I can't help but chuckle. Soon mob will be running speak-easy gym you will need password to get in. Feds will start running sting operations. Fat Americans will become heroes of the pandemic.
While trying to buy workout equipment off craig's list I was solicited twice to join "speakeasy" gyms. They had ads for a bunch of gear and when I inquired they sent me a detailed response on working out in their private gym. One was a large neighborhood garage that offered solo time by the hour, one was a shutdown normal gym. Pretty expensive too!
I wonder how Anytime fitness is doing now? There is a market for a by the session small gyms. How about outdoor gyms, seem some in LA which are on rooftops.
Dumbbells are going for > $2-3/lb on various websites right now, which is insane. Adjustable dumbbells are going for > $10/lb, which is over twice their usual sticker price.
Gyms could lease out their equipment right now and make a killing.
I sought out adjustable dumbbells for a month. Ridiculous prices on Kijiji, and full of scams. Thankfully I eventually found a place out in Brampton that was welding their own, for relatively reasonable prices.
(And thankfully my gym is now open. Until we get a second wave and it shuts down again.)
Damn. Making weights would have been good business!
I have some resistance bands and used to use my buildings gym but they made the process very convoluted since reopening. And with max time limits of 30 minutes each and only 10 visits a month.
That said I was very sick recently and lost a lot of muscle mass and weight so I’m barely getting back to exercising now anyway.
Are these speakeasy gyms? Seems like a solo room and a much less crowded gym would both adhere to distancing policies. Seems rude to existing customers to set up a new private gym in an existing gym space, though.
> Her work makes it hard for her to talk to reporters, so we're not using her last name
Surely if you feel it necessary to omit someones last name you should err on the side of caution and omit their first name too? A fist name narrows a search down significantly.
I didn't attend J-school, but that sounds like a questionable practice ethically. A person has a right to be anonymous, but it should be noted they are anonymous. Making up a name for someone without disclosing that fact is questionable.
It is ethical and expected for a journalist to obscure facts to protect their sources. It is unethical for a journalist to fabricate facts to protect their sources.
Also as someone with experience being anonymously quoted by journalist before, it seems to be standard practice for the journalist to defer any decisions on how they would like to be referred to the source. Odds are Evelyn is the one who decided to just go by Evelyn. She probably doesn't care too much about absolute anonymity, but she also wants plausible deniability.
Related, I really don't understand why gyms in my city haven't turned to renting out their equipment. I know people that bought dumbbells, over paid, and picked from really limited inventory. Meanwhile, the gym a block away has a giant pile of weights not being used, and has basically no revenue right now.
They won't make enough on rentals to break even on the amount that people steal and never return. A single 45 lb plate costs $60-$100 with covid pricing.
I don't get it. Unless you're training for a very specific purpose (like an MMA fight or football season), why do you need specific indoor gym equipment? Shelter in place orders are largely lifted, so you can workout outside: run, do pull ups on a tree branch, ride a bike, lift a heavy stone, do an outdoor yoga class, etc. Hell, you only need maybe a 6' x 6' area for a perfectly effective body weight routine, even inside.
I get that some of this can be related to body dysmorphia, but that's probably a tiny corner case. Is it the thrill of doing something "illegal"/dangerous? Is it more denial about the impact of COVID? Hustlers trying to capitalize on a crisis?
Edit: based on some of the replies, it looks like it boils down to a sense of entitlement: people wanting to stick to their routines without a care of putting others at risk.
I remember reading a twitter quote about someone who felt their workouts "didn't matter" if they didn't have their GPS tracker with them on the workout.
Gym, as in the physical location, is also very much part of the "fitness habit". It doesn't feel the same doing it outside by yourself.
Nothing to do with body dysmorphia or doing something "illegal" but based on the fact that covid is not as severe that warrant stopping recreational activity.
It is a healthy hobbie. By the way, also cleans you mind. I do run long distances, but with the current situation I am no longer able to run outside they way I wanted. So I started going to gyms, and yes, probable they should not be working, but it keeps me mentally sane.
Going to the gym is a ritual for many people, and rituals can be an essential part of maintaining one’s mental health. I’m not justifying the speakeasy gyms, but I completely understand why someone would feel compelled to use one.
A thing that is very important about rituals is that there are almost always triggers of when the ritual should be performed. Often that trigger involves being in a specific place.
For exercise, that trigger is going to the gym.
For work, that trigger is going to the office
For religion, that trigger is going to the church / temple / etc.
When you deprive people of the ability to be in the correct place, then their trigger is blocked and their rituals don't happen.
Yes, you could retool your rituals (work from home is the biggest example of this), but for many things, the motivation or desire just isn't there.
The spaces are too important to the ritual itself.
So I can totally see why people would want to go to the gym even if they weren't supposed to.
I’ve been thinking about this problem, and I wonder how important smell is to rituals and it what extent we can use olfactory sensations to trigger different mind spaces.
Ive had a certain degree of success mimicking this by adding smells via essential oil defusers are key points like “starting work” or “preparing for bed”, but I can’t say I’ve found a silver bullet. Still, I think there’s something here.
I can seriously relate to this. I have been going to the gym 5-6 days a week for years and absolutely loved it. As soon as the gyms closed down, my motivation to stay in shape plummeted. It was like a light switched off. I did absolutely nothing fitness related for a few months, just waiting for the gyms to open back up.
I finally started biking recently, but I struggle to get motivated and get out of the apartment to do it. That was never a problem when going to the gym.
Mental health is the reason why I still go to my crossfit gym. Its small, the same 8-9 people show up when I do. Ive only lived in this town for two years and my only friend moved away earlier this year - no family. I did quarantine when a case was discovered during the rare time I have to be an office and I had two serious depressive episodes in which I spent the better part of three days intoxicated. I've been into fitness for almost 15 years, sure I know I can get a workout 10 different ways on my own but right now I have to have other people.
Read the description of the folks that invaded one person's private speakeasy gym: "gym bros" who were described as "grunting and using all the equipment, taking selfies in the mirror, flexing their triceps". I'm guessing there's more to it than just getting pumped, perhaps there's an audience component, too.
I run ultra distance as a hobby, and before lockdown, I lifted heavy weights twice a week to prevent catabolism. Since lockdown began, I have continued to work out as hard as I can, but I have lost a significant amount of strength and muscle mass. You just can't get a certain type of training stimulus without barbells and plates.
I imagine that the problem is much worse for bodybuilders and powerlifters.
I tried doing body weight workouts during the lockdown and it all felt extremely unsatisfying and ersatz after being used to my normal strength workouts. I also struggled not to lose muscle mass that had taken me a long time to build up.
Barbells and dumbbells are appropriately ergonomic (handles, balance, etc.) and won't ruin your back if you use proper technique. Lifting a heavy stone is a recipe for injuring yourself severely.
People need specific indoor gym equipment if they lift, which is a very valid form of exercise. Or, you know, if it's raining or thunderstorming or a humid 100°F outside.
And bodyweight exercises only get you so far, even if you're doing one-handed or one-legged versions.
You can't just dismiss the fitness routines people have spent years choosing and refining and getting better at. The fact that you seriously suggest lifting a heavy stone demonstrates you don't seem to know much about safe fitness at all.
He answered your question directly and then you change the goalposts. Clearly you hold the opinion that gyms should remain closed, and that's fine, but why even ask the question?
"More arrogant than putting other lives at risk because you can't put your routine on hold for a bit? No. It isn't."
This is the part I'm confused about. If gyms were open, people who's lives were at risk still wouldn't go to the gym. Only people who didn't care would go. They are consenting to the risk that would inherently come with it. It isn't the type of place that at risk people HAVE to go, so why shouldn't we open it for people that are fine with the consequences? Also, restaurants are all completely open for dine-in in many of the places that gyms have yet to open. How does that make any sense? No one magically stops breathing for the hour+ they're in the restaurant.
I think quarantine should be down to the individual and the rules they'd like to implement on their private property (including their business), but you've probably already gotten that by now.
You can usually find a threadbare heavy equipment tire more easily though since most people with stones just let them sit whereas tires need to be disposed of.
Lifting stones has been a thing since at least ancient Greece.
On that note, construction workers do severely damaging work every day (not being sarcastic, they mess up their bodies for people who will haggle to the last cent). Show them more respect.
> People need specific indoor gym equipment if they lift, which is a very valid form of exercise. Or, you know, if it's raining or thunderstorming or a humid 100°F outside.
I've been lifting for 15 years, mostly in the gym. The last couple of years though, I've realized how much you can do with bands. You can't beat them on cost and convenience in the realm of home gym equipment. The only thing you can't reasonably do with them are squats. Deadlifts can be substituted with pull-throughs which are a better posterior chain movement anyway. Yea, you might have to do more reps. That's infinitely better than nothing.
Unless you're a competitive strength athlete, or trying to be one, not having access to a gym is frankly an excuse. In my younger days I used to have a very rigid mentality when it came to strength training which eventually led to burnout and extended vacations from the gym. Having mental flexibility instead of striving for some notion of perfection is what's kept me in this game long-term.
>You can't just dismiss the fitness routines people have spent years choosing and refining and getting better.
I am not, It must be very hard, to take away something you love and trained.
Society is asking you to sacrifice a big thing for something that may not benefit society at all. The chances of you catching and then spreading are ~ 1/1000. Assuming a 1% mortality. We are asking 100,000 people to give up something they love to save one loved one.
My own value system is that my enjoyment is not worth 1/100,000 of a person life. I would say in the order of 1/1,000,000. Based upon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALARP is where I get my figure.
I am interested which figure you think is reasonable - 10^5 or 10^6 or between or higher or dismiss the risk entirely ?
You can use cheap resistance bands instead of pricey and heavy barbells and still get great results. You can hit all the same muscle groups just as hard. Honestly you probably hit more groups than what you hit in olympic lifts. These bands are also very available online compared to other equipment.
For a lot of people serious about the gym, they are way past just getting any workout in. They are very specific about what workout, what machine, what day of the week, etc.. Just switching to running is like telling some backend architecture programmer to just switch to Photoshop; to an outsider they're both tech on computers..But in the bubble we all know it's world's of difference.
I started a bodyweight routine (the Reddit recommended routine) in March and have had awesome results so far. It can be daunting to get started but you can do full body workouts if you buy a set of rings and a pull up bar. I eventually put a bar up in my garage but I was able to start working out with one of the basic door mounted bars at first. So you really can get started with very minimal upfront equipment costs.
I could probably target my leg muscles more effectively at a nice gym with barbells, but after 5 months, I'm still working through bodyweight based progressions for deadlifts and squats, so I don't feel like I've plateaued yet. I've made big progress too. When I started I could barely do a single pull-up and now I'm up to 3 sets of 6 per workout. Similar story for pushups, I can crank out 20-30 of those now no problem, where I struggled to hit 5 before.
The ease with which you can get fit at home has been one of the pleasant surprises of this pandemic.
You're coming from the perspective of someone who is still getting newbie gains. If your goal is to be reasonably fit and healthy, you're on the right track.
But some people have been going to the gym for decades and take it very seriously as a hobby. Losing access to the gym will set them back years.
It can be very hard to keep the same high quality of workouts without going to a specific facility and training with the guidance and motivation from peers. Not to be rude, your suggestions sound like ideas from someone who doesn't really work out much. Pull up on a tree branch? Lift a heavy stone?
Everyone's risk profile is different. I work in statistics and data, so I certainly have a different understand that gives me a more realistic perspective on the dangers.
You shouldn't be doing pullups on tree branches, no matter how sturdy they look. I know someone who was seriously injured while using a seemingly healthy tree branch to exercise.
A 6x6 area can be hard to find. In my apartment, getting that requires moving two bulky pieces of furniture.
Your right to something shouldn't be based on whether or not you "need" it. I'm fortunate enough to be in a state with open gyms and have nothing but respect for people who are taking risks to work out. Anyways, "needs": gym equipment has proper grips and cushioning for safe use over long periods of time. I'm less likely to blow out my back using proper form at the gym than with Macgyvered equipment at home. I need to go to the gym to use this equipment because lockdowns have caused a shortage and it's really, really, expensive to buy all the equipment yourself. You can also track and improve your performance over time with consistent incremental weights: I know that 10 additional pounds of resistance will always be 10 pounds, something that a bag of rocks can't replicate. Lastly, weight training creates a different physique to body weight training, endurance training/running, etc. You cannot decide that this physique is worth any less than the others.
I'm what some would call a gym rat. I have my own home Gym though.
Working out has solved a ton of problems for me. Anxiety, Depression, Mood Swings, Rage. You get into a routine, and you don't want anyone or anything to mess with it. It's what makes you feel good. For me its the difference between a productive day and an unproductive one.
Changing things up, especially with improvisation, can result in injury. Or just not getting a desired result. For example, I squat 400lbs or more. Would I try to squat a 400lbs stone, not only no, but hell no.
For some that go to real gyms, it's not just the workout. It's the comradery that comes with doing hard things with friends. It's socialization.
I think it has very little to do with being a rebel or a denier, and a lot more to do with it being a way of life, for a lot of us.
Removing anything associated with people's identity is going to cause a ruckus. A lot of these things are part of people's mental and physical health regimens. The story is the same for bars, gyms, churches, etc.
You can work outside but you are limited by the weather, and by available equipment. In quarantine it has been impossible to find a squat rack and a complete set of barbell plates. Whereas every gym (besides planet fitness) will have several of these.
Further, "Heavy stone" workouts do not easily lend themselves to progressive overload, or varied programming.
It is objectively more difficult to build strength using body weight exercises. Using a barbell or dumbbell allows for precise movements and gradual overload. Even body weight workout routines require equipment and space, which many people don't have. And many people have been locked down for months - it's enough time to destroy a huge amount of progress. For people who care about fitness, it is devestating. You can debate the morals of going somewhere with a higher risk of spreading corona, but it's silly to argue that people don't need gyms or special equipment.
> Edit: based on some of the replies, it looks like it boils down to a sense of entitlement: people wanting to stick to their routines without a care of putting others at risk.
You asked why people would want specific equipment. You didn't ask whether the tradeoffs involved are worth it. The replies here mostly answer the question you asked, not the one you're pivoting to.
I've lost 2+ inches on my arms, chest and legs after 20 years of working out fairly consistently. I was the strongest I had ever been just before COVID-19 hit. I'm not super-depressed about it quite yet, because the gym had become a bit of a crutch for avoiding dealing with problems in my life.
But after so many months off, I'm reaching the point where the lost gains might not be recoverable. I have to decide sometime soon whether to get back into the gym or give it up permanently.
It's not a total loss since I've been doing handyman work for my boss and 50 incline pushups 2-3 times per week. I'm in generally good health and my face is thinner. Still stinks though.
I bought a used weight bench and plan to use it soon. And I'm still paying my gym membership, only $20/mo for life at a converted Gold's Gym. But we get such a boost in the first 6 weeks of n00b gains after a break that I feel it's better to go all-in rather than dabble.
Oh and to answer your question: pumping iron is a hack. My girlfriend does kickboxing, and it's a tremendously physical exercise revolving around burpies and other crossfit-style functional training. It's really good. But, I feel that weightlifting provides a much higher bang for the buck because it takes advantage of 2 to 5 day overcompensation cycles in the body so that gains continue indefinitely. So my intensity under the bar over an hour and a half period never even reaches the intensity of her warmup. Yet I put on perhaps 2 to 4 times as much muscle as I would cross training, for 1/2 to 1/4 the effort, which works out to about a 4 to 16 times better return on investment (an order of magnitude better result).
For many of us, working out is a core part of our identity. It's taken literal years to get to the levels we're at, and to see that progress roll backwards is debilitating, in a mental sense.
Since you don't work out, I assume you like food. Imagine if you had to spend months eating nothing but Soylent because of $reasons, then when you complain you get chirping like "I don't get it, it's the same nutritional value, you don't need any real food".
When I injured my back (years ago), I had to go to physical therapy and use specific machines that isolated the muscles in order to help regenerate muscle in the area. The physical therapy office was connected to a health center which was essentially a public gym. Together with my trainer, we used the facility's weight lifting and resistance band machines in a safe and controlled manner.
It has since healed, and I am better now. However, there was a point in time where I had to continue going to the gym and keep using those weight machines. It took a few years before I was back to normal and could start working with more generalized equipment. So there's more than just a sports-focused need (like MMA fighting or football) for gym equipment, and that equipment cannot easily be substituted, nor can it be done safely with a bike or a heavy stone.
Unlike actual prohibition, the social agreement behind "lockdowns" is subject to time contingencies. The activities considered "essential" grow as time passes. While there are nominal categories of "essential" defined by community/political leaders, that contract depends on agreement. Since each person's conception of "essential" is different, as time passes "essential" grows exponentially instead of linearly.
Yes, say for example few people have 2 weeks of food in their house. That makes the grocery store "essential" during a 15 day period. If the grocery store is essential for the 15 day period then all the activity that goes behind a working grocery store within a 15 day period is essential.
Since each person's conception of "essential" is different
There was someone on WGN-TV a few weeks ago lamenting that it was insulting for all of the hairdressers and manicurists and yoga instructors to be called "non-essential."
I thought it was more insulting for that person to value the work of hairdressers and manicurists and yoga instructors on an equal basis with firefighters, doctors, paramedics, and actual real "essential" workers.
Nobody calls a holistic lifestyle consultant to run into a burning building to save a baby.
That's a reasonable definition of "essential", but at least in the US the term isn't used this way. Takeout restaurants, Starbucks, etc. have always remained open as "essential businesses".
The wording was problematic from the start. It probably would have been better to classify businesses into "risky" and "not-risky" or some sliding scale of risk, rather than using the "essential" label that comes with moral baggage. Close or restrict risky businesses (indoor, large crowds, etc.), keep open not-risky ones.
It made more sense at the very start, when many people expected that we'd spend 2-4 weeks doing only "essential" things and then we'd return to mostly normal life. But yeah, it became clear pretty quickly that wasn't the trajectory, and the required messaging shift never ended up happening.
Those people were under informed. Everybody "in the know" knew mid-March, before the lockdowns, that health officials wanted AT LEAST 8 weeks of shutdown to be able to have an impact and measure it.
I'm pretty sure that, much like with Prohibition, the moral baggage is the entire point. The idea is that for this disease - and only this disease - we have the absolute moral obligation to minimize the number of deaths no matter what, and that anyone who suggests there are tradeoffs is a monster who literally wants to sacrifice people.
in the US the term isn't used this way. Takeout restaurants, Starbucks, etc. have always remained open as "essential businesses".
Not where I live. All restaurants were shut down, even for take-out. They were only allowed to offer take-out food when restrictions started being lifted.
Just curious, which state is this? (you don't have to respond if you don't want to -- I don't want to violate your privacy, I just want to know)
It just seems to me shutting down takeout makes it harder to enforce a lockdown. It assumes everyone is able to cook, which doesn't seem like a reasonable assumption.
Yep. Dairy Queen, for instance, had lines of cars wrapping around the building and lining up in the street during the height of our "lockdown". Tons of things were still open in-person, too, like grocery stores, and there was no mask order and maybe 1/4 of people were wearing masks, at best, and almost no employees anywhere. Only exception is that a couple weeks in (IIRC) Costco started requiring them. We didn't get a mask order until a couple weeks after we ended our joke of a "lockdown". The police don't follow the order (sigh) but almost everyone else is, at least. But now everything's back open, more-or-less entirely.
It's no wonder we're still muddling along with this problem, months into it.
Both firefighters and doctors are a relatively recent “invention”, I’d say 100-150 years old (with the medical profession being re-invented after a first stint back in Antiquity). As such there’s nothing “essential” about them, you could say that bakers, fishermen or even sex-workers are more essential than doctors and fire-fighters.
Both firefighters and doctors are a relatively recent “invention”
So what? What does that have to do with anything?
you could say that... even sex-workers are more essential than doctors and fire-fighters.
You can say that, but you'd be wrong. That's the great thing about the internet. Anyone can say anything no matter how false it is, and they get to be on an equal footing with people who know what they are talking about.
It's a pretty twisted definition of "essential" to include only the things that are definitely going to kill you if you go without and not to include the things that just might kill you.
I was only saying that we managed just well enough without firefighters and medics for thousands of years, had they been really “essential” we would have kept/invented those trades well before we actually did. Were you to have asked my peasant grandmother what she reguarded as more essential between a doctor and a priest she would have totally chosen the priest, reason being that she knew she was going to die anyway (we all will) but the priest was one of the only persons who could take care of her soul.
Again, doctors and firefighters might look “essential” for a secular and technological society like ours (one where we’re afraid of death and where we value physical stuff that could burn) but that hasn’t always been the case. It still isn’t in many parts of the world.
> ad they been really “essential” we would have kept/invented those trades well before we actually did
Unless things change over time, as such requiring new facilities. We didn't have nuclear power station inspectors (or regulations) thousands of years ago, so are they also non-essential?
> It still isn’t in many parts of the world
There are "many" places in the world were death is not feared and people are happy to see their stuff burn? Barring nomadic jungle tribes with no persistent possessions or home locations in the first place, which societies are you describing?
The fact that our ancestors commonly died of tuberculosis doesn't mean they where happy to do so.
There could be a couple different usages of "essential" in this case. There is the services that are needed to keep people alive, then there are services needed to keep people healthy (including mental health), and finally services needed because taking them away would induce a large amount of non-compliance with the public.
Then there is the twisting of "essential" -- the home center needs to say open because if a pipe busts in your house you need to get replacement parts to fix it. But most people go to the home center to pick up materials for home projects that they can now do because they suddenly have a large amount of at-home time on their hands.
