Easing Coronavirus Restrictions
This topic came up yesterday and was somewhat of a shit show with much energy spent discussing Nazi Germany. I am hopeful the linked article https://apple.news/A5xFEHnsySqKwrnfo0zLJmA
might stimulate more constructive debate. While the article comes from the Post it prominently features a proposal from the American Enterprise Institute. While the proposal was largely authored by former Trump officials, it was also reviewed by folks from Hopkins. It outlines a set if phases and criteria for meeting those phases that could be used to ease restrictions.
‘With most of the nation now in phase one of the epidemic, the goal should be a sharp increase in hospital critical care beds and an increase of testing to 750,000 people a week to track the epidemic — a number Gottlieb said could be achieved in the next week or two. For a state to move to phase two, it should see a sustained reduction in new cases for at least 14 days, and its hospitals need to be able to provide care w i thout being overwhelmed.
“The reason we set it at 14 days is that’s the incubation period of the virus,” said Rivers of Johns Hopkins. “That way you know the downward trend is certain and not because of a holiday or blip or some other delay in reported cases.”
States that have moved into phase two would begin gradually lifting social distancing measures and opening schools and businesses, while increasing surveillance. The key goals thereafter would be accelerating the development of new treatments and deploying tests to determine who has recovered from infection with some immunity and could rejoin the workforce.
Phase 3 occurs when the nation has a vaccine or drugs to treat covid-19 in place and the government launches mass vaccinations. Phase 4 involves rebuilding the nation’s capacity to deal with the next pandemic by building up its scientific and public health infrastructure.”
To me it makes a great deal of sense. I have a perhaps naive hope that people on mgoblog who think they are on very different sides of the debate may have more common ground than they thought.
March 29th, 2020 at 12:15 PM ^
Safety nets like the huge expansion of unemployment benefits that we just passed?
March 29th, 2020 at 12:19 PM ^
That's helpful, but a drop in the bucket compared to what other western democracies are doing.
Post some concrete examples. Italy JUST decided to send out a payment equivalent to the $1,200 we did. They’re way behind us.
March 29th, 2020 at 12:29 PM ^
While the expansion will help, increasing it to $600 per week isn’t enough. Just over $31k per year really won’t do much for people who used to make double that.
March 29th, 2020 at 12:51 PM ^
There in lies the problem. I make a decent living but also tried to keep my nut low because I’m an independent contractor. I’ve built up a nest egg that can last some months, but not several. I paid my bills through May but am scared shitless. The worst part is I make 80% of my money the 1st and 4th quarter.
hillbilly - How about $51,224 per year for a single person? Would that be more reasonable?
MI UI Max Pre COVID19: $362/week ($18,824 annualized) + stimulus UI increase: $600/week ($31,200 annualized) + $1,200 initial check.
Family of 4 with 2 people on UI: $103,224 (Includes $500 each dependent).
I would argue that people who used to make $62k (double $31k) will be able to make it through on 82% of their previous income - especially when discretionary spending is greatly reduced.
Many people will realize a net increase in income during this period. (I'm fine with that.)
The news is doing s terrible disservice in communicating what's in the stimulus package. All emphasis is on the $1,200 per person when that's the tip of the iceberg. $2,400 for myself and my wife is chicken shit. But an ADDITIONAL $4,800 per month in UI is HUGE.
I didn’t realize that $600 per week was in addition to the $362. I was under the impression that it was raised from $362 to $600. That’s a lot better news than I thought. Thank you for clarifying that for me.
Yet you commented with zero indication that you were totally ignorant. It’s not this dude’s responsibility to catch you up. You should re-evaluate your source for news and try to get educated before chiming in with uninformed noise.
Misunderstanding something is not being uniformed. I bet you’re a real joy to be around.
JPC - No need to pile on. There's enough stress going around. It's going to get very hard for some people. It's time to decide whether you're part of the solution or part of the problem.
Hillybilly - You are very welcome! It's really a shame that isn't being highlighted better. This is one of the reasons I'm so down on the media. There are MILLIONS of people stressing over this and it could be alleviated by better communication. Instead, they are (a) defending the president and his support of businesses or (b) complaining about what wasn't included. Fucking politics.
Stay safe. Keep your head up!
On average people will get like 950 a week. Which if you live with others can get you by for a hell of a long time. In many cases, people will have a larger income than while working
I'm not married to any particular political ideology, but I do always find it amusing that many proposed programs are declared too costly or 'where is the money gonna come from??' but we find $2 trillion for a 20 year war and find another $2 trillion for a bail out. I think a lot of programs are more affordable than they appear
Taking money from military budgets just means you're going to put hundreds of thousands of troops and their support staffs out of work. It's not exactly a solution for the problem of unemployment.
Less than 25% of the US military budget pays for personnel.
Food stamps and welfare paid for with what money?
