This. I think there’s an abundance of evidence that the economy started hurting before anyone was ordered to stay home. And will continue to even after the orders have lifted. The only question is how much damage did the orders do versus the virus itself? We won’t really know. At least not this round. As @Pod mentioned, we may have a chance for a do-over if that dreaded fall wave hits. Personally, I hope we never get to find out.
5 Likes
Wellllll.
If I hadn’t had a stay at home order but my kids had needed to go to just online school I would have rented an AirBnb near a beach.
If you go up about 2600 post you’ll see I mentioned it. 
My son’s headgear apparatus thingy fell out like 2 weeks ago, I would happily go to the orthodontist to get that put back in. We are still going to the chiropractor. I have my first appointment with my midwife 2 weeks from today. If my hairdresser was open and following good protocols, I would take my boys for haircuts.
I would not necessarily choose to get on a plane right now, but there are places that could be (and are) open with proper measures set in place - one person/patient in at a time, ample time between to clean, etc…
I think we give ourselves too little credit. Are there idiots among us, yes. But that poll posted above shows that most of us are smart enough to stay out of big crowds right now, orders or not. If a business thinks it is worthwhile to be open and they can do so in a safe manner, let them.
6 Likes
Actually, there are people are buying online for both houses and cars, but without the notary of financial part available it doesn’t work. There are also people stuck in the middle of the process and own 2 houses at once. There have been local articles on these issues.
2 Likes
That’s unfortunate, though I don’t understand what this has to do with the discussion of the orders vs the virus having an effect on the economy? I don’t agree with laws that don’t make sense and leave people in limbo. I’m just contending that people who think the virus is killing people, while the government is killing the economy are simplifying the issue, and that thinking the absence of a shutdown order will suddenly make the economy that much better is highly questionable. I think the economic ramifications of this will be felt for years to come, just like the health ones. I do hope I’m wrong.
1 Like
@sanstitre_has_left_the_building’s lamentation earlier reminded me of this comment I made (perhaps naively) in another thread (in what feels like another lifetime).
There is some truth to this sentiment though. All of us are human and are going to feel some amount of anxiety and disappointment during this time. Those with mental health issues are especially impacted. No doubt depression, suicidal ideation, drug abuse, alcoholism, spousal abuse, and other social and mental health related impacts are on the rise. Deaths from these causes probably won’t rival those from the virus, but the impacts are nonetheless real.
Not to mention that all of us are living watered down lives right now. Some of us are finding the silver lining by spending more time with our immediate family (honestly, this period will one day be the source of some of my most cherished memories - in retrospect!), but all of us are missing out on birthdays, church gatherings, work parties, dating, weddings, funerals, graduations … not to mention vacations. We are all essentially missing out on this period in our lives. Will it be 3 months? Or a year? Will we subtract 1 year off 8 billion lives in exchange for 3 years on 1 million people’s lives? (Forgive the utilitarian rhetorical question - there are no good answers so don’t bother trying to respond.)
We have to balance the toll the lockown is taking with the toll the pandemic is taking. Obviously, fully opening the economy will not make this better - the more death and infection we have, the higher the toll on perceived safety, which will hurt the economy just as much as a lockdown. But we have to think about what measures can reasonably be relaxed so we can live close to a normal life as possible without swinging the pendulum too far the other way.
9 Likes
Like I said earlier, I blame the virus and stay at home orders. But there are some things I blame the stay at home orders because they aren’t necessary and just going overboard with restrictions.
As far as those in limbo, they can’t afford 2 house payments for a long period of time. If this continues much longer, they stand the chance of foreclosing on at least one of those homes. Which effects the economy. The ability to purchase and sell homes and cars effects the economy.
I think until you live in an area that has more stringent restrictions, you aren’t going to understand the ramifications.
1 Like
Back from CostCo and catching up…FWIW, about 75% of the customers voluntarily were wearing masks…
@sanstitre_has_left_the_building. As others have said, it’s definitely different and has its pros and cons. In pre-C19 times, I served with the elementary kids during all 3 of our church services on most Sunday mornings and would catch the sermon online later. (Probably not as noble as it sounds. I have NDPH and the speaker system tends to make attending service in person marginally unpleasant most days so I just serve instead.). Now, my family attends both online services (one kid centric, one adult centric) in our living room, together cooking up a leisurely brunch in between services. I do miss seeing everyone, but it’s still a special time for me.
@qwerty6. I second what @ryan1 said about YouTube TV. It’s worked much better than cable for us.
