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0 pointsrtkwe6y ago0 comments

In the US they tried the just stay apart message before the stay at home orders and it wasn't working, people still crowded onto beaches in Florida over spring break and into concerts and restaurants all over the country. Ideally yes you'd just say stay apart from people and hand out masks which were getting sold out in a lot of places.

Without ordering places closed there's too much incentive for businesses to fudge and force their employees to come to work. Don't forget there were runs and shortages of masks so service industry employees wouldn't have complete reliable access to simple masks.

> the mechanism of spread can be crudely described as spitting into each others’ mouths

Somewhat true but coughing etc makes loads of the tiny particles that can carry the virus and they can linger and spread.

There's a lot that could have been done better but it requires a level of coordination and action the US isn't super great at, both in general and right now in particular..

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clairity6y ago· 3 in thread

> "There's a lot that could have been done better but it requires a level of coordination and action the US isn't super great at, both in general and right now in particular."

the US, by construction, is all-in on decentralized solutions, and one of its strengths is resisting unwarranted coordinated and centralized action, which is simply an amassment of power, because that's inevitably destabilizing (usually over long time periods, which humans have a hard time properly and understandably rationalizing about).

what's generally warranted, at a national level? defense and international relations. centralizing power is so threatening to the existence of the state itself, we limit it to other mortal threats to the state (international relations are centralized so other nations, say, russians, don't pick apart the states).

we are obligated by our forebearers to apply our ingenuity and our massive resources to finding a solution given the few constraints placed on us by the constitution. we do that by applying our brains, teasing apart the problem, trying solutions, and generally being good people. we don't go running to the apron strings of the nanny state.

rtkweOP6y ago

I know it’s intentionally made into a diffuse set of states but there’s far more than just those two issues where federal power makes sense, environmental regulation in particular since air and water pollution don’t stop at state lines.

But we’re getting off on a tangent about the fundamental design of the US government made at a very different point in history. I don’t think either of us can convince the other here before we both wind up [dead].

On the topic of bungled mismanagement there’s things like states being forced to bid against each other for various medical supplies on the open market and then after being paid for the federal government taking those supplies to redistribute. Instead of those steps just buy them all an do the distribution based on the need in each state which won’t be tied to how much they have to spend. We could have started programs earlier this year to increase the supply of PPE and ventilators knowing that this would inevitably come to the US. We could have followed through on programs like this [0] to ensure that there were cheap easy to build options for ventilators instead of allowing the existing companies to buy out the company contracted and then get out of the obligation because ‘it wouldn’t be profitable enough.’

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-v...

clairity6y ago

ok, but supply of PPE and ventilators to medical workers mainly concerns treatment rather than transmission.

stay-at-home and physical distancing primarily concern transmission.

we want to control transmission to reduce death and suffering, not eliminate them. even with dystopian and draconian measures (not to mention economy-destroying), reducing death and suffering to zero is effectively impossible (and seasonal recurrence is highly likely). moreover, the US is simply not designed, for good reason, to willingly tolerate such measures.

life is full of (similarly likely) risks, and we don't generally panic over them. if this were plague-levels of bad, more draconian measures might be warranted, but this isn't that.

sub-linear transmission is likely the best we can do.

with that in mind, physical distancing (combined with other carefully targeted guidelines like quarantining the sick and having workers wear masks) doesn't need to be perfect to be effective at reducing transmission to sub-linear levels. people who are likely to cough for any reason are already highly discouraged from going out, and most people in public are already hyper-aware of not coughing openly, especially not into each other's mouths.

stay-at-home doesn't meaningfully decrease the risk further, but it's a huge risk to social order.

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greedo6y ago

As someone once said, "The Constitution isn't a suicide pact." It and the USA has changed dramatically over the last 246 years. Both the Constitution and the USA will change over the next 246. This idea that the Constitution is inviolate and perfect, that it's the only thing we should adhere to is nonsense, and has been since the ink on it was drying.

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