #108
wahern wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not necessarily as flexible as to encompass such sub-federal cooperation: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_O…

States make pacts all the time, without federal congressional oversight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_compact In Virgina v Tennessee, in 1893, the Supreme Court allows states to make compacts in all matters reserved to the states and the enforcement of which does not encumber federal rights. And for the most part, at the consent of Congress, states keep armies and air forces (and many keep navies) as guar…

At this point in time though, who's to say the courts won't just let the commerce clause creep in its scope? It'll be pretty easy to argue that these lockdowns interfere with interstate commerce.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#264

Post by davidw »

cactus2093 wrote: post #118
davidw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Like having a pool with a 'peeing section'" is how I've read this piecemeal approach described.

Yours is obviously just an analogy and I'm not making claims as far as the underlying argument, but we did used to have smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants, airplanes, etc. Clearly that was reasonable enough to people to be the way things were done for a few decades. Sometimes an 80% solution that seems almost comically flawed ends up being useful.

You could easily smell the smoke coming out of the 'smoking section'.

This is kind of like that, but you could die.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#265

Post by yongjik »

new_time wrote: post #20

I love the United States' flexible decentralized model. Different states have sufficient autonomy to tinker and try different approaches, allowing the best ideas to emerge from the collective. It's one reason why the US is such a dynamic place, similar to Europe but with the additional benefit of unified language, culture (broadly), economy, and high level regulations. It's truly a great system.

Err... you know, these states are taking about autonomy because the United States now has one third of the world's COVID19 patients...

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#266

Post by sandworm101 »

alkonaut wrote: post #242
sandworm101 wrote: post #193

In my area (Vancouver Island, just north of this "pact") we are seeing something very odd. People are going out. Families are having BBQs in local parks. Restaurants aren't letting people dine in, but the grocery stores are operating essentially normally. I'm near the water and am seeing kayaks and boats out like any normal weekend. Vacation properties are in use. RV parks have customers. I see groups of old people c…

Because people realize that kayaking isn’t a risk so why would they avoid it? This is why no restrictions should be imposed that don’t have a very clear and obvious effect. If that means they must rely on people’s ability to do the right thing (e.g not take the bus to go kayaking, not go places where it’s crowded) then so be it. It’s better to have a sustainable and accepted lockdown that is 95% water tight, than an…

We are told not to travel unless necessary. Kayaking is never necessary. The Canadian military, the people responsible for search and rescue over HUGE areas, are themselves locked into extraordinary isolation measures. Many are living far from loved ones specifically to maintain operational readiness for real national emergencies. They aren't going to be very happy if they have to break isolation to rescue a kayak party too bored to stay home when asked so to do by their government.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#267

Post by tzs »

vondur wrote: post #120
mrb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this Western States Pact is a result of lack of leadership at the White House and federal level. They feel the US government is not doing enough, so they took the matter into their own hands.

So what are the issues with the Federal Government response? I often hear people criticize it, without any concrete examples

There was a piece on NPR today looking at the things the President announced they were going to do a month ago when he declared a state of emergency, and where we stand now on those things [1].

[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/04/13/832797592/a-month-after-emerg...

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#268

Post by _opc6 »

jeffdavis wrote: post #249

I'm a little disturbed that I feel like the country has been tearing apart for a while. There is a major political bifurcation, and now pacts between states. Right now the pacts are for the pandemic, but what else might these coalitions be used for in the future? I'm not saying that they'll be used for some nafarious purpose, but the fact that they are like-minded politically makes it more likely to deepen the divide…

Because, Conservatives have completely lost their minds. If they want to commit to a suicide run to try and sustain the market then competent states have the imperative to not follow them into the abyss. You have to remember, each state is tasked with the welfare of their citizenry, not the furtherance of the political ambitions of a federal administrator.

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#269

Post by pas »

baggy_trough wrote: post #253
sandworm101 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there was some sort of multi-state organization through which individual states could pull together on issues spanning multiple states. Such a "federal" approach would be very useful. If only someone had thought of this years ago. Of course it would have to be staffed by people selected and respected by all, but surely there is some way of doing that too.

It would be especially good if that kind of organization had limited and agreed-to powers that were written down in some sort of document, and then those constraints were respected and not repeatedly gamed around.

Surely any document is just as smart and wise as the people interpreting it. (Are we back to square one or do we have to go through Internet fueled partisan hyper-polarization and "big data" aided gerrymandering? Oh, yes, we need to vacant a seat on the Council of the Interpreters and mysteriously leave it empty and let the winner of the aforementioned social-media campaign pick the next interpreter!)

Re: California, Oregon and Washington announce western states pact

#270

Post by frank2 »

nostromo wrote: post #191
kevingadd wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the announcement: > Ensuring an ability to care for those who may become sick with COVID-19 and other conditions. This will require adequate hospital surge capacity and supplies of personal protective equipment. Delaying it is the point, it ensures we have enough hospital capacity and PPE to handle the inevitable burst of cases when reopening. This is what people mean when they say "flatten the curve". If…

At the current rate of infection that plan will require many years of quarantine. We need more people exposed, not fewer.

Are you volunteering?
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