This gets tricky. Of course we know that when there's a fire, a firefighter is often imminently essential. But it's trickier to imagine a society where all "non-essential" jobs are banned indefinitely. You wouldn't die in a matter of minutes like in the fire example, but you'd also probably find such a society unrecognizable to the extent that you might reconsider what types of jobs are and aren't "essential." There'd be a lot of poverty, a lot of hunger, and yes, it would cause a lot of people to die.
> I thought it was more insulting for that person to value the work of hairdressers and manicurists and yoga instructors on an equal basis with firefighters, doctors, paramedics, and actual real "essential" workers.
Part of fairness is in treating equal things equally, and unequal things unequally.
Even talking about non-first responders, the folks in supermarkets are more essential on this spectrum than beauticians of various niches IMHO.
You ninja'd your comment into something completely different... Responsing to your original comment about MREs: the supply chains for supermarkets already exist. I'd be very surprised if there were enough MREs to feed everyone for a year and then still have the ability to restart normal supply chains from a dead stop.
Regular people shop at supermarkets so they don't starve. Armies carry food supplies so they don't have to shop at local supermarkets. They bring barbers because tight haircuts are essential to military dress and clean shaved faces are critical to tight sealing gas masks.
An irony of the "lockdown" is that all the activities that aren't "essential" are the reasons people have to live. "Essential" covers most of the basics in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In the absence of Maxlow's top line items, why bother with the "essentials?"
Do you call a Walmart cashier to save a baby? Wine story employee? Cannabis dispensary staff? I felt insulted that in the country I live in luxury wine stores were essential and open throughout the lockdown while gyms were not. If I can forego gym for a few months, sure as hell you can survive without a bottle of Bordeaux. And this is with all the rhetorics about public health.
"Essential" is exactly it. I'm happy to take 2-4 weeks off the gym (switching to apartment calisthenics) to help flatten the curve, but once it drags on to months I'd have no moral qualms with joining an underground gym. Thankfully in my area gyms re-opened June 1st and looks like they're staying open.
An extension of this is the notion of emergency authorities and people’s perception of the weight they carry.
An emergency is an emergent situation, which must be new, evolving, and carry the risk of serious harm. Emergency orders are based upon the idea that executive authority must be wielded to quickly mitigate an emergency situation. But a key attribute of an emergency (by definition) is “new” - if emergency powers are extended month after month then they are based on a situation that is no longer an emergency.
Now before you get angry, consider that we can agree that COVID-19 is a serious threat that requires government action _without_ it necessarily being an emergency or emergent situation. The threat has long since emerged.
Now we have a lot of governors issuing decrees based on emergency authorities that they’ve been using for six months. This is quite simply a conflict with our basic notion of democracy. We do not have rulers, yet our governors are issuing rules purportedly carrying the weight of law with no oversight from legislature.
Whether or not you agree with the orders, I think it’s intuitively likely that you can see how this is essentially a disruption in the relationship between people and their government, and as such it’s at least understandable how many people would feel these orders carry no moral weight (even if they’re not thinking from a legal perspective). And so the existence of gray market gyms and parties is at least understandable, even if we don’t condone such behavior.
> Now we have a lot of governors issuing decrees based on emergency authorities that they’ve been using for six months. This is quite simply a conflict with our basic notion of democracy. We do not have rulers, yet our governors are issuing rules purportedly carrying the weight of law with no oversight from legislature.
That was my biggest issue with the whole situation in the USA. All of these emergency measures were done without any mention of timelines, all the while a vocal part of the population was saying "fuck your freedoms", and "millions of people will die if they lift the lockdown". It's like everyone forgot about the Patriot Act overnight, and doesn't realize that the government doesn't like giving up control after whatever "emergency" situation happens. Something needed to be done, but this whole situation made me lose a lot of faith in the government and my fellow Americans.
I have never understood the demand for timelines. Pandemics do not care about calendars, and expecting our response to a pandemic to have an expiration date struck me as both folly and hubris of a lethal variety.
Now if we expected our government to set conditions of the lock down ending, that would be better. Something based around the pandemic itself, such as new infections per day and test positivity would probably be best. But time? That’s not how this works.
Timelines can have milestones instead of dates, as you say. It's still a "timeline" because it's a sequence of events ordered by (indeterminate amounts of) time.
>I have never understood the demand for timelines. Pandemics do not care about calendars, and expecting our response to a pandemic to have an expiration date struck me as both folly and hubris of a lethal variety.
I'm sure the legislature will have no problem forgoing a game of golf with lobbyists in order to vote to extend a bill that gives government more power. They have no problem doing that every time the Patriot Act comes back up.
There's no good reason emergency measures can't have sunset clauses.
Pray tell, what powerful special interests have long-term incentives to force people to wear masks and stay out of restaurants? Like, are you actually suggesting that Big Mask and Big Pre-Cooked Meal Co. are going to take mayors or lawmakers golfing? I genuinely don't understand this theory.
I don't think you interpreted my comment correctly. I was insulting the legislature by pointing out that they have no problem showing up and voting to curtail people's freedoms for nefarious reasons without a pandemic so there's no good reason they can't vote every few months on whether or not to continue to curtail people's freedoms to mitigate a pandemic.
I see. That's not at all what I thought your comment was saying.
Well, in a lot of states the legislature can do that today if they want. It's completely within state legislature's capacity to force action from municipalities, either directly or through the purse strings.
Most don't want to because they're publicly supportive of shutdowns. Or because they're publicly courting anti-maskers but privately know shutdowns are necessary and therefore don't want to take responsibility.
You’re confusing a constraint of the granted power (time-duration for an emergency action within the social contract) and the constraint of the situation (time-duration of the virus).
No one is arguing whether the virus is on our clock. The argument is whether we’ve granted our governments the right to indefinitely extend their emergency authorizations.
No, I am not confusing the two. I am in fact arguing that limiting the governments powers to fight the pandemic based on time is bad, because it ties our ability to fight the pandemic to a metric that is completely unrelated to successfully fighting the pandemic.
That's why you leave it up to duly elected legislatures to decide whether or not to extend the shutdowns created in response to the initial emergency. The legislature could create a reopening plan with specific metrics to follow to determine when that should happen. But the emergency powers that continue to be wielded by executives are an usurpation of democratic rule. The legislatures can and should have formulated a proper reopening plan by May at the latest, and they could have continued to modify it as more information became available.
“After X days responsibility should transfer from the executive branch to the legislative” is completely different from “the governments ability to take X measures to stop a pandemic should be limited to Y days”. I am only responding to the latter.
My fear about the former is the implicit assumption that the legislature won’t also close gyms, bars, and other businesses that a vocal minority want re opened immediately.
>My fear about the former is the implicit assumption that the legislature won’t also close gyms, bars, and other businesses that a vocal minority want re opened immediately.
That's the risk and price of democracy and freedom, the people (or their representatives) aren't supposed to do what's best, they're supposed to do what the public wants
First of all, we’re a representative democracy. We do not elect people to implement our exact will, we elect people who we expect to use their best judgement to use the powers vested in them. If the expectation was that elected members do exactly what their constituents wanted, we would be a direct democracy instead.
Second, I find the notion that “the price of freedom is the risk of just not bothering to solve a pandemic” to be a serious insult to democracy. I question the legitimacy of any democratic system that would just ... not bother to protect citizens.
And finally, calls to return to normal represent a narrow minority of the population. In fact a majority of Americans are worried about the virus, a majority wants schools to remain closed, and a majority think we opened back up too soon. If we’re talking about “popular will”, then we would be talking about extending shut downs, not ending them.
>And finally, calls to return to normal represent a narrow minority of the population. In fact a majority of Americans are worried about the virus, a majority wants schools to remain closed, and a majority think we opened back up too soon. If we’re talking about “popular will”, then we would be talking about extending shut downs, not ending them.
Its interesting because Gallup has shown remarkable consistency in people self isolating. The percentage of the population visiting restaurants, bars, and their friends homes remains down in the mid 20s. Only 34% of Americans have returned to the office, only 5-6% of Americans are going to their place of worship. 5% of Americans have returned to a gym.
People are by and large self enforcing the lock down. According to Gallup the percentage of Americans who would return to normal “right now” is 28%. The vast majority of Americans want at least to see case numbers fall first, with sizable groups expecting no new cases in their state (28%) or a vaccine (23%) before returning to normal. 67% of Americans say they will enforce social distancing “for as long as necessary” before their mental health begins to suffer, up 13% since April.
The groups shouting about ending the lock down and returning to normal are about 28-30% of the population, according to Gallup.
Executives are also elected, and most states (all?) have provisions for extraordinary measures in extraordinary situations. Legislatures are able to override them given sufficient super-majorities. Courts prevent executives from overstepping their authority.
>have provisions for extraordinary measures in extraordinary situations.
And the legal justification by which those measures apply to a situation that is going on half a year is dubious at best. The legality of those measures themselves is also generally dubious from a constitutional law perspective. Most of them have never been meaningfully challenged because they've mostly been used for short term emergencies at this point. The legislatures need to nut up and to their damn jobs. They've had nearly 6mo at this point.
And do what exactly after they "nut up"? Lockdowns and closures to contain the spread of the Covid-19 remain overwhelmingly popular in most areas, and are saving lives.
Pass bills that says "yo, the governor is actually allowed to do <the current things they're doing> in response to a pandemic" with the usual legal stuff that is used to restrict it to the present situation. I know that doesn't solve the constitutional law aspect but frankly it won't matter for reasons of how the courts work.
I'll answer the question for my state of Michigan, which is one with a governor facing partisan backlash over her decisions:
> - Do the "extraordinary measures" have to be proven effective?
That's how it's been handled here. We went through a phase of virtually absolute lockdown this spring, loosened restrictions this summer, and locked a few things back down again (bars were especially bad). The governor also ramped up mask mandates as we learned more about their effectiveness.
> Do the "extraordinary measures" have to be proven effective than doing nothing?
Not sure exactly what you mean here, but the regions that have done nothing have seen worse results.
> Has anyone announced what metrics we're even tracking to determine "effective"?
Number of confirmed cases, number of tests administered, percentage of tests being positive, number of deaths. The last metric is the one we really care about the most, but we can mitigate it by tracking leading indicators. Nothing more than statistical theory at play here.
> How long does something have to persist until it's no longer an "extraordinary situation"?
> Are the "extraordinary measures" persistent or limited by time, risk, etc?
By speaking in terms of "time-duration for an emergency action within the social contract" compared to "time-duration of the virus" dfee means: You need powers that bypass democratically elected representatives in week 1 of an emergency - but when you get to week 10, there's been plenty of time to get a urgent bill passed by the legislature, so shouldn't the emergency powers have been replaced by an explicit bill?
And if such a bill can't be passed - i.e. the person holding emergency powers is using them to do things our elected representatives aren't willing to sign off on - surely that proves how important it is that the powers be limited.
(Of course, if you believe our elected representatives would risk killing people to make the other side look bad, or would stuff unrelated pork into the must-pass bill, you might not follow this line of reasoning)
> doesn't like giving up control after whatever "emergency" situation happens
I genuinely don't understand this fear re: COVID.
Why would governors want keep gyms and restaurants closed post-COVID? What do mayors gain by forcing people to wear masks post-COVID? It's in the government's interest, as an institution, to open things up ASAP. They're hemorrhaging money.
The things I'd actually worry about -- using COVID to justify suppressing protests and speech, for example -- aren't happening even now.
The only way this theory makes even the remotest bit of sense is if elected officials are malevolent villains hell-bent on literally any arbitrary form of control even in cases where it undermines their own self-interest and happiness. Believe it or not, governors and mayors enjoy eating out, some go to the gym, and no one enjoys wearing masks.
I do believe there's a very real danger of emergency powers being extended indefinitely in general. But not in the case of health orders related to COVID. Because the powers being exercised aren't the sort of things even the most power-hungry person would want to enforce indefinitely. There's just no motivation to do so. And, for anyone not experiencing a literal and extreme psychotic break, lots of even completely self-interested incentives to get things back to normal.
The problem is, what's post-COVID? The virus won't be eradicated any time soon, even after a vaccine arrives; most experts predict a timeline of decades to never. I doubt many mayors are supervillains who want to keep people miserable just for the sake of it - but I worry that quite a few might feel like they have to as long as cases are being detected. (Why do we still have strict TSA restrictions, even though everyone agrees they make flying miserable and everyone knows they're unreliable at actually detecting dangerous objects in luggage?)
Yeah sorry, you can’t equate taking your shoes off twice a year when you fly to being stuck in your f’ing house for 7 months on end because our overlords deem it so.
> I doubt many mayors are supervillains who want to keep people miserable just for the sake of it - but I worry that quite a few might feel like they have to as long as cases are being detected.
Why would they have to? It certainly wouldn't be in their electoral self-interest.
The concern is that we might end up in a state where COVID restrictions are considered so obvious that they're not even a matter of electoral self-interest; where abolishing COVID restrictions sounds as extreme as abolishing taxes or abolishing the military. Many people say they don't want the restrictions gone until COVID is eradicated, and I believe they're telling the truth.
Long-term, what you might expect to see are structuraal changes rather than prohibitions.
Disease transmission is a communications and network problem -- there are the unobserved opportunities for infection, the known observed cases, the transmission rates, incubation and course-of-illness periods, acquired immunity, mortality, morbidity.
In periods of outbreak you need hightened disease surveillance, increased blocking of transmission, and reduced opportunities for infection. Barriers, reduced crowds, improved sterilisation and surface cleaning, fewer shared-touch interfaces (from touchscreens to bannisters), and the like.
These will likely be instituted through building and health codes, not so much activity restrictions. Some high-contact activities (bars, nightclubs, theatres, amusement parks) may well be subject to temporary closures. But expect these to be contingent on infection levels.
Do expect to see massive changes in office/work, retail, and transport designs, hoever. Possibly travel and quarantine restrictions.
Solutions are found already. They must be scaled out to whole world: vaccine, contact tracing, masks in public buildings and public transport in case of outbreak, air and surface disinfection at constant rate, vitamin supplements, etc.
The way I see it, the issue is that the “as soon as possible” is being interpreted to mean “the time at which there is no risk to my political career,” not merely when it is prudent to reopen.
> the time at which there is no risk to my political career
Do you live in the US? The situation is exactly the opposite here.
Downplaying the significance of COVID is practically part of the GOP platform at this point. It's gotten to the point in the last 2 months where even extremely mild and all-volunteer public health measures are political suicide in the majority of US states.
But also, even in the small number of very left-leaning areas like mid-sized/large cities, mayors and governors are under intense pressure to get things back to normal.
Hell. Even universities, which take tons of heat for being hotbeds of leftism even relative to left-leaning cities, are pushing forward with campus openings despite contrary advice from public health experts.
As far as I can tell, being too prudent for too long would be an enormous political liability in literally every US jurisdiction. In fact, being prudent at all is a political liability in >25 states even with new cases hitting highs. Here in rural PA I get harassed for wearing a mask into the grocery store.
The "permanent COVID emergency" concern is ridiculously disconnected from political reality in the USA. So much so that it's more of an unhinged conspiracy theory than a legitimate concern.
> But also, even in very left-leaning areas like mid-sized/large cities, mayors and governors are under intense pressure to get things back to normal.
The refusal of the GOP (Senate, mostly, though the White House seems to be on the same page and perhaps the main motivator) to provide state/local aid, given that there are legal, practical, and other restrictions limiting state borrowing for emergency costs, especially non-capital costs, and structurally they have since not long after the founding relies on the federal government to backstop them for that is a big part of this.
> Do you live in the US? The situation is exactly the opposite here.
I do. I live in the Bay Area. Your local situation may be different.
I stand by what I said. I’m surprised to hear some think there will be a permanent COVID emergency. I’m not really doing the whole partisan thing, so I don’t know the state of that debate.
We are in a pandemic; of course there will be pressure on our leaders. My conjecture is that career concerns may be leading some to ignore principles of good governance to minimize the risk that things will turn out poorly for them. I think it is not uncommon for political leaders who call all the shots to back themselves into such a situation. We need a way out.
You don't know the state of the debate on one of the most important issues of our time, but you felt the need to weigh in with your conjecture anyway? I'm not sure what exactly you think you are bringing to this conversation. Aristotle was a really smart guy, but he would have saved the world almost two thousand years of being completely wrong about physics if he had bothered to check how things actually worked instead of reasoning about it from first principles and assuming that his best guess was good enough.
Talking about hypothetical pressures that a theoretical government might face is a lot less interesting when we can look outside and see that the exact opposite of your hypothetical is actually taking place. Empirically, the pressure to not bankrupt the government and have to lay off police, firefighters, and teachers, to let people go back to their lives, and to not be seen as job-hating nanny-state bureaucrats is the dominant force in state and local decision-making, only barely being held in check by a sense of civic duty and concern for long-term consequences. And in places where civic duty and long-term planning aren't in vogue, we see that the former has won out entirely. Mayor Breed and Governor Newsom are doing what they do despite the political consequences of shelter-in-place, not because of them.
I was referring to the partisan mudslinging, the conspiracy theories, and so on. I do not keep up with that.
I am active in our local community and contributing my own interpretation.
Edit: and if you are implying that Newsom and Breed and others are holding the line because they know in their hearts to do the right thing, well, this pandemic proves nearly every politician on the planet must have a really big heart.
I apologize for my tone in my last comment. I realize now that it was unnecessarily harsh.
I don't agree though that it's out of a sense of charity or morality. I think it's a matter of self preservation, just acting on a longer timescale than others. Politicians don't want to live in a blasted hellscape any more than the rest of us. And I think a fair number have realized that taking unpopular actions now is the only way to avoid that.
> Why would governors want keep gyms and restaurants closed post-COVID?
A completely corrupt mayor could use this newfound power to solicit some political donations. There are plenty other possibilities, like the need to be seen responding to the crisis or "tough on the virus".
> It's in the government's interest, as an institution, to open things up ASAP.
Theories by which it is in a government's interest to delay reopening longer than optimal:
1. The Governor's political interests lie in "doing something," to contrast with "do nothing" political approaches. Ceasing to "do something" erases this advantage.
2. Masks and closure become a political symbol to certain classes -- almost a political advertisement -- and those classes tend to see the burdens as insignificant and a "community responsibility." Efforts to reopen, then, are seen as opposed to the good of the community.
3. Industries and activities that support the Governor will increase COVID cases, so the Governor decides other industries and activities are "nonessential," shifting costs from supporters to non-supporters.
4. The Governor is politically or legally risk averse, and defers to the most conservative health authorities to avoid responsibility for outcomes.
5. The Governor underweights economic impacts, because it believes the Federal Government should use tax policy or welfare to socialize the economic costs of the "required" costs.
Granted, these aren't fears the government will remain irrational forever, just that it will stay irrational longer than people can stay liquid.
I do think some people will swap roles after the US election, and they will rediscover a patriotic duty to muddle through, as our elected officials do the best they can.
> I genuinely don't understand this fear re: COVID.
> Why would governors want keep gyms and restaurants closed post-COVID?
I think your lack of understanding is because you frame the question as nuanced to keeping two types of establishments closed. Instead ask questions like: Why would governors want to keep overriding city-level authority? Why would governors want to maintain control over federal funds and subsidies related to health crises? Why would governors want to be able to selectively close certain types of businesses (e.g. close bars, allow restaurants, differentiate between the two based on arbitrary number, disallow one to become the other)? Why would governors want to disallow certain medical procedures (e.g. abortion)?
I can go on and on. The general question is whether executive power at any government level begets more executive power, and the answer is almost always "yes".
Is that actually true? My state has well defined phases of reopening based on infection rates, and I searched for a handful of random states across the political spectrum and found similar plans in place.
I don't really buy the power grab angle here. Most of the flack the federal government got was for explicitly _not_ doing any country-wide coordination or restriction. "Leave it to the governors". And it's hard not to find the "assault on freedom" angle disingenuous when it comes primarily from the socially conservative parts of the country that have historically worked to constrain individual rights.
> But a key attribute of an emergency (by definition) is “new”
I think perhaps a better attribute for what you are going for is temporary, and temporary is relative. The changes due to the emergency of COVID-19 are temporary, but longer lasting that some other emergencies, like a fire for example. Although I've now gotten used to fire emergencies lasting weeks, which is entirely new as of the last few years.
Covid strikes me as a unique situation that doesn't come up that often. It is a longer term threat than most "emergencies", but still fundamentally a temporary concern. One way or another, it will be resolved within a few years (hopefully sooner); and the facts on the ground still change relatively quickly.
It may last for a longer term than most emergencies; but still operates on a smaller timeline than legislatures are used to operating. The only analogous situation I can think of is wars, and those are already given special treatment (and have seen a steady growth in executive authority over the past decades).
Additionally, I am not aware of any executive (within the US) that has suspended or directly contradicted the legislative branch. If your issue is that the situation has gone on for too long to be dealt with using emergency authority, then your complaint is with the legislatures that have failed to either issue the rules themselves, or override the executive orders.
I could see an arguement for updating the various authorizations for executive orders to allow them to be repealed by a simple majority vote not subject to veto; or even by a minority vote. However, as far as I am aware, there has not been a major conflict at the state level where these powers would be relevant.
They're doing that in Minnesota too. But that's it. Just removing the emergency declaration. No other solutions to what to do are being proposed, just removing the declaration.
Covid strikes me as a unique situation that doesn't come up that often. It is a longer term threat than most "emergencies", but still fundamentally a temporary concern.
