If health care workers can't avoid getting themselves infected, even though they have expertise and training, there is no way that Tesla will be able to prevent the virus from spreading within the factory. It's a ticking time bomb at this point, just like the meat packing plants and the other factories that have spread the disease. Once a single person with COVID-19 comes into the Tesla plant, it's guaranteed to spread like wildfire. Things like social distancing is merely a tactic to slow the spread down, but it won't actually help you if someone 6 ft from you has COVID-19 and is breathing vigorously or is eating lunch 6 ft from you.
If Musk isn't right there on the factory line among the workers and endangering his life along with the workers that he is forcing to come work for him, then I will lose a tremendous amount of respect for him. If anything, this should be a good opportunity for the factory workers to unionize and demand better treatment.
People don't understand the underlying mechanisms and assumptions that lead to the rule of thumb being what it is so they follow the rule of thumb religiously as if it guarantees everything will turn out alright.
If you look you'll see this behavior across a wide range of issues.
Almost any societal level health policy, about breast cancer screening, colonoscopy recommendations, or whatever... people misunderstand all the time and announce "well that's because it's not effective under X circumstance".
It's always hard to explain, and then after explaining the probability stuff ... you get to explain that it is the probability ... that we know of.
For anyone who wants hard facts on COVID-19... science will tell us in 2 or 3 years I suspect.
Tesla has run a factory in Shanghai post-COVID, so far as we know successfully. Also most if not all the other car factories in the US are already operating. Also workers aren't forced to come in. This focus on Tesla is not taking into account all the data equally, unless folks are also outraged at every other factory in the US.
Multiple reports indicate that Tesla workers were told to report to work last week or be fired, and that if they were fired for not showing up, Tesla would not let them claim COVID19 as a reason for their termination (which is a $600/week difference in unemployment benefits for the next 6 weeks).
There was no outrage about other factories because most US factories use more automation than Tesla and workers are generally spaced more than 6 feet apart at "stations" on the assembly line. (See, e.g., the General Mills factories where cereal is made, any other US automaker, etc.)
>Tesla said employees were told to report to work or be fired.
Bullshit. You are confusing different activities that involve not getting paid.
Not showing up for work, the person doesn't get paid, and contrary to your claim (there are no such "multiple reports" unless you are counting reddit comments?) Tesla is being nice and not firing them, but instead putting them on unpaid leave so their job is actually held open for a while. Not even the same ballpark as fired.
Yes there are consequences for unemployment since their job is available to them should they want to do it. This is by law, not Tesla's doing. They aren't terminated by the way… another word for fired… just on unpaid leave, again.
>workers are generally spaced more than 6 feet apart
> Yes there are consequences for unemployment since their job is available to them should they want to do it. This is by law, not Tesla's doing
Except it was illegal for Tesla to be opening up early against health department orders, so it seems likely that the law would actually be on the employee’s side. Terminating an employee for refusing to violate lawful government orders is illegal.
Of course, non-unionized factory workers at Tesla may very well not have a lawyer on retainer to consult about this and might feel forced by Tesla’s unlawful threat to go in anyway...
The argument is not moot. Employees can still sue Tesla for making them return to work in violation of a lawfully issued closure order. If any employee gets infected as a result of Tesla reopening, they (Tesla) are not protected by any liability shields that would have applied to another business that waited until it was authorized to reopen.
Bullshit. You are confusing different activities that involve not getting paid.
No, I'm not. Every media article on this, including by Teslerati and other pro-Tesla sites is unanimous on this point.
Not showing up for work, the person doesn't get paid, and contrary to your claim (there are no such "multiple reports" unless you are counting reddit comments?) Tesla is being nice and not firing them, but instead putting them on unpaid leave so their job is actually held open for a while. Not even the same ballpark as fired.
Only someone in Silicon Valley could think that being put on unpaid leave is somehow "being nice" to the employee. Many people live paycheck to paycheck. Also, Tesla wasn't being nice--they were following labor law. If they had terminated those employees without sufficient notice they would have violated state and federal WARN Acts.
This is by law, not Tesla's doing. They aren't terminated by the way… another word for fired… just on unpaid leave, again.
This is false. Tesla asserted that it would challenge any employee's claim that the termination was COVID-related, when the whole reason the factory was shut down was due to COVID restrictions. This is a heinous violation.
That's also the case at the Fremont factory.
This is also false. Employees in the Fremont factory work within 6 feet of each other at multiple stations when the factory is operational. At many stations on their lines, they literally work side-by-side as if they were in a meat-packing plant.
He's not "forcing" anyone to come in IIRC. Workers can remain furloughed if they'd like. It's just that out in the real world, people need to work in order to survive.
"Come in or lose your unemployment benefits" isn't a choice in any sense of the word. It's a shame we've done so poorly at managing this virus and have provided so little support for people who choose to prioritize their health.
Be that as it may, the fundamental fact of the situation is that money does not grow on trees and unemployment benefits don't really work if you have double digit percentage of the unemployed. It especially doesn't work if, by closing the factory, you're putting all of its supply chain out of work as well. Also, in order for there to be stuff, someone has to make stuff.
Sadly, this is a uniquely American failing. If you can't provide supports for people during a once-in-a-generation pandemic but have no problem taking out $20 Trillion in debt during normal times, things are seriously broken.
I think you will soon discover that it's not a "uniquely American failing", but a fact of life that applies everywhere. I don't see how it's even up for debate that you can't stop the economy for six months and avoid severe repercussions, including deaths, for years to come, and that the government can't just will the stuff (food, goods) into existence with no work required from the population.
It's a _tradeoff_. The thought is that the unmitigated death-toll of COVID-19 will be _worse_ for the economy (and by quite a lot) than sheltering in place for 6-12 months.
All rich countries can support people for a bit, and the US is doing that, although the mechanisms that it's using I agree are not exactly ideal.
In the long term, you can't subvert the fundamental fact that the economy is what allows people to obtain goods and services. If a country cuts production in half for a year, it won't be able to provide the standard of living to which its citizens are accustomed, no matter what financial wizardry is involved.
Staying at home is not in any way prioritizing health, if, like most people, they themselves or any household members continue to go out to shop for food and other things. If anything, the clean factory environment should be safer than most stores and households.
Most people don't ride buses to get to work at Tesla. There are shuttles from overflow parking lots but those lots have been empty the last few times I've been by while the rest of the lots are full. In other words people are driving to work.
So that crowded bus for hours thing, not sure where that came from.
Shopping takes less time that working, for sure, but that's missing the point, because the environment at a store is much dirtier. The Tesla plant is pretty clean and you don't have random people wandering in off the streets touching everything.
This is asinine. They still have to go to stores and shop for food, going to a work at a factory is just one more place to get infected. And as demonstrated by the meat-packing plants, a much higher risk of infection than most everyday locations.
Look at which two types of factories/plants you are equating, as if it's not apples to oranges. Tesla factory versus meat packing plant. And then look at what adjective you used at the start of your post. I could be forgiven for thinking your introductory sentence is meant to apply to the rest of your comment.
It’s also not the choice that Tesla is forcing people to make, and I really don’t understand how such an easily debunked falsehood became so popular here. The CA EDD specifically covers this in their COVID-19 FAQ:
> My employer furloughed me when its business closed due to the COVID-19 stay-at- home order. I am currently receiving regular UI benefits. My employer is reopening and has asked me to return to work. Will I lose my regular UI benefits if I refuse to return to work because I am afraid of contracting COVID-19 in the workplace?
> An individual is disqualified for UI if they refuse to accept “suitable” employment when offered. Under California law, the EDD will consider whether the particular work is “suitable” in light of factors such as the degree of risk involved to the individual’s health and safety. For example, if your employer has complied with the state’s requirements for reopening, and any and all government safety regulations, you may not have good cause to refuse to return to work and could be disqualified from continuing to receive regular UI benefits for a designated period of time.
Whether you lose your unemployment comes down entirely to whether the government of California deems the working conditions suitable, Tesla’s judgement “suitable” does not enter into the equation in any way whatsoever. Elsewhere in the FAQ they also specifically state that your own individual risk factors are taken into account when making this judgement. If you have an issue with people choosing between unemployment or unsafe working conditions, that issue lies exclusively with the state.
What difference is it if the state or the company makes the decision? In either case, it's "come in and risk exposure, or lose your unemployment benefits."
It makes a significant difference in who you are criticizing. Tesla’s offer for people to return to work from furlough does not place any burden at all on people to make a choice between receiving unemployment benefits, and their own personal safety. That judgement is made entirely by the government of California, because they are the only party that has any say in whether the working conditions on offer are suitable (taking into account individualized risk factors). There is no basis at all to criticize Tesla for this, and if you want to criticize anybody, the only party who could potentially be at fault is the state of California.
Whom I criticize makes no difference. The choice is the same. Even if the state is the one defining "suitable," it's Tesla's choice to call them back in.
The more important question is: how do you even justify forcing workers to make the choice?
Tesla is either providing a safe working environment, or it is not. If it is then there is no need at all to justify requesting that people return to work. If the environment is not safe, or if it is unsafe for particular people, according to their own personal circumstances, then those people are not being forced to make that choice. They can continue to collect unemployment payments until such a time that the work environment becomes safe. If you dispute the purported safety of the Tesla work environment, then you have an issue with the state of California, not with Tesla.
Again, it matters not whether Tesla or the state is determining what is safe or not. The decision workers are faced with is the same.
And, again, I ask you: how do you justify asking workers to make the choice between health and safety or having income to support their families? You literally ignored every point in my comment.
Because literally nobody is being forced to make that choice. Your entire premise is false and completely debunked by information published by the CA EDD itself. The only way anybody could be forced into making that choice is if the standards established by the state were insufficient, or if they were delinquent in assessing people’s claims. If you believe that to be the case, present your evidence and direct your criticism accordingly.
Bullshit. People are being forced back to work because the state says it's safe. They're being told "you have to go back to work, regardless of whether you think it's safe, because we, the state, think it is."
Again, how do you justify forcing that choice on someone? I think by now it's clear that you're simply trying to weasel out of answering that.
I am not justifying it, I am asking you to prove that this is actually happening. Any person asked for any reason to return to a workplace that is either unsafe in general, or unsafe for them personally, does not jeopardize their entitlement to unemployment benefits in any way by refusing to return. The CA EDD specifically state this on their website.
You are asserting that CA EDD is in fact not following this policy. You have not provided any actual concrete claims to support this. You have not described a single way in which the standards of the CA EDD are insufficient, or a single instance of their delinquency in following this policy. As far as I can tell, you believe the CA EDD to be delinquent as some sort of perfectly obvious self-evident truth. Which leads me to believe that you in fact do not have any specific criticism to offer at all, and that you have absolutely nothing to offer a conversation on this topic.
For starters there's no evidence that people claiming their working environment is unsafe are actually being refused unemployment benefits by the state. But the state does have the power to do that, so let's operate on the hypothetical scenario that this has occurred.
Your question is actually "how does the state justify setting minimum safety standards for work places?", because your criticism applies to any and all scenarios where they choose to do so. Most people would agree that minimum safety standards should be defined, and that the state is usually the best party to handle that. But what if people think the state hasn't done a good enough job? Well people are entitled to think anything they like, for any reason at all. Some people think that the state is delinquent in allowing for coronavirus-causing 5G cell towers to be built. Just because somebody thinks something, doesn't mean it has any merit. For somebody's thoughts to be taken seriously, they are usually expected to provide some sort of rational basis for having them. So far you have provided no basis at all, rational or otherwise, for believing that the CA EDD has failed to make reasonable judgements about workplace safety in relation to COVID-19. If you're not capable of doing that, then your assertion that people are being forced to choose between receiving unemployment benefits and their own personal safety, is completely without merit.
No, my question is more along the lines of this: suppose there's a 1% chance of getting COVID-19 by going back to work (either at work or on transit, or whatever), and a 1% chance of dying from it [0]. The state, then, is subjecting these workers to a 10 in 100,000 chance of dying simply in order to support their families.
This is not about "minimum workplace standards," this is about people who are now subjected to significantly more danger simply by going to work. Based on the list in the article, it would make anyone's job at least 10-200% more dangerous.
So, again, how do you justify that? Keep in mind, these are not workers who signed up for the 21st most deadly occupation in the US. Please try to actually answer the question rather than weasel out of it.
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[0]: 1% cumulative chance of getting the disease in the next year. Also, 1% fatality rate is an approximation. Let's not quibble about the actual number. We've already lost far more than 10 in 100,000 Americans to this disease. The fact is, COVID-19 makes going to work vastly more dangerous than it was 5 months ago.
Why would I want to make any attempt to justify the hypothetical scenarios that you invent? The scenario of people being denied unemployment for refusing to return to work is a hypothetical scenario that you invented. You have presented no evidence that this has occurred. The idea that CA EDD is not providing safe working environments is another hypothetical scenario that you invented and have provided no evidence for. Your hypothetical statistics are also frankly ridiculous. So far ~0.000813% of California's population have died of COVID-19, which is about the same amount of Californians who died in traffic fatalities in 2018. Does California need to justify not providing unemployment benefits to people who think travelling to work is too dangerous? Most people would think that's ridiculous.