We're already running a significant federal deficit. The economic downturn will gut our tax revenue as millions of newly unemployed people will no longer be paying taxes.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:41 AM ^
i think we all agree with the general sentiment, but it is not just about at risk population, it is about the hospital systems getting overwhelmed. An overwhelmed hospital system impacts everyone, not just those at risk. That is why one of the key factors in moving from phase 1 to phase 2 is a demonstration that the state medical system is not overwhelmed.
Once you have community spread, your approach does not work as well. It also doesn’t work as well when you have severe shortages of safety equipment to protect health workers, the at high risk and the people regularly in contact with those at risk (e.g. nursing home empolyees, spouses and at home children of high risk individuals etc.)
The point of the AEI proposal is to figure out how to move from community spread and overwhelmed hospitals to the point you are suggesting.
The key question is, how do we do that. You can certainly argue the AEI recommendations don’t hit the mark. But rather than arbitrarily assigning a deadline to get our shit together, they are suggesting we use a set of metrics to identify when our shit is together.
March 29th, 2020 at 12:00 PM ^
What is the point of talking about how many people are affected by the virus today?
People have making that argument all along. The exponential increases have left the numbers they used in the dust. The number of people infected today will bear little resemblance to the numbers at their peak.
The economy won't be back to normal while the virus is a major threat, whether we send people back to work or not. People aren't going to spend money like they were on big ticket items. Restaurants may open, but they won't see their dining rooms fill up. Same with lots of other businesses. You can't wave a magic wand that returns things to normal. That won't happen until people feel safe. Having overflowing hospitals that can't treat everyone won't make people feel safer.
March 29th, 2020 at 12:44 PM ^
I've heard we would need about 160 million people to get COVID-19 in order to achieve herd immunity in the US. There are 160 million people in this country under the age of 36, the vast majority of whom would be in nearly zero danger of dying from the disease. At some point I think this is going to transition to if you're under 40 and healthy, go back to normal. If you're over 50 or unhealthy, keep hiding out. If you're between 40 and 50, assess your own situation.
Just a note:
Overall death rate FELL during the Great Depression.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:20 AM ^
This really is the ultimate discussion topic. At what stage is it safe and when do we go back to work?
It ranges from we need to protect everyone’s lives to how long will someone bring me food and somewhere in between.
What we really need is mass testing for those that have already had the virus.
March 29th, 2020 at 12:41 PM ^
There are no jobs or livelihoods without profits.
Somewhere there is a cart pushing a horse
March 29th, 2020 at 10:49 AM ^
The easing of restrictions will basically come down to personal choice. If you don't want to distance yourself socially, you won't. The police (so far) are not enforcing any kind of isolation, so I could see a scenario where certain segments of the population thumb their noses at the advice of our gov. etc and decide its worth the risk. I for one, will be isolating until a reputable source tells me its "safe."
BTW- We still must be in the early stages of Phase 1, because access to testing is still a huge problem nationwide. Doesn't give me much hope for a quickened timeline.
March 29th, 2020 at 12:05 PM ^
I completely agree, giving people "the choice" in this situation seems like a terrible idea given that even when people haven't been given a choice, they're still not socially distancing or quarantining. I think if this plan actually happens, a likely scenario is that there's an even bigger outbreak of COVID-19 than there is now
March 29th, 2020 at 12:15 PM ^
What would you propose as an alternative? They are saying ease restrictions when
1. Number of new cases declines for 14 days with robust testing in place
2. A demonstration that hospitals are not overwhelmed
then ease up but still
1. Put limits on large scale gatherings
2. Have at rusk folks continue social distancing
3. Do aggressive contact tracing, testing and quarantine for newly identified cases and those they’ve been in contact with?
Realistically, I can’t imagine being significantly more aggressive than that.
You have to have testing scaled up so that you can do testing and contact tracing once new infections are down to a certain level.
March 29th, 2020 at 10:51 AM ^
some subtle shade in the article:
Health officials and scientists involved in the federal response, especially from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have fought to be heard while straining to avoid offending Trump, who bristles at being publicly contradicted, undercut or overshadowed by praise for ideas or people beside himself, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity about sensitive deliberations.
just call it the Trump Steaks Taj Mahal Hotel Plan and he’ll love it.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:38 AM ^
This is funny regardless of your politics.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:59 AM ^
Just rename the CDC the "Trump University Department of Imunology and Infectious Diseases"
I literally just got a postcard in the mail yesterday that says "President Trump's Coronavirus Response Guidelines" from the CDC with a list of do's and don'ts on the back. You know that no one at the CDC had any intention of calling it that until they received a call from the White House informing them that unless they want checks to start bouncing, they are Trump Guidelines, not CDC Guidelines.
March 29th, 2020 at 10:53 AM ^
Disclaimer: your article is pay walled so basing off of just what you wrote.