Right now it's unclear if COVID-19 will behave like the 1918-19 Spanish flu and disappear after Winter 2021 because most everyone subceptible will have gotten it, or of it will be more like Picardy Fever, which hung around for two centuries.
State legislatures can probably pull back these authorities if they want. The emergency measures by governors are usually based on provisions of state law, and can be revoked by law.
Michigan has a procedure that may let the legislature do exactly this without even worrying about a veto:
> "...the existence of gray market gyms and parties is at least understandable..."
much of what you say is reasonable, but those two examples are actually quite different, and it's important to be careful with generalized pronouncements because of those important differences.
folks going to a gym can still distance properly, and so can still reasonably curtail transmission. the primary purpose of the gym is a personal workout, not sharing indoor airspace with others for prolonged amounts of time with abandon.
most (large) parties on the other hand are willfully defiant and reckless, with no intention of containing transmission.
gyms are fine, small get-togethers are likely fine, all-night ragers are overwhelmingly unlikely to be fine.
There is also the sense of an ongoing crises, in the sense of a threat in which there is a very real likelihood of either a very bad, or very positive outcome. The Covid situation strongly resembles this.
Too there is the situation that even after the immediate onset of some emergency has passed, dealing with consequential effects carries great significance. To call on one of my preferred nonmedical disaster scenarios, in the 1975 Banqiao Dam failure (China), 170,000 people ultimately lost their lives. "Only" 25,000 or so drowned in the initial deluge. Over 150,000 perished due to an inadequate, ineffective, or incompetent rescue, recovery, and relief operation, due to starvation and disease.
Historical epidemics, even within the past century and certainly prior to it, have lasted years to decades. Come to think of it, the HIV/AIDS, TB (including TDR variants), MRSA, and hepatitis outbreaks also match this description.
The notion that six months is an excessively long response window fails any experiential comparison. It does howevee reflect failures of education, communication, leadership, and comprehension.
Ongoing crises are not emergencies. If it lasts for long enough, it becomes normal, and must be dealt with by your normal planning. If your planning can't deal with it, it must be adapted, there is no reason to keep creating exceptional actions for something that is there every day.
That said, it's perfectly reasonable for a government to keep exceptional procedures for an year. That's the minimum planning granularity they use. The GP's 6 months limit does not seem reasonable.
> What happens where a long-term crisis endures requiring rapid decisionmaking, faster than legislative deliberative practice allows?
The point is that that's impossible. If the crisis is ongoing for months then there is ipso facto enough time for the normal legislative process to apply. Applying some emergency decisionmaking process that bypasses the normal checks and balance is only justifiable for novel events.
What you're not considering is that it's possible both for a situation to be enduring and critical.
In a pandemic, lockdown, or quarantine, really is the only effective tool of control without immunity-bosting therapy (vaccination), or possibly, effective treatment (antiviral therapy). Not having people get sick in the first place is your best option, and, due to exponential growth, the faster you respond to outbreaks or rising Rt, the better.
Add to this delays in disease surveillance --- by the time you start seeing cases and they are reported, you're already 1-2 weeks behing the curve, and for COVID-19 that means two orders of magnitude more spread than you've detected, there simply is not time to convene a legislature, undergo debate, deflect disinformation, misinformation, and faulty models, to legislatively reimpose tighter movement controls.
We're seeing this in China, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Italy, Germany, Spain, and in numerous other countries and US states as the pandemic is brought under control, controls loosened, rates start rising, and controls are reimposed immediately as the resurgence is apparent. And by doing so, several of these countries (Taiwan, NZ, AU, South Korea) have avoided mass outbreaks, others have limited those to specific locations (China) or brought generalised outbreaks under control (Italy, Spain, Germany). Ongoing vigilance and vigorous response remain necessary, shown by experience.
By direct analogy, an ongoing siege remains an emergency though it continues for months or years. Ask the citizens of Leningrad. And this virus is a siege, it remains outside the gates.
An executive acts, a legislation deliberates.
Both are parts of the government. Systems vary, but in most democratic states, both are ether directly (presidential model) or indirectly (prime minister) the peoples' representatives. The power is not absolute, and legislators act as a check on the executive, increasing or decreasing powers, perhaps removing from office if fully incompetent or abusive.
Again:
- Previous pandemics have lasted years, decades, and centuries. Your imposed timeframe is utterly divorced from reality.
- The principle mechanism for pandemic control is vector and transmission reduction. Reduce numbers and rates of contacts, likelihood of exposure, amount of contagious agent shared, viability of that agent: Stay home, wash your hands, wear masks. It's not high-tech or sexy. It is effective.
- Rapid and effective executive decisionmaking is required for response, there is no time for parliamentary delay.
- In democratic states the executive remains a representative of the people.
- Powers granted are neither absolute nor without check.
- Such governance and response is proved effective in numerous regions.
- Emergence refers not merely to the initial appearance of the threat but to the situation as a whole. If it has rapidly-emergent characteristics and properties, it is an emergency.
"A condition of urgent need for action or assistance: a state of emergency." (https://www.thefreedictionary.com/emergency)
But the case that all issues must be resolved in a single prime-time commercial broadcast segment, or a few scant months, is parlous poor made here.
And for the record, I've made similar arguments since the beginning of this crisis:
The first time you have to impose a lockdown it's an emergency. Maybe the second time too. But once it becomes something you're doing regularly, it's something you should have a process in place for, and there should be legislative oversight of that process.
The executive has emergency powers to respond to novel developments - and that would include unexpected outbreaks or anything that demanded a radical change in our thinking. But at this point the existence of a pandemic is not an emergency. We know it's there, there's enough time to consult experts and debate appropriate responses.
We managed to have legislative oversight when conducting wars. The president is allowed to unilaterally authorise military action for 90 days, but past that point Congress has to approve it. Surely we can manage the same thing for a disease.
If not now, then when? Seriously, this could go on for years; at what point is this just the "new normal"? Before the pandemic people were talking (with good reason) about a "climate emergency"; should that give the executive grounds to make arbitrary decrees for an unbounded time?
I don't doubt that these governors have the right intentions and are doing what they think is best. But our processes and safeguards are there for good reason, and it's not just about protecting us from moustache-twirling villains. When the stakes are high it becomes even more important to have debate, oversight, and review.
On of the problems with the lockdown orders was that to a large extent they were arbitrary with respect to what was essential and open ended with respect to time. Such a prohibition could be effective if the public trusted the people or process which led to the lock downs, but the people showed themselves scarcely worthy of our trust and there really was no process.
"We believe in science" is a fine mantra, though it doesn't directly lead to "liquor stores are essential". Our political elites were unable to resist politicizing every decision, gloating over others' misery and/or misrepresenting outcomes for political gain.
So, yeah, basically now it seems like many people are deciding for themselves.
I think some of the "essential" businesses were more essential to people maintaining their sanity than essential for people to survive. It was a "bread and circuses" play. Liquor stores and dispensaries are on that list; if you're going to lock everyone down for an extended period of time, they're going to get bored. Bored people get unhappy, and unrest increases. Letting people have their booze and weed increases the amount of time they can cope with the cabin fever (although there are certainly downsides).
I always thought they should have called them “authorized” activities and businesses. The optics wouldn’t allow it, but it would have been more accurate all around and avoided these misunderstandings.
I think it's more than just optics, though. If they were called "authorized" businesses, it wouldn't just look bad - it'd be blindingly obvious why the specific set of shut down businesses should be responsive to public pressure and desires, rather than staying at some fixed level until public health authorities say otherwise.
Essential depends on your goal. “Minimize disease at all costs until the vaccine arrives” is different from “intercept this acute spike” is different from “find a new normal we can live with for the long haul.”
I think "tolerable enough to our constituents that most of the people here are still here after the next election" is the threshold most state legislatures were trying not to cross.
"Essential" is probably the right word, but I think "urgent" has a more accurate meaning. People urgently need groceries, being unable to buy groceries for a few weeks would be a big problem.
Some of the people who work in grocery stores commute via bike/car. Their bikes/cars will probably keep working for a while, but after a few months to a year they might need to visit a shop. The need for bike/car repair eventually becomes urgent.
Though, I'm not sure where hair salons fit into this framework. Most people have the means to cut their own hair, they just won't like how it looks.
Viewing it all through the lense of supply and demand is probably the best way to get a solid, dispassionate understanding of the situation. Specifically price inelasticity..
It also explains why workers in "essential" jobs are still low wage. An apparently baffling situation even though we were all taught the answer in highschool econ 101.
This seems incredibly dangerous. Are the speakeasy gyms requiring negative COVID tests? Are they doing temperature screenings upon entry? How diligently are they sanitizing equipment? How well ventilated are these various areas?
Why are people ignoring all of these risks, what kind of threat model do they have?
You don't have to go if you don't want to. Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance.
Are you implying that the people going to these speakeasy gyms are then self-quarantining and not interacting with people who did not go to the gym? Because if not, then this is a non sequitur of a response.
> Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance.
Except OP is not about employers, schools and others.
Interacting with other people is a two-way street. If you are afraid someone across from you might have been to one of these gyms, then walk away from them.
It seems terribly unfair to call it profound ignorance. As you say, it's a values difference. If you remember learning about "individualism", that's what it means; it's the idea that the collective doesn't have unbounded authority to tell individuals what to do.
> It makes me sad seeing a community I’d otherwise regard as intelligent being so profoundly ignorant
I feel the same about religion, so AFAIK this has always been so - move along, nothing to see here.
Except religion has been around long enough to excuse itself from the obvious, or a least to bare its fangs at anyone thinking of commenting on the emperor's new clothes..
Except that these people go there and then go home and spread it to their family and other friends. They go to grocery stores and other locations and touch things or cough/sneeze it in to the air. It's never about one person's individual choice.
> Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance.
Yes this deserves it as well but that does not negate the concerns
I'm okay with this answer as long as the people who go to the gym aren't allowed in the grocery store, bank, on public transport.... Because I do have to go there whether I want to or not. Give any gym-goer a 2 week temporary tattoo on their forehead so I know to avoid them. Then we're cool.
I'd guess the threat model is something like: relatively low local disease prevalence rate, the likelihood that infected people show up to workout is lower than other activities like office-work, and relatively low likelihood of personal adverse outcomes in someone healthy enough to be going to an underground gym.
Further, there are major benefits to psychological state, social/emotional state, mental acuity, health, and maintenance/progression of physical capacity.
I'd love to see you try and add all that up in micromorts of personal risk and show me that it's actually a bad rational decision. I suspect it would be very marginal for your argument at best, and most likely neutral or positive.
That's all to say it's probably rational decision making, though certainly selfish thinking.
Within a certain range on the lower end, definitely. Above that range, I disagree strongly. People generally know when there's "a bad cold/flu going around" or "a stomach bug" or w/e. There's some good intuitive reasoning there, but I'd agree that they aren't very good at it within a regime where it's prevalent enough to matter, but not quite prevalent enough to see/feel out intuitively.
>I'd love to see you try and add all that up in micromorts of personal risk and show me that it's actually a bad rational decision.
On an individual level, I have no doubt you're right. The health benefits from exercise would definitely outweigh the risk of COVID-19 (assuming the individual's not over 65 or has a majorly risky health condition).
But this is a pandemic, so decisions are made on the community level. The disease spreads. Healthy people don't live in separate cities from those at risk. Even if everyone is careful, mistakes happen: an unexpected sneeze, unconsciously rubbing your eyes, getting caught in a crowd. We're trying to minimize the number of mistakes (especially the more likely ones).
That's not too say whatever policy is current in your area is right. But if you think things can be done safely, consider reaching out to your representatives with a plan backed up by medical research. I know my state desperately wants to reopen businesses; the government doesn't benefit from closures.
The ugly truth is that a large fraction of the population just doesn't care about at-risk people (that is to say, they may care to some degree, but not nearly to the same degree as proponents of quarantine). It's pretty gross.
This isn't new in any way; just look at how we've treated at-risk populations previously (e.g., homeless folks, the foster system, etc). The difference with the pandemic is that there was a rapid increase in who's considered "at risk".
I actually emphatically support the decisions of local public health authorities, OP just asked for some idea of what the people going to gyms were thinking.
It's not true to say that Covid is only risky for the elderly or folks with pre-existing conditions. Many many young people have been hospitalized and even those who caught the disease and were not hospitalized are finding they have long term health impacts such as difficulty breathing, strokes, and heart problems that can lead to sudden death.
It's extremely dangerous to give people the impression that the disease is only serious for those over 65 or with pre-existing conditions. That sort of impression is why people are engaging in risky behavior such as going to gyms.
> I'd love to see you try and add all that up in micromorts of personal risk and show me that it's actually a bad rational decision.
Isn't that the whole reason public health is necessary? Because a large group of individuals making rational health decisions alone can, collectively, make poor health decisions for the group? It's kind of like polluting or littering. Yes it's perfectly rational for me to throw my trash on the ground because it's cheap and convenient but when everyone acts "rationally" then everyone is worse off compared to when we coordinate.
I'd argue that the insistence of public policy to impose such draconian limitations on individual rights has a larger negative health and well being outcomes, but we have made the cost collectively born so we are all miserable, broke, and in bad health to prevent to save a marginal number of people who were already in poor health status. We are practicing socialism but applied to health and wellbeing, with the same results as economic socialism... everyone is miserable.
> the insistence of public policy to impose such draconian limitations on individual rights
If people gave a damn about other people, they would be following best practices voluntarily, which would make policy limitations a moot point. But they do not, so here we are.
You say that like, if governments didn't impose restrictions, a new and highly contagious virus that can send you or loved ones to the ICU would not make people avoid crowds, spend less, and overall feel miserable.
I'd like to believe that the scientific and medical authorities who are being consulted by local and state leadership have done exactly that calculation... and that result was states mandating that these businesses be shut down.
Why do randos think they understand the threat model better than the CDC and state medical authorities?
> Why do randos think they understand the threat model better than the CDC and state medical authorities?
This is HN. We get a post on at least a weekly basis to the effect of: medications shouldn’t require prescriptions, anyone with an internet connection and a couple brain cells can manage their own care.
HN: home of “no one in management can possibly understand the technical complexity of software” and “who needs doctors, obviously I can easily understand that other enormous technical field.”
One, OP's question was about the threat model of underground-gym-goers not the CDC and state/local medical authorities.
Two, public health authorities don't do "exactly that calculation" because they are looking at interventions on the population level. Their job is to mandate things that would be individually irrational for the collective good. They have their own calculus about what the acceptable trade-offs are, that I'd suspect ultimately relates to the same monetary value of a human life that FEMA uses, but I'm not sure. I generally trust them to do their job correctly though.
They're not constructing a complex threat model and deciding that the hedonic value of gym attendance outweighs the disease risk. They're just going to the gym because they decided they'd like to. The article's parallel to alcohol prohibition is exactly on point; there was a famous policy where the government ordered industrial alcohol to include increasingly strong poisions, but consumers kept on drinking it anyway, because they weren't doing a risk-benefit analysis in the first place.
They are doing exactly zero of those things, because of prohibition. That's the whole point of the article -- if you prohibit something, it'll happen anyway but quality will go down. A much better approach would be to require the things you mentioned (like my area did) by law instead of a blanket ban.
For the sake of an example, allow me to assume (a) there are 10 people in your class, (b) each of you has an average of one other "risky outing" (shop at a store, one meeting with coworkers, visit another household) a day, and (c) each outing has a 0.5% risk of transmission assuming the boxer's infected.
If anyone in your group gets infected, there's a good chance you'll all catch it (you seem to acknowledge this). In that case, in one day of infectiousness, there's a 0.995^10 = 95.111% chance nobody else gets infected. So a 4.889% chance of infecting. That's low.
But if you all remain infectious for 14 days, there's now only a (0.995^10)^14 = 49.571% chance nobody new is infected. So the odds are your group spread it to at least one other person. And this process will probably repeat through those new infections.
Obviously, these numbers are arbitrary. It's a terrible model for an infectious disease. My point is to show how probability is very hard to reason about. It's unrealistic to expect average citizens to do this.
Thanks for putting this thought experiment into numbers, even if they are arbitrary. It really helps to form some estimation of a mental model, and shows how goddamn complex all of this is.
I think there are quite a number of safe(r) things you're doing which speakeasies don't seem to be - you're meeting in an outdoor space with a continuous group you know. Based on other anecdotes it seems that there are people more or less literally renting out their garages and basements to strangers.
By my rough calculations, for a 35M, going to the gym during Covid for an hour a day, for 160 straight days (so 6.67 days of gym time), can be expected to cut one's life expectancy by about 10 days.
Odds of dying this year: 0.002138 [1]. Odds of dying this year if they get Covid: 0.00271 (~n*1.3) [2]
Odds of contracting Covid over 160 days if going to gym: 60% Odds of contracting Covid if not going to Gym: 43% (assuming 10 people at the gym each time, 1 hour workout durations, odds of someone at Gym having it in any one session at .025%, and odds of catching it 20% at gym).
Now what about the negative second order affects of spreading it to others? I did not model those, but I think at this point there could be a compelling case that not catching it now might be net harmful to the folks at high risk, since they would need to remain in lockdown if there remains a large number of people around who are not immune.
Aren't the cofactors for COVID death highly unusual for gym exercisers? High BMI, low cardio health stats, diabetes, high blood pressure... Going to the gym is my only prevention for those cofactors...
Looking at the stats I'm more likely to spread the disease if I go to the gym, but much less likely to personally die of the disease if I stay healthy by going to the gym.
Complicating the situation is due to work and food delivery situation, I can't actually spread the disease to anyone at risk because they just aren't in my life.
In the US, roughly 150 per 1m people catch covid per day. Infection fatality for 20-29 is about 7/100,000. For 365 days, that is about a 1/million chance of dying of covid (for a 20 something year old) .
For context[1]:
For similar ages, the suicide rate is 200/ million.
Deaths from unintentional injury is 600/ million
Deaths from heart disease is roughly 100/ million
When I put this into a threat model, I should put about 1000X more effort into these areas. A 10% reduction in risk of heart disease is an equal trade-off with +900% chance of contracting covid.
Did the "shutdown normal gym" mean that patrons would be violating whatever policies forced the gym to shutdown in the first place?
If so, that really bothers me. Any excess contagion would endanger everyone, not just the gym users. Please consider reporting the details to the appropriate authorities.
EDIT: If someone is inclined to downvote this comment, I'd be very grateful for a clarification why (comment or DM). I'm trying to address some problems in my communication style, and I can't always infer how I could have done better.
You are making the fallacious assumption that the Wuhan virus actually endangers everyone. It doesn't - we know that many groups are only minimally affected. The way to get back to normal is to get back to normal. "Fifteen days to flatten the curve" has morphed into "as long as it takes to crush the economy". We are now at the point of no return for most small businesses, without which the economy of the modern world cannot exist - so it's either open up now, or welcome the fall of civilization.
Where is that money going to come from, if we've destroyed the engine of the economy? Small business is the engine of the economy, and since they can't afford FAANG's Irish Double Dutch sandwich tax dodges, they actually pay most of the taxes. With small businesses and their employees gone and not paying taxes, there is quite simply no money to spend. History shows that you can only print your way out of such a situation for a very short time...
Yet the printing press has had no problem running to keep interest rates low and the wall street casino bubblin'. We're getting the worst of both worlds. Many small businesses wouldn't be going bankrupt if there weren't a debt black hole expecting to consume much of their surplus via rent.
“ U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is the market value of the goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States. Across the 16 years from 1998 to 2014, the small business share of GDP has fallen from 48.0 percent to 43.5 percent. Over the same period, the amount of small business GDP has grown by about 25 percent in real terms, or 1.4 percent annually. However, real GDP for large businesses has grown faster, at 2.5 percent annually.”
I have not critically considered whether or not these statistics are the best indicator of the most effective contribution to the economy (or society).
And what if the polices were wrong? I have looked at the data and came to the conclusion that the danger from covid is tiny (to see how low - check qatar - probably the country with most extensive testing) and preventing is totally not worth it the sacrifices and damage to society.
Qatar has 44000 cases per 1m pop and 69 deaths per 1m.
What does Qatar do to a person who is confirmed infected? Does the same action occur to someone with the flu?
What is Qatar asking it's population to do differently today, compared to this time a year ago? Does that have any meaningful impact on transmission rates?
how is it that almost 6 months have passed and this same syllogism gets trotted out repeatedly? this is 1. factually incorrect, 2. morally reprehensible. everyone dies eventually and gets sick with something else someday. let’s just front load all the death into 2020 and get it done with forever, eh?
> Covid just frontloads some death for old people and ones with comorbirbidities
When the actions to prevent these people from dying, uh "just earlier than they would have," are as simple as wearing a mask and social distancing, it is unethical to not do so.
Why? It's a pandemic. If anything we're lucky it wasn't more deadly than it is.
I'm not gaining muscle mass but I'm having absolutely no trouble whatsoever maintaining it at home with exercise bands and calisthenics. It's a tiny, tiny price to pay for helping keep my community safe.
I would sacrifice the gym for the rest of my life if it meant adding even a year of life to a single person. Sentient existence is immeasurably more valuable.
I guess there's a values gap there I don't know how to bridge. I don't recognize the entire category of unbounded obligations to preserve life that you're suggesting.
> Covid just frontloads some death for old people and ones with comorbirbidities.
Why bother treating any sick person if this is your position? The healthcare system would be a hell of a lot cheaper and easier if we just "frontloaded some death" for everyone who gets seriously ill.