Your entire premise is that the standards used by the CA EDD are not sufficient, and that you speculate they're going to increase COVID fatalities by more than an order of magnitude. Yet you can not provide a single reason to justify any of this speculation.
My premise is that the state has no right to force people to go back to jobs that are now 3x as dangerous as they were 5 months ago.
Again, you seem to be saying the state has this right, and I would like you to justify that belief. Or, would you rather waste more words trying to weasel away from the question?
The state of California did not create COVID-19, and it’s not responsible for ensuring that you live your life free from the risk of personal harm. Aside from being an entirely impossible task, it has never been the role of government to reduce your risk of harm to zero. The role of government in this context is generally agreed to be setting minimum standards. The state of California decided those standards could not be met when the outbreak began, and required large numbers of people to remain at home. Those people were entitled to unemployment benefits. It has now decided that in some circumstances it is safe to return to work. If it is safe for you to return to work, according to the standards set by the CA EDD, and you have a place of work to return to, your choice is to return to a safe place of work, or sacrifice your entitlement to unemployment benefits. If you do not have a safe place of work to return to, you don’t have to make any decision at all.
If you believe that people are being forced to return to unsafe working environments, then state your case. Because so far the only case you’ve put forward to support that theory is statistics that you literally just made up.
This is amazing thinking. I follow what you're saying but you seem to be pretending that there is no risk in simply living when not going to work. There is plenty of risk, whether people go to work or not. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you are saying there is more risk by working. Sure. There are risks from commuting as well. There is differential risk, additive, which means your risk is greater by working than by not working, absolutely. But, this is real life. This is the real world we live in. We need to deal with it at some point.
There is even risks from being born, but we still encourage it.
No, I am not pretending there is no risk in living. There is obviously a baseline level of risk in anything.
With COVID-19 out of control, I am saying that the state has no right to force workers back to jobs that are now 3x as dangerous as they were 5 months ago.
As for risk of being born, we should not encourage that, because the unborn cannot consent to being born, but thank you for playing.
But COVID-19 is very much under control in the area.
I'm just not sure what you mean when you talk about the state having a right. COVID-19 isn't expected to go away entirely for a long time, and California doesn't have enough money to give everyone paid leave for the next year. Workers can't be paid money that doesn't exist, even if they have a right to be paid.
> But COVID-19 is very much under control in the area.
Oh, so we've met criteria for a full reopening? I can stop wearing my mask? That's news to me.
As for the state "having money," do you think they have literal vaults of cash that's in finite supply, or something? The federal government should be subsidizing the health of employees in this case, and they can do it by incrementing numbers in a computer. It's that simple.
I think they have abstract resources, which are imprecisely but meaningfully summarized into their budget. Monetary policy can solve a lot of problems, but it can't substitute for producing goods and services.
Masks are going to be a part of our lives for a while, most likely for the next year or two. If you expect a full reopening to mean no masks, you should recalibrate your expectations.
Yes, those are words I used earlier that the person I was replying to ignored. I did so openly and without attributing them to anyone else. What's the problem?
Glad to know you think the state has a right to make my job 3x as dangerous, because "fuck me," right? Circumstances aside, you're literally saying the state has a right to send some people into the line of fire for the sake of what? Capitalism? The economy?
You can choose whether to work or not. There are other options. The state isn't sending you into a line of fire or anywhere for that matter. And the state didn't make your job 3x more dangerous; the virus might have done that, possibly, depending on the job. Lots of things make life more dangerous. Some of those things are not controllable even by governments or employers. I guess I'm feeding a troll here though, sigh.
Please don’t forget that the suggestion that these jobs “3x more dangerous”, or that by returning to work you’re subjecting yourself to a 1% chance of death from COVID-19, are just complete fabrications invented by pmiller2. So far he is yet to voice a single concern about the actual conditions of people currently returning to work in CA, or any reason at all why it might be unsafe for them to do so.
Every worker is faced with the choice of "go back to work and have an increased risk of getting this disease that has a ~1% chance of killing you, or lose unemployment benefits." Explain to me how this is not the case, except for those who can WFH.
Yah, life is dangerous. More so during flu season, and even more so with COVID-19 around. You seem indignant. It's just reality though. Sometimes it can be harsh.
I can fault multiple entities. I don't trust the State of California to be making the right calls here, why should I? Tesla just demonstrated with the County of Alameda that they will flout laws and the authorities will let them get away with it. I blame Tesla for their part in this erosion of responsibility as well.
There's many things you can fault Tesla for, but you can not fault them for forcing their employees to choose between unemployment benefits and unsafe working conditions. Because nothing Tesla has done, including their flouting of Alameda County laws, has put a single one of their employees in that position. The only party that determines whether Tesla are providing suitable working conditions is the CA EDD, Tesla making work available changes nothing.
Also, to be fair, their approach seems to be in accordance with the law as workers that do not return should be reported to unemployment boards, from my understanding.
"One employee said they were told by the company they wouldn't receive benefits if they didn't come back to work, and would be unable to apply for unemployment. Another said they were told their furlough status would change."
What's your alternative proposal? I'm optimistic Tesla can manage it, but I'm not sure what it implies if they can't - do you think we should just keep factories closed forever?
They should keep factories closed, unless they are engaged in solving one of the four problems that need to be solved in order for things to safely re-open:
1. Producing masks, gloves, face shields
2. Producing tests or test supplies (cotton swabs, reagents, etc.)
3. Things related to contact tracing (not sure what material goods this would need off-hand)
4. Vaccine research (again, nothing they could do)
The choice is not between re-open now or never re-open. If we actually had at least the first 3 things above, re-opening could be done in a controlled and safe manner. We still don't have those things, months later.
Certainly true! I hope those places get what they need soon. But if Alameda County can safely start reopening before them, I don't see any value in waiting.
All Bay Area counties other than Santa Clara have interpreted the Bay Area criteria as criteria to fully reopen, so they're admittedly not at the 200 per 100,000 number. But I don't see any reason to second-guess their decision that a partial reopening is safe with fewer tests.
Unfortunately, Alameda County doesn't publish daily test counts or anything, so the best citation I have for you is a random news article[1] asserting they're 1/3 of the way to 3100 tests per day.
And, reopening with 1/3 of the testing capacity necessary to do so seems wise to you? I hope you don't have any elderly relatives in the area, or any health conditions that would predispose you to a severe case.
I don't agree with the premise. Remember that the full reopening will include extremely high-contact locations like schools, restaurants, bars, and movie theaters. It seems plausible that a limited reopening of only retail and manufacturing is safe with a third of the full amount.
There's no way to rigorously determine how many tests are needed. The original threshold was an educated guess, and the new phased reopening policy is a different educated guess; all we'll ever have available is educated guesses. The best possible citation is that health officers across the Bay Area have said it's time to start reopening.
So, you don't believe we can answer that question with modeling? You don't believe these testing capacity numbers were constructed by public health officials using the best available modeling data? Is that what you're saying? Or, are you saying you're qualified to guess that 1/3 of the required number is sufficient for phase 2 opening?
I believe that, whatever process they went through to generate the first set of numbers, they went through that same process to determine it's safe to reopen now. 1/3 doesn't seem like such an obviously wrong number that I have to suspect undue influence.
Ok, then, explain to me why Santa Clara disagrees. Partially reopening with more cases and more deaths per day, and 1/3 the testing capacity they claim would be safe for a full reopening does not seem to compute.
I agree there's an inconsistency. The obvious explanation for why 8 counties think it's safe and Santa Clara thinks it's not is that Santa Clara is just wrong.
So, the other 8 counties are totally right that trying to start re-opening with 1/3 the required testing capacity and insufficient PPE, while simultaneously having more cases and deaths than would be happening under a full reopen scenario? Is that what you're saying? What do you think Santa Clara's reasoning for disagreeing is?
You need to calm down and stop being so hostile to someone who is having a discussion in good faith. If you have a point, just make it. Don’t ask a bunch of leading rhetorical questions.
That's insane, here in Europe conditions so much worse compared to California but manufacturing was restarted and not stopped at some places. It's easy to say shut everything down when you have a comfortable wfh tech job and zoom meetings in underwear. Peasants need to make money and feed kids too.
This should really be judged on a regional level, trying to apply blanket protections to the entire country (besides borders which are a national affair) or even an entire state seems like a bad idea to me.
That way it could also move quicker if things actually do turn worse. Since there are plenty of examples already of states and regions opening up without any consequences.
> It's easy to say shut everything down when you have a comfortable wfh tech job and zoom meetings in underwear. Peasants need to make money and feed kids too.
I think you’ve nailed it. The virtuous and vocal “stay home save lives” crowd invariably has almost no skin in the game. They get their food delivered to them (sucks for those folks) and their livelihood is secured.
So we’re to believe it’s actually reversy, and those suffering financial damage from the shutdown actually love it, and the unfortunate WFH cohort are begging to shove their PJs back into the closet and drudge back to the office?
For the time being, many of those worst off are receiving a raise by being unemployed, and still have confidence that their jobs will be there when things begin to recover. And why would you assume it's people trying to go back to the office, have you not watched any of the people protesting the lockdown? They want OTHER people back at work so they can consume things.
My wife and I have a two year old business (https://hostelofmaine.com) that will likely go under if stay at home orders & shut downs are not lifted in the near future. That said, I am 100% in favor of continuing to disallow discretionary travel at this time. I would rather go bankrupt and start over (no rich family if you're wondering) than be responsible for an outbreak in our community.
Of course we need to open, but right now (May) is not that time. If I had to guess (which is irrelevant to a data driven approach) I would assume late June or July would be safer.
Large majorities of both cohorts love the shutdown, because they're scared and want to hide inside until it's safe. We have to argue against the shutdowns on those grounds, not invent a class war that isn't happening.
It’s the ultimate slacktivism. Many people are used to staying home and doing nothing all day, but now the situation has changed and suddenly their lifestyle is a virtue, they can feel like heroes while people who want to work can be called irresponsible. It’s the same people who think they can help poor people by clicking ‘Like’ on a Facebook post.
Things are going to turn around again of course. Sooner or later reality is going to hit when the handouts stop and the food supply dries up. Humanity isn’t going to survive by doing nothing and the people who put in the work and take the risks now have to be incentivized or they may quit working as well.
No, it isn't easy for me to say this is what needs to be done.
I don't have a job at the moment, I'm trapped in another state, and I started a non profit to distribute hand sanitizer for free in that community -- BECAUSE IT IS STILL NOT AVAILABLE TO EASILY PURCHASE. The Purell factory is literally 10 miles away, and yet we are not where we need to be.
I realize that it totally sucks that we need to do these things in order to safely resume normal society. Wouldn't it be great if we had spent the last 2 months making steady progress on those goals?
You're forgetting the most important one: Liberal opportunities for people to stay at home if they show symptoms. PPE is fine but that's a backup in case someone sick starts coughing at people.
You know in the US far too many people are obsessed with going to work even if sick, because they don't get paid otherwise. This needs to change.
As alexandros said, there is nothing special about the Tesla factory operating as opposed to any other company's.
The only difference is that Alameda County opposed the factory reopening. Not the city of Fremont, not the state of California, not the federal government. It was the county that held its reopening up.
The county didn’t oppose a reopening; if anything, Tesla is being given more favorable treatment because they are a big employer, to the point where the county is turning a blind eye to willful flouting of the law.
The state gave discretion to the county and the county was enforcing a standard that Elon didn’t want to follow, or else wanted to stage a scene to justify his inevitable relocation to a state with cheaper labor. Now we’re back to the original county schedule.
Tesla, being designated critical infrastructure like all vehicle manufactures per federal guidelines, should have never had to battle it out with county bureaucracy in the first place.
"CISA's Identifying Critical Infrastructure During COVID-19 guidance and accompanying list are intended to support state, local, and industry partners in identifying the critical infrastructure sectors and the essential workers."
Not even recommended guidance, just advisory. AKA "Here's a one size fits all list we expect you to tailor to your particular situation."
Plenty of other car manufacturers were shut down too - Ford, GM, Toyota, basically all of Tesla’s competitors as I understand it across different states not just in California. For instance, here is a story about a Toyota plant in Texas being closed between March and May. https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/Toyota-again-pu...
Never mind that “federal guidelines” have no legal relevance to county or state health orders. The US constitution leaves police power, including quarantine orders, to the discretion of the states.
> If health care workers can't avoid getting themselves infected, even though they have expertise and training, there is no way that Tesla will be able to prevent the virus from spreading within the factory.
Health workers are literally hands on infected people coughing in their face. They also have infected people literally delivered to them. It’s apples and oranges.
