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USGrant1962 · 03-20-2020, 10:11 AM

It struck me today that these Governors and Mayors that are shutting down their restaurants and other businesses have a real conundrum on their hands. By what criteria will they allow them to re-open? COVID-19 is not going away and will likely become a seasonal flu.

Honestly, in the current environment shutting stuff down is easy compared to deciding when to re-open.

I suspect that in a couple of weeks there will be some huge blowback as hourly workers run out of cash while COVID-19 will not have peaked.

GalaxyBoy · 03-20-2020, 10:19 AM

BBC has an article on this very subject today.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51963486

Quote:

It is clear the current strategy of shutting down large parts of society is not sustainable in the long-term. The social and economic damage would be catastrophic.
What countries need is an "exit strategy" - a way of lifting the restrictions and getting back to normal.
But the coronavirus is not going to disappear.
If you lift the restrictions that are holding the virus back, then cases will inevitably soar.
"We do have a big problem in what the exit strategy is and how we get out of this," says Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh.
"It's not just the UK, no country has an exit strategy."
It is a massive scientific and societal challenge.

MRG · 03-20-2020, 10:25 AM

Humans are good at identifying a problem and evading it. We're not so good at planning longer term while in a crisis. That's how we're built.

Hopefully it's not a seasonal thing and we go back to normal. However what if it's not? Well who knows I don't. I would imagine it's going to get tougher as we go with hourly wage earners being hit first and hardest. There's a group of younger people who haven't even experienced a recession as wage earners. This one might be difficult for them.

**Gumby** · 03-20-2020, 10:33 AM

Ideally, every one of us would be completely isolated for a period longer than the last infected person can be contagious, probably 3 weeks. But we know it is impossible to do that. Some people, notably people working in healthcare, public safety, utilities and the like, still have to work. Also, as we have seen on this board, people think "well, its just my family. I can surely visit them." So even the people putatively locked down are not 100% isolated. So, we do the best we can. We lock down as many people as possible and try to convince them (or force them) to really stay isolated. With luck, the lockdown, warts and all, will be sufficient to reduce the number of active cases to the point where we can return to contact tracing and ring-fencing the infected and potentially infected. Then the rest of the people can get back to work.

Midpack · 03-20-2020, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by USGrant1962

It struck me today that these Governors and Mayors that are shutting down their restaurants and other businesses have a real conundrum on their hands. By what criteria will they allow them to re-open? COVID-19 is not going away and will likely become a seasonal flu.

Honestly, in the current environment shutting stuff down is easy compared to deciding when to re-open.

I suspect that in a couple of weeks there will be some huge blowback as hourly workers run out of cash while COVID-19 will not have peaked.

I've been wondering the same thing. From what I've read China is going back to work, so we have that model? China and S Korea have clearly peaked, S Korea has been far more effective than most other countries it appears.

Arguably once we think the healthcare system can handle the projected cases (ventilators, PPE, tests, etc.), everything could re-open. That timeline might be somewhere between the unfettered peak (which appears it will overwhelm healthcare and lead to more deaths) and the theoretical flatten the curve scenario.

And for businesses closing, eventually more products & services become essential, not just the current obvious ones like grocery, pharmacy, banks, hardware stores, etc. I suspect some businesses will start "cheating" open when they get desperate which will lead to others. The closings are basically voluntary now, not very enforceable.

We live in interesting times.

statsman · 03-20-2020, 12:35 PM

Shutdowns will end when the lawyers tell us they can end. And even then, the lawyers will profit from the lawsuits that will invariably occur at some point in the future related to COVID-19. Lawsuits involving deaths from lack of treatments, deaths *from* treatments, loss of jobs, discriminations in re-hiring, etc.

Shakespeare was spot on about lawyers in Henry VI.

foxfirev5 · 03-20-2020, 12:35 PM

I'm afraid this is the 800# gorilla. The fed won't do it. The states probably won't either. This leaves the local people to slowly ignore the warnings and get back to business. But who knows?

street · 03-20-2020, 12:37 PM

The reading I have is that China has peaked and heading in the right direction. They are shutting temporary hospitals they aren't needed. I hope this is a good sign and comfort for people all over the US and world to stay calm and and fear is not the answer to anything.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/11/china-...tals-in-wuhan/

Ready · 03-20-2020, 12:41 PM

Eventually enough people will become infected with the virus and recover from it. Assuming we all build antibodies to protect us from reinfection, this should make it more difficult for the virus to spread to others. When this happens businesses will likely be allowed to slowly reopen.