I haven’t been able to find the results of the NY antibody study directly but did read the NY Times article. These results are likely inflated due to selection bias, but not sure by how much.
As someone mentioned, some people are going to the grocery store every day just to get out. So those people are more likely to be infected AND more likely to be part of the study than someone that only goes to the grocery once every week or two, and people who are never going out and are only getting delivery and thus nearly certainly uninfected would have zero chance of being selected to participate. That’s all assuming the test itself is reliable.
Really what the study shows is the percentage of people “out and about” that have been infected and not much else. They need to be careful how they use these sorts of study results. It doesn’t give a true read on overall infection rate (overstated) or rate of mortality (understated), and even has limited use as a trend study as people’s risk-of-going-out perceptions change. Hopefully I can find time to watch Cuomo later to see what he’s doing with it.
@jxshulm Do you know what they mean by “isolate”? Is it just “stay at home if it’s mild”? My biggest question/concern about the plan right now is that they’ll decide to go with centralized isolation for all positive cases. Apparently China forcibly did that, at least to some extent.
FWIW, my DBIL is in real estate. It’s allowed under our stay home orders, but he is doing very little and he’s normally quite busy.
1 Like
That would be me, although here realtors and notaries are working as they’re considered essential financial services. Construction is also continuing apace (including some touch ups on my house). Carpet cleaners, floor refinishers, even the bug guy have been here.
Which makes me wonder- what really is closed? Besides unessential things like bars, restaurants and doctor’s offices. My son’s glasses lens keeps falling out, I think it’s on it’s third round of superglue, but he can’t get new glasses, either. I guess vision is not essential.
Also, I know some people who work on their own have been ignoring the stay-at-home order, like my upholsterer. She goes to work in her own shop. Who does that hurt? No one, so no one cares to report her, either.
Because the stay-at-home order has been a little relaxed here, I’m thinking there won’t be much difference once it is lifted. The main thing is to keep bars, concerts, schools etc. closed for awhile. Personal social distancing and hygiene will be key.
2 Likes
I forgot to say, in our little town a man was seen walking down the street with a rifle and a holstered pistol. Which is not that unusual except he was walking down the middle of the street headed for the county courthouse and was a bit, shall we say, tipsy.
When the police stopped and chatted with him, he said he was very upset about the COVID19 shut down and wanted to talk with the officials. They pointed out it was 6:30 pm and the offices were closed, which diffused the situation a bit.
In the end, the man was taken to a hospital. He hadn’t broken any laws. It could have ended much differently had he been anywhere else but here. To their great credit, the SWAT teams that were all over the place kept their cool.
So people definitely are getting stressed.
3 Likes
By ‘isolate’ they just mean stay at home with their families. No outside contact. Time will tell if it helps stop the spread, but our state has a stay at home order, so they really shouldn’t be going anywhere besides work before they were diagnosed.
For the NY data- I’ve read a few criticisms, some say the numbers is overstated, some under, but more testing is needed. The limitations that I’ve seen listed (besides the ones you mention) are:
- People out and about were less likely to either be sick or have been sick recently, so actually less likely to have covid-19
- They specifically did not include anyone under 18, which is like 25% of NY’s population
Not sure if not including children would affect the count either way though. Not a ton has been done with covid and kids, other than they fact that they are much, much less likely to die from this, which is a bit odd, all things being equal.
4 Likes
3 Likes
This was not at study. It was “advertised” so people who were likely infected and quarantined showed up to confirm they had it. That is why there was such a turnout that upset local representatives. I live in NY and that is what people are talking about and doing.
3 Likes
It is interesting how different places have different restrictions. Here, you can still buy/sell cars/houses. (I bought a new car…) Construction is still happening. If anything they are trying to speed up things like road construction while there are reduced people on the road. Restaurants are all take/out delivery only; most other places not deemed essential are closed. i.e. Things cancelled that affected me…annual Dentist visit, hair, massage, screening DI, my birthday 
Whereas in Michigan, the Governor wants everyone to stay home for all reasons. Don’t even drive around, because you could get in an accident and require Police or something and expose them to COVID-19. It is draconian, which is what sparked the protests. Earlier EOs were more forgiving. But she has managed to utterly destroy anything the could help the economy that might still be safe.