Medical workers are generally using basic protection well, but their not walking around in BSL-4 bunny suits. Such methods might be 99% effective, but encounter 10,000x as many viruses and the risks are still significantly worse.
The objective probably isn't to stop all infections. It's not possible. You act as if this is some kind of a death sentence virus, when in fact for the vast majority of people it isn't a serious illness.
Notice also: no masks. And because they've been deemed a critical industry, they aren't necessarily getting masks now either. So no distancing, and no masks. These are also very poorly paid jobs, and it would be unusual if they had health insurance or paid time off.
It's pretty much the perfect conditions for covid.
Cars tend to be a bit bigger than chickens.. so in a car factory, the workers are usually more than 6 ft apart.
The reality is that the coronavirus isn't going away. We need to minimise the risk, i.e. slow the spread down; that's why we do social distancing.
Every day and every part of life, we balance safety with living life. Public health is no different: it is a balance, not an extremist view that we must eradicate COVID at all costs.
We cannot shut down non-essential until there's a vaccine. That's just not possible. All work is essential, and public governments can't print money forever (without hyperinflation).
So, Tesla can legally open according to the original county timeline, before Elon’s hissy fit, even though in actuality they’ve been producing cars for Europe and China for a week.
What is true of China isn’t true of the Bay Area. It doesn’t matter if they were open in China when the rules (and situation, I hope) are different between the two places.
It's unclear that the county was planning to follow this "original" timeline until after public pressure brought about by Elon's tweets. At this point it's impossible to tell if that are simply saving face.
The original timeline was always to reopen certain businesses May 18th, since the first extensions of the lockdowns were to expire on May 15th, and as demonstrated by the entire rest of the state opening up according to that schedule without anyone else throwing a tantrum.
Also, the county doesn't need to do anything to save face. They have nothing to prove. The elected officials can always say they were acting on the information of health experts, and the health experts can always point to the CDC, China, and even the re-emerging outbreaks in Wuhan, Italy, and Germany as reasons for not allowing Tesla to restart operations ahead of schedule and before Tesla had demonstrated they were willing to protect their workers.
Certain businesses, it's probable/possible Tesla wasn't initially included in the things they intended to allow. Why would they have gone through the public drama if they felt like they were going to be allowed to open based on their private conversations?
It's because Elon is an attention seeking narcissist. Why did he create all the public drama over his cave submarine? It's because he can't help himself.
He didn't if you go look at the sworn testimony from the trial the diver was the one that initiated that by telling Musk to "Stick His Submarine Where It Hurts".
Uh huh. And why did he create all the public drama over "funding secured" costing himself $20 million and Tesla a further $20 million? It's because he can't help himself:
One of them is the CEO of a a multi-billion dollar company, the other is a diver. These aren't two children on the playground, who "started" it is not relevant.
The diver told Musk to stick a submarine up his ass. Once. And then he moved on.
Musk then publicly called the diver a pedophile, hired a guy to try and find dirt to prove his statement, and then attempted to have the media publish articles calling the diver a pedophile multiple times. And then tried to insinuate that because the diver hadn't told him to stop or sued him, he must be telling the truth. (So of course the diver sued him the next day.)
It's 5 year account with 8K karma and other posts besides Tesla if you give anything more than a cursory glance of a few pages, including posts on deep/technical topics. People are allowed to be anti-Elon/Tesla, it does not mean the account is an antagonist.
Oh no! Linking to recent and relevant NYT articles on Elon! Flamebait!
Even if you have other posts beside Tesla, the HN guidelines say "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys the curiosity this site exists for." Although constantly criticizing Tesla may not fall under political or ideological battle, it certainly doesn't hold any curiosity.
Sure it does. Musk's public deterioration is a fascinating case study of a personality's transition from leader of a well-intentioned start up company into a straight up bully. Both his celebrity and the ugly influence of social media really have corrupted him. He has gone wrong and it's sad to see.
The first lockdown order was set to expire at the end of April, but the first set of extensions issued in April were to expire May 15th in the Bay Area. Before May 15th they extended the extensions to the end of the month.
Saving face in this scenario would be imposing punishment on Tesla to show that when they make rules they mean it. This whole thing just reeks of Tesla testing the waters on how far they can push the State/setting up the narrative that they are being treated unfairly here to get other states to make offers to bring Tesla over.
Yeah why would he bother not waiting for some backcountry hotshot dragging his feet? It only costs a few million to wait a few days, easy to afford if it comes out of someone else’s pocket!
Alameda County has announced they're moving into Phase 2 this week, which means basically everyone other than restaurants and public gathering spaces can reopen.
American case counts tend to show extreme day-of-week effects, with Sundays consistently being the lowest, so I wouldn't necessarily extrapolate from today's numbers.
Driving disease-prevention policies based on an infection indicator that lags by at least 7 days is like day-trading stocks based on last month’s headlines.
A single day means nothing - there's high daily variance just from reporting issues and test sites not being open on weekends.
Alemada County is alright by California standards, but is the worse performing Bay Area county (hospitalizations are flat for a month, rather than dropping like its neighbors). And 33 a day for 1.6m people is actually on the high side by northern California standards. (As a point of comparison, Santa Clara is at about 15 a day for 1.9 million)
That is a wildly irresponsible statement to make. I myself am Phase 3 and fretting about paying my bills.
It is kind of interesting that this conflict could be seen as mostly between city and county officials, but people love character and so Elon Musk becomes the only relevant player even though his only contribution has been to dare officials to have him arrested.
So, once again we see that most of public policy is about fantasy and narrative. Some businesses can open but not others which means basically everyone. City and county officials worked things out which means Musk has super powers and zero legal constraints.
Anyone else out there surprised to see Elon "zag" so badly on COVID, including this?
I've always been impressed by his agility with ideas, zigging and zagging and I've been there cheering him on. But on this one it seems like he....went off the cliff, Wiley E. Coyote style.
I think part of it might be that he's a really high energy kind of person, working 12-18 hour days everyday. Being forced to stay quarantined, to stop his life's work, probably drives him insane. He really wants to progress on his projects, which he considers to be very important for the future of mankind (which, let's face it, they could be).
Besides that, he's a contrarian. With COVID, we're faced with a situation where there is an extremely strong pressure to conform. There's one narrative being pushed and there's no real dialogue. Elon has a contrarian narrative: our basic human rights have been taken away (freedom of movement, etc) in the name of the greater collective good. He argues that people should be given the tools to help protect themselves but that the government should leave it up to individuals to decide how they manage this.
I tend to agree with him. We're told a vaccine could be two years away (or may never come). The fatality rate in my age group is about the same as the flu. I happen to be single, and at the moment, where I'm living, if I have a date with someone, I could technically be fined $1500 (and there have been a few reports of people going on tinder dates who have been). Since when has it been the government's business to legislate in these sorts of matters? I have been making efforts to socially isolate, but it's pushed me into a depression, I started taking antidepressants a month ago. I know two of my friends have done the same.
Weighing things like the lives of others vs a small disruption in your sex life seems right up government's (organized society's in general, even) alley.
I'm going to call your straw man. My sex life is obviously not worth the lives of millions of people, but how many times have you caught the flu, in your life? How many people have you infected? The flu kills older people too, so how many lives did you put at risk? Could you actually be indirectly responsible for one or more deaths without knowing? How can you quantify every time your activity has put the lives of other people at risk?
Here we're talking about the mental health and wellbeing, the livelihood and life work (eg small businesses) of billions of people, being sacrificed in the hopes that this will save hundreds of thousands. You can argue that this is for the greater collective good, but how do you put a value on lives, or on everyone's mental health? For the sake of argument, how much is the lifespan of the average American due to job losses, foreclosures, bankruptcies, etc.? What kind of effect will isolation have on young children, who are being told that they can't play with other kids their age, during critical phases of their brain development?
I think it's perfectly fair to ask where we draw the line as to what is too much government control in the name of protecting the collective greater good. How much do you think your government should be allowed to control your life in the name of the greater good?
I wouldn't call it strawmanning, but your response bypassed his broader point, by fixating on one element of his personal anecdote which seems petty without the full context of his concerns.
The previous paragraph had a more societally-oriented critique of lockdown measure, and the fact that the disruption has caused him and ostensibly two others so much distress as to seek prescribed medication in order to cope with it is far more salient within the latter paragraph, imo.
We're talking about a "flu" that, even with _heavy_ travel restrictions, has a death rate of about 1%, going up to 10% on the over 65. We're talking about a "flu" that is so contagious that, even with orders to stay at home, manages to keep itself alive through new infections easily and we're struggling to get the R0 down. We're talking about a "flu" that has, in a matter of weeks, completely overwhelmed every single health system in the world.
Your relativization of your fellow citizens as just a matter of numbers and "how old will they die anyways?" is absolutely heartless. These are actual people, with families, friends and close people. Not just numbers on the John Hopkins charts.
But hey, what could happen if you reopened ? After all, New York only had to deal with a shortage of medical equipment, medical personnel being exhausted and overworked, a need to bring cooling trucks just to hold the dead bodies. Combine that with the fact that the moment your health system gets overwhelmed and cannot treat other illnesses, those deaths will go through the roof. It's not a crazy theory. It's something epidemiologists have studied for a while, and we have seen its effect with cases in Europe, where deaths not related to Covid-19 have gone up, because we couldn't treat heart diseases, other pulmonary diseases, etc. Oh, and, an overwhelmed medical system also leads to a shutdown of other parts of your precious economy. People will not go to work because being injured means you cannot be treated. Half of construction gone. Half of any job that involves dangerous conditions gone. And how many other jobs will that destroy ? This lockdown is a necessary evil, and the best option we have.
So, yes. The government has every right to protect millions of citizens from dying. You can handle staying home. I know it's hard at times, and I truly hope that you will get better. But it's not complicated. Sit. at. home.
We don't know what the actual death rate is, we need more antibody studies to figure that out.
> "how old will they die anyways?"
I didn't say that, you did.
> These are actual people, with families, friends and close people.
Yes, and hundreds of millions of people with families, friends and loved ones are suffering in many ways because of the lockdown. I don't know how many depressions, foreclosures, broken marriages and boarded up small businesses one saved life is worth, but there's a tradeoff being made.
FWIW, I am staying home. I get my groceries delivered and leave the house about once or twice a week. I try to distance myself from people on the sidewalk, etc.
I don't quite understand the narrative I keep seeing lately.
To start with, at least in my country (Canada), the narrative has never, ever been to 'stop transmission of the virus'. Ever. EG, the narrative has never been to 'stop people from getting it'.
(NOTE: I'm talking about responses from official government officials, not blather in blogs, media, etc)
The only point for the lockdown, was/is to slow down the transmission of the virus, so that hospitals would not be overwhelmed. In other words, as everyone, literally everyone catches it, that those which have a worst-outcome, have the best treatment possible.
That's it.
There's no attempt, or hope, or plan in the lockdown, to stop people from getting the virus. At all.
In this context, the lockdown is not to 'save lives', in the sense of 'people won't get it, and be safe'. So, when the hospitals aren't overwhelmed, when it has been shown that the virus isn't quite as deadly as thought to some, it is entirely logical, and sensible, to open up.
And to that end, it is entirely logical and sensible to insist people return to work. Because unless people become complete and total hermits for years, they'll get it...
One side note here.
I've done a bit of research, and two things stand out:
- Italy, hit bad
- New York, hit bad
- Montreal, certain sectors, hit bad
After a bit of research, I've concluded that one of the high-risk factors is sickle cell anemia. Something tha is VERY common in blacks from Africa, as it does help protect against malaria.
Yet guess what other population group is pre-dispositioned to it? Italians. Due to the Roman Empire's control of Africa.
Who has a large Italian, and Black population? New York. The sectors in Montreal hard hit.
Also note that the Italian population in New York is self reporting, so I suspect the numbers are higher (eg, grandpa was Italian, etc).
Hind sight is a wonderful thing, I would never chastise our governments for locking down, based upon what was happening in Italy. However, combine its aged population AND sickle cell anemia, and ho boy... no wonder!
Now transpose that to the average population in North America. Not quite the same.
Lastly, Ontario/Quebec... have repeatedly stated that there will be a 'second and third' wave. That even if things ebb and stop, soon as the fall comes? It will likely reappear.
I think ... I think it is logical to be concerned for one's safety, but I often look at our ancestors and compared, and I find us wanting. Pre-widespream vaccination (even in the 50s), before many vaccines had been developed, people would think us bananas worrying about all these deaths.
They'd put on masks maybe, but.. somanypeopledied due to childhood and adult viruses.
Even the idea that falling off a ladder, could kill you simply because at one time antibiotics couldn't help if you had even small amounts of internal infection/bleeding. Sulfa drugs just didn't cut it.
Yet... compared to that lifestyle, we're insanely pampered.
But beyond all this? Unless we reopen, we'll all starve and die of other, massive issues.
Want food? You need 1000 little things, all produced by 1000s of industries. Parts for machines, additives, chemicals, transport, and all of that depending upon more and more of our infrastructure and production.