Yes, emphatically. The statistics clearly show that deaths from flu and other infectious diseases and lung conditions have dropped to nearly zero over the past several months. This doesn't pass the most basic smell test: People didn't stop dying from those things simply because of a new virus. The only reasonable conclusion is that those deaths were misattributed to the Wuhan virus because of political, economic, or other pressures.
Which is actually kind of on the higher side for the flu season. They attribute that most likely on the increased testing happening this year due to people getting tested for Covid.
> It's pretty locked down. You have an app that unless it's says healthy you are not allowed into any public place.
The explicit comparison to the flu doesn't really seem to hold, since the conditions applied to the infected aren't equal. If those carrying the flu were subject to the same conditions as those carrying this covid-19, the comparison would hold up a lot better.
> I illustrated it as a place in which there is so much mass testing that the mortality figures are more fact than fiction.
Mortality numbers as a % of tested peoples are hugely variable due to the differences in testing between nations.
Mortality numbers as a % of the population (deaths per 100k/1m) make for good comparisons, and unless the nation is engaging in outright deception, those numbers are reasonable to use as a comparison.
There are 10 times more cases in US that haven't been tested for is one explanation.
Look - my country no one bothers to observe measures and our system is far from overloaded.
I think that a lot of influential l people threw too much social capital on stay at home and stuff like this and now they just can't handle the situation if covid is less dangerous than thought.
> There are 10 times more cases in US that haven't been tested for is one explanation.
There are 10x more deaths as a percentage of the population in the USA than in Qatar. The number of tests / positive cases is not relevant to that number.
The US is going to be something close to 1 death per 1k total population with the policies we have. It doesn't make logical sense to think the number could be orders of magnitudes lower in the US if we didn't close businesses.
In the US, there's been 172k death in half a year for Covid. And if using the worst case data for flu season, it's 61k per year. So it's looking like for a full year, it'll be 344k death for Covid versus 61k death for the flu.
That makes Covid 5.6 times more deadly than the flu.
But, the Covid numbers here are from a complete lockdown, where people are social distancing, wearing masks, schools are closed, everyone is working from home if possible, etc. And even with those level of precautions, it is at best 5.6 times deadlier.
That's why the estimate from the CDC is that Covid is 10 times deadlier than the flu.
The other thing is, this only measures immediate death. But there are unknown long term risk. Other type of SARS virus are known to cause long term issues to people that recovered from it. Hopefully this doesn't turn out to be the case for Covid but it could, and we don't know yet.
The last problem is mutations are possible. There's already one known mutation that makes it even more contagious. And the more the virus spreads, the more likely it mutates as well. So containment is important for that as well.
Now, that's the risk of it from the data today. You can decide that it is a risk worth taking or not. That's kind of a personal thing. But it is absolutely much higher than the flu.
You can't just compare absolute death totals like that. We have a vaccine for the flu which reduces the infection rate. What if the reason COVID-19 has 5.6 times more deaths is because it has 5.6 times more infections.
In the 2017-2018 flu season (one of the worse, which had the estimated 61k deaths in the US) infected an estimated 45 million people in the US; that's roughly in the middle of the range of the number that have caught COVID-19 so far (30-50 million the last I heard; note this is an estimate of total cases, not the confirmed 5.7 million cases, but so is the 45 million).
So our current understanding is that COVID-19 is both more deadly and more infectious.
That's fine, when we say it's estimated to be 10 times deadlier, it isn't in terms of you being 10 times more likely to die from it than the flu if you catch it, but that Covid let loose in our population will result in 10 times more deaths.
This does take into account infection rates, it's absolutely relevant and it's the big reason for Covid being deadlier, because it is more contagious.
So from the data, we see that with social distancing, lock down, and all that, it still infects and kills 5.6 times more people than the flu does every year given the measures taken for the flu, which is to have some amount of the population vaccinated. Thus assumed that without any protections, it would be even worse, possibly killing around 620k people per year. That would put it above cancer and up there with hearth disease as the number one cause of death per year.
And that's precisely why we're hoping for a vaccine. So that we can hopefully get the infections down and stop it's crazy contagion rate to manageable numbers that result on much less deaths per year, and doesn't force us to continue with the more challenging measures for limiting the spread of the virus.
Downvoting because it's none of your business. Honest question - and if you choose to downvote me I'd ask you extend me the same courtesy you asked for - how is a gymgoer endangering you, if you are staying 6ft from all others, wearing a mask, washing your hands and not touching your face?
Perhaps they are an essential worker, and don't have the option to stay at home?
Perhaps they have medical issues that leave them immunocompromised and may require hospitalization, putting them at a high risk of death from exposure to COVID patients?
Perhaps they are unemployed or at risk of unemployment due to pandemic restrictions, and the irresponsible behavior of people who are too cool to do body weight exercises at home could directly harm them by lengthening the time these restrictions are necessary?
"It's none of your business if other people break the law in a way that harms others."
I'm not entirely sure which part of my comment you're arguing against:
> How is a gymgoer endangering you, if you are staying 6ft from all others, wearing a mask, washing your hands and not touching your face?
Are you saying that as long as the measures you listed are followed, any additional shutdowns required by the local/state government are unreasonable and are okay to ignore?
If instead you're saying that the measures you listed satisfy the local/state requirements for gyms, then I'm confused because I wouldn't expect the gym to be shutdown in the first place.
>Are you saying that as long as the measures you listed are followed, any additional shutdowns required by the local/state government are unreasonable and are okay to ignore?
Yes. How does a government shutdown help me, if I'm already isolated?
> The virus that causes COVID-19 is thought to spread mainly from person to person, mainly through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs. Spread is more likely when people are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet).
What, without evidence of it ever spreading from one person to another in a grocery store, you believe it isn't possible? Is extrapolating the knowledge of how it spreads to the possibility of encountering that situation in a grocery store not viable here? Shall we wait for evidence of spread in every single possible permutation of leaving the house before we consider such an activity potentially dangerous?
I was challenging isolation. I go grocery shopping - I think it can be done safely. But, I wouldn't do it if I lived in some red state full of pandemic deniers with huge spread rates - it's too dangerous. In my area, everyone wears masks, everyone makes sure to social distance, so it's not as much of a risk. But I acknowledge that I'm not isolated, and that was the claim that was made.
>What, without evidence of it ever spreading from one person to another in a grocery store, you believe it isn't possible?
We have extensive contract tracing now in every state in the US, and around the world. I would think it wouldn't be that hard to show. Were you able to find any cases?
Off topic, and there are some who would argue reckless driving or even drunk driving is a victimless crime. The victimization occurs when (or if, since the vast majority of intoxicated driving incidents result in no damage) actual damage is caused to person or property.
What kind of logic is this? Spraying bullets into a crowd is a victimless crime unless someone gets hit, so we shouldn't prosecute otherwise? That's some serious mental gymnastics.
Note that those who argue that line also argue that the decision to drive while drunk makes it a planned attack if you do kill someone and so you are looking at first degree murder charges if you do happen to kill someone.
And yet somehow the GP managed to reply defending drunk driving as victimless instead. Sometimes analogies can be useful to reveal people's bizarre ideological commitments.
yeah, that is precisely what I was speaking of. It is good tactic for winning a absurd internet debate, but doesn't really further the original discussion, and certainly doesn't help educate anyone or build consensus.
To me it is a matter of goals, when posting.
I seek to learn something and/or share something, and think this is best achieved by replying to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.
I find that satisfaction of baiting a stupid post then refuting is short lived.
It can be a useful mode of argument, but I am not sure I have ever seen it used productively in an internet discussion.
This post is a good case in point. I don't thinking drawing the analogy helped to educate anyone who read it or establish the appropriate moral obligations of an individual living in a society.
Imo, it is effectively trolling, especially when presented in a one sentence post. Do you think it spawned productive discussion when reading the child discussions?
I think that depends on if you think they are strictly equivalent, on the same spectrum but a different by a matter of degree, or categorically different.
Once we start comparing and contrasting the two, it becomes a more interesting discussion. I don't think they are strictly equivalent, but am open to a difference of degree and exploring where the line is drawn and why.
Living in a world with other people involves risk, even without covid. Driving anywhere sober, for pleasure or work, puts yourself and others at some level of risk. This is legal and socially accepted, so we know there is some threshold.
Another interesting area of comparison is consent/ acceptance of risk. When I get on the road (or walk down the street) I accept the fact that another vehicle could careen out of control and kill me. In the case of the speakeasy gym, the members presumably are accepting the risk.
This brings up the last area of comparison, second order effects. Even if the two Speakeasy gym members consent to take a risk, what about 3rd parties that could be harmed. what are the chances a 3rd party is harmed, and how do we typically handle comparable 3rd party risks? Airborne particulate is estimated to cause 200k premature US deaths per year. How does the particulate from a road trip, flight, or web browsing compare?
If we were so inclined we could try to throw some numbers to these.
Those are big ifs. The reason businesses were shut down is because policy was put in place to enforce distancing and the business could not meet those policies.
Risk of transmission goes up indoors, with heavy breathing, and being exposed for longer than 10 minutes. People who exercise, are going to breathe heavily. People on equipment or in a class stay longer than 10 minutes. And gyms are indoors and often not well-ventilated.
The result is that gyms are an excellent space for spreading COVID-19. And measures that reduce the spread for things like walking around a store are not sufficient to reduce it to a safe level in a gym.
Researchers have been tracking many superspreading events around the globe, and there seem to be recurring locations no matter what the country. In addition to those we have heard most about, like prisons, food processing plants, and elder care facilities, there have also been numerous large superspreading events at bars, churches, offices, gyms, and shopping centers.
Its likely you're getting down voted for being a snitch. Normally, I'd down vote you for this (as people down vote my posts which disagree with their opinions regardless of facts presented), but I take great joy in seeing how many down votes I can get ruffling feathers. Others aren't like me.
on HN it is common practice to downvote when you do not agree with someone, but don't have any new information to add that is worthy of a comment. So basically don't worry about votes. If you start getting flagged that is a different story.
I appreciate the advice! I've made peace with HN's unexplained downvotes in general. Still, I'm trying hard to improve my communication style, so any feedback I can get regarding bad/good tone in my comments is super helpful.
I suspect the downvotes are related to the comment to report. HN tends to lean anti authoritarian, so the idea of reporting someone doesn’t tend to sit well here.
I’m on the fence with something like this. Covid-19 isn’t turning out to be nearly as scary as it looked like it might be in December (at least based on rumors coming out of wuhan). I still feel like there’s information at a high level (security clearance type stuff) that we don’t get to see, and so have to assume the stay stay at home orders are still founded.
That said, people in the US can only maintain this type of social distancing so long. A lot of people are reaching a breaking point. And if some speakeasy gyms help prevent a massive ‘fuck it’ style rave, then it might be a lesser of 2 evils kind of thing.
Reporting to the authorities in the US means calling the police. Don’t call the police in America.
Furthermore, virus or no virus, the right to peacefully assemble is a human right that cannot legally or morally be abridged.
I don’t want the police to shut down protests. I also don’t want them to shut down gyms, or voting, or churches, or any other peaceful reason (dumb) people wish to assemble.
Assembly in the middle of a pandemic is stupid and irresponsible. I don’t do it.
I also don’t want men with guns stopping those that do. You can’t fix (or stop) stupid with a Glock and a uniform, which is what TFA is illustrating.
Same deal. If either of those groups tell you to close (and they already have, in the case of speakeasy gyms), who do you think shows up next to make sure you’re closed?
It’s not men carrying clipboards. They’re carrying pistols, and they have machine guns in the trunk of the vehicle they drove there.
DO NOT call the state to solve your problems.
If you wouldn’t solve the problem by taking a gun over there, don’t call someone else to do that.
That doesn't mean that we have to agree with the rules or the way they are enforced. However if you are not in agreement with the majority your options are war or not reporting others for their rule breaking. In general war is not a good option.
Every society has this, it’s not really a valuable comment.
This seems like simply a dodge or dismissal of the legitimate criticism that breaking most of society’s rules should not cause an armed opponent to suddenly appear. It’s unreasonable and uncivilized and frequently results in the small-rule-breaker being physically abused or even murdered, especially if they aren’t white.
Your casual dismissal of these consequences suggests that you are never targeted by these people. For that I am glad. I hope everyone can be as callous about the consequences for minor rule breaking one day.
>I also don’t want them to shut down gyms, or voting, or churches, or any other peaceful reason (dumb) people wish to assemble.
You are attempting to equate assembly for the purpose of fighting racism or exercising vitally important activities like voting, with "assembly" for the purpose of "sick gainz bruh". This is such a false equivalency that it's laughable, and honestly also a little insulting.
The right to peaceful assembly is not conditional on legitimate purpose; same as the right to free expression.
Free speech means freedom to shitpost, not just write literature.
Correspondingly, freedom of assembly is for stupid and pointless things like church, moderately important things like gym, and not just critically important things like insurrection.
The proliferation of “illegal” gyms suggests that many people feel similarly.
>The right to peaceful assembly is not conditional on legitimate purpose; same as the right to free expression.
Yes it absolutely is. I have no idea why you think otherwise. The right to "free expression" is conditional as well. We prohibit certain "peaceful assembly" and "free expression" every single day and have done so for centuries. The classical example: you do not have the "right to free expression" to go into a crowded place and falsely yell "fire", because that would be a public danger. Similarly, going to a gym during a pandemic causes a public danger. "Right to peaceful assembly" doesn't apply.
"Peaceful assembly to work out" is in no way similar to "peaceful assembly for protesting". It's ridiculous of you to claim otherwise. It's so ridiculous that I can only believe you're trolling or trying to make an argument in bad faith.
It's equally insulting to posit the straw-men arguments like this. The degree to which BLM protests do any good is debatable. The degree to which they need to be public displays, mid-pandemic is also debatable, unless you are worried that the US is going to run out of seething hate and police brutality incidents by the time the pandemic is over.
Spreading virus is an act of violence. Intentionally spreading disease is in the law books as a violent crime. Is the casualty rate of police encounters higer than the casualty rate of COVID-19 encounters?
That's not a logical reason. Rules in society are supposed to exist to the benefit of everyone.
We can have a discussion about whether this particular rule really does benefit everyone, but clearly the ones that do should be respected, otherwise what's the point?
Yes of course there are limits, nothing should be held as an absolute. I also don't think it's a very complicated ethic, you follow it until it's no longer the right thing to do. As another commenter noted, rape and murder etc. obviously don't apply.
Most people can come to decisions like this without the mediation of a legal system. In this particular case, I don't think that ratting on gym owners who are trying to salvage their livelihoods by serving willing customers is worthy of reporting to the authorities.
Never thought I'd see the day where Americans turn in their neighbors to the state.
That's a lazy strawman. The people operating these businesses are doing what they can to survive, and they are dealing with willing customers. Both parties are exercising personal responsibility. Equating this kind of thing with murder and rape is juvenile.
This. The last couple months has done more damage than good to me. I'm that type of person who'll lose muscle quickly if stops working out for mote than 2 weeks. I also played a couple games of volleyball and tennis, and I'm so clumsy I'm embarrassed I lost control of my body. Meanwhile, thr local gyms havr silly rules to restrict people's access...
It's not amusing; it's reflective of the fact that severe alcohol withdrawal can kill, or easily put you in the ICU, which isn't great when we need ICU capacity.
> In the Western world about 15% of people have problems with alcoholism at some point in time. About half of people with alcoholism will develop withdrawal symptoms upon reducing their use, with four percent developing severe symptoms. Among those with severe symptoms up to 15% die.
I was really surprised to hear about alcohol bans in eg South Africa for this reason. It’s a terrible idea and dangerous for no real gain that I can discern.
The last couple months has done more damage than good to me. I'm that type of person who'll lose muscle quickly if stops working out for mote than 2 weeks.
It's not about you. It's about everyone else.
How can someone be so selfish and self-absorbed that they think their "muscle mass" is more important than the health of hundreds or thousands of other people?
I know this question may violate some HN policy, but I can't help but ask: What's wrong with you?
This same argument can be made about any infectious disease season. The only difference is a matter of degree. This virus is probably ~5 times as bad as the flu so we should spend ~5 times as much to mitigate the externalities. Not ~500 times as much like we have.
I fear that after this every time there's a bad flu season we will see this same shit again because "think of the most vulnerable among us, you're literally killing them!!"
There are rare long-term side effects from many infectious viruses. Anyone who gets pneumonia from anything will be down for the count for a while, but they'll get better, and that isn't unique to this virus. And myocarditis (the heart inflammation people are talking about) is a side effect of all sorts of viral and even bacterial infections (wikipedia lists basically every common human virus as a cause), it will normally get better on its own, although in rare cases it can cause issues.
None of this is new! This coronavirus is a novel coronavirus, not a magical one. It has effects that are in line with other viral illnesses in humans. It's just a bit more virulent than them. It's a matter of quantitative difference, not qualitative difference.
Possible permanent smell/taste loss? Possibly permanent reduction in lung capacity?
There is a qualitative difference as well. The lingering side effects of the Lyme-causing bacteria is on a level apart from what happens when you get food-poisoned.
You’re right, I’m an economist, not a doctor. So I look at the world in terms of trade offs. And the trade offs western societies have made with this virus are so unlike the trade offs made with any other infectious disease in recent memory that it makes me concerned about what the new trade offs will be going forward.
that's what's known as the "slippery slope" argument. The response to this virus is just so shocking that oh wow, what if this is the new norm? It's not at all. this virus is not "the norm", this is a 100 year event. don't hurt your head on that slope!
Heh, despite the fact that you are being rude to me I'll still answer in good faith because the distinction is important.
If we are spending hundreds of times as much mitigating a virus five times as bad as common illnesses (yes a once in a century event) are we now going to spend dozens of times more money/effort mitigating the flu every year? If yes then we will see lockdowns like this regularly going forward. If no, then the vast majority of the response to COVID is an emotional overreaction, not rational risk mitigation/pricing in externalities.
I will say in mid-March, when things looked quite different based on our limited knowledge of the virus, that the response wasn't entirely unwarranted. But we've known for months that this isn't nearly as bad as feared. It isn't the second coming of smallpox. Yet we still have most of the restrictions and shaming from March, even to this day.
> If we are spending hundreds of times as much mitigating a virus five times as bad as common illnesses
how do you quantify "five times as bad" ? if I run my car into a brick wall at ten miles an hour, vs. 50, one event damages my car the other kills me. is that "five times as bad"?
> are we now going to spend dozens of times more money/effort mitigating the flu every year? If yes then we will see lockdowns like this regularly going forward.
no, why would we? the flu does not overwhelm hospitals [edit: the 2018 flu season comparison is a counterpoint but there is no argument this is anything on the scale what covid has done in places like NYC], cripple the entire medical system such that thousands of patients are left to die in hallways and parking lots, and spread exponentially to kill hundreds of thousands of people within just a few months.
> If no, then the vast majority of the response to COVID is an emotional overreaction, not rational risk mitigation/pricing in externalities.
you have made no argument to support this case.
> I will say in mid-March, when things looked quite different based on our limited knowledge of the virus, that the response wasn't entirely unwarranted.
what exactly "looked quite different" ? the main things that were known in march, e.g. spreads exponentially, r0 is something like 2 or 3 if steps aren't taken, has a 20% hospitalization rate, has a high death rate for those hospitalized which has improved somewaht but that is predicated on the fact that hospitals are availble, are still true.
There were a lot of tweets from people who work in public health about the argument you're making. "If people said we overreacted, then we will know we did our job". That's how it works when you prevent a horrible thing from going out of control. People who for whatever reason don't seem to understand what happened will crow about how unnecessary that was. Can you see how this looks to anyone who is actually trained in this area?
flu may not kill as much as covid or spread as fast as covid but still thousand of people die every year, so somehow that is acceptable without lockdown ?
that's a disingenuous argument because the scale and breadth of the 2018 flu season vs. what covid continues to do are not in the same league at all, by an order of magnitude (see below). there was not a global lockdown for the 2018 flu season I recall, there will not be one for a future flu season of similar magnitude, and the point remains that it's a logical fallacy to suggest the covid lockdown represents the action that would be taken for a 2018-style flu season because there is simply no comparison.
yes because the hospital system was not overwhelmed to the extent that it would be with an unchecked coronavirus. The nationwide overwhelming of hospitals with covid is with lockdowns and mask wearing throughout the nation. if steps had not been taken, the death toll would be approaching the millions by now, not just for covid cases but for all kinds of untreated emergencies.
Without the lockdown the the hospital system are not overwhelmed, at least no more overwhelmed than what happen in the past.
Due to lockdown the hospital are furloughing, lying off nurse, freeze hiring.
Just look at Sweden where they didn't lockdown.
Doesn't mean I say we should not take any step. Step to make vaccine still has to be done, improving treatment still have to be done, increasing health care capacity still have to be done.
> You’re right, I’m an economist, not a doctor. So I look at the world in terms of trade offs. And the trade offs western societies have made with this virus are so unlike the trade offs made with any other infectious disease in recent memory that it makes me concerned about what the new trade offs will be going forward.
I would hope economists would make judgements based on more than aping what happened "in recent memory," but somehow I'm not surprised. IIRC the last time we had major pandemic like this, gathering places were closed (like now), social distancing was done (like now), masks were worn (like now), and some people chafed against the restrictions and decided that it was better to endanger others (like now).
