[wenc]

Not agreeing or disagreeing with Cuomo or De Blasio -- merely addressing the philosophical issue around the framing:

The issue with that framing is that it's really not a personal choice issue because one's choices in this instance are not sufficiently isolated from the rest of the system. Many choices are, but this is not. If one exercises one's personal choice incorrectly, the entire system suffers.

One might say, everything in life is a risk and everything we do affects someone else. Well yes, but not everything in life is has huge downside risk and exponential spread. This is a different class of risk.

(that said, I think there are ways to lower the probability of spread at a bar (spaced outdoor seating) and at a gym (masks + distancing). Excessive alcohol consumption is a risk for noncompliant behavior though.)

[makomk]

New York City is probably way past the point where this kind of exponential spread risk is something to be worrying about, and imposing these kind of measures now seems like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted and run halfway across the country. The antibody testing figures I've seen give an infection rate higher than Stockholm, infection epicenter of no-lockdown open-resturants land. I've heard it said that NYC was already past their peak before lockdown, and given what happened in Sweden I can quite believe it.

[dragonwriter]

> I've heard it said that NYC was already past their peak before lockdown

They weren't passed their actual hospitalization peak, death peak, or (unless something caused a longer delay between infection and either of those outcomes than seen elsewhere) the infection peak when they started locking down.