Try to trace, for example, a steel cog for a machine. Or, a chemical used.
I live in Montreal (in a less severely hit area) and there's definitely a psychological element to it.
My elderly father lives with us. He worked in hospitals and during his heyday he had to deal with all sorts of contagious patients. His youth wouldn't have spared him from some of those diseases, but I don't think he worried too much about it.
But now he's 80 and ever since this pandemic started, there's only been fear-inducing news every day.
On one hand, there's the very real fact that the elderly are dropping like flies in Quebec due to poor management of retirement homes (which my dad saw coming years ago because he'd worked in those as well and the situation had only continued to degrade since he'd left).
But on the other hand, you've got all of these auxiliary news reports that only feel like negative reinforcement and has you solely focused on the virus as if it were the only threat out there now. And I think that messes with people's mind.
The day my dad stops being scared of the virus won't be the day the virus is gone, because that'll be in years, if ever. It'll be the day the news stop telling him to be scared.
But either way, my wife and I are fortunate enough to be able to work from home and minimize our outings for a while. I wouldn't expect everyone else to be able to do the same.
Your info is interesting. I'm in Luskville (just West of Gatineau, a quick 15 minute drive to Ottawa). I've been running my own consultant business for 20+ years, and mostly remote.
Like you and your wife, I am lucky. I still have my income, and in my case I live on a 1 acre rural lot. Almost nothing has changed in my life, even trips to my (remote) grocery store, at worst, tend to have a 2 minute wait to get in.
One thing here ; I don't have cable. I don't read Google News, or News websites. It's been... well, a decade since I've even seen more than a glimpse of a 24 hours news channel.
I've checked a few news websites, but I wonder how I'd be thinking, if I too was 80, probably not extremely mobile, bored, and watching some/a lot of news.
You are making several false claims, most notably:
> We're talking about a "flu" that has, in a matter of weeks, completely overwhelmed every single health system in the world.
Many health care systems have been well below capacity throughout this. This includes most of the US (e.g. California), it includes places that have not shut down (Sweden), and it includes places that have reopened weeks ago (Georgia).
Despite these easily verifiable facts, many people believe as you do that health care systems are being overwhelmed everywhere. Maybe because the media is painting this picture by only focusing on the few places where this is actually happening.
This is hysteria.
It is blinding people from seeing the real, measurable damage wrought by the policies being enacted.
>Many health care systems have been well below capacity throughout this. This includes most of the US (e.g. California), it includes places that have not shut down (Sweden), and it includes places that have reopened weeks ago (Georgia).
Sweden has been heavily criticized for its handling of the situation, and Europe is extremely wary of them right now. With good reason. The US does have the chance to be an extremely large country, so transmission is slightly less likely. California has not been overwhelmed through a mix of luck and, would you guess it, self quarantine.
>This is hysteria.
Pretending that doing nothing could not have catastrophic consequences is dangerous. Even with self quarantine (or imposed quarantine), this disease is the number one source of illness related deaths in the year in western countries. And this is only May.
None of what you said here takes away from the fact that your original claim is false. Again, you wrote: “ completely overwhelmed every single health system in the world.” That is not true, not even close.
Now, you write:
> Sweden has been heavily criticized for its handling of the situation
Yes, people have differing opinions. The fact is that Sweden is not an outlier in number of deaths despite keeping its economy essentially open. Perhaps this is what happens when you inform your citizens and then trust them to do the right thing?
> Pretending that doing nothing could not have catastrophic consequences is dangerous.
I agree, and I did not suggest that we should do nothing. But what are the optimal policies? Are the policies we have now optimal or can we do better? We need open and honest discussion to make progress on these questions.
Have you looked at the actual numbers? Sweden is at 6th place in deaths per capita in the world ranking. It has 4 times the deaths per capita than Denmark, and 8 times more than Norway.
I have —- comparing with additional European countries, Sweden deaths per capita are lower than France, the U.K. and Italy, and is followed closely by Spain. Therefore, as I said, Sweden is not an outlier. At least the U.K. and Italy enacted far more restrictive policies than Sweden but achieved worse results. And this is just looking at the health part of the equation, not even discussing the economic benefits of Sweden’s approach.
I think this is enough to at least challenge the common viewpoint that restrictive lockdowns are the only way to deal with this.
What's your theory as to why Sweden is among the worst countries in the world for infection rates and deaths per capita, as opposed to e.g. Germany which implemented effective lockdowns early?
I know the UK royally botched its coronavirus response (waiting until the virus was spreading far too quickly before doing anything at all), although I do not know about France and Italy.
Just a question, but what is the methodology being used to count cases and track outcomes? Are the same methods being used globally so that a fair comparison can even be made? Are there are incentives to potentially 'tweak' those numbers so suit a narrative?
I can only speak for myself, but with the lack of trustworthy information, I find it very difficult to draw any conclusions at all.
My theory is that it’s because they stayed open. The numbers are higher, yes, but it has not been a catastrophic disaster like many predicted. Crucially, the health care systems are not overwhelmed.
So that is an important starting point for a discussion: it is possible to keep things mostly open (with appropriate safety measures) without overwhelming the healthcare system.
Note that it is possible that Sweden’s approach will eventually lead to a comparable number of deaths as its neighbors, but at an accelerated rate. Namely, it is possible that people are getting infected at a higher rate, which explains the higher numbers, but that the mortality rate will eventually be the same because the healthcare system is not overwhelmed. This depends on when and if we will find a vaccine and better treatments, which is an unknown.
On the other side of the equation, there is no mass unemployment, no hours-long lines at food banks, people are not suffering from mental health problems due to isolation, and so on. If Sweden does end up paying a higher price for its policies, it will still enjoy these benefits. They decided that it is worth the trade off. They are trying to prevent covid victims while also trying to protect potential economic victims, whose suffering is not being ignored. Is that wrong?
[*] 88% of deaths in Sweden are people over 70, and I believe many of those were in nursing homes. So it is possible that fine-tuning the policy can significantly reduce the death rate while keeping things open.
That's why I compared to Denmark and Norway: Two countries with comparable wealth, healthcare systems and similar (i.e. social democratic in a wider sense) approaches to societal problems - and here the differences in deaths are quite obvious.
All countries with higher deaths per capita than Sweden are significantly poorer, e.g. the UK has only 67% of Swedens GDP per capita, Spain has less than 50%.
Both France and Italy seem to be past the peak of this wave and have declining active cases, while the number of active cases are still growing in Sweden. I couldn't find the number of active cases for the UK.
Would you be fully confident to claim that the numbers in the other countries will not pick up by the end of the year? If in the fall, the virus returns spreading, would Norway, Denmark and Finland turn again to a strict lockdown?
Note that the total number of mortality across all causes have remained close-to-baseline: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
All the time, the hospitals have remained with spare capacity - while the earliest, initial models have suggested much larger impact to ICU.
I understand that the perception of the impact of the virus can be large, when seeing a new virus. But considering that those countries have extremely large average lifespan would tilt the numbers to make the perception of the statistics have larger impact than they are.
In a country level, the outcome is mixed. See Greece, Estonia’s drop in total mortality.
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland show a slight wobble. Some excess deaths, but not drastic NYC-style. Without knowledge of an a priori knowledge of an epidemic I would not have guessed they experience a pandemic.
My comment was also that ICUs have been available for most of Europe - the hospital system was not overwhelmed at all for most of EU counties. If you take away the U.K., Italy, Spain, the rest of hospital infrastructure in EU remained under-utilised. This is good they remained under-utilised and it reveals that there are measures which can avoid a catastrophic event.
Comparing numbers between countries is kinda pointless at the moment, different countries report deaths differently.
I don't think we will get any meaningful numbers to compare for a long time, and then compare total mortalities over a couple of years and see if Covid-19 had any significant impact.
I think real time comparison, country to country or even region to region is completely pointless. But that is just my 5 cents.
Yes, daily numbers are almost completely meaningless. We don't have to wait multiple years to infer meaning from the numbers, though. If countries are very similar, had their infections at the same time, but now have a 800% difference, like Sweden and Norway, that should make us pause and consider the effectiveness of the different approaches.
Total mortality is also already much higher in the EU than in the years before (Edit: Despite the lockdowns!).
I find it disappointing that your claims are not based on true facts.
You can make any claim, but be aware that claims not based on true facts are illogical and not constructive. There have been changes from the status quo to adhere to strict hygienic levels across large portion of the world. Find changes already applied across EU, USA, Asia, Africa, South Africa, etc.
In a circumstance where a person focuses on one area and disregards other areas fully, is a setup for failure. Focusing exclusively on this virus and disregarding everything else is not a recipe for a fulfilment.
Yes, maybe Sweden's policy is bad but that does not change the fact that our Healthcare system was not overwhelmed. The Swedish policy did exactly what our experts thought, slowed down the sprwad just enough to prevent our hospitals from being overwhelmed.
But what it did not take into account was stopping the spread from getting into care homes, which is the most likely explanation for our bad numbers. Our elder care was, unlike our hospitals, entirely unprepared for a pandemic.
To be clear, by “This is hysteria” I meant the gp’s claim that every healthcare system is overwhelmed. I was not referring to the general response.
However, see Sweden for a clear counter-example to your claim that the services are holding up because of the drastic actions taken. Their services are holding up with far less drastic measures.
>> completely overwhelmed every single health system in the world.
Please review the data in conjunction with this statement. In ALL of Eastern Europe, the hospitals are essentially empty. Note that in ALL Scandinavian countries, there has always been additional allocated spare beds.
I am not to downplay the risk. I note that there were shortages in London, Spain, Italy. But please review the absolute value of calling *every single health system in the world”.
First of, sorry for your depression, I hope you can break out of it.
Now
>Besides that, he's a contrarian. With COVID, we're faced with a situation where there is an extremely strong pressure to conform. There's one narrative being pushed and there's no real dialogue
This might be a European perspective, but what do you mean with "no dialogue"? Our media has been full with people pushing the viewpoint that we should reopen faster, that the economy should go before saving lifes, that "Sweden is doing fine". These were given a voice and then everyone else told them it's a stupid idea and get lost. There continues to be dialogue about this. People are challenging rulings, suing governments for damages etc.
Or maybe you mean that there hasn't been "the ability to do whatever you want without getting fined"?
> I happen to be single, and at the moment, where I'm living, if I have a date with someone, I could technically be fined $1500
And well you should be, you selfish person. This is about keeping it from spreading to people who are in a high risk group. How hard is that to understand? Think for others, for a change, not just yourself.
How many lives could you have saved if you lived in a much smaller apartment, had no personal belongings, volunteered on top of your full-time job, and gave all your savings away to charity? Think of others, for a change, not just yourself.
Is the argument you really want to use "two wrongs make a right"? Sure, society is exploitative all the way down: but, you can always choose to be less exploitative like... not doing selfish things that very very directly impact the actual life and death of other people, maybe?
He's saying I'm selfish for being upset that my freedom to meet people as I please is being restricted, for thinking of my own mental health and wanting to see people anyway. I'm responding that we're all concerned with our own well being. We live in a society where some people earn more than others. It's selfish to accept to get paid more. It's selfish to have a big apartment when there are homeless people out there, etc.
You could be giving more money away and spending more time volunteering... But if you volunteered on top of your full-time job and gave all your money away, you might burn out, get into a depression, etc. There's some selfless sacrifices that you're not willing to make. Does that make you selfish? Is that bad?
> There's some selfless sacrifices that you're not willing to make.
So, if I got it right, you're saying that your sex life is something you can't temporarily sacrifice to slow the spread of a potentially fatal disease. You make me sick.
All the rest of your comments are just whataboutism. The world is full of moral wrongs, so your argument is that we should let it descend into a feeding frenzy. I shouldn't tell people they're acting selfishly if I've ever stepped on an ant. Completely absurd. Look in a mirror, bud.
No, individuals would just carry on and everyone would get sick immediately. How can you be so short sighted? This is not about your pathetic sex life or whatever, this is about other people in the rest of society besides yourself.
Sweden employs a strategy without a lockdown (which doesn't mean that they have no containment measures), and they are doing okay, it's not the case that everyone got sick immediately, because people are still having less social activities and taking some precautions, even without a mandatory lockdown.
Please look at this chars, showing mortality across all causes.
"Doing fine" is in eye of the beholder, but clearly more people are dying across all causes of mortality for the country-levels for Scandinavian countries.
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/
Some countries have experienced higher than average mortality, but others experience lower than average.
Swedish people are far more social than any other Western country I have visited. There is no doubt in mind that the reason they are fairing without lockdown is because they can be trusted to follow health advice. I do not think many other Western countries populace can be trusted.
You wouldn't get fined but I can't imagine Tinder dates being seen favorably during a pandemic, even in Sweden.
On another note I'm genuinely curious to see what the conclusion will be regarding Sweden's approach. I'm still seeing polar opposite opinions on it every week.