1. The tradeoffs are mostly US-only, other western societies had the political will to prevent unemployment and evictions. This is not intended to mean "US bad, others good", just that the tradeoffs are not objectively there, but instead mostly a result of societal decisions (e.g. France had 1% lower unemployment in June 2020 than in June 2019 https://countryeconomy.com/unemployment/france?sc=LAB- )
2. Sweden tried this route. They now have the deaths plus the economic fallout (-6% GDP, just like the locked down neighbours Denmark and Norway), mostly due to the international interconnectedness (collapsing supplier chains etc.)
More specifically, other western societies had the political will to prevent all the people who weren't working and were being paid by the government at less than their normal wage from counting towards the unemployment stats - generally some sort of furlough scheme where on paper they were still employed by their original company. Still meant they weren't working, with no guarantee there'd be jobs for them to go back to, but it sure looked better on the stats. (At the cost of arbitrarily screwing over people who for whatever reason couldn't take advantage of furlough and ended up actually-unemployed.)
The US tried something a little like this with forgivable loans to pay businesses' paychecks, but the trouble is they did this after rolling out an unemployment boost that left less well-paid people better off than if they were employed, so it was a little difficult to convince business owners who didn't want their employees to try and murder them in their sleep to take it up.
I wouldn't be so quick to proclaim Europe's victory over this virus. With what's happening in Spain, and now France and Germany, this may be a European "Mission Accomplished" moment in another month.
Any flu that clogs your lungs and gives you a fever can give you long term lung or neurological damage. I've seen little to nothing that suggests covid is uniquely dangerous in this regard.
> Think of the most vulnerable among us. You are killing them.
But I like going to the gym, partying, and maximizing the profits of my business! I'm fine with helping, but asking me to make sacrifices is just too much. Isn't what I prefer most important? /s
I've also contrived some sympathetic-sounding reasons to justify the choices I already wanted to make, so it's pretty clear that if you disagree with me, you're obviously wrong. /s
no the problem is that severe COVID cases take up space in the hospital for a long time, so it's relatively easy for cases to snowball, people to be unable to admitted into hospitals at capacity, and then for lots more unadmitted people to start dying because they can't get treatment. which is what happened in Wuhan.
How did "do three things to prevent mass death" (distance, mask, wash hands) become "we're all going to die anyways so i'll keep doing whatever I want thank you."
Narcissism is usually associated with self flattery or egocentricism, as opposed to selfish self-determinism/control (unless in the form of performant displays of anti-lockdown value-signalling).
COVID inspired woke-scolding is more narcissistic.
That's one trait of narcissism, the main one is thinking that the world begins and ends with you. A virus doesn't begin and end with you (by definition), so any argument about self-determinism/control is a red herring meant to distract from what is happening. Wearing a mask isn't about you, the same way that a virus isn't interested in infecting one host. It about communal safety, not yours.
> COVID inspired woke-scolding is more narcissistic.
I have a feeling you would say the same thing with or without a deadly virus ravaging your country.
Well, when did "flatten the curve to avoid overwhelming the health system" become "lets close gyms, churches, salons, non-chain stores indefinately but keep open Home Depot, Walmart, liquor stores, pot shops?" Or allowing gatherings for one political viewpoint as ok, but gathering for another as 'selfish and dangerous'?
There's plenty of inconsistency to go around. Add in different perceived risks and different risk tolerances, and what u see as necessary can be seen as narcacism by others.
On the face of it the rules are very simple: stores selling essential goods are allowed to stay open, others must close. So taking each of those:
Home Depot - construction industry is essential
Walmart - groceries are essential
Liquor stores -- groceries are essential
Pot shops -- pharmacies are essential
Gyms -- recreation is not essential
Churches -- culture is not essential
Salons -- culture is not essential
Non-chain stores -- don't have groceries, therefore not essential
Political gatherings -- opposed by the opposite side, nothing has changed
Now you can quibble with some of the categories, but the rules aren't inconsistent. They do just happen to benefit the powerful corporations, surprise surprise.
But specifically we went from "avoid overwhelming the health system" to "let's do the things that stops people from continuing to die". And those things involve avoiding human contact unless it is essential, mask wearing, and social distancing. It's not crazy that our government is asking us to do things that make us less likely to die. You know, unless you're a seatbelt truther.
> I know this question may violate some HN policy, but I can't help but ask: What's wrong with you?
There have been times in the past where I've made HN comments that were meant as constructive criticism to another HN user. But my accidental tone ruined any chance of my comment being helpful. @dang was gracious enough to provide me detailed feedback [0], and it seems to be working for me.
It's been a while since I've seen mention of actuarial analyses of the pandemic vs lockdowns. Could millions of people with muscle atrophy cause more economic harm?
Could millions of people with muscle atrophy cause more economic harm?
Who cares? Why is "economic" harm so important?
I'm really tired of people saying "But what about the economy?" I really don't care. I care about my health and the health of my family members. If some artisan dog biscuit company goes out of business, so be it.
I'm really tired of people saying "But what about my health?" I really don't care. I care about my job and the businesses of my family members. If some work from home keyboard jockey gets sick because they left their house instead of locking themselves inside, so be it.
The "economy" is just our way of measuring what people do for themselves and others all day. "Some artisan dog biscuit company" is someone else's lifelong work and dream, not just a number in a spreadsheet. Minimizing may make you feel better about selfishly demanding everyone turn their lives off, but it's not an accurate representation of the world.
Lockdown doesn't mean muscle atrophy. You can still do a lot at home even without equipment. Besides, if you want to continue to assume it causes muscle atrophy, then compare a population with muscle atrophy to a population with (likely) permanent organ damage due to a vascular disease (covid).
Early days yet, but medical professionals are seeing cases of myocarditis that appears to follow COVID. Whether or not this leads to ling-term damage is unknown, but myocarditis isn't generally something you ignore.
Wow, sounds pretty serious. I experienced some of those symptoms in March after a particularly bad respiratory infection. Perhaps it's time to get an antibody test.
That's the first article that shows for googling [covid-19 vascular disease].
Basically my understanding of the current understanding is that COVID-19 is better thought of as a disease that can cause blood clots, particularly in several organ systems, particularly in the lungs -- you start getting blood clots in your lungs and consequently can't breathe very well.
If muscle mass or fitness is a concern, work out at home. Or outside. Ride a bike, go for a run, do some pushups. Pick up large rocks. Buy a squat rack or rowing machine. Go climb a mountain.
Access to a gym is absolutely not required to maintain fitness.
How about we ship you to a deserted island, or you can confine yourself to your house indefinitely. The rest of society can carry on enjoying their life.
"Staying healthy" can be done with zero equipment and no gym membership. If you think otherwise, then your goal isn't to "stay healthy", your goal is to show off at gym bunnies. And no, your showing off and vanity is not a choice you get to make during a pandemic. Tough.
Sadly, this is the source of your downvotes. For so many (even here on HN of all places), it's all about ME. My freedom. My choices. My comfort. My convenience. My need to eat at that restaurant or buy that ranch dressing. My absolute right to do squats next to some random person at a gym. Anything that gets in the way of my freedom to do every little thing I want to do any time I want to do it is bad.
We're not talking about genocide here or shredding the constitution. We're talking about sensible and temporary public health policy. But no, I just have to go get my hair done.
I am neutral towards your comment, but I feel you're judging me for my beliefs and opinions, even though you don't know where I come from and what's important for me.
There are several decent ways to keep oneself in good shape for a few months while gyms are closed. Insisting this is a big, important problem for you while also (apparently) not taking advantage of those options means the way you're presenting yourself in your comment doesn't look so great, to put it mildly.
I am taking advantage of the other options, and I am in good shape (well, lean and slender xD). But I can't really replace the gym and the swimming pool with the other options.
Also, I am not concerned how others perceive my beliefs because I know what works for me, so to each their own.
You know what would really cause you to lose muscle? Getting a bad (or even mild) case of COVID.
I'm an athlete myself so I get it. Working out is important. But people are reporting that they are not back to 100% even _months_ after the primary symptoms of COVID are gone. And health professionals are saying that it's very possible to lose things like lung capacity PERMANENTLY. Honestly that scares me more than the idea of being badly sick for 1-2 months. I worked hard to make my lungs strong.
Also, of course, the whole concept of responsibility to our communities in a global pandemic is even more important, but an appeal to self-interest is there as well.
You're just again repeating this same unscientific fearmongering as everyone else.
Yes, there are possible outcomes that are absolutely terrible and potentially even permanent! Nobody is debating this.
However, what we need to have a real and fact-based discussion is that how prevalent these outcomes are, what are they based on, and what groups are most affected.
Then we as a society can come together and choose what the appropriate response is.
Of course this all breaks down when you have a country of 382M people that refuses to even attempt the creation of smaller, more manageable communities.
Something I've learned, which I definitely did not know before covid, is that a lot of common viruses do this kind of damage. Including the ones which cause colds, and definitely more serious viruses like influenza. Heart problems are definitely not unique to coronavirus, and in fact a lot of what we are seeing is par for the course. It's just that this is a very high profile pandemic and there is a huge amount of research being aimed at it.
Yes your last sentence is correct. It is very obvious what's happening, yet even people here on HN (who usually challenge this kind of populist stuff) don't seem to understand it. It's very intriguing.
I don't understand that comment. I keep up to date on the latest scientific papers on the coronavirus pandemic, and the one thing I wouldn't call it is obvious. We repeatedly see things happening that run contrary to what the consensus expectation was. Obviously some of this is due to improvements in our understanding over time, but we are still very much in the dark about how it is currently spreading, who is most likely to suffer fatal or severe consequences, how we best treat the disease, etc.
Charitably, it is neither as bad as we feared nor as innocuous as some hoped, but that was bound to be the case and easily predictable. I don't feel at all confident predicting what comes next, however.
I guess I should have been more explicit. It is very obvious that in early 2020 we barely knew anything about this specific Coronavirus.
The fact that we are still following the same guidelines as we did in February makes it pretty obvious that governments are not really working with the new data currently coming out, but instead still trying to scramble to put a cap on any possible downside COVID has.
To put it in other terms, most world governments (and majority of their people in some cases!) are thinking like this currently, in terms of "amount of danger"
potential, currently unknown, negative outcomes related to COVID > millions without jobs, tens of millions stuck inside getting cabin fever and whole industries collapsing.
> The fact that we are still following the same guidelines as we did in February makes it pretty obvious that governments are not really working with the new data currently coming out, but instead still trying to scramble to put a cap on any possible downside COVID has.
Who is "we"? My state went from "no one go anywhere, disinfect surfaces" to "wear masks everywhere, avoid groups of people indoors". We've gone through a lot of phases as more information became available, and while things are very much not yet back to normal, many restrictions have been lifted once it was apparent they weren't needed.
I wouldn't take the 1/1000 chance, but even then. It's not an all or nothing choice.
It's more like:
- X/1000 chance for people who go to the gym, get sick, lose health permanently, probably infect others
- 0/1000 chance of the same if you stay away from the gym and try to do some sort of similar workout at home, even if it's not ideal. Body weight exercises are great by the way
Who cares if X is 1 or 999? Why would anyone choose the first option?
Many people simply aren't willing to indefinitely maintain a lifestyle that would protect them from the coronavirus, so the risk is already priced in. It's distributed over the times that I visit my family, my roommate visits his friends, I go to the cafe, etc.
Yeah, as a former powerlifter I would really be missing my gym buddies if I was really into it now.
For now it seems like indoor gyms as we know them today are probably a bad idea. Hopefully due to a combination of better mitigations in the gym itself (sure put the squat rack in a giant bubble), decline in case counts, etc means the day where going back is not too far away (fingers crossed).
Because I am already taking a 1/500 chance of death in the next year and I can't do anything about that, so when probabilities get small enough I stop caring. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
If I'm squatting 250 lbs normally, body weight isn't going to do jack for me.
People choose the first option because they weigh risks differently. The risk of permanent health damage as a result of coronavirus disease in my age bracket with no pre-existing conditions is effectively nil.
Do you plan to avoid COVID forever? Do you believe you will never get it? Do you expect to isolate yourself until an effective and reliable vaccine is available to you? How long can you do that for? Are you most concerned with not getting it yourself, or with reducing the overall death count by not overloading the healthcare system?
I'm most concerned with my family not getting it. I have no interest in attending another funeral for a child in my life and I would not want my kids to grow up missing a parent. We miss friends dearly.
I'm hoping that the early vaccine trials go well and are approved. There is promising progress there but who knows.
There seem to be other nasty long term effects that are mostly unknown.
The idea that kids don't get or spread covid is not supported by evidence. They seem to get less symptoms, but there isn't enough evidence to say they don't get or spread it. Some studies suggest they are more likely to get and spread it, but there isn't enough to make strong statements yet
You can maintain a very healthy body using only body weight exercises, with practically no weights at all from the comfort of your home. With youtube and the like, you have access to near infinite workouts as well. Not having access to a gym is not a sufficient reason to be out of shape.
Once you start training weighted exercises it's very difficult to get similar workouts with bodyweight. If I'm squatting 250lb it's going to be tough to simulate that with my bodyweight and I'm not likely to be able to load the reps the same way.
One-legged bodyweight squats + whatever heavy things you have available (e.g. bottles of water) in a backpack should be difficult enough. If you care about "functional strength" then it's arguably superior than barbell squats. And one-handed pushups are good substitute for benchpress.
Those are great ways to get hurt mostly. If you're doing one legged squats you're going to tire out stabilizers before your glutes get a good workout. One handed pushups similar issue.
Great if that's what you want but not a replacement for proper weighted squats.
You can work on your form, by slowing down the squat, using whatever weights you do have on hand (a broom handle or "yoke" with 5 gallon buckets filled with water/sand), dumbbells, kettle bells or weighted vest. You can also work on your fast twitch muscles and explosivity by jumping from a squat. Doing squats with a weight in only one hand also improves your core technique. Now is a great time to work on your neuromuscular fitness which will improve your lifts tremendously.
Yea the workouts obviously won't be similar because you're not going to simulate that weight properly without a squat rack, but there are plenty of workouts you can do that will have similar positive effects on your body mechanics.
The exceptions are sport specific exercises which require certain movements that may require certain equipment.
Gyms have benefits, sure, but he's responding to someone treating it as either go to the gym or get no exercise. He's pointing out alternatives. They don't need to be as good to be relevant.
The fact that push-ups exist refutes the false dilemma. The fact that gyms exist does not refute the idea that you can stay fit without a gym.
> The last couple months has done more damage than good to me.
Me too. I live alone, and for the first 110 days of lockdown in the UK, I saw another human being that I know in person for 6 of those days. The toll that has taken on my mental health is huge.
Combine the lack of human interaction with the loss of everything that has value to me and my life outside of my job: restaurants, museums, sporting events, theatres, gyms, sporting activities, all of these things disappeared overnight, and most of them haven't returned still.
Instead, I've taken up volunteering (while still holding down a 60hr/week job) with local charities, helping those in the community around me who are more vulnerable and more in need than I am. Mostly helping out with food deliveries, which makes for good exercise, but often collecting drugs for them and delivering to them, which can make for decent cardio if the distances are right.
TL;DR: There are ways to achieve the goals you need for yourself, and simultaneously helping others rather than endangering them.
EDIT: watching the count on this post is amusing. Maybe it's worth being explicitly clear: despite the volunteering work, I am absolutely still depressed, and will continue to be until I can make meaningful changes to improve my life. There's no magic bullet when you sacrifice the things that give you meaning.
Ironically, months of lockdown away from gym and weight gain has increased my risk for lethal covid outcomes. Though looking forward to cheap surplus sales.
It's not just gyms. It's underground bars, hair salons, hot stone yoga joints, and all kinds of things.
While the hair salons were closed, my wife's hairdresser was texting her every three days to get her into her underground makeshift totally illegal hair place.
And slightly realated, quarantines don't work when people aren't actually quarantined. There was an article in the newspaper last week or the week before about all the people from California driving into Nevada to get their hair done.
Just what the world needs: People who make poor health decision driving around the country.
Masks aren't 100% effective so being in close contact with someone for such a long time (a haircut for women can take much longer than a typical trim for men) carries a high risk of transmission from an asymptomatic carrier.
I find this to be one of the funniest supposed differences between genders.
I'm trans male, so I've gotten both female and male haircuts. Female haircuts generally took much less time. Put the hair in a ponytail, one snip, tidy up a little. Even a buzz cut takes a little bit longer. It's also much easier to cut long hair yourself than short hair, and people with long hair can go much longer between hair cuts. It took me a while to realize that men's haircut needs to be cut every 2-3 months instead of the once or maybe twice a year I was used to.
Hair dying definitely takes longer, but it seems that can be done at home easily as well.
Thanks for voicing this! I've been cutting hair as a hobby for years (it's funny, I got questioned a lot why I felt it was worth cutting my own hair and suddenly with the onset of the pandemic a lot of friends of mine are much more interested in the hobby), and the number of folks that think female haircuts are more involved/difficult is astounding. Unless long hair is very overgrown and needs to be relayered, it's generally really simple to trim it. Men's haircuts are short enough that small mistakes are glaringly obvious, and the haircuts need regular maintenance. My partner had some trepidation when I first cut her hair, but since then she's recommended me to her friends (well, pre-pandemic at least). She did short hair for a while and found the constant maintenance to be a huge pain.
I'm confused, if the participants wear a mask, will the virus be transmitted or not?
For some, it's not about whether the virus is transmitted or not, it's about the moral implications of deliberately violating the law.
But considering these underground places aren't licensed, regulated, or inspected, I expect they're more risky than a regular place. There's very good health and sanitation reasons that hair cutting places are regulated in the first place.
That's roughly equivalent to asking "if someone drives drunk, will they kill someone else or not?" Many times, they won't hurt anyone, but I hope it's not controversial that driving drunk is still extremely dangerous.
Today I learned that getting a haircut with a mask on is equivalent to driving drunk, but protesting or going to a grocery store with a mask on is not.
What evidence from the US can you present that people will universally wear masks or that they'd wear them correctly? It's far easier to accept that they won't correctly wear masks and this path of exploration fails at step 0.
> And slightly realated, quarantines don't work when people aren't actually quarantined.
Which is an excellent point, which may make some wonder if it was realistic to try in the first place. It's like imagine if the US govt forced everyone to lose weight and then was shocked that people were hoarding ding dongs in the underground market. "How dare those illegal ding dong hoarders break the law!"
If we're going to make laws that are fundamentally against human nature (see also drug prohibition laws, which is also has parallels to TFA), we shouldn't be surprised that some people don't follow these rules.
I saw an engineering services company I know of post a new job position for a "care coordinator" to babysit their employees kids, at work, while the employees work. My first thought was, isn't that a daycare? How is it different in the eyes of the law?
Edited- spelling
I don't know about law, but it's less infectious than the normal situation in which kid's peers are from different families than parent's peers. Of course, it's much more infectious than actual isolation.
>My first thought was, isn't that a daycare? How is it different in the eyes of the law?
Childcare is one of those basic and ancient jobs that's accrued a lot of compex laws over the years. In PA, anyone caring for four or more children not related to them is required to get some sort of certification, even if they're doing it out of their house for friends for free. Home daycares aren't uncommon here.
I'm not sure about the laws in your area, but my money's on that business having to apply for certification and pass inspections. They'll probably hire a certified childcare worker.
I see a lot of outdoor gyms in parks and what not. Outdoors is not only safer but also more pleasant. And if it rains a bit running through the rain will give an extra feat you don’t find in regular gyms. Ok, kidding about the rain but I prefer doing my workouts outside the gym when the weather permits. Calistenics aka exercises with the weight of your body are quite efficient and don’t make one look like an ogre
>Outdoors is not only safer but also more pleasant.
Speak for yourself. I live in a hot and humid place and exercising outside is incredibly unpleasant. It's 10 times worse if you're standing in direct sunlight.
>Calistenics aka exercises with the weight of your body are quite efficient and don’t make one look like an ogre
You’re an exception and you are more than welcome to join a secret gym. I was just pointing out to others that outdoors is a good option for exercising, at least during the summer. If you want to look like an ogre you probably don’t want to be seen outdoors anyways.
People are free to do whatever they want and look however they want, I agree with that. I am not shaming anyone for striving to look like an ogre, it's their preference but I still think it is an unhealthy thing to do to your body and a fad. I have 2 friends who bulk up and are actually in a very bad shape mobility wise, their arms are so big that they can't reach arms behind their backs and stuff like that. Plus that they can lift big weights but don't have much endurance and tire easily.
Sure, adding a bit of shape to your body is not a bad thing but exaggerating it doesn't lead to good outcomes
> If you want to look like an ogre you probably don’t want to be seen outdoors anyways
i struggle to see this as not shaming. also there's plenty of other middle ground between bodyweight exercise and "ogre".
i don't disagree w safety of outdoors and avoiding illegal infection incubators. i just think your suggestions around Calisthenics and comments on ogres are ignorant. not everyone has your preferences for body shape, access to climate and physical abilities.
You seem to have some pretty fundamental misunderstandings about strength training. Even very intense programs can be undertaken without turning into an immobile blob of muscle. Strength is gained not only through hypertrophy but also through neurological changes, particularly those related to motor unit recruitment. Technique is also critical and fixing flaws there can lead to large improvements.
>I have 2 friends who bulk up and are actually in a very bad shape mobility wise, their arms are so big that they can't reach arms behind their backs
Bodybuilding is only one type of strength training. Furthermore, the primary goal of bodybuilding is aesthetics, not necessarily strength. That's not to say that they're not strong, but there's a reason why body building competitions will involve flexing in front of the judges while olympic lifting competitions won't.
