Would you support a hard shutdown option for two to four weeks to crush the virus?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I'd tolerate it. BUT the problem is that credibility is gone and people won't stand for it. We had a reasonably tight lockdown in March / April (remember how empty the streets were?) and it dragged on for months. And then the Floyd/BLM protests started and all the rules went out the window.

Disagree. It started before the protests. People were out for Easter, Mother’s Day and Memorial Day in droves.

Yeah sure, the protests didn’t cause any spike in infections. It was all “Memorial Day.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d do it but it won’t work because everyone would have to comply. And they won’t.

NP. I'd do it, my family would be on board too, and it would work if it were enforced. Actually enforced. Serious and very high fines. Arrest if you get in a cop's (or an inspector's or doctor's or anyone's) face about being caught out.

People in this country would lose their minds and scream about the fascist state. We have zero, absolutely zero, idea of real sacrifice or the difference between needs and wants or why some people should accept restrictions temporarily for the greater public good. We tried voluntary and supposedly mandatory "phases" of restriction that depended on people complying as an act of voluntary goodwill. And the price is that we are in worse shape than ever. That's why enforcement is the only way we'll stop a cycle of shutdown-open-infections rise-shutdown-open....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:100% yes. But EVERYONE would have to comply and those who didn't would need to face stiff penalties. Suspend mortgage/rent payments for the duration and extend generous unemployment to people with incomes under a certain amount who cannot not WFH. No travel unless it's for essential business (i.e. you work for Doctors Without Borders, not a shareholder's meeting in Vegas). If you are out in public for any reason, you must wear a mask. Period.

The bold is particularly right and important.

The administration and McConnell will not do this so states should step up. Not all will (hello, GA and FLA and AZ) so I'd want to see coalitions of states that would work togehther well beyond what they're doing now to enforce a true lockdown and get unemployment help and rent/mortgage suspension out there. VA/MD/DC; NY/CT/NJ are two examples already primed to have even closer coalitions if they were willing.

It will be a hardship for those of us who are doing OK economically but I would absolutely take a bigger tax hit to support things like state universal basic income for a time, or a state payroll protection program, or a state rent relief program. Because the administration and Senate won't do s%i$.

[Anonymous]

YES, I would, but with major caveats:

1. No police enforcement. In the US, a police-enforced quarantine just means Black people will get murdered. I said this to friends back in March-April BEFORE they killed George Floyd. Just pay people to stay home (how the stimulus/UI money should have been handled).

2. You have to actually DO STUFF during the lockdown. One of the key points of China's strategy was to isolate/quarantine every infected person OUTSIDE OF THEIR HOMES. It is not debatable that most people get infected by a close (i.e. family) contact. Bring even mildly ill or asymptomatic people away from their family members until they test negative.

3. Much wider-scale testing. We don't have even the barest handle on how this is spreading in the US.

If I saw an actual plan like this I would get on board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The administration and McConnell will not do this so states should step up. Not all will (hello, GA and FLA and AZ) so I'd want to see coalitions of states that would work togehther well beyond what they're doing now to enforce a true lockdown and get unemployment help and rent/mortgage suspension out there. VA/MD/DC; NY/CT/NJ are two examples already primed to have even closer coalitions if they were willing.

Yes, we are going to need a coalition of states because the federal government is doing jack shit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:100% yes. But EVERYONE would have to comply and those who didn't would need to face stiff penalties. Suspend mortgage/rent payments for the duration and extend generous unemployment to people with incomes under a certain amount who cannot not WFH. No travel unless it's for essential business (i.e. you work for Doctors Without Borders, not a shareholder's meeting in Vegas). If you are out in public for any reason, you must wear a mask. Period.

The bold is particularly right and important.

The administration and McConnell will not do this so states should step up. Not all will (hello, GA and FLA and AZ) so I'd want to see coalitions of states that would work togehther well beyond what they're doing now to enforce a true lockdown and get unemployment help and rent/mortgage suspension out there. VA/MD/DC; NY/CT/NJ are two examples already primed to have even closer coalitions if they were willing.

It will be a hardship for those of us who are doing OK economically but I would absolutely take a bigger tax hit to support things like state universal basic income for a time, or a state payroll protection program, or a state rent relief program. Because the administration and Senate won't do s%i$.

I'm the PP and agree with what you've said. I would also say the states that cooperate need to close borders. No one leaves or enters, unless it's for essential business. Those of us in VA are not allowed to travel to Disney, but our friends in Florida aren't allowed to come up here and crash at our houses in the fall because their state is struggling and there are no more ICU beds. If you know that kind of lockdown is coming to your state and you don't like it, you can leave ahead of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YES, I would, but with major caveats:

1. No police enforcement. In the US, a police-enforced quarantine just means Black people will get murdered. I said this to friends back in March-April BEFORE they killed George Floyd. Just pay people to stay home (how the stimulus/UI money should have been handled).

2. You have to actually DO STUFF during the lockdown. One of the key points of China's strategy was to isolate/quarantine every infected person OUTSIDE OF THEIR HOMES. It is not debatable that most people get infected by a close (i.e. family) contact. Bring even mildly ill or asymptomatic people away from their family members until they test negative.