It is interesting to read this. So let me say something as someone:
- who is respecting isolation
- been in depression for a decade and have been in 8 or 9 sessions of counseling
Shut up! You are being so selfish that I can not imagine. The only reason I am not moving is because if I learn that I caused even one person to die by being asymptomatic - my life will completely derail.
I have killed exactly 1 cat under my running car once (8 years back) and I still remember that incident when I could not act fast enough, it brings me into tears sometimes even now.
The emotional burden will break my life into pieces. Depression my ass man, you have no clue what these mental issues are and to live with consequences.
It's been really interesting(and frustrating, I'm trying my best to not argue lol) to see some people so intensely defend their selfishness online.
Pretending to be psychologist for a second, I wonder if these people know it's wrong, but trying to make them selves feel better about it. Otherwise if you truly think you're in the right, why defend your self so intensely to so strangers online
You're exactly right. Everyone has been so quick to not only accept, but actually promote and socially shame others into accepting, a massive authoritarian shift to remove everyone's basic freedoms. It's completely unprecedented and has massive negative effects for a large part of the population. Even straying from the accepted lockdown narrative leads to furious mob attacks.
It kind of blows my mind that it's come to this. But then again, I shouldn't be surprised given the last 5 years of outrage culture.
Conscription is a much heavier restriction of rights than being told to stay at home, yet it's been used multiple times in the US during the 20th century. Seems ahistorical to pin this on some sort of recent cultural shift.
I've always heard that it was the opposite; relying on conscription makes war less likely, since it's unpopular to force mothers to surrender their sons. The creation of a volunteer army is essential for prolonged war.
Looking at the history of the US, that seems about right.
> He argues that people should be given the tools to help protect themselves but that the government should leave it up to individuals to decide how they manage this.
Ok, but he was systematically minimizing threat constantly and all the time. When you purposefully feed people wrong information, latch yourself on every cherry-picked outlier study that everything is fine, you cant then turn around and say "it is all just about people making own decisions". That is just not true, because you are simultaneously manipulating people into decision that benefits you.
Also, Elon Musk did not advocate for setup where people who dont want to work keep unemployment benefits and people who do want to work can take their place either. None of that.
> Being forced to stay quarantined, to stop his life's work, probably drives him insane.
You know, when stay at home mom goes crazy after being suddenly all the time at home, she does not get that much of epical benefit of doubt. Seriously, some level of control over your emotional reaction could be expected from rich entrepreneurs too. And consequences are limited to husband and close family. Who typically tells her to stop the crap and she tries to figure out how to keep herself sane.
A pandemic is a social situation. The fact that your age group isn't at risk and YOU can protect yourself doesn't mean there are no consequences for your actions.
The government won't and shouldn't touch these issues unless a lethal PANDEMIC was going around.
You are not the center of the world, to live in society we all make compromises all the time. childish egotistical tantrums are the number one cause for over regulation. If people would do their best and try and precieve situations from POV other than their own, most laws would be moot.
It's the Trump and Elon of the world that make us have less freedoms, not the other way round.
The lockdown is far from unobjectionable. Some say this COVID-19 is right about on the edge between clearly favoring lockdown versus no lockdown. The mortality numbers really are not so large comparing to other causes of death, and if secondary human effects are taken into account the decision becomes already very difficult. There are several ways to approach this (with varying degrees of criticism), I think the main ones are 1) Simply evaluating separately human impact (measured in several ways -- all cause mortality, QALY, etc.) and economic impact; 2) Economic-exclusive approach: accept costs compatible with as far as current acceptable QALY costs. Both depend on disease modelling and social dynamics forecasts of course.
1) Addresses criticisms of 'putting a pricetag on life'. To be fair comparing and giving value to ways of life and death is quite difficult, so any simple single measure can be unacceptable to any majority.
2) This approach takes into account already established acceptable trade-offs between economy and healthcare costs. Simply an extension of what we already do: we do not spend all our resources trying to save everyone from every malady, we make trade-offs (e.g. many patients don't receive expensive treatments that could save their lives because of lack of resources). The problem here is indeed how we measure it, you could argue this particular situation begs a more sophisticated approach that can be measured e.g. by QALY.
Neither line seem lead to easy conclusions of lockdown. I haven't analyzed any of them in depth (would require tons of research and experience I don't have), but I think both approaches indeed currently suggest no lockdown except for extreme situations and keeping measures like mild social distancing and using masks.
This calculus seems like something society could more or less agree upon and this would increase readiness for an eventual next crisis too, without destroying our economy or delaying necessary measures due to controversy. I truly believe either epidemiologists (which were the main consultants), health care professionals, politicians or economists alone didn't have the necessary expertise to tackle this. A wide interdisciplinary approach is necessary (which we weren't ready for).
Sure but its not a question of lockdown/no lockdown. Its how long, how extreme, who and where.
For all that you need information, which takes time. So we've spent some time, gotten some more information, and now we can make (more) informed decisions.
What makes you think he zagged? He got the plant open a week early, and even got support from the president to do so. He seems to have been pretty solid for opening his factory as much as possible, not zigging and zagging.
Not like he had much choice. Some other car factories reopened May 4, so Tesla was being held back vs. their competition, which is why he was tweeting about going to a different state.
I don't mean to be rude, but it's getting a bit tiresome to read all the armchair psychologist opinions that read like they're commenting on some celebrities in a trash TV show. Whatever controversial thing Elon Musk does, it will always trigger a bunch of such gossipy posts in social media and unfortunately also on HN. They don't add anything to the public debate, because someone's gut feelings about someone else's character just aren't interesting and I've yet to see a qualified and reputable psychologist form his professional opinion based on a subject's Tweet. If you are truly concerned about him, you'll find more reasonable causes in his choice of partners. People take Twitter way too seriously...
I dispute that Elon "zagged" badly. Yes the manner in which he comports himself on social media is deeply unproductive, but he's not wrong and he wasn't the one who zagged—everyone else did.
I'm sorry that most people forget this, but we didn't lock down our societies and place our economies on life support because people might die. We did it because it was absolutely critical that we didn't allow our hospital systems to be overwhelmed. We needed to flatten the curve. And we succeeded.
Again, it was to flatten the curve, not because there was a greater-than-zero risk of death. But at some point between then and now, the narrative hs changed to talk about keeping people safe at any cost.
At the same time we need to balance economic well-being, as having the economy shut down can destroy people too. We can remain as cautious as possible with high risk areas (e.g. public transport, cinemas, live sports, festivals, nightclubs) while moving rapidly to restore economic activity where risk is low.
Perhaps the most obvious example of a low risk / high economic impact situation would be highly robotised manufacturing which can easily enforce PPE use and limit shared touch-points. While a Tesla car factory is not a zero-risk environment, it's still a much lower risk than visiting the local supermarket which would have far more people and far less compliance around distancing and PPE.
> Kids are essentially immune, but elderly with existing conditions are vulnerable. Family gatherings with close contact between kids & grandparents probably most risky.
That's just an outright false statement.
And just an "Actually" on the rest of your comment, we all know about flattening the curve and people are pretty sick and tired of hearing about how this is all really just flattening the curve. We know. Public health officials know. You don't need to tell us, the lockdowns were openly stated as flattening the curve from the beginning as were the plans for reopening. Plans that according to Elon Musk are fascism, a man who operates factories in the US and China and decided the US is the one that has a fascist government.
> Plans that according to Elon Musk are fascism, a man who operates factories in the US and China and decided the US is the one that has a fascist government.
He is also a man that was in mid-March, convinced, and was shouting at anyone who would listen, that cases in the US would somehow drop to essentially zero in April.
I'm not sure that his primary motivation is laying out logical, well-thought-out, sensible arguments about the situation. I do think that his primary motivation may have something to do with keeping his factories running, and that he will say whatever it takes to get to that point.
I didn’t say everything Elon has ever said on this subject is accurate, defensible or even sensical. He is a greatly flawed person who happens to be very competent at a few interesting things. Like many of us.
I was only defending the reopening of highly robotised manufacturing, not how Elon has comported himself in public.
The Tesla California plant has a very bad record when it comes to safety issues. California helped Tesla by looking the other way because they knew the company was starting and that they are very valuable for California.
And then Elon called them fascist because he could not open up the factory due to the virus. Of course officials then would like to approve the safety standards before opening up the factory again.
On the other hand nothing is going on here. The county already wanted to open up the businesses.
Elon lost a lot respect in all this. Maybe he has a lot on his mind like becoming a father again, the virus, selling all his properties, wanting to go to mars earlier than possible, his brain implant project, and so on. To me he sounds a little exhausted. In the latest Joe Rogan he also looks very tired and dim.
I'd say the evidence is mounting Elon probably has some type of undiagnosed (because lol money) mental health condition he'd benefit from treatment for. His latest episodes on twitter have looked like a bipolar's manic phase except he hasn't been able to (I presume) talk the ear off employees at one of his companies.
People really need to stop with the armchair psychology nonsense. Not everybody who send an angry tweet is now biopolar. And not everybody who disagrees with your opinion is psychologically damaged.
The plant doesn't actually have a 'very bad record' as far as I can tell. They have many regulatory violations, but if the other companies running production on that scale were in California they would likely have just as many. And if those 'violations' actually translation into actual harm, I have not seen much evidence for.
Can you actually provide solid evidence about actual people harmed that shows that Tesla is unsafer then any similar plants in the US?
> Elon lost a lot respect in all this.
With some people he gained a lot of respect. Seems like you are just applying your own option and that of people you know and believe this is societies opinion.
I'm kinda wondering why he wants to reopen the factory.
Car demand is sure to plummet with a long economic depression coming, and electric cars moreso since the price of fuel is the lowest it's been for decades.
Considering that, if I were in Elons position, I'd prefer the state to be paying my employees salaries, and leave most of my factories closed. Keep the R&D department going so I have some awesome new products in a year's time when the economy starts recovering.
> Considering that, if I were in Elon's position, I'd prefer the state to be paying my employees salaries, and leave most of my factories closed. Keep the R&D department going so I have some awesome new products in a year's time when the economy starts recovering.
Back orders/deposits are clogging up the system, thus affecting the total supply chain of deliverable cars. Model Y was not as popular in deposits as 3 was, that might have changed since I looked at the data, but also 3's line at Fremont is optimized for Y's output. Also, that's the only factory that make S/X/Y chassis for now. so its a bottleneck issue, too.
Essentially, this comes down to opportunity costs; people have paid, in part, for a car which if they choose to can/will always be refunded if they don't want it before taking delivery. Tesla would then have to not only give them their deposit back, but also have to figure out what to do with the chassis--taking on a net loss, but also assume liability for its inventory.
If Elon is right, Y is supposed to be their most popular chassis yet, so it'd probably just go to the next customer with the same specs. But still, my best guess is that this comes down to opportunity costs and unrealized gains--they have procured all the materials for assembly and its creating a backlog in production/vin assignment along with costly storage fees.
Which after the pain-staking processes with Model 3 ramp up, and optimization it has to be near unavoidable to want to learn and iterate as fast as possible to streamline the process to meet Global demand. I still can't figure out why the Gigafactory at Sparks isn't being used as an adjunct of their manufacturing, instead of just cramming ever-more of their entire inventory into Fremont.
I agree with Elon's position that most don't take the importance and difficulty of Manufacturing and its Supply Chain/Logistics very seriously at best and totally for granted and way too lightly at worst, because in reality it's a myriad of ever-changing cogs and gears all working in what may seem to the outsider as an effortless machine. It's like plumbing, if you've done it right most don't/won't even notice it until something goes catastrophically wrong: and then they're up in arms about having to deal with not getting fed because someone like Amazon is taking 3.5 weeks to deliver goods when it used to be same day.
Having everyone wear mask would have been a proper solution had there been enough of them for everyone.
But the stocks were so badly depleted there were not enough of them for critical workers...
Also, getting widespread compliance outside of Asia would have been hard before the lockdowns, when public figures left and right were minimizing the threat.
I don't think (if we had them) compliance would have been a problem if government just dictated their usage by law like they are doing now. You use it or you don't enter the shop, simple. But lying about it (we even have a meme with the head of the national health organisation screaming that masks don't work) made everything more difficult. Now because of that, some people actually think they don't work and try not to use them.
But instead, as usual, instead of being truthful to people, lies were said because of lack of supplies, which takes any kind of credence for future rules/advice as people will (rightfully) suspect of them.
I wonder if the lies were informed by empirical social psychology, or if they were based on our leaders’ level of selfishness projected onto the general population...
there weren't enough scarves for everyone? Because random cotton face coverings is what the US govt wound up recommending. And the mask shortage was solved long, long ago, but lockdown wasn't lifted. And if there was a shortage it's because the government (and hospitals) failed basic disaster preparedness, but I don't hear any mea culpas coming from govt or other guilty parties.
French officials have admitted they lied initially because of the mask shortages, which weren’t solved until recently.