**Aerides** · 03-20-2020, 12:45 PM

Once we get well past the peak and are reporting zero new cases for a week or so - and keep travel (in and out) closed until the rest of the world is also in the clear, or a vaccine is available? We'll see... we're all just gonna have to guess and hope we're here to find out.

USGrant1962 · 03-20-2020, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by foxfirev5

I'm afraid this is the 800# gorilla. The fed won't do it. The states probably won't either. This leaves the local people to slowly ignore the warnings and get back to business. But who knows?

Generally, except for a few highly regulated industries like air travel, the Feds don't really have authority to shut stuff down, and they have not. CDC, for example, has guidelines for employers for how to work under the current pandemic and they don't suggest closing businesses.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...-response.html

The major shutdowns so far are orders from Governors, Mayors, and school officials.

ncbill · 03-20-2020, 01:40 PM

as with prior pandemics, fatigue sets in, restrictions get lifted...then you get a second wave...

**Alan** · 03-20-2020, 01:46 PM

Tonight the BBC discussed the UK strategy of lockdown until demand on NHS hospital beds dies down, then release the restrictions for a short while, then reimpose them etc.

The graph they showed was similar to what we have seen before except it is a sine wave, trying not to let the demand for beds exceed the NHS capacity.

Only time will tell if it works or whether they have to switch tactics again.

From the link in post 2 above

Quote:

Natural immunity - at least two years away
The UK's short-term strategy is to drive down cases as much as possible to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed - when you run out of intensive care beds then deaths spike.
Once cases are suppressed, it may allow some measures to be lifted for a while - until cases rise and another round of restrictions are needed.
When this might be is uncertain. The UK's chief scientific advisor, Sir Patrick Vallance, said "putting absolute timelines on things is not possible".

FIREd · 03-20-2020, 02:06 PM

I think that the various shutdown strategies adopted around the world are not meant to stamp out the virus. They are just meant to avoid overwhelming healthcare systems so that the greatest number of people too sick to recover from the virus on their own can be treated and hopefully saved. I think that most of us will be infected at some point and develop some kind of immunity to the virus. The goal is just to avoid getting sick all at once. So what is the end game? It is to let the virus do its thing while managing the number of patients needing a hospital bed at any one time, which might require some waves of loosening and tightening restrictions over a period of months or years.

REWahoo · 03-20-2020, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FIREd

So what is the end game? It is to let the virus do its thing while managing the number of patients needing a hospital bed at any one time, which might require some waves of loosening and tightening restrictions over a period of months or years.

Agreed. However there is also another end game, which is delaying the spread of the disease long enough to develop effective treatments and ultimately a vaccine.

Dtail · 03-20-2020, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo

Agreed. However there is also another end game, which is delaying the spread of the disease long enough to develop effective treatments and ultimately a vaccine.

Perhaps, but where will the markets be then?

REWahoo · 03-20-2020, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dtail

Perhaps, but where will the markets be then?

I'm far more concerned about where I will be then and hoping it will be "above ground".

donheff · 03-20-2020, 03:03 PM

This article addresses the matter to a degree. The argument is that the China/South Korea approach buys the time to build up the hospital capacity to absorb the future waves without horrrendous losses.

audreyh1 · 03-20-2020, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gumby

Ideally, every one of us would be completely isolated for a period longer than the last infected person can be contagious, probably 3 weeks. But we know it is impossible to do that. Some people, notably people working in healthcare, public safety, utilities and the like, still have to work. Also, as we have seen on this board, people think "well, its just my family. I can surely visit them." So even the people putatively locked down are not 100% isolated. So, we do the best we can. We lock down as many people as possible and try to convince them (or force them) to really stay isolated. With luck, the lockdown, warts and all, will be sufficient to reduce the number of active cases to the point where we can return to contact tracing and ring-fencing the infected and potentially infected. Then the rest of the people can get back to work.

Wow, that’s so well said!