[sacks2k]

"fixed by public policy"

Public policy right now is to stay home or die of Covid 19. Many people are scared to even go outside or go to a hospital if they don't have the virus.

Starting to open businesses again and requiring social distancing would definitely help with the fear and more people would actually go to the hospital for non-covid health issues.

[newacct583]

I don't follow that. Can you walk me through how making people go to work is going to make them less afraid? You make people less afraid by reducing the risk they'll get sick, not increasing it. Releasing lockdowns before the pandemic is controlled increases risk, by definition.

This is the big flaw with the "open up" notion: it fundamentally won't work anyway. How is "opening up" the economy going to help Jet Blue when no one is willing to fly? Who is expected to fill those movie theaters and sports arenas? Who's going to sit in a crowded restaurant?

At best, opening up will get us a half-alive economy. And at the price of a much longer time until a true recovery starts.

Stay home. We can beat this. The regions that started lockdowns early (c.f. Europe, New York, the west coast) are well on their way to containment. It's the "open up" regions and the ones with partial lockdowns[1] that are the stragglers.

[1] I make this point every time it comes up: but for goodness sake something needs to happen in Nebraska. It's right on the cusp of exploding into a worst-than-NY disaster and no one is talking about it.

[roca]

What does "well on the way to containment" mean?

The new cases/deaths stats in California, for example, are not showing any long-term decreasing trend: https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-case...

[newacct583]

California is split. The Bay Area is past peak, socal is still growing. Washington and Oregon are well past peak, around half of their peak new infection rate. New York is crossing under 1/3 now. Likewise New England and a few other smaller states are clearly over the hump.

This stuff works. All these places could have easily blown right through health care capacity like Milan, but they didn't. The really frustrating thing is watching it work, then watching everyone figure things aren't so bad and demand that we "open up", when the only reason things aren't so bad is because we didn't.

Another month for these early states. Just be patient. As for everyone else, it's going to be much longer than if they had just followed the lead of the lockdown set.

[roca]

That doesn't really answer what containment means or what the long-term strategy is.

If you relax lockdowns while you still have a significant number of active cases then expect outbreaks to reoccur. So is the plan to stay locked down until active cases in the applicable area are essentially zero, i.e. eradication? If so, how long will that take? If not, what is the plan?

I know there's no easy solution here but even my well-informed California friends don't seem to know what the plan is.

[newacct583]

This stuff has been written about ad nauseum. Every think tank has some variant they've published. Here's Ezra Klein's review of a bunch of them (he's pretty bearish on whether they'll work): https://www.vox.com/2020/4/10/21215494/coronavirus-plans-soc...

The basic idea is that you stay locked down until the outbreak size is small enough that you can test every contact of every positive case to catch them before they spread.

This takes a lot of testing. And unfortunately the one body in the USA with the financial resources to foot that bill is conspicuously silent on a plan for rolling out expanded testing. But this is how it has to work. The alternative is, as everyone here loves to scream, more expensive.

But there's no magic wand where people just decide to start working again. That won't happen, either becuase they're scared or because the outbreaks run out of control again (which is to say: people won't exit lockdown voluntarily without containment ever, either they're scared now or they'll be scared of the results they see).

So call your representatives and get testing funded and scaled. Really there is no other option.

[roca]

Yes, lots of experts have plans. But it's not clear what the California state strategy is, nor most of those other countries you mentioned earlier, and they're the ones who make the rules.

I agree with everything else you say. Except calling my representative won't help because I'm not American and I already know what the NZ strategy is...

[ajmurmann]

I for one will be feeling less safe love we start opening things again. Nothing has changed in the US except that people are getting tired of the situation. We have enough idiots walking around without masks or who aren't distancing as it is. Once we start opening up there is only now risk in going to places where there are other people.