3. Much wider-scale testing. We don't have even the barest handle on how this is spreading in the US.

If I saw an actual plan like this I would get on board.

Yes, as to your Number 1, black people will get murdered, but by each other, not police. It is happening right now if you look outside your magical la-la world where black people are only murdered by cops. No police enforcement will just make matters worse. It already has.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd support. This will never happen in the US.

We need grocery stores, though.

No we don’t. I haven’t been to a store once since March. I use delivery exclusively, and people would definitely make is 2 weeks without a trip.

Do you think the grocery fairy is shopping and delivering your groceries? Someone is still entering the store and shopping and delivering your groceries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I literally can’t believe the ding dongs citing China. The govt there has the media on lockdown, so, yes, they can propagate any fantasy they want. This virus was circulating for months unchecked there...if you believe their death toll/infection numbers, you are honestly to stupid to function. Their “lockdown” was theater done to convince the rest of the world that they were controlling it. If their current numbers are true (pretty big if), it’s because the virus ripped through their country uncontrolled.

Right? I cannot believe how many people on here say we should be like China. Than we would live in an authoritarian regime and STILL see millions die of COVID. People actually think that China doesn't have thousands upon thousands of people dying from this every day? They do.

You guys can believe whatever you want to believe, but the thing is, people in China are having a normal life now. I recently chatted with a few friends live there and they all told me things are almost back to normal. The government is very serious about this virus and treat it not lighthearted at all.

Amen sister. They did not play. Well in the beginning when they didn’t tell a soul even their own people because it would dishonor the new year celebration

Whatever they did at the beginning, when the shit truly hit the fan, they locked everybody up in their tiny apartments for two months, and everybody complied. That's what it means to treat the virus seriously, regardless of ideological tenets.

In this wonderful country, Trump kept gaslighting everyone for months, while local governors screwed the pooch with different degree of intensity and red-blooded 'Murcans hit the beach like there's no tomorrow. Because freedoms! Because business! Because gubmint is overreaching!
Pathetic.

I am no fan of trump but considering half of the people on this thread will refuse to quarantine and probably didn't fully quarantine the first time, blaming him is useless. If he had mandatory shut downs weeks earlier, you would have found blame in that. If he waited, there would have been blame in that. The reality is that disaster services are decided on and supported at the state and local level and what Trump says and does has little influence on the outcome of state or local policy. Blame your governor or mayor first, then maybe Trump.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes a thousand times.

Instead, the dumbest and most reckless among us drive the grade on this group project from hell

+1. We haven't been out since March 15.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean a real hard shutdown. No grocery store runs. No McDonalds. No Home Depot. Emergency workers only on the streets, police to nab and send home everyone else. Kind of like what they did in Italy and a few other places to crush the virus spread, not just 'flatten the curve'.

In the Post today there are some advocating a hard shutdown as one of three scenarios going forward, but I'm not sure they'd get the public support for that option.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/21/toll-covid-19-worsens-us-has-three-options/

It needs to be nation wide. This is how Spain and Italy crushed it.

In Spain, you would get a $2,000 fine if found in violation.

THe USA version could be:

1) Nation wide mandatory mask law with $2000 fine for non-compliance

2) close all indoor dining, bars, churchs, gyms, hair salons

3) Grocery store runs only/ all other businesses curb side pick up or delivery only

IN 4 weeks, re-open only the schools.

You can keep saying this, but it doesn't make it true. Italy and Spain didn't crush the virus, they got crushed by the virus. Their total deaths per capita were worse than Sweden's, which didn't do any of these things. Italy and Spain's numbers dropped because the virus ran through their vulnerable populations.

http://www.91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countries-normalized&highlight=United%20States&show=25&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths&data-source=jhu&xaxis=left&extra=Spain%2CItaly%2CSweden#countries-normalized

[Anonymous]

Everyone who keeps talking about China and Hong Kong need to realize that, apart from the fact that China has certainly lied about their case numbers, they have an advantage, in that research shows that infection by other coronaviruses, including SARS, grants T-cell immunity to COVID-19. It is becoming apparent that this is more important that antibody immunity with this virus.

In addition to the fact that they had government response systems and a populace used to taking measures to combat a virus, they may have had higher levels of immunity going in.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-immunesystem-idUSKBN24B1D8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002–2004_SARS_outbreak

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes a thousand times.

Instead, the dumbest and most reckless among us drive the grade on this group project from hell

+1. We haven't been out since March 15.

Unless you have risk factors, this is just nutty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I'd tolerate it. BUT the problem is that credibility is gone and people won't stand for it. We had a reasonably tight lockdown in March / April (remember how empty the streets were?) and it dragged on for months. And then the Floyd/BLM protests started and all the rules went out the window.

yep.

[Anonymous]

It will be back in Europe too in a few months. They are looking like we were late spring, joyfully "outside" and distanced. Wearing a mask when it seemed cool. Covid simmers then explodes! Their bomb has started ticking again too.