[abduhl]

This post highlights my favorite part of the keep everyone home argument: "get food delivery directly at the door."

Who delivers the food if we keep everyone home? There is a subtle classist underpinning to the entire "Stay The Fuck Home" message which really shows how little people value others, especially lower-class (food delivery) or blue collar (food supply) workers. Everyone needs to stay home, except for the deplorables that will grow, process, and serve food directly to my door.

[eric_b]

Yes. A thousand times this. I get so tired of the "stay at home" people ranting from their positions of work-from-home high-income privilege.

[dredmorbius]

Delivery and food prep are far lower-exposure activities than indoor sit-in full-service dining.

People do need to eat. They don't necessarily require takeaway, but on a balance of risks this isn't unreasonable.

[abduhl]

This line of reasoning evades the real problem by trying to recast the issue as a balancing of risks rather than an undervaluing of a segment of our society. Let's return to the original poster's argument: there exist two extremes with one being "everyone stays at home" and the other being "no change due to COVID." Even in the extreme of "everyone stays at home" there is an implicit assumption that not everyone stays at home, just people with white collar jobs. That is the issue that I am calling out with my "subtle classist underpinnings" statement.

Additionally, it is worth noting that the risk-based analysis you use is 1) an exercise in line drawing (giving everyone their own office while at work is certainly equal or less exposure than food delivery as long as people don't socialize at work) and 2) an after the fact justification for a policy that is undeniably inequitable across class, race, and sex lines.

[dredmorbius]

Fair point.

I was addressing the comparative risks of delivery vs (presumably the same worker cohort) offering sit-down service. Delivery is a net reduced risk exposure.

That still leaves the net cohort differential, pre-Covid to Covid, of (shared-workspace, public-facing) essential service workers, and work-from-home office and profesional workers. That's a real concern.

I'd identify concerns as both those of fairness and net commonweal. I'm willing to sacrifice choice in consideration both interests, at least during exigent circumstances.

Commonweal demands reducing net risk. This means both maintaining work-from-home policies for those capable of doing so, and providing delivery and bulk-service preparation (foodservice, manufacture, delivery, etc.).

Keep in mind that whilst the pandemic is worldwide, it is not felt equally in all locations. This makes geographic arbitrage onnthe basis of risk possible: manufacturing and services which can be exported from quarantine zones should be. The resulting downtime can be mitigated via social benefits.

Safety measures can and should be implemented in workplaces. I'm well aware that this is often not the case.

Differential unavoidable essential risks borne by one cohort can be compensated by others, through raised wages, tax hikes or credits, or other financial means.

The possibility of "immunity passports" has been suggested from early in the outbreak. It's still not clear that this is realistically an option, but there are 15 millions worldwide and 3 millions in the US who've recovered from Covid at this writing. That is a sizable potential high-exposure workforce.

And finally, there is the option of mandating rotations in high-exposure roles. This most directly addresses equity, and might build community through common bond, shared experience, and sense of collective risk and responsibility. Sort of a Covid Draft or Covid Lottery.

Would any of these address your concerns, or do you have additional suggestions?

[stinkytaco]

Though I agree it is classist (and probably a fair number of other "ists") and it's something that I as a white collar worker am keenly aware of, the fact is that if I can stay home, it's better for everyone -- including food service workers -- if I do. My class guilt will not protect people from infection.

I really don't know what the answer here is, but risk mitigation has to be part of the debate. It feels like the culture wars of class, personal freedom, social risk, public shame, etc have supplanted questions of "how do we keep all of the people who keep the engine of society running safe and how do we compensate them fairly for their work?" and "how do we ensure that everyone else does not engage in risky activity simply because they must do so to live."

This is all starting to get away from the core point of the article, which is that people will always find a way to engage in any activity that is illegal, but perhaps if we could address the issues above, the question of speakeasy gyms wouldn't seem so critical because we'd be safe in other areas of our life.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

Not to mention the majority of people in this nation cannot afford to use ubereats on a daily basis.

[maaand]

This should be the highest rated comment!