I CHALLENGE you to make yourself look like an ogre. Based on your comment I can almost guarantee that you have no idea what it takes to get anything close to “ogre”. More likely than not, if you tried your hardest you would only end up looking sexier than you are now.
I know of one "secret gym" that's extremely well ventilated, everyone wears masks, and everyone is socially distanced. They don't do things that require spots, etc. I think it's pretty safe. Only 6 people are allowed in at one time.
Once one gets past the sexist language like "swole, maskless bros," there is an interesting idea in the article that a societal risk of long duration prohibitions is the development of shadow economies and contract enforcement mechanisms. I'm surprised to see such a libertarian POV from NPR.
But it's not a an opinion or view, it's an behavioral economic fact. The same thing happened in the 1920's with prohibition, and the same thing is happening with the illegal drug trade.
Really, is every man who works out considered a "bro" now in America? That word is used six times in the article.
I go to a gym with a lot of bodybuilders, and I often forget how much of the world sees them as mindless thugs. And yet among us are at least two real-estate executives, a famous death-metal singer, a handful of computer nerds, a very famous (regionally) pop singer, a former Ambassador, at least one former Olympian, and a bunch of Hollywood stars when they happened to be in town. Plus, you know, ordinary men, women, boys, and girls who like to be fit, or are trying to get fit. Some are large, some are not. The oldest is 75.
Evelyn should swing by the Bay Club and do a bro count, see how that goes. Might offend a judge or two, especially if they're swole.
We haven't evolved to constantly evaluate our actions against things we cannot see right in front of us (in this case a virus). Nothing actually happening during this pandemic is surprising in the least.
You think a disease with a case fatality rate of like 0.05 (probably like 0.01 for 20-30 somethings) would actually going put evolutionary pressure on anything? These people are looking at the risks and making rational decisions that its not worth shutting down your life.
"Manifestation" or "tangibility" are generally really big problems in terms of getting people to understand what they cannot immediately see, hear, touch, or smell. Or what their worldviews have not prepared rhem to see, or worse, trained them the specifically not see.
This turns up in many places in technology --- bugs, design flaws, architectural errors, implicit assumptions, security issues, unintended consequences, UI affordances, algorithmic biases, data corruption, ...
A typoogy of various forms of such cognitive biases would be interesting. Too small, far, distant in time, transparent, big, diffuse, etc., etc.
See also Robert K. Merton's Manifest and Latent Functions.
There is a crossfit gym that I pass by every morning on the way to work. It is full, and never stopped during this pandemic. Even at 7AM, it is full of patrons.
I would call the "proper authorities", but since there is a State Police car parked outside every morning, and he is in there working out, just like before the pandemic, I doubt calling anyone would do anything.
Adding to the post, I read it earlier... it is really strange that people feel they have to go work out in groups. Or get together, or go to bars. I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
If this was true, we'd see landlords with paid-off mortgages waiving the rent. Since we don't see this on any major scale, we can only conclude that mortgages are inconsequential to landlords demanding rent-payments.
A mortgage is not the only cost of owning a property. Taxes are a third of my mortgage payment every month. Other than the IRS delaying tax day by 3 months, I haven't seen any delay or waivers of taxes due.
In addition, there's basic upkeep and maintenance that you're required to perform to keep a building insured, let alone to make it re-openable at some point.
I think few are willing to sustain a COVID-free lifestyle indefinitely. Using induction some people probably conclude that they might as well not bother.
I see the reasoning and don’t think the ethics of our pandemic behaviors have been fully discussed.
the patrons apparently don't believe that their behavior is unethical, and in fact, think that the dictates of their rules are unethical, and potentially illegal too.
The group thing is real. Some people just really need the motivation from others being present or their perceived judgement to show up regularly. It's not a failing on their part, whatever gets you to the gym and keeps you going, but maybe work on your individual workouts during the pandemic?
Introverts vs extroverts. Humans are social animals. Socialization is a basic human need. It is much harder for some people to stay inside and not socialize than others.
We are now on month 7 of being told to not socialize or see or do anything. I continue to obey the orders, but I totally get why some people are starting to crack.
Considering most states have been in full on shelter in place lock down mode, there aren't many places people can socialize anyways.
All of the normal places where you see people socialize have bee closed or went out business. Restaurants, bars, night clubs, sporting events, live music (festivals and stadiums) and many, many others.
It would be one thing to conform to what your saying, but its become hard if not impossible to find safe places where people CAN socialize, so they take what they get regardless of the risks to them or others.
the media have consistently demonized people at beaches and parks. Lightfoot fenced off the beaches in Chicago, Newsom did the same in CA. It's ridiculous; and its why people are skeptical of their intentions.
I had just graduated college and moved to a new city on a new coast before lockdowns started. I essentially have no in-person social network to speak of, currently. My parents lived overseas up until a month ago. Folks my age (early 20s) are happy to socialize with their established friends. Less so with strangers. All the places shut down are the standard avenues for folks like me to meet new people. I was entirely alone for 4 months. My life was hell. And all the while my company talks about difficulties being at home with family, and figuring out childcare (and has freed up resources to help their employees do so). No mention, ever, of any effort to establish meetups for low-risk, early-career employees, not that I'd expect that. No one particularly cares about people in my situation (not that rare).
Comments like this and the ever popular "it's just a mask!" show a remarkable lack of awareness and understanding. Yes, that's perhaps overly selfish of me. Yes, there are people at serious risk, and many people dying or developing life-long serious complications. But this has been the worst period in my entire life, by far. I was regularly, very seriously, suicidal (have since moved back in with my parents now that they're stateside, starting to get better). All the policies and all the talk are oriented around having a network of close relations to fall back on. That doesn't exist for everyone.
I think cases like this are almost completely overlooked. I'm also concerned/saddened by young children who's parents just moved to a new town (moving is not uncommon when many can't afford mortgage/rent due to covid lay offs).
We're going to see pretty significant long term effects to both the economy and children / young people due to a lack of social development.
I couldn't even imagine how shitty being a 20 something in a new city would be now. Dating has to be practically non-existent.
Should say that I'm for and obey covid restrictions in my country (Canada), but I'm amoung the privileged few already working from home, and have a family and kids that keep me busy.
>2. Why can't people socialize online? It's even easier nowadays. It might not be the same thing but it can get pretty close.
It is not anywhere near close. Video calls transfer speech, tone of voice, and facial expressions at best. Body language is a vital part of face-to-face communication, and there is no video call equivalent of leaning in towards someone or putting your hand on theirs.
No state in the USA is or has ever been "in full on shelter in place lock down mode" during the pandemic. Many states issued half-assed stay at home orders, which in practice ended up being voluntary and unenforced. Throughout it all, there were people who were out horsing around, doing whatever they wanted, and not facing legal consequences. Vanishingly few people were arrested for violating stay-at-home, despite it being legally enforceable as a misdemeanor. Thankfully most people did their part, but to call it "lock down" is a bit of an exaggeration.
There are ads on pretty much every medium that say "Stay Home", which is not at all what you're describing. To say "nobody is saying do not socialize" is untrue, but to say "We're not allowed to socialize" is also untrue.
> "Keep your distance, wear a mask, and stick to small groups" is not the same as "do not socialize".
Ok, but then we have people doing solo activities, all by themselves, minding their own business -- getting arrested by lunatics[1] because we said no beach allowed during Covid[2]!
You'll find California (and everywhere else) has loosened up substantially on outdoor activities, as we have substantially more information in recent months on outdoor versus indoor transmission. We've learned a lot since April about COVID-19.
Maybe some people think enforcing compliance is about safety.
This whole discussion is absurd. If people actually did comply, then they wouldn't get arrested and we would have had a far more successful outcome nationwide.
No one (statistically) was spreading it at the beach, so all the hand-wringing and blaming now and then that you're engaging in has shown to be arrogant and incorrect.
people who act like joggers are the real threat mostly don't exercise, just as people who say things like "I don't understand why people need to get together" mostly are introverts, people who think the anti-lockdown protestors are lunatics generally don't own brick and mortor businesses, etc. people are scared and want someone to blame, ideally someone who isn't like them. and it's naturally much easier to see the things you do as essential, but the things you don't do as nonessential
We said "No beach during Covid" because a bunch of lunatics flooded the open beaches.
And while the beach may not be a problem, those same lunatics flood the gas stations, Walmarts, etc. and DON'T WEAR MASKS.
In addition, California never really locked down. California has almost continuously had an R0 above 1.0. Mostly due to the lunatics in Southern California.
If you want to open the beaches and arrest anybody not local, fine. The problem with THAT is that you now have to patrol for it--which creates in-person contact.
So, we shut the beaches completely. Sorry you can't surf. Tell your population cohort to wear your masks and stay the hell out of parties and maybe California will get below R0 one day.
Or not. And this crap can continue until we get a vaccine.
Why is it not OK to jog on the beach by yourself? You don't seem to have an answer for that.
Don't allow large gatherings? OK fine, I might object to this, but I can see the other side at least.
Not allowing individuals to do individual activities? That seems misguided at best.
After all, we do allow Ice Cream Parlors to be open, and outdoor seating at restaurants where you sit in close proximity to other people who are not wearing masks... how is that better than jogging on the beach all by yourself?
They aren't better, and none of this is actually about safety nor is it about "Flattening the Curve" anymore. We flattened the curve long, long ago.
No, it's not about safety, it's about compliance. You will comply, regardless of how illogical or contradictory certain County Health Official Edicts are.
> Not allowing individuals to do individual activities? That seems misguided at best.
Please reread my post. I already told you what the problem was.
A zillion people flooded the open beaches. The problem is that those zillion people then go places other than the beach and spread Covid.
The only real way to prevent that is to simply close the beach. Yes, that sucks for locals. So far, you have not presented an alternative solution. "Reopen the things!" is NOT a solution--it's idiocy.
However, you know what sucks more for locals? Getting Covid 19 from a bunch of out-of-towners because you work at the grocery stores, gas stations, etc. that they all flood after the beach.
Stop being a selfish prat. If you just have to be outdoors, go hike the mountains.
The solution to your problem is to not allow large gatherings on the beach. That's pretty simple, right? We're doing that already everywhere else - lines to get into stores, etc. Or enforce wearing a mask? There's plenty of ways to do this that don't result in a squad of cops running down a solo jogger, or a task force of patrol boats and helicopters for a solo surfer... just because the Mayor or County Health Official said it must be so!
So, what's wrong, for the 3rd time, with a solo jogger on the beach, with nobody around them?
The answer, for a 3rd time, is nothing.
> However, you know what sucks more for locals? Getting Covid 19 from a bunch of out-of-towners
You really think that risk doesn't exist for locals going to grocery stores too? Touching a can of food, then putting it back on the shelf? Handling paper money, grocery bags, etc.
What we have here are not rules for the sake of safety. What we have here are not rules for the sake of "Flattening the Curve".
No, we have rules for the sake of rules. They make some people feel safer, even though there's zero evidence to suggest they are effective at achieving their intended goals. The reason people are disobeying these "orders" is because the government has not done a sufficient job convincing people the rules are based on logic and actual science, not "science" and politics.
It is not inherently more risky to jog on the beach by yourself than to go sit at an outdoor restaurant, no mask, and be around a bunch of other people.
It would be intellectually dishonest to argue otherwise. Yet, here we are.
I think you're being really unreasonable here. He's not saying he went to a flood of people at the beach. He's saying that should not be allowed, and is asking why he should not be allowed to go jogging on the beach alone. Emphasizing the word AFTER doesn't make any sense.
I find the topic of introverts vs extraverts to be extremely fascinating. My wife and I are pretty big introverts, but she is somewhat shy whereas I am not. She loved group exercise due to the external motivation factor but has actively avoided getting into conversations in that setting.
I am also not one for striking up conversations with strangers but have been known to get quite chatty with people who initiate.
On the whole, both of us loved the lockdown for the 2-3 months but after that, not being able to see our close friends really started wearing on us. We were some of the first in our group to start expanding our quarantine units. Sometimes I need to remind myself of this, but the right amount of social interaction is a very rewarding and enriching part of the human experience.
> We are now on month 7 of being told to not socialize or see or do anything.
What? That's a pretty exaggerated misrepresentation of what's actually being recommended. You can socialize and see or do plenty while still obeying the recommendations. For instance, my elderly neighbors regularly socialize with others -- they just put chairs out on the driveway or patio and maintain two or three times the distance as they would before the pandemic.
I don't believe this for a second. The total number of people that managed to contract it in New Zealand within the last week was under 10, and they locked down an entire city because of it.
"Everyone stop moving around for a few days so we can contact trace and test these people without it spreading more" seems like a very good mitigation.
It has worked well for NZ thus far; they've been able to demask, hug, and live life pretty much normally for a while now.
I'd happily take the occasional few days hard lockdown in exchange for that.
You have to consider what would happen otherwise. If you lock down cities at 1000 infections then how many other cities manage to reach 1000 infections before you take action?
I don't understand this. Under what circumstances are you proposing that we'd be able to open back up? What's different now (or could have been) than it was when you claim we should be been locking down the first time? Certainly no amount of locking down would completely eradicate the virus, so what's the exit strategy?
There's a genuine culture difference in America, call it American Exceptionalism if you want, that's caused all sorts of normal preventative measures to be ignored or actively rejected. Many businesses actively rejected the idea of requiring masks, today some businesses still refuse service if you're wearing a mask. That's pretty ridiculous if you ask me.
Moreso in this thread you have hundreds of comments hemming and hawing, nitting and picking at every detail of proposed lockdowns and mask requirements. People hate this stuff and they call it an imposition on their freedom.
In other countries people just put on masks and stayed home. They didn't make nearly as much of a fuss about it all.
> They didn't make nearly as much of a fuss about it all.
Yes. But my point is, I don't see how that could make them any closer to re-opening. The virus still exists. All the factors in play when the lockdowns started are still in play.
The problem is the relaxed attitudes to COVID is causing clusters to appear and expand, delaying efforts to re-open.
Remember, lockdown isn't about 100% prevention, it's about keeping infections at a level that's acceptable (generally defined as keeping enough ICU beds and ventilators available for COVID+normal use).
If people all wear masks, keep distance when possible, and generally "follow the rules", we should be able to return to a more normal lifestyle.
But, as politicians force schools to open, pastors insist on in-person services, and the "mah rights!" crowd refuses to play by the rules at all, we get more COVID clusters than we might otherwise.
NYC was far from acceptable. The point was to prevent the rest of the nation getting to a similar point.
That levels in other urban areas generally stayed below thresholds is proof that the lockdowns worked.
Until the pandemic passes (either via mutation, vaccine, or herd immunity), we should be in a state of maintenance where we move in/out of various levels of lockdown/open to keep it that way.
I don't disagree with phased lockdown -> re-opening plans similar to what we did here in VA. The lockdown started in late March, round one of opening was rural areas and small gatherings, then extending to suburban areas, etc. And if numbers start to go back up, we might shut down again.
The problem I do have is a substantial number of people appear to be ignoring any/all orders to stay home, distance, etc. Everything from the speakeasy gyms mentioned in the article to churches holding indoor services to in-person classes at local schools. All three of which, by most accounts, are likely to result in new COVID clusters.
What directions did they follow that allows Wuhan to have pool parties? I don't understand how having pool parties can be ok. Does the virus not exist there? How can that be possible?
Well luckily we have this thing called the internet that lets you see images, video, and text from far away places.
> What directions did they follow that allows Wuhan to have pool parties? I don't understand how having pool parties can be ok. Does the virus not exist there? How can that be possible?
Full lockdown, including stipends to help people out economically, heavy maks usage, massive amounts of tests (when they saw six new cases after not having any, they did 6.5M tests in a week in wuhan), and scanning temperatures of pretty much anyone anytime they go into public area.
Whilst I am certain pool parties are indeed happening, something about the fact that they happened and ended up in international news strikes me of being a little, maybe, propaganda-ish.
The US had a concert with thousands of people just last week. I'm sure we can agree it shouldn't have, that it was a very dumb decision for Smash Mouth to do it - but I don't see much reason to believe that this Wuhan pool party was a smart decision.
We live in an unprecedented age of communication and media. I have a hard time taking any so called 'extrovert' seriously when they say that they can't handle the current state of 'non-socializing.'
Maybe these extroverts aren't extroverts and instead they're regular people suffering from withdrawal because we live in an over-socialized society.
Mid to late March after news of Italy started blowing up. Started with spring break extensions and "temporary shutdowns". It's incredible how quickly recent history gets mixed up..
Buy yeah, we are just finishing out month 5 and heading into 6. But the most stringent lock downs were only into May for a lot of places; at least hear in San Antonio.
I'm an extrovert. I can find ways to occupy my time. I've picked up drawing, meditation, and running. I want to talk to people in person, get drinks, go to shows, etc. It's not hard to find something else to do for a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Get a therapist if it's that difficult. Preventing the spread of disease is more important than hanging out with your friends. The burden of the disease falls on people like nurses, essential workers, etc. and you are making their jobs miserable because they can't even take any break now (this is the situation at mother's hospital). Just be less selfish. It's easy
If they are taking required precautions what is the problem? They've done this at my gym and I have continued to go throughout the "pandemic". Easy to sit on your high horse here and state your disbelief and amazement that people want to continue living their lives, why not just leave them alone? You choose how to live your life and we will choose ours.
Let me preface:
I've abstained from going to the gym since we went into lockdown, and even now that we are out of it here. I am looking into equipment at home, and I can at least keep my fitness, if not my strength, by going mountain biking.
That said, there are many types of training you can't do without the right equipment, so it's at least a bit more than just wanting to be with others. Strength training/powerlifting/olympic lifting all come to mind. It's often really difficult to keep a rack, barbell and hundreds of kilos of weight at home, and obviously not something people had just lying around in case of an emergency.
There is certainly a social aspect to it as well, I love training with a couple of friends, the atmosphere can't be replicated at home. But like I said, I've abstained, and I would have been hopeful others would have to.
Kettlebells can get you a long way for sure, but are not really suitable for the bigger lifts from disciplines like powerlifting and olympic lifting. The biggest kettlebell I can find online is 92kg, even with one in each hand that's not enough for many. Part of the benefit of plates and barbells is you load them up 20/25kg at a timel, two 92kg kettle bells would be cumbersome to get into position!
That's true. But for parent's objective of keeping their fitness and hopefully their strength, a couple of kettlebells are probably better that mountain biking, and it takes far less equipment and space than a proper rack, bar and plates.
> That said, there are many types of training you can't do without the right equipment, so it's at least a bit more than just wanting to be with others. Strength training/powerlifting/olympic lifting all come to mind. It's often really difficult to keep a rack, barbell and hundreds of kilos of weight at home, and obviously not something people had just lying around in case of an emergency.
Yeah, this is pretty important. I used to lift and there's simply no way that I would make the investment to have all that equipment in my house. In normal times it's incredibly wasteful for each individual to stockpile their own redundant junk, rather than share a common pool with others. [0]
I switched to a more equipment-light calisthenics routine years ago with a few items I have around the house, so the current pandemic does not impact my own fitness routine - but for people looking to get really strong this is no substitute for lifting heavy.
[0] As an aside: this shouldn't only apply to gym equipment, communal resources should be way more common for economic and sustainability reasons. There's no reason at all every homeowner should have a lawnmower, for example.
> In normal times it's incredibly wasteful for each individual to stockpile their own redundant junk, rather than share a common pool with others
This has not been my experience at all. I used to have a membership to my local gym for my wife, myself, and their childcare program (basically watch your kids while you exercise for 1 hour).
I cancelled that membership and instead put that same amount of money into buying equipment at home (where I have enough space for it) and it only took me about 5-6 months to get enough equipment to replicate about 90% of my routine from the gym. Now I also don't have to wait in line or spend the time travelling to/from and I can exercise whenever I want. For me it has been way more effective.
And when I'm done using the equipment it's not going to go in the trash, I'll sell it in the local classifieds.
Wasteful on a societal level, not an individual level. If everyone did what you did, we'd all need more space, and a non-trivial amount of steel. Hard to do that if you live in a studio apartment, etc. You just can't apply your situation across the population.
Personally I can walk to my gym, and I get far greater quality and variety of equipment by not having to pay for, maintain and store it myself. There are no duplicate machines at my gym, yet it spans a whole warehouse, and I've used every machine at some point as my programme evolved.
As a renter, when I move I don't have to lug hundreds of kg of weights and equipment with me.
>Yeah, this is pretty important. I used to lift and there's simply no way that I would make the investment to have all that equipment in my house. In normal times it's incredibly wasteful for each individual to stockpile their own redundant junk, rather than share a common pool with others.
I don't see a problem with lawnmowers but I think maker spaces should be in every city. I can easily buy high quality tools for myself but I have no space in my apartment and once I'm done with a tool it feels like a waste to let it collect dust in a drawer.
There is one big problem with communal resources. Not everyone is qualified to use a tool and communal resources make it easier for unqualified people to get tools and break them.
Can't you do calisthenics ? There's a ton of possible exercise which uses only your body weight, or only minimal equipment like a pull-up bar. Can you do a one-legged squat? Pushup with a hand stand? Dragon flag? Many other exercises on youtube which make you sweat in minutes.
It really depends on your discipline. Powerlifting really starts at 100kg of weight on a barbell, and many need more than 200kg of weight on a bar to perform their training. You could keep healthy with a home fitness regime, but you'll lose some of your total strength, and you certainly won't be progressing.
That's all I'm trying to point out, for many disciplines there is no substitute for equipment. But so be it, these are unique times.
