Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawaysea | Hacker News Reader

This is a rosy take to fit the narrative, although the article is correct that New York made some big mistakes. Seattle leaders have also taken missteps. For example they closed all the parks on Easter weekend, an unnecessarily drastic step that probably just resulted in people grouping elsewhere in smaller, more crowded spaces. The parking lots at most parks remain closed, making it much harder for people needing a mental break to deal with all this. More broadly, Washington state also has restrictions other states don’t - for instance fishing is banned, which makes no sense given that it is a pastime that naturally requires distancing. Same with golfing. Private construction is banned but public construction is not. State parks and national forest lands are closed, despite most being desolate and full of space. Cycling and jogging on Seattle’s popular citywide trails however, are not banned, despite it being a much more likely vector for spreading via aerosol particles (note, some other areas like France have banned cycling for this reason).

There is an inconsistency and inequality in how these restrictions were selected. The arbitrary nature makes me think it is simply was what was politically expedient, rather some principled design. As for an example of political expediency, right now the city’s socialist council is trying to pass an “Amazon tax” under the auspices of the mayor’s emergency proclamation, which due to a technicality would make it immune to subsequent referendum even after the emergency expires (https://sccinsight.com/2020/04/08/the-amazon-tax-bill-is-des...).

If Seattle or Washington were truly responsible, they should’ve shut port traffic (at airports) early and aggressively. Even if that wouldn’t have stopped the coronavirus from arriving ultimately, it would have at least delayed it and provided more time to prepare. I think they should also have taken steps to make their shelter orders more nuanced, rather than the blunt weapon one size fits all approach.

It's hard to figure out what a safe and credible plan is for closing down the world or even a city. The city and state have been adjusting it as we go. The whole point of the problem of closing the parks and then people still going to them is that they are spreading coronavirus. because we in Seattle were mostly successful keeping people from doing stupid things like hanging out together in parks, we had a lot less spread of coronavirus. New York City waited way too late and that's why there are more cv 19 deaths in just New York City than any other country in the world.

What's your plan to settle what should be open and what should not be?

The city and state have made barely any adjustment throughout the entire period, so I’m not sure what you’re referring to when you say that they’ve been adjusting. Fishing remains banned, in only this state and no other. People have written to the governor, protested, and yet nothing. Does that seem rational to you or does it seem like ignoring the voices of constituents (particularly those in central and East WA, who are not politically aligned with the governor).

Parks, golfing, fishing are all open in CA. Private construction should have been permitted this entire time since it is trivial to do it responsibly - but everything from new home construction on an open air site to remodels done by one person are not permitted. Numerous European countries have already taken their first incremental steps to reopening things but we don’t even have a date for those first steps in WA. And yet jogging and cycling are fine even though many studies show they’re more dangerous than most other outdoor activities.

As for parks - the city prevented people from gathering in open areas and likely caused them to gather in closed areas or in smaller parks. The big parks have tons of room and can easily be used responsibly, and the city and state need to strike that nuanced balance, instead of just using the most risk averse approach possible.

I live near Green Lake in Seattle and in my experience on nice days Green Lake is so crowded that people are certainly not 6ft apart consistently.

I also do a lot of hiking and on nice days the popular (and most accessible) trails are utterly packed with people. There would be no way you would be able to consistently stay 6ft apart.

Green Lake would be less crowded if those near living there could go to other parks that normally are far less crowded than Green Lake. However those other parks had their parking lots closed by the city, which means locals near you have no choice but to crowd into the running trails around Green Lake.

On the trails - I think we could easily force them to operate at half density by closing half the lot at popular trailheads. People would spread out to other locations as a result.

Even so, you don’t have to be 6 feet apart all the time. The WHO’s guidance is only 3 feet, for one. But you also get a benefit from just MOSTLY reducing contact, and even on crowded trails people aren’t on top of each other except at the destination. With mask requirements the risk is likely low.

It would have been more logical to limit ingress to the parks and trails according to the size of the place, much like was done with stores.

Greenlake cannot be cordoned off though, so it has to be just closed.

The government needs to be seen as doing something so it does something. Same reason why the TSA exists.

I find it odd that the Liberals are the ones who are falling for health theater after spending a decade talking about the idiocy of security theater.

There's clear evidence this is not health theater. The evidence is places that waited to shut down had much larger outbreaks than they would have had otherwise. See for example New Orleans and Mardi gras.

Sure but what about Sweden, who’ve been doing fine despite having no strict shelter requirements. And how do you explain the fact that recent studies show similar infection rates between Germany and New York State? My take is that the lack of consistent federal messaging caused unnecessary gatherings like Mardi Gras to continue. But we could’ve had better results even without resorting to authoritarian orders.

Sweden isn't doing that well. Sweden is expected to have about 10,000 deaths and they should have about 2,000 deaths if their health system works about as well as Switzerland. See Seattle's ihme projections: https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden. For reference Sweden has about 10 mil pop, Switzerland has 8.5 mil. Sweden is expected to kill about 8,000 people unnecessarily.

Sweden also has various challenges that Switzerland doesn’t. They have a large population of Somalian refugees that live in multigenerational homes. Sweden also counts nursing home deaths in their public figures and not all locales do this. If you compare Sweden to the surrounding Scandinavian countries, they’re similar in terms of mortality once you adjust for population. These points are mentioned in https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52395866. CNN also reported that more than half of Sweden’s deaths are from nursing homes for the elderly (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/no-lockdown-in-sweden-but-st...) and I don’t think stricter orders would’ve helped there.

Sweden is past their peaks like many other areas, all while retaining their liberties and economic vigor, and domestically their approach has been very popular (see https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8257353/Swedens-vir...). There’s a value to retaining some degree of normalcy and individual liberties, and it is not reasonable to claim that saving lives is automatically more valuable. As far as trade offs go, I think they’re doing a fine job, although I realize that’s a personal assessment. But leaving Sweden aside, others like Denmark are also taking a nuanced and thoughtful approach, rather than simply banning everything - see https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52226763.

Sweden is a country of only 10 million people, relatively homogeneous, and not a society where people have a distrust of experts and/or science. They are voluntarily limiting social interaction because they understand how important it is; don't need government to force them: https://reason.com/2020/04/17/in-sweden-will-voluntary-self-...

Wait two years before you make bold claims.

The popular conception of "waited to shut down" is based almost entirely on the strength of the outbreak in a location rather than how long they actually waited. New Orleans was one of the first places to issue a stay-at-home order, and New York was relatively early.

Letting Mardi gras happen in n.o. is the clear different choice from other places.

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