The key is the sustained reduction in cases for 14 days. That isn't happening anytime soon.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:15 AM ^
This is a link to the AEI report.
https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/national-coronavirus-response-a-road-map-to-reopening/
Yes, this is definitely not an Easter timeline. That is why I think it is so helpful to see this from a group like AEI which is definitely not left wing,
March 29th, 2020 at 11:22 AM ^
Based on the disease models, if this plan is followed I'd expect to be at home until early June at the earliest. Is this economically feasible? Who knows.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:35 AM ^
To answer your question on the economy, it doesn't seem feasible for this to go to June. 7,000,000 people are already unemployed in the restaurant industry alone. I'm seeing estimates of 20,000,000 people unemployed over the next 30 days - unless the gov't hands everyone (regardless of income) a huge check ($3k a month) for the next 4 months, while suspending all debt payments of any kind, we can't last that long.
As an aside, in normal years the world loses 57,000,000 people a year (155,000+/day):
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
To put that 20 million in perspective, there are 133 million working people in the US, so that's an increase in the unemployment rate to 18%. We haven't seen unemployment like that in this country since the great depression. I'm sick of government employees, the elderly and students getting on their high horse and talking about how we need to save lives at all costs. It's soft headed. We need a real plan to prevent economic catastrophe and save a significant amount of lives that would be lost otherwise. We desperately need increased testing (like South Korea) and a real dialog starting now that the elderly need to get ready to self isolate for months to come. It's time for baby boomers to sacrifice something for once.
B in G - WTF with the baby boomers shot?
And, as a matter of fact, the US has shot past S Korea in # tests. Testing was slow to start but is ramping up in a big way. Best news lately is Abbott Labs 5 minute test. They expect to have 1,000,000 month starting in April. This is in addition to all of the other ramping up of test kit production.
BTW - The youngest baby boomer is 56 years old. Not exactly "elderly" IMO. (i.e. See Jim Harbaugh)
MileHigh - See my earlier post about the INCREASE of $600 per week in unemployment. That's $985 (US UI average is $385) per week. So, basically the $4k you mention.
Edit: You mentioned $3k.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:42 AM ^
Appreciate the Easter hope vs all the doom & gloom. Some cities may see openings in that timeframe. Maybe not. At the end of the day, the medical community is advising and so far there has been no second guessing. Go Blue!
Don’t see it. It would be nice but a national peak is around April 14th.
Italy is showing signs of peaking.....I'm hopeful.
Yes, I was surprised to see the article predict the peak would be in late April or early May most places. NYC, probably. Detroit, maybe. The rest of Michigan, very doubtful. Here in Minnesota, they are predicting a peak in the summer. It's tough to imagine independent restaurants or retail businesses surviving if they are closed (except for takeout/delivery) for the next 4-6 months. Maybe there will be an interim step where the number of people permitted inside at one time will be strictly limited.
March 29th, 2020 at 10:58 AM ^
This is the site I’ve been mostly following for data:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
if you look at the notes under march 28, NY Gov claimed that an antibody test is ready. If that proves to be widely available and accurate, I feel like that would go a long way in giving people that have built immunity confidence in going back to daily life without catching or spreading the disease (am I interpreting that correctly?). From what I’ve read a lot of people have had C19 without knowing they’ve had it.
An antibody will protect the host, but won't prevent the spread to others without the antibody.
On the other hand, confirmed antibodies would greatly assist in protecting those without them via blood plasma donations. I also think they could be used in vaccine development (?)
March 29th, 2020 at 10:59 AM ^
Seems like the restrictions will/should be reduced or lifted when one of two things happens: Either the sustained reduction indicated in the original post, or the massive availability of fast and easy testing coupled with more localized restrictions more along the South Korean model. While it sounds like a lot of progress is happening on the latter it'll be a while before there are tens of millions of tests available.
At least there is hope that we're not just going be stuck on semi-lockdown indefinitely until the virus burns itself out.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:16 AM ^
I would add to that hospital capacity to support the increased absolute number of patients. To me that is the number one tenet. The easing of restrictions cannot lead to a volume of infections greater than our healthcare systems ability to absorb them with outcomes greater than tbd%. The TBD percent is going to be critical, and why mass testing is important to help inform the public. For example, if only 1% of cases to date have been properly diagnosed, and about 3% of those die, that is a lot better than 10% having been diagnosed.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:04 AM ^
Too long > too short. Error on the side of caution.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:07 AM ^
Not sure all states are the same but Ohio only reports cases ever diagnosed. Thus it will never go down. They don’t even subtract deaths from active cases reported. Some cases were started March 3 and are still counted.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:19 AM ^
The metric is new cases.
March 29th, 2020 at 11:08 AM ^
Sweden’s approach will be studied for years. They are open for business and quarantining those most at risk.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/24/sweden-coronavirus-open-for-business/