I agree they lacked preparedness. They also reacted far too late ( the lockdown was postponed in France to hold local elections mid-March. From what I’ve heard all political parties were on board with that plan, even though the opposition is now using it against the govt.).
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 269 ms ] threadIf Musk isn't right there on the factory line among the workers and endangering his life along with the workers that he is forcing to come work for him, then I will lose a tremendous amount of respect for him. If anything, this should be a good opportunity for the factory workers to unionize and demand better treatment.
If you look you'll see this behavior across a wide range of issues.
It's always hard to explain, and then after explaining the probability stuff ... you get to explain that it is the probability ... that we know of.
For anyone who wants hard facts on COVID-19... science will tell us in 2 or 3 years I suspect.
There was no outrage about other factories because most US factories use more automation than Tesla and workers are generally spaced more than 6 feet apart at "stations" on the assembly line. (See, e.g., the General Mills factories where cereal is made, any other US automaker, etc.)
Bullshit. You are confusing different activities that involve not getting paid.
Not showing up for work, the person doesn't get paid, and contrary to your claim (there are no such "multiple reports" unless you are counting reddit comments?) Tesla is being nice and not firing them, but instead putting them on unpaid leave so their job is actually held open for a while. Not even the same ballpark as fired.
Yes there are consequences for unemployment since their job is available to them should they want to do it. This is by law, not Tesla's doing. They aren't terminated by the way… another word for fired… just on unpaid leave, again.
>workers are generally spaced more than 6 feet apart
That's also the case at the Fremont factory.
Except it was illegal for Tesla to be opening up early against health department orders, so it seems likely that the law would actually be on the employee’s side. Terminating an employee for refusing to violate lawful government orders is illegal.
Of course, non-unionized factory workers at Tesla may very well not have a lawyer on retainer to consult about this and might feel forced by Tesla’s unlawful threat to go in anyway...
No, I'm not. Every media article on this, including by Teslerati and other pro-Tesla sites is unanimous on this point.
Not showing up for work, the person doesn't get paid, and contrary to your claim (there are no such "multiple reports" unless you are counting reddit comments?) Tesla is being nice and not firing them, but instead putting them on unpaid leave so their job is actually held open for a while. Not even the same ballpark as fired.
Only someone in Silicon Valley could think that being put on unpaid leave is somehow "being nice" to the employee. Many people live paycheck to paycheck. Also, Tesla wasn't being nice--they were following labor law. If they had terminated those employees without sufficient notice they would have violated state and federal WARN Acts.
This is by law, not Tesla's doing. They aren't terminated by the way… another word for fired… just on unpaid leave, again.
This is false. Tesla asserted that it would challenge any employee's claim that the termination was COVID-related, when the whole reason the factory was shut down was due to COVID restrictions. This is a heinous violation.
That's also the case at the Fremont factory.
This is also false. Employees in the Fremont factory work within 6 feet of each other at multiple stations when the factory is operational. At many stations on their lines, they literally work side-by-side as if they were in a meat-packing plant.
In the long term, you can't subvert the fundamental fact that the economy is what allows people to obtain goods and services. If a country cuts production in half for a year, it won't be able to provide the standard of living to which its citizens are accustomed, no matter what financial wizardry is involved.
So that crowded bus for hours thing, not sure where that came from.
Shopping takes less time that working, for sure, but that's missing the point, because the environment at a store is much dirtier. The Tesla plant is pretty clean and you don't have random people wandering in off the streets touching everything.
> My employer furloughed me when its business closed due to the COVID-19 stay-at- home order. I am currently receiving regular UI benefits. My employer is reopening and has asked me to return to work. Will I lose my regular UI benefits if I refuse to return to work because I am afraid of contracting COVID-19 in the workplace?
> An individual is disqualified for UI if they refuse to accept “suitable” employment when offered. Under California law, the EDD will consider whether the particular work is “suitable” in light of factors such as the degree of risk involved to the individual’s health and safety. For example, if your employer has complied with the state’s requirements for reopening, and any and all government safety regulations, you may not have good cause to refuse to return to work and could be disqualified from continuing to receive regular UI benefits for a designated period of time.
Whether you lose your unemployment comes down entirely to whether the government of California deems the working conditions suitable, Tesla’s judgement “suitable” does not enter into the equation in any way whatsoever. Elsewhere in the FAQ they also specifically state that your own individual risk factors are taken into account when making this judgement. If you have an issue with people choosing between unemployment or unsafe working conditions, that issue lies exclusively with the state.
https://edd.ca.gov/about_edd/coronavirus-2019/faqs.htm
The more important question is: how do you even justify forcing workers to make the choice?
And, again, I ask you: how do you justify asking workers to make the choice between health and safety or having income to support their families? You literally ignored every point in my comment.
Again, how do you justify forcing that choice on someone? I think by now it's clear that you're simply trying to weasel out of answering that.
You are asserting that CA EDD is in fact not following this policy. You have not provided any actual concrete claims to support this. You have not described a single way in which the standards of the CA EDD are insufficient, or a single instance of their delinquency in following this policy. As far as I can tell, you believe the CA EDD to be delinquent as some sort of perfectly obvious self-evident truth. Which leads me to believe that you in fact do not have any specific criticism to offer at all, and that you have absolutely nothing to offer a conversation on this topic.
> They're being told "you have to go back to work, regardless of whether you think it's safe, because we, the state, think it is."
Now, how do you justify the state telling people what is and is not safe for them to return to work?
Your question is actually "how does the state justify setting minimum safety standards for work places?", because your criticism applies to any and all scenarios where they choose to do so. Most people would agree that minimum safety standards should be defined, and that the state is usually the best party to handle that. But what if people think the state hasn't done a good enough job? Well people are entitled to think anything they like, for any reason at all. Some people think that the state is delinquent in allowing for coronavirus-causing 5G cell towers to be built. Just because somebody thinks something, doesn't mean it has any merit. For somebody's thoughts to be taken seriously, they are usually expected to provide some sort of rational basis for having them. So far you have provided no basis at all, rational or otherwise, for believing that the CA EDD has failed to make reasonable judgements about workplace safety in relation to COVID-19. If you're not capable of doing that, then your assertion that people are being forced to choose between receiving unemployment benefits and their own personal safety, is completely without merit.
10 in 100,000 risk of death ranks with the 20th most deadly occupation in the US: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-dangerous-jobs-in-a...
This is not about "minimum workplace standards," this is about people who are now subjected to significantly more danger simply by going to work. Based on the list in the article, it would make anyone's job at least 10-200% more dangerous.
So, again, how do you justify that? Keep in mind, these are not workers who signed up for the 21st most deadly occupation in the US. Please try to actually answer the question rather than weasel out of it.
---
[0]: 1% cumulative chance of getting the disease in the next year. Also, 1% fatality rate is an approximation. Let's not quibble about the actual number. We've already lost far more than 10 in 100,000 Americans to this disease. The fact is, COVID-19 makes going to work vastly more dangerous than it was 5 months ago.
Your entire premise is that the standards used by the CA EDD are not sufficient, and that you speculate they're going to increase COVID fatalities by more than an order of magnitude. Yet you can not provide a single reason to justify any of this speculation.
Again, you seem to be saying the state has this right, and I would like you to justify that belief. Or, would you rather waste more words trying to weasel away from the question?
The state of California did not create COVID-19, and it’s not responsible for ensuring that you live your life free from the risk of personal harm. Aside from being an entirely impossible task, it has never been the role of government to reduce your risk of harm to zero. The role of government in this context is generally agreed to be setting minimum standards. The state of California decided those standards could not be met when the outbreak began, and required large numbers of people to remain at home. Those people were entitled to unemployment benefits. It has now decided that in some circumstances it is safe to return to work. If it is safe for you to return to work, according to the standards set by the CA EDD, and you have a place of work to return to, your choice is to return to a safe place of work, or sacrifice your entitlement to unemployment benefits. If you do not have a safe place of work to return to, you don’t have to make any decision at all.
If you believe that people are being forced to return to unsafe working environments, then state your case. Because so far the only case you’ve put forward to support that theory is statistics that you literally just made up.
There is even risks from being born, but we still encourage it.
With COVID-19 out of control, I am saying that the state has no right to force workers back to jobs that are now 3x as dangerous as they were 5 months ago.
As for risk of being born, we should not encourage that, because the unborn cannot consent to being born, but thank you for playing.
I'm just not sure what you mean when you talk about the state having a right. COVID-19 isn't expected to go away entirely for a long time, and California doesn't have enough money to give everyone paid leave for the next year. Workers can't be paid money that doesn't exist, even if they have a right to be paid.
Oh, so we've met criteria for a full reopening? I can stop wearing my mask? That's news to me.
As for the state "having money," do you think they have literal vaults of cash that's in finite supply, or something? The federal government should be subsidizing the health of employees in this case, and they can do it by incrementing numbers in a computer. It's that simple.
Masks are going to be a part of our lives for a while, most likely for the next year or two. If you expect a full reopening to mean no masks, you should recalibrate your expectations.
In other words, you made it up, and put quote marks around it. That's not a super great way of conducting a conversation. OK.
Even so, I think the state should have the power to make that determination, if it's being asked to hand you a check.
But they consider factors like family risk and childcare needs, and they have interviews to go over details of specific cases.
So I think you're too easily making up stuff here and not grasping what the real facts are.
Glad to know you think the state has a right to make my job 3x as dangerous, because "fuck me," right? Circumstances aside, you're literally saying the state has a right to send some people into the line of fire for the sake of what? Capitalism? The economy?
If an individual has particular safety or health issues regarding returning to the workplace, then their unemployment is not affected.
So they don't have to make the choice you are saying they have to make.
Also, to be fair, their approach seems to be in accordance with the law as workers that do not return should be reported to unemployment boards, from my understanding.
Not arguing if it’s right or wrong.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-thank-you-note-tes...
1. Producing masks, gloves, face shields
2. Producing tests or test supplies (cotton swabs, reagents, etc.)
3. Things related to contact tracing (not sure what material goods this would need off-hand)
4. Vaccine research (again, nothing they could do)
The choice is not between re-open now or never re-open. If we actually had at least the first 3 things above, re-opening could be done in a controlled and safe manner. We still don't have those things, months later.
Unfortunately, Alameda County doesn't publish daily test counts or anything, so the best citation I have for you is a random news article[1] asserting they're 1/3 of the way to 3100 tests per day.
[1] https://www.kqed.org/science/1963889/coronavirus-some-bay-ar...
That way it could also move quicker if things actually do turn worse. Since there are plenty of examples already of states and regions opening up without any consequences.
I think you’ve nailed it. The virtuous and vocal “stay home save lives” crowd invariably has almost no skin in the game. They get their food delivered to them (sucks for those folks) and their livelihood is secured.
The rest of us are left to fend for ourselves.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/class-war-...
Of course we need to open, but right now (May) is not that time. If I had to guess (which is irrelevant to a data driven approach) I would assume late June or July would be safer.
Things are going to turn around again of course. Sooner or later reality is going to hit when the handouts stop and the food supply dries up. Humanity isn’t going to survive by doing nothing and the people who put in the work and take the risks now have to be incentivized or they may quit working as well.
I don't have a job at the moment, I'm trapped in another state, and I started a non profit to distribute hand sanitizer for free in that community -- BECAUSE IT IS STILL NOT AVAILABLE TO EASILY PURCHASE. The Purell factory is literally 10 miles away, and yet we are not where we need to be.
I realize that it totally sucks that we need to do these things in order to safely resume normal society. Wouldn't it be great if we had spent the last 2 months making steady progress on those goals?
http://handsanz.org/
You know in the US far too many people are obsessed with going to work even if sick, because they don't get paid otherwise. This needs to change.
The only difference is that Alameda County opposed the factory reopening. Not the city of Fremont, not the state of California, not the federal government. It was the county that held its reopening up.
The state gave discretion to the county and the county was enforcing a standard that Elon didn’t want to follow, or else wanted to stage a scene to justify his inevitable relocation to a state with cheaper labor. Now we’re back to the original county schedule.
Not even recommended guidance, just advisory. AKA "Here's a one size fits all list we expect you to tailor to your particular situation."
Never mind that “federal guidelines” have no legal relevance to county or state health orders. The US constitution leaves police power, including quarantine orders, to the discretion of the states.
Health workers are literally hands on infected people coughing in their face. They also have infected people literally delivered to them. It’s apples and oranges.
This is a meat packing plant: https://postmediacalgaryherald2.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/... Shoulder to shoulder all day long. Those are their stations for their entire shift.
Notice also: no masks. And because they've been deemed a critical industry, they aren't necessarily getting masks now either. So no distancing, and no masks. These are also very poorly paid jobs, and it would be unusual if they had health insurance or paid time off.
It's pretty much the perfect conditions for covid.
Cars tend to be a bit bigger than chickens.. so in a car factory, the workers are usually more than 6 ft apart.