Body weight exercises can be great and useful in maintaining a certain level of fitness, but you're very limited in the ability to increase your muscle mass using them.
> I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful.
You can't tell to people, you have no risk of dying (0.5% death rate for population, much much lower for healthy and young people), people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...) so this is not your fault if they catch it but you need to stop living your life. That can't work.
And above all, what is the long term strategy, we stop everything for the rest of our lives ? (a vaccine doesn't always work, example the flu vaccine, which works approximately).
It is not that people don't want to sacrifice, it is just that scarifying is the worst solution for everyone
I agree, the top poster is essentially advocating for complete and total tyranny of the Communist order. Telling on people who don't necessarily agree with the official narrative, it's essentially thought policing.
Edit: If you don't like what I said then go work for Xi Jinping. It's no secret a lot of people in tech are crypto or full-blown Communists. Telling on people for wanting to get on with their lives is nothing short of Commissar tactics.
US didn't have a federal strategy to deal with the pandemic. They shot at their own foot and didn't give themselves a chance to be successful.
The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on. I'm watching Champions league finals on TV and Wuhan pool party clips on twitter, thinking wtf went wrong here.
> The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on.
I'm not really sure on that, lets take greece, which was praised for their strategy (I was in greece during the lockdown). They didnt have a strategy, they just locked down before there was an outbreak and blocked flights, so no spread. Now they have an outbreak because they stopped all there restrictions. They were just lucky
Look at New Zealand, their strategy is to prevent anyone to enter the country with covid, well that works as long as not a log of people fly to NZ. Now that flights have restarted, they have like 3 cases so they lockdown the entire city, well, doesnt seem very smart in my opinion.
The only countries which are doing well, are the Asian countries, China (can't really trust their figure), Taiwan, south korea same as NZ, but restricting all freedom of citizens.
The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for winning
>The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for winning
I keep seeing this narrative but I can never find the data to support it. When you look at the data, Sweden has the worst of both worlds.
1. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths.
2. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down.
There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors.
The metric by which it's doing better, is freedom. Nobody has been forced to change their lifestyle, if they did, thats because they decided so.
The number of case is under control [1], almost no death now (and not hiding after a lockdown, really no death) so probably less death in the future compared to those countries
>> 1. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths.
Geographic comparisons are of limited usefulness; MA had 10x the death rate of near neighbors NH,VT& ME. There are too many other factors to consider. Sweden still did better than UK, France, Spain, Italy and many others.
>> 2. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down.
Mobility data would suggest otherwise; no masks, kids still in school etc. Life has continued with some restrictions. We could have done the same with similar outcomes. Economy definitely took a hit, but less so than other eurorzone countries.
>> There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors.
The fact that the pandemic is effectively done in Sweden is one. We still dont have an exit strategy.
>>The fact that the pandemic is effectively done in Sweden is one.
Acting like this is a foregone conclusion is the height of arrogance. Diseases spread in waves. They could just be at the low point between two waves.
We won't know until years from now. Just asserting you're right when there are still this many unknown factors smacks of someone looking for data after coming to a conclusion.
fair point, but do you know that the under 65 excess deaths metrics for Sweden is already almost identical to previous years ie. if you were looking at the charts you would not even know they had a pandemic. I suspect "years from now" looking at the US metrics it will be similar.
This is a very specific claim. I don't doubt you but something like this should always be backed up with sources or people will dismiss you immediately.
You can clearly see excess mortality for Sweden, higher than previous years.
Edit: missed the under 65 bit, would be interested in seeing that data for Sweden, but you can see the collated graphs for all the countries that contribute and you definitely can spot spikes in the lower age ranges.
The key metric Sweden is winning at is that they're already at the finish line. They never locked down and their death counts are the lowest they've been since before the pandemic. Single digits and zero in recent days.
No, they are not. Death rate is low everywhere in North hemisphere right now because of summer period. In winter, death rate will climb back to 4%, like in Brazil right now.
I don’t understand how Sweden could be a good example to follow: they now are at 573 deaths per million, close to Italy 585. (France is 466, Germany 110, Norway 48, all flat. US 585 and rising fast)
If you look at Belgium 859 deaths per millions, Sweden (and the US) could go much higher without any preventive action (I believe Sweden is now acting more in line with other countries?).
The Champions League finals definitely aren't an indication this part of the world has dealt with it and is moving on. There's a huge amount of intrusive Covid-19 restrictions around those, from obvious things like no spectators to putting the entire teams in isolation (compliance has been... mixed), and even then I have my doubts that they'd be able to finish the season if it went on any longer due to the exponential growth in cases again in Europe.
They did at the outset of the current administration but chose to fire the people trained for 'reasons'. When the pandemic finally pressed on the country, the game plan handed down from the previous admin had been abandoned for years at that point by the current administration.
"Why should American taxpayers throw good money at pandemic planning when they only happen about once every hundred years in the US? The last one was what, almost exactly a hundred years ago, what are the odds it would happen during this administration?"
The logic remains breathtaking, and the irony would be delicious if it weren't so deadly.
Also we shouldn't forget that "American independence" really also means "selfish". Many Americans can care less who dies, as long as it directly doesn't affect them, thus fights about simple things like mask compliance, or not going to a bar for a while.
That in addition to the federal government not supporting people and businesses while the economy is shut down, leads to this obvious outcome we're experiencing right now.
I was warned very early, end of January, and locked down my family about a week before required. I track someone who reviews the literature and news and give bi-weekly updates on the state of knowledge and politics surrounding the pandemic.
Originally he erred way on the side of caution, because we did not know enough. We learn more every week, and his current outlook is a lot like what you just wrote.
The big remaining problem is this is not going away anytime soon. There's more politics than science going on, and there have been institutional failures world-wide from top to bottom.
> Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful.
> people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...)
This makes it clear "nobody successfully proved" really means "I didn't bother to listen". The messaging on masks has long been "they reduce transmission by infected people", not "they prevent you from getting it".
The head of the strategy of Sweden, keep repeating that he is not sure masks are working, how you can be so sure that he is wrong, and decides that's others who are not listening ?
Of course it is clear that if someone has covid and wear a mask, the probability to transmit covid will decrease (I was actually encourage people to wear a mask 6 months ago), but will it stop ? no. people can still transmit it by touching you. So yeah this is decreasing the risk, but is it decreasing the risk high enough that it will prevent the virus to spread ? Nobody has answered the question yet.
In France the mask is mandatory almost everywhere and still the number of cases keep increasing
The head of Sweden's response is quoted as saying:
> "If we were to run into the same disease, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would end up doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done."
and Sweden wound up with de-facto lockdowns anyways, as many people did it on their own without government instruction. The end result: Same economic damage as the other Nordic countries, but substantially higher deaths.
> He's on record saying mask requirements will be needed if cases started going back up:
So if cases started going back up, which is not the case for now, so this is not an argument
> The end result: Same economic damage as the other Nordic countries, but substantially higher deaths.
You compare the economic impact of one country which was hit by the virus (Sweden) and one which was not (Germany,Finland, ...). What is going to happen if the virus restart in Germany and Finland and not in Sweden ?
Back in mid-May, when the US was still behaving pretty well, the angry right-wing facebookers started talking about how great Sweden was. So I did a per-capita death calculation and Sweden's was 30% higher than the US's.
Of course, a lot of the US has lost patience with the difficulty of safety, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's worse now. But that's not because of lockdown not being effective. In fact, it's the opposite.
And let's not forget, in the US H1N1 infected 60M people and only killed 12K of them.
There's a common talking point that because masks aren't perfectly effective, they therefore aren't effective at all or worthy as a safety mechanism. It's a total farce of an argument.
Tegnell is a fucking idiot. Look at the numbers, look at how it spreads, look at the countries that were doing OK at first and why. That's Taiwan, South Korea, Iceland, Singapore. Look at what Sweden did (nothing). Look at Swedish GDP change compared to neighboring countries.
I'm still surprised there is so much misinformation about this. There are two categories of masks. The first category only prevent you from spreading the disease. These include paper surgical masks, cloth masks and those blue disposable paper masks. These are only made to prevent you from spreading droplets in the air from your moth and nose. If someone with covid isn't wearing a mask this category won't do anything prevent you from catching it.
The second category are masks such as N95, P95, N99, P100, etc. Things like disposable painter masks or reusable masks with replaceable filters. These are meant to filter out particulate in the air and they do reduce the likelihood of you getting the disease. To call your mask P95 it must be certified by NIOSH and tested to meet the given rating, ie P95 must filter out 95 percent of particulate and be resistant to oil.
In the beginning the US and CDC were not recommending using masks. I believe the main reason for this was, not that they didn't believe it was effective, but that they were worried about a shortage for health care professionals.
In addition to what other commenters are saying just like vaccines masks only really work on a population level and even there they don't work as well as vaccines. The figures I've seen claim something in the range of a 20 to 40 percent reduction in risk of catching from an infectious person. That isn't anything like what I'd call protection
> I believe the main reason for this was, not that they didn't believe it was effective, but that they were worried about a shortage for health care professionals.
Yeah, but instead of saying that they lied and said masks don't work.
I wonder how much of the current anti-mask sentiments arise from these lies.
Not really, at least not Fauci. What he said was they wouldn't work for most Americans. What he was implying is that most Americans wouldn't bother to learn to wear them properly.
I think he was right. If your glasses are fogging, RainX isn't your answer. Make the damn mask fit better.
Anthony Fauci quoted below with his primary motivations:
"I don't regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting themselves in harm's way every day to take care of sick people," Fauci told O'Donnell.
"When it became clear that we could get the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don't know they're infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks," he said.
"And also, it soon became clear that we had enough protective equipment and that cloth masks and homemade masks were as good as masks that you would buy from surgical supply stores," Fauci added. "So in the context of when we were not strongly recommending it, it was the correct thing."
Yes- he's negotiating a difficult position. At the time there was a big concern that people wouldn't wear the masks properly. "It takes training" was the implication.
But all the good quality evidence we have so far struggles to find a benefit to masks. This is especially true for DIY cloth masks that are being mandated for the public, but it's also true of high quality N95 masks. We only see a benefit when we drop the quality of evidence down, but this means we have less confidence in the result.
> RCT evidence was limited and showed no effect but accumulated evidence from retrospective case controls and cohorts all showed these strategies decreased transmission. N95 respirator mask OR 0.17 (CI 0.07–0.43), Gloves OR 0.32 (CI 0.23–0.45), Gowns OR 0.33(CI 0.24–0.45), All OR 0.09 (CI 0.02–0.35)
Note that this is for an N95 mask, not worse masks like surgical loop masks or cloth face coverings.
There's some research looking at post-operative wound infection rates. It can't find a benefit to surgeons wearing masks in clean surgery.
> We included three trials, involving a total of 2106 participants. There was no statistically significant difference in infection rates between the masked and unmasked group in any of the trials. We identified no new trials for this latest update.
> Authors' conclusions
> From the limited results it is unclear whether the wearing of surgical face masks by members of the surgical team has any impact on surgical wound infection rates for patients undergoing clean surgery.
> Conclusion: From the limited randomized trials it is still not clear that whether wearing surgical face masks harms or benefit the patients undergoing elective surgery.
Here's the most recent, very high quality, paper about masks and covid-19. This wasn't available when Public Health organisations were making their recommendations.
> Although direct evidence is limited, the optimum use of face masks, in particular N95 or similar respirators in health-care settings and 12–16-layer cotton or surgical masks in the community, could depend on contextual factors; action is needed at all levels to address the paucity of better evidence. Eye protection might provide additional benefits. Globally collaborative and well conducted studies, including randomised trials, of different personal protective strategies are needed regardless of the challenges, but this systematic appraisal of currently best available evidence could be considered to inform interim guidance.
This para is saying we just don't have the evidence yet. It's saying people should wear facemasks because masks may help, but we don't know, and maybe masks cause harm.
> Interpretation
> The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis support physical distancing of 1 m or more and provide quantitative estimates for models and contact tracing to inform policy. Optimum use of face masks, respirators, and eye protection in public and health-care settings should be informed by these findings and contextual factors. Robust randomised trials are needed to better inform the evidence for these interventions, but this systematic appraisal of currently best available evidence might inform interim guidance.
Look at the difference in the description of distancing (supported) and masks (optimum use may help).
But a leader speaking out to the population is not the same thing as an engineer/researcher formulating a theory and correcting themselves as information comes through in their research notes. One of the important things you have to consider as a leader is political capital, which is a limited resource. Every time you tell people that they should do something that is different from what they wanted to do, you are burning that capital. You cannot change your mind "as new information comes through" every day, soon enough, everyone stops trusting whatever you say and are back to doing whatever they think is best.
So if you think masks _can_ help (now or in the future, with training, used correctly, when we have enough of them in the future, etc etc) then DO NOT say they do not help and then come back to that because you have "new information".
If the problem was sourcing PPEs for health professionals why didn't the government use emergency powers to seize shipments and ban selling of such critical products to the general population? At least temporarily while building stocks for health professionals (which I'm surprised we didn't already have stocks of, you know, that seems like normal preparation procedure for a national health emergency?)
Which person lied? I did not hear the claim (from a public health authority) that masks were not effective in preventing transmission. I did hear the claim that we are unsure if masks provide protection for the user (rather than just protecting others from the user), which still reflects our current knowledge for most mask types AFAIK. I did hear the recommendation against buying masks early on to protect the supplies for more critical users.
I also don't see how you can blame the health authorities for this when half the political leadership in this country continually questioned (and in some cases still questions) the efficacy of masks and successfully politicized the issue.
>“What the World Health Organization [WHO] and the CDC [The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] have reaffirmed in the last few days is that they do not recommend the general public wear masks.”
But in neither of those cases did anyone say, you shouldn't wear a mask because they won't work. They recommended against wearing masks because they thought the harms of people wearing masks would outweigh the benefits at that point. I tried to make the distinction between saying "we not do not recommend the public wear masks" and "masks do not help prevent sick people from spreading the virus" clear in my original comment. All comments I saw were the former statement, which I think is not misleading the public or lying, not the latter.
It's possible they were wrong w.r.t. the harms outweighing the benefits but that's easier to say in hindsight.
"They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus" reads to me exactly as "you shouldn't wear a mask because they won't work".
Exactly, and at that time my wife and I were wearing masks (that we already had from before the pandemic!) going in stores and people gave us looks, made comments, etc. That is what happens when our leaders are irresponsible, ineffective and plain stupid.
>> In the beginning the US and CDC were not recommending using masks. I believe the main reason for this was, not that they didn't believe it was effective, but that they were worried about a shortage for health care professionals.
This happened anyway. Telling noble lies to the population just increases populism and makes people distrust the government even more. Which is paying off wonderfully right about now.
There are no studies that I know of that show that cloth masks provide protection for the wearer. The consensus now seems to be that they are effective at decreasing the likelihood that a sick person spreads it to a healthy person if sick people wear them.
In EVERY other country you can buy masks, and they were strongly encouraged, that prevented YOU from getting sick.
South Koreas KF94 masks come to mind, very good coverage and fit (3 parts including one under chin). And despite the lies basically posted by you and plenty of others including health authorities (don't wear masks if you are "healthy", masks can't protect you from covid) masks CAN be used to protect you from infection, and that is a MUCH more powerful motivator for folks to wear them, and can also be targeted to those who are at higher risk.
We need to get a grip of basic facts. Masks help reduce transmission and if reasonably designed (look overseas) infection. Why else do doctors in hospitals wear N95 masks? To avoid getting sick.
I am somewhat higher risk. I wear and N95 under a surgical mask. This reduces my risk of getting covid.
The other issue you miss is that there really has not been good evidence of outdoor transmission, and the claims of covid living on outdoor surfaces for 7 days also are suspect.
So when folks say - no one go to the beach, it's a bit of an eye roll. If covid were THAT infectious (huge open ocean airflow hitting the beach, blasting sun) then we'd all have it already just from going to the grocery store.
I think health professionals lost a megaton of credibility in claiming masks don't help, to not wear masks, or that masks can only help reduce transmission not infection. Other countries went all out on masks - with great results.
They are reaping the rewards of these basic lies. Now I'm told going to beach on a sunny breezy day is high risk. I'm listening, show me the outbreak, show me the data that says this is high risk.
N95s are still quite difficult to find here in the US.
Cloth and non-medical disposable masks are not considered protective (although it's likely they block some inbound particles, and there's evidence they may thus result in a gentler illness on average) but do reduce transmission.
You're right that there are multiple kinds of masks; in the US, it's kinda pointless to talk about N95s. No one's wearing them, in part because they're hard to get, and in part because our anti-maskers threw enough of a fit about fairly comfortable ones.
> The other issue you miss is that there really has not been good evidence of outdoor transmission, and the claims of covid living on outdoor surfaces for 7 days also are suspect.
You'll actually find me elsewhere on this thread noting that outdoors tends to be safe, so I'm not sure what statement of mine you're arguing with here.
> Cloth and non-medical disposable masks are not considered protective
> anti-maskers threw enough of a fit about fairly comfortable ones
How's this for a solution? Make masks with inhalation valves. You can find masks for dusty work with exhalation valves. It wouldn't be too big a change to reverse those valves. The lost protection against inbound particles isn't much, and the gain would be near elimination of the inherent discomfort of re-breathing CO2. I'm not an anti-masker, but I notice I'm a lot more comfortable with my mask off.
The mask still protects other people from transmission by you.
Anti-maskers wearing lace 'masks' does not protect other people.
They are completely different, and that is the main point of mask wearing for the general public - to protect each other by reducing the chance of ourselves transmitting it if we have it.
Your comment assumes the entire purpose of a (nearly) sealed mask is to protect the wearer from incoming droplets or particles. I don't understand where this ignorance comes from; it's been widely known and repeated for some time that masks do much more to protect others from infection from the wearer. There's only a small amount of protection for the wearer from infection from others.
An inhalation valve preserves the mask's primary purpose by closing off during exhalation. It gives up a small amount of protection for the wearer, but obviously a lot of people aren't interested in that anyway and refuse to wear masks. With an inhalation valve they could at least protect others.
Where is this coming from that only a small amount of protection is provided to wearer. For a while I kept on posting studies showing the effectiveness of masks in protection infection by wearer, but it's hopeless - somehow public health authorities have gotten everything so muddled in folks minds.
> Where is this coming from that only a small amount of protection is provided to wearer [...] public health authorities
I clicked the HN link to your comments. I couldn't quickly find studies, just a mention of Korea having success with KN94 masks. I think it's safe to repost them now without being repetitive.
> Your comment assumes the entire purpose of a (nearly) sealed mask is to protect the wearer from incoming droplets or particles
It doesn’t just assume it. It’s the whole point of the masks.
If your aim is just to prevent making people sick, a surgical mask is just fine (exhibit A, normal doctors).
If your aim is to prevent getting sick yourself, a N95 respirator is a better choice (exhibit B, doctors treating COVID patients).
An inhalation valve does less to protect other people, because the expelled air still has to go somewhere, and will just blow out of the sides of the mask. It could theoretically go through the mask material if it was thin enough, but there’s probably too much pressure inside and it’ll burst out the sides.
That in reverse is the whole idea for masks with an exhalation valve. Breathing in creates negative pressure inside the mask, so air gets pulled inside through the mask. When breathing out the valve opens and releases the extra pressure without blowing out the sides (not really a problem per-se, but would compromise your protection).
> An inhalation valve does less to protect other people, because the expelled air still has to go somewhere, and will just blow out of the sides of the mask. It could theoretically go through the mask material if it was thin enough, but there’s probably too much pressure inside and it’ll burst out the sides
No, an inhalation valve makes 0.0% difference here. Here's a simple mental exercise to understand better. Imagine two people side by side. They are wearing identical masks, except one has an inhalation valve. They breathe in, pause, breathe out. In your mind, freeze the frame at the pause between breathing in and breathing out. At that moment, what's the difference between the two? Nothing. Now watch them breathe out. What's the difference? Still nothing.
>> N95s are still quite difficult to find here in the US.
No they are not. This misconception is absurd. I bought 200ct of KN95 in early April from AliExpress and got them in 10 days. They are still plentiful.
N95's are available on eBay as a black market ish item. Sellers come and go. I've bought dozens and given them to friends and family and use them when in an Uber.
KN95s are fragile, have crappy fit (leak air enormously, obvious if you wear glasses since they fog), and aren't very well regulated. But they are better than surgical or those ridiculous cloth masks.
> I bought 200ct of KN95 in early April from AliExpress
How certain are you they are authentic? Remember a couple years back when everyone bought glasses online for watching the solar eclipse and then it turned out they were all fake and wouldn't protect your eyes?
Especially given the economic incentive present today for anyone willing to sell "N95" masks.
> N95s are still quite difficult to find here in the US.
Yes, our government has been incompetent all around. That's a bad thing.
If the country can't gear up production of masks to fight a pandemic, why am I supposed to believe we could do anything of meaning competently? I know I'm a lot less impressed with our military's readiness if we ever get into a real war than I was a year ago. We've shown we're very good at throwing money at fraudsters and very little about actually producing things we need ourselves.
We also seem to care very little about over a million deaths, if we go with something like a 0.5% fatality rate. Puts the reaction to 9/11 and the whole "how dare you disrespect our troops" racist reaction to athletes protesting into perspective...
I don't understand the people who go from "wow, we've handled this badly" to "we might as well never try anything again," though.
That should be the motivation to start paying more attention, from local politics all the way up, not give up.