2 Likes
This is honestly one of my biggest concerns in dealing with this. I’m absolutely certain that there are people who are not going to leave the house. Fear is a great motivator, and in some regards, people are essentially being conditioned to be afraid. While there is truth out there, sensationalistic headlines and charts and graphs that are nothing more than wild speculation give people much to be afraid of. There are people who are afraid to go outside without a mask. People who are afraid to go outside at all. People who are afraid that the virus is so small, it’s creeping in through the ventilation and there’s nothing they can do anyway. How will these people ever feel comfortable enough to resume their life and get back to living?
My mother is 70 years old. She enjoys taking walks and hates wearing a mask because it makes her feel suffocated. She’s walking in fairly empty areas and she feels better when she gets back. I applaud her for safely doing what it takes to keep up her mental health. Her sister and her good friend, on the other hand, scream at her because, with her age, she’s in a high-risk group and shouldn’t be going anywhere without a mask. They’re basically trying to convince her that by walking outside “unprotected” she’s going to drop dead. Fortunately, she can call me and we can talk it through. But the fear is out there and I am not confident that it will ever be eradicated for many people.
1 Like
+1 to basically all your points.
Another thing to mention is that people’s current levels of fear and caution are with the effects of social distancing in place.
I know my levels of fear and caution are much higher than average for this forum. I think this is mostly because my sister-in-law is stuck at Northern Italy for almost 2 months now, they implemented social distancing very slowly there and I ended up hearing a lot of heartbreaking stuff from her (there were so many news, but it is different when it is someone you know living through it).
Without social distancing, fear and caution would keep rising by seeing people in the same community being affected. So people might start not feeling safe eating out but being Ok with going furniture shopping, and after weeks decide that they prefer to stay at home as much as possible. If 95% of people reach this conclusion, you end up with the same economic effects of social distancing, just a more spread out through a series of cascading effects.
And there is also the issue of, depending on local regulations, some people not being entitled to unemployment benefits if they quit their jobs because they or someone in their house is at a high risk group for corona, while at the same time needing the money to make ends meet. They might be better of receiving unemployment benefits then being forced to make such an impossible choice. But this is more on the ethics side of things then on the economic side of things.
2 Likes
My group at work had a video conference today. One of my coworkers asked us to predict when we would get to go to the office again. He said the closest guess will get a prize from him and he can personally deliver it!
Surprisingly, my coworker, whose family lives in China, gave the earliest date of May 15. We live in California. Our governor is slow to ease up on sheltering in place. He just announced 2 days ago that essential surgeries can once again be scheduled. Anyhow, this is the same coworker who was fearful and anxious in early February, wouldn’t go to group lunches starting as early as mid-February, and started telecommuting 2 weeks before we were mandated to shelter in place. What has changed her mind and given her such optimism?
Her family in China has been out and about doing normal things for more than 6 weeks. While everyone wears face masks outside, her elderly parents go shopping and go to doctor appointments.
We have 150 staff on two floors. If they allow 30 of us go to the office each day, there is plenty of space to social distance over two floors. Plus, we will be required to wear masks everywhere except our cubicle anyway. But many still won’t want to go to the office because they need to take public transit. I would be willing to go to the office once a week. I am not ergonomically set up to work at home like I am at the office. This has flared up my back and neck pains. I have a headache today because my back needs an adjustment. I need to go see my massage therapist and my chiropractor, but I can’t. I need a new prescription for my glasses to see better, but I can’t. As the list of these “sufferings” and no relief in sight, people will start rebelling.
We have certainly flattened the curve in CA and LA is nothing like NYC. But our cases and deaths have started to climb the last few days. We had our deadliest day yesterday, 115 deaths.
But all of CA is not LA or the Bay Area. Some rural areas should be able to phase in reopening now with precautions soon. They hardly have any cases or deaths.
We really need more testing and it is so so slow in the coming. The Governor has his 6 guiding points to reopen in phases. But people need more concrete information, which he can’t provide. His second phase of sheltering in place closed all of the playgrounds! Gardeners were required to shelter in place. I scratched my head over that one. One of our state colleges, CSU Fullerton, announced it will still be online come fall. I can see the other colleges following.
Sorry, I’m rambling because I’m in pain today.
On the plus side, we have extra time to spend with DS19 who came home to do online college this quarter. He didn’t get an internship this summer because of this shelter in place. And he will unlikely be able to work as a swim instructor. More time for him to spend with us! DH and I actually get to sit down for worship service together every week! We haven’t done that in probably 20 years because we go to different service to accommodate our areas of ministry.
7 Likes
I checked in with someone I know that’s a pretty solid medical research scientist. He feels pretty good about the chances for a vaccine. Figured he could get a better read on that situation than the average me.
3 Likes