All the images I've seen are dominated by large robotic arms with people sparsely sprinkled throughout.
Every day and every part of life, we balance safety with living life. Public health is no different: it is a balance, not an extremist view that we must eradicate COVID at all costs.
We cannot shut down non-essential until there's a vaccine. That's just not possible. All work is essential, and public governments can't print money forever (without hyperinflation).
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The original timeline was always to reopen certain businesses May 18th, since the first extensions of the lockdowns were to expire on May 15th, and as demonstrated by the entire rest of the state opening up according to that schedule without anyone else throwing a tantrum.
Also, the county doesn't need to do anything to save face. They have nothing to prove. The elected officials can always say they were acting on the information of health experts, and the health experts can always point to the CDC, China, and even the re-emerging outbreaks in Wuhan, Italy, and Germany as reasons for not allowing Tesla to restart operations ahead of schedule and before Tesla had demonstrated they were willing to protect their workers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIzGdoPu9vs
Musk then publicly called the diver a pedophile, hired a guy to try and find dirt to prove his statement, and then attempted to have the media publish articles calling the diver a pedophile multiple times. And then tried to insinuate that because the diver hadn't told him to stop or sued him, he must be telling the truth. (So of course the diver sued him the next day.)
This isn't allowed on HN. Get a new obsession.
Oh no! Linking to recent and relevant NYT articles on Elon! Flamebait!
As late as Sunday (today/yesterday), Alameda County hedged and did not give an specific date, only saying "early this week" (https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/17/sighs-of-relief-and-h...)
On Friday they said sometime next week (did not specify early or not) (https://www.kron4.com/news/contra-costa-alameda-counties-hol...).
May 8th, they said sometime mid-May (https://abc7news.com/when-california-is-going-to-reopen-stag...)
Finally, at the end of April, Alameda County (and the rest of the Bay Area) extended the lockdowns to expire May 31st, not May 15th, as you stated.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/17/coronavirus-new-cases...
33 cases today, region of 1.6M people.
Alemada County is alright by California standards, but is the worse performing Bay Area county (hospitalizations are flat for a month, rather than dropping like its neighbors). And 33 a day for 1.6m people is actually on the high side by northern California standards. (As a point of comparison, Santa Clara is at about 15 a day for 1.9 million)
It is kind of interesting that this conflict could be seen as mostly between city and county officials, but people love character and so Elon Musk becomes the only relevant player even though his only contribution has been to dare officials to have him arrested.
So, once again we see that most of public policy is about fantasy and narrative. Some businesses can open but not others which means basically everyone. City and county officials worked things out which means Musk has super powers and zero legal constraints.
I've always been impressed by his agility with ideas, zigging and zagging and I've been there cheering him on. But on this one it seems like he....went off the cliff, Wiley E. Coyote style.
Besides that, he's a contrarian. With COVID, we're faced with a situation where there is an extremely strong pressure to conform. There's one narrative being pushed and there's no real dialogue. Elon has a contrarian narrative: our basic human rights have been taken away (freedom of movement, etc) in the name of the greater collective good. He argues that people should be given the tools to help protect themselves but that the government should leave it up to individuals to decide how they manage this.
I tend to agree with him. We're told a vaccine could be two years away (or may never come). The fatality rate in my age group is about the same as the flu. I happen to be single, and at the moment, where I'm living, if I have a date with someone, I could technically be fined $1500 (and there have been a few reports of people going on tinder dates who have been). Since when has it been the government's business to legislate in these sorts of matters? I have been making efforts to socially isolate, but it's pushed me into a depression, I started taking antidepressants a month ago. I know two of my friends have done the same.
Weighing things like the lives of others vs a small disruption in your sex life seems right up government's (organized society's in general, even) alley.
Here we're talking about the mental health and wellbeing, the livelihood and life work (eg small businesses) of billions of people, being sacrificed in the hopes that this will save hundreds of thousands. You can argue that this is for the greater collective good, but how do you put a value on lives, or on everyone's mental health? For the sake of argument, how much is the lifespan of the average American due to job losses, foreclosures, bankruptcies, etc.? What kind of effect will isolation have on young children, who are being told that they can't play with other kids their age, during critical phases of their brain development?
I think it's perfectly fair to ask where we draw the line as to what is too much government control in the name of protecting the collective greater good. How much do you think your government should be allowed to control your life in the name of the greater good?
The previous paragraph had a more societally-oriented critique of lockdown measure, and the fact that the disruption has caused him and ostensibly two others so much distress as to seek prescribed medication in order to cope with it is far more salient within the latter paragraph, imo.
Your relativization of your fellow citizens as just a matter of numbers and "how old will they die anyways?" is absolutely heartless. These are actual people, with families, friends and close people. Not just numbers on the John Hopkins charts.
But hey, what could happen if you reopened ? After all, New York only had to deal with a shortage of medical equipment, medical personnel being exhausted and overworked, a need to bring cooling trucks just to hold the dead bodies. Combine that with the fact that the moment your health system gets overwhelmed and cannot treat other illnesses, those deaths will go through the roof. It's not a crazy theory. It's something epidemiologists have studied for a while, and we have seen its effect with cases in Europe, where deaths not related to Covid-19 have gone up, because we couldn't treat heart diseases, other pulmonary diseases, etc. Oh, and, an overwhelmed medical system also leads to a shutdown of other parts of your precious economy. People will not go to work because being injured means you cannot be treated. Half of construction gone. Half of any job that involves dangerous conditions gone. And how many other jobs will that destroy ? This lockdown is a necessary evil, and the best option we have.
So, yes. The government has every right to protect millions of citizens from dying. You can handle staying home. I know it's hard at times, and I truly hope that you will get better. But it's not complicated. Sit. at. home.
We don't know what the actual death rate is, we need more antibody studies to figure that out.
> "how old will they die anyways?"
I didn't say that, you did.
> These are actual people, with families, friends and close people.
Yes, and hundreds of millions of people with families, friends and loved ones are suffering in many ways because of the lockdown. I don't know how many depressions, foreclosures, broken marriages and boarded up small businesses one saved life is worth, but there's a tradeoff being made.
FWIW, I am staying home. I get my groceries delivered and leave the house about once or twice a week. I try to distance myself from people on the sidewalk, etc.
To start with, at least in my country (Canada), the narrative has never, ever been to 'stop transmission of the virus'. Ever. EG, the narrative has never been to 'stop people from getting it'.
(NOTE: I'm talking about responses from official government officials, not blather in blogs, media, etc)
The only point for the lockdown, was/is to slow down the transmission of the virus, so that hospitals would not be overwhelmed. In other words, as everyone, literally everyone catches it, that those which have a worst-outcome, have the best treatment possible.
That's it.
There's no attempt, or hope, or plan in the lockdown, to stop people from getting the virus. At all.
In this context, the lockdown is not to 'save lives', in the sense of 'people won't get it, and be safe'. So, when the hospitals aren't overwhelmed, when it has been shown that the virus isn't quite as deadly as thought to some, it is entirely logical, and sensible, to open up.
And to that end, it is entirely logical and sensible to insist people return to work. Because unless people become complete and total hermits for years, they'll get it...
One side note here.
I've done a bit of research, and two things stand out:
- Italy, hit bad - New York, hit bad - Montreal, certain sectors, hit bad
After a bit of research, I've concluded that one of the high-risk factors is sickle cell anemia. Something tha is VERY common in blacks from Africa, as it does help protect against malaria.
Yet guess what other population group is pre-dispositioned to it? Italians. Due to the Roman Empire's control of Africa.
https://www.sicklecellsociety.org/resource/sickle-cell-anemi... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7365760
Who has a large Italian, and Black population? New York. The sectors in Montreal hard hit.
Also note that the Italian population in New York is self reporting, so I suspect the numbers are higher (eg, grandpa was Italian, etc).
Hind sight is a wonderful thing, I would never chastise our governments for locking down, based upon what was happening in Italy. However, combine its aged population AND sickle cell anemia, and ho boy... no wonder!
Now transpose that to the average population in North America. Not quite the same.
Lastly, Ontario/Quebec... have repeatedly stated that there will be a 'second and third' wave. That even if things ebb and stop, soon as the fall comes? It will likely reappear.
I think ... I think it is logical to be concerned for one's safety, but I often look at our ancestors and compared, and I find us wanting. Pre-widespream vaccination (even in the 50s), before many vaccines had been developed, people would think us bananas worrying about all these deaths.
They'd put on masks maybe, but.. so many people died due to childhood and adult viruses.
Even the idea that falling off a ladder, could kill you simply because at one time antibiotics couldn't help if you had even small amounts of internal infection/bleeding. Sulfa drugs just didn't cut it.
Yet... compared to that lifestyle, we're insanely pampered.
But beyond all this? Unless we reopen, we'll all starve and die of other, massive issues.
Want food? You need 1000 little things, all produced by 1000s of industries. Parts for machines, additives, chemicals, transport, and all of that depending upon more and more of our infrastructure and production.
Try to trace, for example, a steel cog for a machine. Or, a chemical used.
You'll find dependencies on dozens of i...
My elderly father lives with us. He worked in hospitals and during his heyday he had to deal with all sorts of contagious patients. His youth wouldn't have spared him from some of those diseases, but I don't think he worried too much about it.
But now he's 80 and ever since this pandemic started, there's only been fear-inducing news every day.
On one hand, there's the very real fact that the elderly are dropping like flies in Quebec due to poor management of retirement homes (which my dad saw coming years ago because he'd worked in those as well and the situation had only continued to degrade since he'd left).
But on the other hand, you've got all of these auxiliary news reports that only feel like negative reinforcement and has you solely focused on the virus as if it were the only threat out there now. And I think that messes with people's mind.
The day my dad stops being scared of the virus won't be the day the virus is gone, because that'll be in years, if ever. It'll be the day the news stop telling him to be scared.
But either way, my wife and I are fortunate enough to be able to work from home and minimize our outings for a while. I wouldn't expect everyone else to be able to do the same.
Your info is interesting. I'm in Luskville (just West of Gatineau, a quick 15 minute drive to Ottawa). I've been running my own consultant business for 20+ years, and mostly remote.
Like you and your wife, I am lucky. I still have my income, and in my case I live on a 1 acre rural lot. Almost nothing has changed in my life, even trips to my (remote) grocery store, at worst, tend to have a 2 minute wait to get in.
One thing here ; I don't have cable. I don't read Google News, or News websites. It's been... well, a decade since I've even seen more than a glimpse of a 24 hours news channel.
I've checked a few news websites, but I wonder how I'd be thinking, if I too was 80, probably not extremely mobile, bored, and watching some/a lot of news.
Maybe the real virus, is the News.
> We're talking about a "flu" that has, in a matter of weeks, completely overwhelmed every single health system in the world.
Many health care systems have been well below capacity throughout this. This includes most of the US (e.g. California), it includes places that have not shut down (Sweden), and it includes places that have reopened weeks ago (Georgia).
Despite these easily verifiable facts, many people believe as you do that health care systems are being overwhelmed everywhere. Maybe because the media is painting this picture by only focusing on the few places where this is actually happening.
This is hysteria.
It is blinding people from seeing the real, measurable damage wrought by the policies being enacted.
Sweden has been heavily criticized for its handling of the situation, and Europe is extremely wary of them right now. With good reason. The US does have the chance to be an extremely large country, so transmission is slightly less likely. California has not been overwhelmed through a mix of luck and, would you guess it, self quarantine.
>This is hysteria.
Pretending that doing nothing could not have catastrophic consequences is dangerous. Even with self quarantine (or imposed quarantine), this disease is the number one source of illness related deaths in the year in western countries. And this is only May.
Now, you write:
> Sweden has been heavily criticized for its handling of the situation
Yes, people have differing opinions. The fact is that Sweden is not an outlier in number of deaths despite keeping its economy essentially open. Perhaps this is what happens when you inform your citizens and then trust them to do the right thing?
> Pretending that doing nothing could not have catastrophic consequences is dangerous.
I agree, and I did not suggest that we should do nothing. But what are the optimal policies? Are the policies we have now optimal or can we do better? We need open and honest discussion to make progress on these questions.
I think this is enough to at least challenge the common viewpoint that restrictive lockdowns are the only way to deal with this.
I know the UK royally botched its coronavirus response (waiting until the virus was spreading far too quickly before doing anything at all), although I do not know about France and Italy.
I can only speak for myself, but with the lack of trustworthy information, I find it very difficult to draw any conclusions at all.
So that is an important starting point for a discussion: it is possible to keep things mostly open (with appropriate safety measures) without overwhelming the healthcare system.
Note that it is possible that Sweden’s approach will eventually lead to a comparable number of deaths as its neighbors, but at an accelerated rate. Namely, it is possible that people are getting infected at a higher rate, which explains the higher numbers, but that the mortality rate will eventually be the same because the healthcare system is not overwhelmed. This depends on when and if we will find a vaccine and better treatments, which is an unknown.
