[triceratops]

> The rest of the country is in considerably better shape, and hospitals aren’t even close to being stressed in many areas.

Why do you think that is? Because the stay-at-home orders worked. NY is the worst case scenario and you want to stop things before they get that bad.

If we had a magic dial for precisely tuning social distancing measures to cause minimum economic harm and death, we'd use it. Since we don't we have to err on one side or the other. So far we've erred on the side of caution, accepting short-term economic damage. As things get less crazy these measures will be gradually scaled back. It doesn't mean they were never necessary.

[james-skemp]

A lot of this situation reminds me of Y2K planning, but your comment is really spot on. Thank you.

Y2K is going to be a big deal if we don't do anything about it. We do something about it. People complain Y2K wasn't a big deal.

That, like this, means we're doing things right. Maybe we're going a little extreme, but the alternative is likely worse, and there is never a magic dial to spend just the right amount of effort/money/time.

[triceratops]

:-) I've made that comparison before too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22559590

[james-skemp]

I remember that article but not your comment; that article made me realize that I had forgotten the science behind soap, and just knew that it was good to use. :)

It's unfortunate that it's so easy to find preparation wasteful when it ends up not being necessary. But, we all have different life experiences.

[Marsymars]

Running with the Y2K analogy though, social distancing is like punting the Y2K issue down the road by a matter of weeks.

[triceratops]

We had plenty of warning and time to prepare for Y2K and knew for certain that it was coming - neither of which is true for Covid-19. If the entire world had somehow only realized in June 1999 that Y2K would be a problem, they absolutely would have done everything possible to gain even a few more weeks.

[bduerst]

Yeah, it's like inverse survivor bias.

[beamatronic]

NY is not even the worst case scenario. The worst case is NO ONE sheltering in place. Or the entire population of the US getting simultaneously affected. And nurse/doctor strikes or walkouts would make it FAR worse.

[nullc]

> Why do you think that is? Because the stay-at-home orders worked. NY is the worst case scenario and you want to stop things before they get that bad.

To be fair, though I agree with you in general, NY-- esp NYC-- is much more dense than the rest of the country and as a result R(effective) may have been much higher there than other places. It may be the case that much stronger measures were needed there then in many other places.

So while it is true that part of the reason other places are less bad is because the policies worked, differences between the locations may also play a significant role.