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]

#81

Post by logicchains » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

pgodzin wrote: post #64

nradov wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence is that? Some other countries have not forced restaurants to close and yet have low current death rates.

It's economy also fell more than its neighbors https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-gdp-falls...

An interesting comparison is Melbourne vs the rest of Australia. Most of the country only shut down down briefly and then reopened, but Melbourne shut down for months and has still not reopened. Melbourne (and its state, Victoria) is doing way worse than the other states economically: https://www.forbesadvocate.com.au/story/6902039/victoria-dra....

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

#82

Post by nradov » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

GarrisonPrime wrote: post #58

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-...

This virus cannot be eradicated. You'd have to force everyone on the planet to isolate for 2 weeks. Simply impossible.

And there are animal reservoirs. Even if we temporarily eradicated the virus from all humans we would just catch it from animals again and the pandemic would start all over.

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

#83

Post by TillE » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:11 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.

Quite. Even extremely moderate measures like commercial lease subsidies for small businesses could have helped enormously, but governments at all levels just don't seem to particularly care.

There were a thousand possible ways to navigate this crisis well - Germany's wage-subsidizing Kurzarbeit system has frequently been cited. But all of them require some measure of political will and imagination, and that seems utterly lacking in America. I can't think of a single city or state which has even really tried to do more than the bare minimum.

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

#84

Post by unreal37 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:15 AM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #63

I have to have a counterpoint: One of my favorite coffee places in Manhattan closed this summer. I was bummed. Their lease was up for renewal, and it didn't make sense for the owner to renew it as all of the office worker traffic was gone. Two months later, there is a new coffee place at that spot. The guys (different owners) just got a great deal on the lease for the first two years, and they will just need to make…

Why didn't the landlord offer this "2 years no rent" deal to the existing "favorite coffee places"?

I'm not sure replacing established successful businesses with new ones is a fair trade...

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

#85

Post by logicchains » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:16 AM UTC

Scipio_Afri wrote: post #16

dilap wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You don’t know what you’re talking about. This is a highly contagious virus with long incubation time without symptoms that is most contagious when you’re asymptomatic. It has the ability to rapidly overwhelm areas very quickly. What I’m saying is completely factual and in line with epidemiologists and expert medical body assessments of the disease, of which you are likely not one of and are certainly not in line wit…

>It has the ability to rapidly overwhelm areas very quickly. What I’m saying is completely factual and in line with epidemiologists and expert medical body assessments of the disease, of which you are likely not one of and are certainly not in line with.

The data is not on your side: statistically lockdowns have little effect on reducing covid deaths (https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/social-distancing-more-imp...). If there was a significant risk that it would "overwhelm areas very quickly" without lockdowns, we'd have seen this in places like Sweden, South Dakota and Japan which didn't have lockdowns, but we didn't.

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

#86

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:17 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.

The “local diners” in the USA have been sourcing all their food from Sysco for years if not decades now. Sure, not being part of a franchise gives an aura of being independent, but even smaller eateries in the USA are still pretty much corporate.

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

#87

Post by brsg » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:18 AM UTC

I think people's memories are a bit short regarding just how dire things were in NYC back in April. I think things are a bit more complicated than just blaming the governor for shutting down restaurants.

Every resident in or around New York heard ambulances 24/7. Everyone knew someone that got very sick (not that anyone could even prove that they had it since testing was extremely scarce). The virus was still very new and there were legitimate reasons to suspect the death rate was much higher than it thankfully ended being. I even remember hearing rumors from friends, family, and coworkers that the feds were going to enforce a "wuhan-style" quarantine in NYC. In terms of general fright, it reminded me a lot of 9/11.

It would've been political malfeasance for the mayor/governor to do nothing in these circumstances. In terms of infections, the city recovered relatively quickly and most of the lockdown was lifted by Summer (indoor dining obviously being one of the holdouts here that hurt restaurants a lot)

I think the worst "medium-term" effects are the loss of tourists and office workers. There's very few legal restrictions on offices reopening at this point, but very few have actually come back. The triple of lockdowns, vanishing tourists, and vanishing office workers is just too much for small businesses.

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

#88

Post by ceilingcorner » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:18 AM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #63

I have to have a counterpoint: One of my favorite coffee places in Manhattan closed this summer. I was bummed. Their lease was up for renewal, and it didn't make sense for the owner to renew it as all of the office worker traffic was gone. Two months later, there is a new coffee place at that spot. The guys (different owners) just got a great deal on the lease for the first two years, and they will just need to make…

It is generally bad for societal trust when those who have invested in the system are suddenly uprooted and have their investments destroyed. It is more likely that the next potential cafe owners are thinking, “Why risk opening a cafe if it might be irrationally shut down?”

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

#89

Post by logicchains » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:19 AM UTC

Fernicia wrote: post #37

drstewart wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incredibly generous of you to be willing to give up other people's livelihoods so easily, but isn't really worth much until you would do the same of your own.

Is it worse than letting them open and spread a deadly disease?

It's not particularly deadly to the vast majority of people.

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

#90

Post by ceilingcorner » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 4:19 AM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #86

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.

The “local diners” in the USA have been sourcing all their food from Sysco for years if not decades now. Sure, not being part of a franchise gives an aura of being independent, but even smaller eateries in the USA are still pretty much corporate.

It’s an expression. Every independently-owned restaurant in America doesn’t get its food from Sysco.