On the other side of the equation, there is no mass unemployment, no hours-long lines at food banks, people are not suffering from mental health problems due to isolation, and so on. If Sweden does end up paying a higher price for its policies, it will still enjoy these benefits. They decided that it is worth the trade off. They are trying to prevent covid victims while also trying to protect potential economic victims, whose suffering is not being ignored. Is that wrong?
[*] 88% of deaths in Sweden are people over 70, and I believe many of those were in nursing homes. So it is possible that fine-tuning the policy can significantly reduce the death rate while keeping things open.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-corona...
All countries with higher deaths per capita than Sweden are significantly poorer, e.g. the UK has only 67% of Swedens GDP per capita, Spain has less than 50%.
Both France and Italy seem to be past the peak of this wave and have declining active cases, while the number of active cases are still growing in Sweden. I couldn't find the number of active cases for the UK.
I understand that the perception of the impact of the virus can be large, when seeing a new virus. But considering that those countries have extremely large average lifespan would tilt the numbers to make the perception of the statistics have larger impact than they are.
My comment was also that ICUs have been available for most of Europe - the hospital system was not overwhelmed at all for most of EU counties. If you take away the U.K., Italy, Spain, the rest of hospital infrastructure in EU remained under-utilised. This is good they remained under-utilised and it reveals that there are measures which can avoid a catastrophic event.
Total mortality is also already much higher in the EU than in the years before (Edit: Despite the lockdowns!).
You can make any claim, but be aware that claims not based on true facts are illogical and not constructive. There have been changes from the status quo to adhere to strict hygienic levels across large portion of the world. Find changes already applied across EU, USA, Asia, Africa, South Africa, etc.
In a circumstance where a person focuses on one area and disregards other areas fully, is a setup for failure. Focusing exclusively on this virus and disregarding everything else is not a recipe for a fulfilment.
But what it did not take into account was stopping the spread from getting into care homes, which is the most likely explanation for our bad numbers. Our elder care was, unlike our hospitals, entirely unprepared for a pandemic.
This is not hysteria it's the consequences of careful policy. Without that policy you may have seen healthcare systems crumble.
Y2K was precieved in hindsight as a media induce hiysteria without legitimacy because nothing bad happened.
But nothing bad happened because the entire industry took in seriously and did something about it. Geez...
However, see Sweden for a clear counter-example to your claim that the services are holding up because of the drastic actions taken. Their services are holding up with far less drastic measures.
Please review the data in conjunction with this statement. In ALL of Eastern Europe, the hospitals are essentially empty. Note that in ALL Scandinavian countries, there has always been additional allocated spare beds. I am not to downplay the risk. I note that there were shortages in London, Spain, Italy. But please review the absolute value of calling *every single health system in the world”.
Now
>Besides that, he's a contrarian. With COVID, we're faced with a situation where there is an extremely strong pressure to conform. There's one narrative being pushed and there's no real dialogue
This might be a European perspective, but what do you mean with "no dialogue"? Our media has been full with people pushing the viewpoint that we should reopen faster, that the economy should go before saving lifes, that "Sweden is doing fine". These were given a voice and then everyone else told them it's a stupid idea and get lost. There continues to be dialogue about this. People are challenging rulings, suing governments for damages etc.
Or maybe you mean that there hasn't been "the ability to do whatever you want without getting fined"?
And well you should be, you selfish person. This is about keeping it from spreading to people who are in a high risk group. How hard is that to understand? Think for others, for a change, not just yourself.
You could be giving more money away and spending more time volunteering... But if you volunteered on top of your full-time job and gave all your money away, you might burn out, get into a depression, etc. There's some selfless sacrifices that you're not willing to make. Does that make you selfish? Is that bad?
So, if I got it right, you're saying that your sex life is something you can't temporarily sacrifice to slow the spread of a potentially fatal disease. You make me sick.
All the rest of your comments are just whataboutism. The world is full of moral wrongs, so your argument is that we should let it descend into a feeding frenzy. I shouldn't tell people they're acting selfishly if I've ever stepped on an ant. Completely absurd. Look in a mirror, bud.
I guess "doing fine" is in the eye of the beholder, but clearly more people are dying there than in neighboring Nordic countries.
Some countries have experienced higher than average mortality, but others experience lower than average.
On another note I'm genuinely curious to see what the conclusion will be regarding Sweden's approach. I'm still seeing polar opposite opinions on it every week.
- who is respecting isolation
- been in depression for a decade and have been in 8 or 9 sessions of counseling
Shut up! You are being so selfish that I can not imagine. The only reason I am not moving is because if I learn that I caused even one person to die by being asymptomatic - my life will completely derail.
I have killed exactly 1 cat under my running car once (8 years back) and I still remember that incident when I could not act fast enough, it brings me into tears sometimes even now.
The emotional burden will break my life into pieces. Depression my ass man, you have no clue what these mental issues are and to live with consequences.
Pretending to be psychologist for a second, I wonder if these people know it's wrong, but trying to make them selves feel better about it. Otherwise if you truly think you're in the right, why defend your self so intensely to so strangers online
It kind of blows my mind that it's come to this. But then again, I shouldn't be surprised given the last 5 years of outrage culture.
Looking at the history of the US, that seems about right.
Ok, but he was systematically minimizing threat constantly and all the time. When you purposefully feed people wrong information, latch yourself on every cherry-picked outlier study that everything is fine, you cant then turn around and say "it is all just about people making own decisions". That is just not true, because you are simultaneously manipulating people into decision that benefits you.
Also, Elon Musk did not advocate for setup where people who dont want to work keep unemployment benefits and people who do want to work can take their place either. None of that.
> Being forced to stay quarantined, to stop his life's work, probably drives him insane.
You know, when stay at home mom goes crazy after being suddenly all the time at home, she does not get that much of epical benefit of doubt. Seriously, some level of control over your emotional reaction could be expected from rich entrepreneurs too. And consequences are limited to husband and close family. Who typically tells her to stop the crap and she tries to figure out how to keep herself sane.
You are not the center of the world, to live in society we all make compromises all the time. childish egotistical tantrums are the number one cause for over regulation. If people would do their best and try and precieve situations from POV other than their own, most laws would be moot. It's the Trump and Elon of the world that make us have less freedoms, not the other way round.
1) Addresses criticisms of 'putting a pricetag on life'. To be fair comparing and giving value to ways of life and death is quite difficult, so any simple single measure can be unacceptable to any majority.
2) This approach takes into account already established acceptable trade-offs between economy and healthcare costs. Simply an extension of what we already do: we do not spend all our resources trying to save everyone from every malady, we make trade-offs (e.g. many patients don't receive expensive treatments that could save their lives because of lack of resources). The problem here is indeed how we measure it, you could argue this particular situation begs a more sophisticated approach that can be measured e.g. by QALY.
Neither line seem lead to easy conclusions of lockdown. I haven't analyzed any of them in depth (would require tons of research and experience I don't have), but I think both approaches indeed currently suggest no lockdown except for extreme situations and keeping measures like mild social distancing and using masks.
This calculus seems like something society could more or less agree upon and this would increase readiness for an eventual next crisis too, without destroying our economy or delaying necessary measures due to controversy. I truly believe either epidemiologists (which were the main consultants), health care professionals, politicians or economists alone didn't have the necessary expertise to tackle this. A wide interdisciplinary approach is necessary (which we weren't ready for).
For all that you need information, which takes time. So we've spent some time, gotten some more information, and now we can make (more) informed decisions.
Not like he had much choice. Some other car factories reopened May 4, so Tesla was being held back vs. their competition, which is why he was tweeting about going to a different state.
I'm sorry that most people forget this, but we didn't lock down our societies and place our economies on life support because people might die. We did it because it was absolutely critical that we didn't allow our hospital systems to be overwhelmed. We needed to flatten the curve. And we succeeded.
Again, it was to flatten the curve, not because there was a greater-than-zero risk of death. But at some point between then and now, the narrative hs changed to talk about keeping people safe at any cost.
At the same time we need to balance economic well-being, as having the economy shut down can destroy people too. We can remain as cautious as possible with high risk areas (e.g. public transport, cinemas, live sports, festivals, nightclubs) while moving rapidly to restore economic activity where risk is low.
Perhaps the most obvious example of a low risk / high economic impact situation would be highly robotised manufacturing which can easily enforce PPE use and limit shared touch-points. While a Tesla car factory is not a zero-risk environment, it's still a much lower risk than visiting the local supermarket which would have far more people and far less compliance around distancing and PPE.
> Kids are essentially immune, but elderly with existing conditions are vulnerable. Family gatherings with close contact between kids & grandparents probably most risky.
That's just an outright false statement.
And just an "Actually" on the rest of your comment, we all know about flattening the curve and people are pretty sick and tired of hearing about how this is all really just flattening the curve. We know. Public health officials know. You don't need to tell us, the lockdowns were openly stated as flattening the curve from the beginning as were the plans for reopening. Plans that according to Elon Musk are fascism, a man who operates factories in the US and China and decided the US is the one that has a fascist government.
He is also a man that was in mid-March, convinced, and was shouting at anyone who would listen, that cases in the US would somehow drop to essentially zero in April.
I'm not sure that his primary motivation is laying out logical, well-thought-out, sensible arguments about the situation. I do think that his primary motivation may have something to do with keeping his factories running, and that he will say whatever it takes to get to that point.
I was only defending the reopening of highly robotised manufacturing, not how Elon has comported himself in public.
The Tesla California plant has a very bad record when it comes to safety issues. California helped Tesla by looking the other way because they knew the company was starting and that they are very valuable for California.
And then Elon called them fascist because he could not open up the factory due to the virus. Of course officials then would like to approve the safety standards before opening up the factory again.
On the other hand nothing is going on here. The county already wanted to open up the businesses.
Elon lost a lot respect in all this. Maybe he has a lot on his mind like becoming a father again, the virus, selling all his properties, wanting to go to mars earlier than possible, his brain implant project, and so on. To me he sounds a little exhausted. In the latest Joe Rogan he also looks very tired and dim.
Can you actually provide solid evidence about actual people harmed that shows that Tesla is unsafer then any similar plants in the US?
> Elon lost a lot respect in all this.
With some people he gained a lot of respect. Seems like you are just applying your own option and that of people you know and believe this is societies opinion.
"I don't know anybody who voted for Nixon".
Car demand is sure to plummet with a long economic depression coming, and electric cars moreso since the price of fuel is the lowest it's been for decades.
Considering that, if I were in Elons position, I'd prefer the state to be paying my employees salaries, and leave most of my factories closed. Keep the R&D department going so I have some awesome new products in a year's time when the economy starts recovering.
Until the upper middle class and up start losing jobs, Tesla will still have plenty of demand. Their core customer wasn’t line cooks.
Back orders/deposits are clogging up the system, thus affecting the total supply chain of deliverable cars. Model Y was not as popular in deposits as 3 was, that might have changed since I looked at the data, but also 3's line at Fremont is optimized for Y's output. Also, that's the only factory that make S/X/Y chassis for now. so its a bottleneck issue, too.
Essentially, this comes down to opportunity costs; people have paid, in part, for a car which if they choose to can/will always be refunded if they don't want it before taking delivery. Tesla would then have to not only give them their deposit back, but also have to figure out what to do with the chassis--taking on a net loss, but also assume liability for its inventory.
If Elon is right, Y is supposed to be their most popular chassis yet, so it'd probably just go to the next customer with the same specs. But still, my best guess is that this comes down to opportunity costs and unrealized gains--they have procured all the materials for assembly and its creating a backlog in production/vin assignment along with costly storage fees.
Which after the pain-staking processes with Model 3 ramp up, and optimization it has to be near unavoidable to want to learn and iterate as fast as possible to streamline the process to meet Global demand. I still can't figure out why the Gigafactory at Sparks isn't being used as an adjunct of their manufacturing, instead of just cramming ever-more of their entire inventory into Fremont.
I agree with Elon's position that most don't take the importance and difficulty of Manufacturing and its Supply Chain/Logistics very seriously at best and totally for granted and way too lightly at worst, because in reality it's a myriad of ever-changing cogs and gears all working in what may seem to the outsider as an effortless machine. It's like plumbing, if you've done it right most don't/won't even notice it until something goes catastrophically wrong: and then they're up in arms about having to deal with not getting fed because someone like Amazon is taking 3.5 weeks to deliver goods when it used to be same day.
But the stocks were so badly depleted there were not enough of them for critical workers...
Also, getting widespread compliance outside of Asia would have been hard before the lockdowns, when public figures left and right were minimizing the threat.
But instead, as usual, instead of being truthful to people, lies were said because of lack of supplies, which takes any kind of credence for future rules/advice as people will (rightfully) suspect of them.
I agree they lacked preparedness. They also reacted far too late ( the lockdown was postponed in France to hold local elections mid-March. From what I’ve heard all political parties were on board with that plan, even though the opposition is now using it against the govt.).