> We also seem to care very little about over a million deaths, if we go with something like a 0.5% fatality rate. Puts the reaction to 9/11 and the whole "how dare you disrespect our troops" racist reaction to athletes protesting into perspective...
That is something to ponder. What does this say about us as a people? "Hey, we must retaliate, they attacked us!!" vs "Hell no I will not do one simple thing to protect others when we are all under attack from a virus." Hrm.
A few bad apples spoil the bunch. A society made up of people that tolerate 20% of their own to be antisocial super spreaders is rotten to the core, even if the majority behaves responsibly.
There's an analogy to US police forces there, too. And to US politicians.
> Yes, our government has been incompetent all around.
I don't agree. This is not incompetence. It is malice. The government absolutely could be responding far better, and doing much of the same things every other western democracy is doing. A popular political position in this country is to prove that we need less gov't by making sure it appears incompetent. Combined with the similar political need to believe the virus is a hoax means we get zero federal response.
I wouldn't argue with that much when looking at federal government (judicial branch excluded), but state and local governments have been varied in their responses, and most have been far from malice. In Chicago, my local alderman has been reactive to events (including non-covid matters, like storm damage) and informative about public services (especially with testing sites). Helpful and without cynicism.
I believe that national politics gets an undue spotlight, and that local government (in particular) does not receive the attention warranted.
The federal government doesn't seem to feel that same restraint when it comes to sending federal police into Portland to do community-level police work. And they are certainly more than happy to dictate many other aspects of our lives using whatever levers they have available. So why is it suddenly now that they can't provide any help in a pandemic because it's the States' responsibility?
>>The federal government doesn't seem to feel that same restraint when it comes to sending federal police into Portland to do community-level police work
While I disagree with the strategy and execution it is completely dishonest to say they were sent "to do community-level police work", they were sent to protect Federal Property after the City and State Governments failed to provide any protection for said property in the face of riots.
Again if it were me I would have just abandoned the building, and take with it all federal money letting Portland burn setting up a new Federal Courthouse (and giving the money that comes with it) to a new city in the region that would welcome the economic output of such a venue.
>>And they are certainly more than happy to dictate many other aspects of our lives using whatever levers they have available.
2 wrongs do not make a right... As a libertarian I advocate for the reduction in Federal power all the time at every level. It seems however Democrats only complain about federal power when a Republican is in charge, and Republicans only complain about Federal Power when a Democrat is in charge. Democrats and Republicans alike have transferred HUGE amounts of power from the Legislative to the Executive which enabled both Obama and now Trump to use that federal power in ways many people disagree with
They may wish that the local police were more successful at suppressing the violence, but that doesn't make it their responsibility to deal with the rioters. And why did they feel the need to meet the Portland protesters with violence but not the guys who occupied federal property out in Eastern Oregon? Politics, perhaps?
> 2 wrongs do not make a right
Sure. However, promoting the general welfare of people in the US by supporting pandemic response is a good bit less bad than creating arbitrary new regulations and laws that criminalize behavior which is really a local concern.
I find it kind of odd that there appears to be a huge overlap between the following two groups of people:
People that say government can or should impose/strongly-suggest/mandate mask wearing to protect overall population. Essentially the pro-mask wearing individuals.
Individuals that believe that we need end-to-end encryption, and that we can't have government watching our emails, tracking our movements, doing facial recognition, profiling, etc to stop violence.
In both cases, one could argue, the solutions being pushed-back against can effectively stop their respective problems. E.g. large scale big-brother surveillance of all individuals could effectively reduce crime to near zero. Just as 100% large scale government lockdowns/SIP and mask-orders can stop the spread of an epidemic.
Obviously I'm generalizing to try draw a comparison and point out the hypocrisy. Both of the problems require a suspension of some set of rights for "the greater good", yet we somehow balk at one (surveillance, facial recognition, centralized DBs, etc) whilst applauding and being offended when people question the other (mask wearing, SIP laws, social distancing, etc).
It's probably time that we decide as a society what we want instead of incessantly debating back and forth with contradictory requirements and expectations we impose on our governments.
I'll agree it's not a perfect analogy. But if you want to press me on a potential abuse of a government-mandated and punishable order of wearing masks: Abuse of power by corrupt government officials that can use this extra and easily-fakeable "offense" in order to punish individuals that they don't like. Or what about the negative social aspect of creating laws that have neighbors secretly reporting each-other for this? Or the potential for child-traffickers to gag + hide the gag with a mask while they're busy engaging in trafficking?
If you sit long enough you can come up with a potential abuse for any government law or idea. Just as is done with mass-surveillance. What we don't do is sit down and come up with extraordinary ways and means for us to use powerful tools/ideas/solutions such as surveillance in a responsible and safeguarded manner that is not exploitable by bad individuals in government, or bad governments themselves.
Governments spying on their people has been happening for decades and there is little evidence of any significant benefit for society, while the potential for abuse is obviously huge.
By comparison wearing masks to slow down infection rates of viruses/diseases that spread via nose/mouth secretions has centuries of evidence backing it up and the government doesn't really gain anything by enforcing the use of masks in places like supermarkets. Maybe it can artificially increase demand to benefit some mask manufacturers but that's it.
For some reason it is absolutely CRITICAL for me to not go outside to a beach, but it isn't critical for the folks lecturing me to get their act together and make masks that cost basically 10 cents to $1.50 and would allow myself and others to carry on productive and healthy activities?
This is the issue - YOU are not listening. People see through the pantomime. Google and apple have API's to help with exposure notification - no apps developed at national level and few at state level. Other countries went big on apps.
Sure, they may not work great, but there just is a total lack of effort to actually solve the problem.
Same thing with masks. Countries with fractions of our per capita GDP and income levels crank up huge mask production. Total availability - literally the post office handing them out. No, not N95's always, but KF94s and other very effective masks. We are still talking about mask availability?
Same thing with testing. I'm talking walk up no dr referral needed testing. My health care provider WILL NOT test unless you are basically dying. I had a collegue, a once in a lifetime chance to see family (10 years) came up. I told him, find a private pay / doesn't do insurance / doesn't deal with govt testing facility and get tested before traveling so you don't spread it by accident.
What about contact tracing. You have millions of folks unemployed, are paying out 1+ trillion in checks etc to all sorts of people, and you can't get a contact tracing program going. Your telling me none of these people can go down a call list and call folks up?
All I hear from health professionals is how they can't do anything about anything, nothing helps, except staying alone at home. Masks don't help if you don't wear them perfectly, masks can't be found, the apps won't really work so they aren't going to do that. PLEASE get a grip.
Masks will help - so get production going. Contact tracing - hire folks sitting around. Get the apps going, get testing up, get rears in gear. I think if we saw more credible action by the "proper authorities" lecturing us we'd all be more enthusiastic in doing our part (now we can't even get good masks or apps etc).
> For some reason it is absolutely CRITICAL for me to not go outside to a beach...
No. Beaches are quite safe.
> but it isn't critical for the folks lecturing me to get their act together and make masks that cost basically 10 cents to $1.50 and would allow myself and others to carry on productive and healthy activities?
It is! (It's not happening in the US, though.)
> This is the issue - YOU are not listening. People see through the pantomime. Google and apple have API's to help with exposure notification - no apps developed at national level and few at state level. Other countries went big on apps.
You seem to be ranting as if I'm supporting the current state of things. The current state of things is bad; the Feds are largely AWOL. States are muddling through with various levels of competency, mostly poorly.
Everything you're saying I agree with. The reaction to the pandemic has been absolute shit, and it leaves us in this position now - ongoing lockdowns, supply shortages, and the like. One need only look at Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, etc. to know it didn't have to be this way.
N95s are still quite difficult to find here in the US.
Yes. That's pathetic at this late date. Worse, many of the off-brand ones don't do much. Some tests found masks performing around the 20% level, instead of the 95% level. This problem should have been fixed months ago. Part of the problem is that manufacturers didn't want to invest in the equipment, because the epidemic was supposed to be over by now.
Good N95 masks use a clever technology.
The inner layer is a stretched film with holes. That layer can stop particles smaller than the holes - it's an electret, with a permanent static charge. Anything solid small enough to get through the holes gets pulled to the edge of a hole electrostatically and sticks. This has the interesting property that it works better on smaller particles; the static charge pulls them in more easily. So these can filter solids far below the hole size. Masks lacking that technology either don't work or obstruct breathing too much.
3M 8210 masks work that way. You can get them expensively on eBay, and cheaply if you're willing to wait 60 days for delivery. The "8210 Plus" model has a better elastic strap, which mostly matters for long-term use or storage. Aging of the elastic band is the weak point in the base 8210 model.
There's a vast supply of cheap "surgical" masks available. At least get a supply of those. Only ones with a bendable nose clip. Anything that leaks around the nose is worthless.
Machines for making N95 masks are available for sale, although some of them look like prototypes and are far too slow.
N95s would have had to be produced non-stop for a decade prior to a pandemic to satisfy demand. We are 10 years behind schedule because our government only prepares for wars with $300M tanks instead of $100M stockpiles spread around the country.
> I think health professionals lost a megaton of credibility in claiming masks don't help, to not wear masks, or that masks can only help reduce transmission not infection. Other countries went all out on masks - with great results.
I think for the most part health professionals answered specific questions about specific types of situations or types of transmission, and the media runs with overly broad statements when are then pushed/rejected by different parties.
There are many inputs that go into something as simple as a recommendation of "should the general public wear masks", including "are there enough masks for health professionals currently", "what's the current infection rates", "how far has it spread", "what type of masks". Additionally the answer might be different at different times in the past depending on whether talking about a locality with an outbreak or the whole nation. Expecting the answer as to whether wearing a mask to help to not change over time is as silly as expecting it to not change pre-COVID-19 start and after it.
The bottom line is that the inputs that influence the recommendation are fluid and change over time, so we should expect the recommendation to change over time, and the only reason people aren't getting that is because it's in the best interest of different groups to position it otherwise so they can use it to score points (and while the obvious groups in question are political, they aren't limited to one side of the spectrum, this is a common tactic used across the board which is particularly troublesome when it attacks the credibility of the people we trust to tell us how to protect ourselves).
> I think for the most part health professionals answered specific questions about specific types of situations or types of transmission, and the media runs with overly broad statements when are then pushed/rejected by different parties.
> Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm
Highlighting
> They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus,
Sure, and what I think you have here is a bunch of people not being exact in their terminology and not explaining themselves, which makes their statements seem wrong out of context.
Consider, the situation is that people think if they get a mask, they are protected, and can go about their lives as they were. Also, there's a shortage of masks. Given the option of "stay away from large groups of people and public events" or "wear a mask and feel protected", saying "stop buying masks" might mean something slightly different then than it does now.
At the same time, I acknowledge that's a particularly egregious example. To that I say that the Surgeon General is a political appointee, and our government and the politicians that make it up (all of them) have failed us to various degrees. That interacts with what and how the health professionals have communicated with the public, but in a much less straightforward way (if there's different messaging coming from government health services and the general health community, and the government sources are counterproductive, who did you trust, and who do you blame?).
It is not an excuse. Those early wrong statements have cause irreparable harm that's still ongoing. If all they wanted was to ensure health professionals get it first they should have SAID so (lots of responsible people in this country, even if there are plenty of bad apples) and should have gone to the supply chain sources to ensure health professionals get it before regular citizens do. What they SHOULD NOT have done is to straight lie to the population that masks are not useful at all and now turn around. Trust has been lost and good luck rebuilding this before the pandemic infects everyone.
You can hold people liable for making the best guess at the time with the information they have, but you can't expect them to keep giving you advice then. All the professionals were saying "given what we know now" with all their statements, and revising them as they went along. The problem isn't that they were wrong, it's that when correcting themselves, that was immediately used as evidence that they were incompetent, which means people are then forced to choose between the new messaging of the professionals and the counter-messaging of the politicians (and media, since they carry that signal).
You can read Fauci's statements on what he said and why here[1], but the main things to thing about are:
- What did we know about transmission at the time those statements were made?
- Where was the outbreak at those times? Localized to specific areas, or nation-wide?
- Was it responsible to report to the whole nation that they should be wearing masks given those facts? What if we know there's not enough masks, and that means masks go to areas that don't need them?
The bottom line is, should we have expected anyone to act differently given those conditions and that knowledge at that time? You can note someone made a wrong decision in the past, but if they made the correct decision given the information they have, you can't rationally hold them accountable for the outcome (and if we're not speaking rationally, then we're not actually discussing anything, just airing grievances).
> The bottom line is, should we have expected anyone to act differently given those conditions and that knowledge at that time?
Yes? This isn't a school classroom. It's okay to cheat on the test. You know who's best at handling this because you know they handled it last time. You ask your boss to ask his boss to get on the line with Chou Jih-Haw and ask for some of his best people. They're an allied nation with close ties who want even closer ties. They will gladly help.
And this isn't news. People were saying this in February, in March, in April. People whose full time job is other things knew this.
The real problem is that American public health institutions have NIH (haha, a pun!) syndrome.
> You know who's best at handling this because you know they handled it last time. You ask your boss to ask his boss to get on the line with Chou Jih-Haw and ask for some of his best people. They're an allied nation with close ties who want even closer ties. They will gladly help.
You think that's Fauci's call? That's Trump's call. You're blaming healthcare professional's for doing what was best given the knowledge and resource they had available. I've made it pretty clear that the politicians failed us, and you've just pointed out another way.
> And this isn't news. People were saying this in February, in March, in April. People whose full time job is other things knew this.
All this does presuppose they have any actual help they could provide. It's unlikely they were willing to ship us a few tens (or hundreds!) of millions of N95 masks.
> The real problem is that American public health institutions have NIH (haha, a pun!) syndrome.
The problem is that they are beholden to the politicians, and even more so now, where appointees that speak out using their experience but contradict the party line are replaced.
There's been a lot of talk about how Trump is eroding people's faith in government and institutions, and here we have a prime example of that, where the institutions were clearly dysfunctional for obvious reasons that have to do with the executive branch, and we still have people shooting the messengers.
Also Fauci saying that there's "no reason" for anyone to be going around in a mask. (Not, "we don't know if it will help", not "there are more effective measures you could take", but "no reason".)
(Edit: This is from March, just to be clear that he's not saying that now.)
>Fauci: Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.
>LaPook: You’re sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this.
>Fauci: …There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.
> There are many inputs that go into something as simple as a recommendation of "should the general public wear masks", including "are there enough masks for health professionals currently"
When there was a toilet paper shortage, businesses were still able to get their supplies since they used a different supply chain compared to the end consumer. I'm surprised that this isn't the same case with PPE.
The separate supply chain for toilet paper was because the products are fundamentally different (different kind of paper on different rolls), low margin, and expensive to convert.
PPE is often literally the same product sold in consumer vs. healthcare markets. Sure, the distributors may be different, but it's the same goods from the same factories, and often the same packaging.
I was "educated" by health professionals that said masks do not help you avoid infection, despite showing paper after paper that they do (PPE is so fundamental to infection control the whole health professional - anti-mask things was so random).
That includes my county health department (I asked if they would arrest me if I put a mask on or didn't take my mask off on a crowded transit vehicle - they said they would STRONGLY encourage me not to wear a mask on crowded transit vehicles if I was "healthy" despite my higher level of risk and that I shouldn't believe "disinformation". A month later they issued a mask mandate!)
Masks are cheap. For 10 cents to $1 you can save a life - perhaps cheapest intervention out there.
I noted this in a reply to a sibling comment, but I think there should be a real difference in how you view health advice from a government agency, and from general healthcare professionals and the healthcare community. Your county health department is subject to political pressure, even if not directly. If National health agencies are issuing guidelines, states may use those as references, and local agencies might use the state or national ones, but probably aren't going to go out on too much of a limb to counteract them because it endangers that local agency in case they are wrong.
Unfortunately, health recommendations regarding this outbreak have been seen as fair game from both sides for political plays (there's no point in debating why or who started it for this discussion), and as such recommendations from the top had a political bent.
If there is a difference between what healthcare professionals and government agencies employing healthcare professionals recommended, we should note that and target our ire to the correct location.
Such KF94 masks are non-washable, and must be handled with much care since you will be breathing whatever particles get on it from your hands, hair and environment. Accidental mask contamination is an issue and really negates the whole idea of masks for self-protection, so please be careful.
Much less pathogen is needed to get you sick if it is stuck to something covering your breathing pathways on every breath.
Denmark didn't go all out on masks initially but curbed the pandemic by socially distancing and shutting down early.
Masks are currently not required in public transport across the country, but that changes this Saturday. Up until last week I can count on one hand how many people I have seen wearing masks.
Now that people seem to have forgotten what social distancing means, masks are a useful tool. But if everyone just keeps their distance, they're not a must have.
The "95" in N95 refers to it filtering 95% of all particles in general, and particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers specifically.
The relationship between particle size and the ease of filtering them is U-shaped, not linear, with the dip at around 2.5 micrometers being the bottom of the trough.
Your surgical mask reduces your risk of getting covid by about 30%.
Your N95 mask reduces your risk of getting covid by about 99.9%.
Why even wear a surgical mask?
Anyway, I think the issue with going to the beach isn’t the part where you play in the open air on the beach. It’s where a bunch of people go to a beach house and drink a bunch of beer in a small room.
To prevent others from getting covid from _you_ [0]
N95 masks are more expensive, take more effort (and training?) to use correctly and have limited reusability IIRC.
As a society, it's more efficient if everyone wears surgical masks, because that means every infected person is also wearing one, even those that don't know (yet) that they are covid positive. So in my opinion, it's a good thing if countries force everyone to wear them.
Good surgical masks are much nicer to breath in then fabric ones.
> In EVERY other country you can buy masks, and they were strongly encouraged, that prevented YOU from getting sick.
What? I’m East Asian from a country known for mask wearing and this is definitely not how mask wearing is treated. It’s definitely to protect other people from you!
This makes it clear "nobody successfully proved" really means "I didn't bother to listen". The messaging on masks has long been "they reduce transmission by infected people", not "they prevent you from getting it".
(1) Best available evidence indicates pretty clearly that masks will prevent you from getting it sometimes. This is sharply different from early messaging that masks could increase your risk due to them somehow being viral-magnets and thus you risked infecting yourself.
(2) We have done many studies on many viruses and the consensus seems to be that the initial viral dose matters a great deal -- the lower the dose, the lower the severity. It's also fairly clearly established that, at their worst expected performance, masks will lower the dose you receive.
This is a disease in which the severity matters a great deal. We see wildly different ranges of outcomes/levels of severity.
And indeed, many of the worse outcomes are setting where it's reasonable to assume that there was a significant viral dose.
I think it's irresponsible to promote the idea that masks only help protect others from the wearer. While they clearly do that, the balance of probabilities of available data strongly indicates that they sometimes protect the wearer.
We've even had studies as specific as having examined masks with SARS-CoV-1 -- to pretend that none of our medical knowledge indicated that masks are helpful for SARS-CoV-2 is insane.
The "risk compensation" concern which was claimed as one of the reasons to pretend that masks weren't helpful has been thoroughly debunked as a false concern. Additionally, while they were busy talking about "lack of evidence", their "risk compensation" concerns were also completely lacking a foundation in evidence.
The whole situation disgusts me. "Doctor knows best" and "we can't tell people the truth because they might not respond the way we want" attitude has to stop -- it destroys the fabric of society and the credibility of health experts.
Why would people ever trust words of officials when it is obvious to anyone paying attention that their messaging was focused on avoiding blame for contingency planning failures instead of focused on providing true, accurate, not-misleading and helpful information.
Here's an example from the United States Surgeon General:
Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!
They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!
You want people to believe that your plan is to use these ineffective masks to protect healthcare workers? Are the healthcare workers a different species than the general public?
The argument isn't about whether masks do or do not work (they do). The argument is about whether or not it makes sense to shut down the entire economy when only the very sick, very old, or very obese are really at serious risk.
The obvious solution is: If you are at risk, or worried about COVID, don't leave your house. To everyone else: wear a mask, stay away from people, follow the precautions...but go do what you like (mostly).
What we're doing now is the worst of both worlds: not enough to actually eliminate the virus (not gonna happen in the US...it's just not. Welcome to America) and just enough to mess up the economy and put a lot of businesses out of business (and also just generally make life annoying).
So it seems to me pretty clear: let people do what they want as long as they wear a mask, and just pass a bloody law that says you can't fire someone cause they don't want to come into work because they are overweight. Seems a lot cheaper to just support those people staying home with a welfare payout/BI than shutting down the country for no reason.
> The argument is about whether or not it makes sense to shut down the entire economy when only the very sick, very old, or very obese are really at serious risk.
Tell that to my buddy who almost died. Healthy, early 40s, no pre-existing conditions.
Also... there are plenty of people who do not fall in out-group rhetoric of being “Very sick, very old, or very obese” who are extremely vulnerable. Or, is that you just define “very sick” as anyone who is not like you?
Outliers exist in any distribution. Healthy people die suddenly every day. Of course it’s difficult when it’s someone close to us and I’m sorry for your friend’s struggles, but it happens.
Somehow other first world countries manage to keep infection rates under control and not completely kill the economy. Maybe they are super lucky and we are very unlucky or maybe they have better leadership?
You've just identified the difference between "Proven" and "Proven to me." The former has already been done, but obviously the latter requires a person to not actively refuse to listen.
If you're ready to listen, the proof is already there.
> Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful.
It's not a matter of proof, it's a matter of weighing the cost of action vs the possible outcome. Just like insurance, there's a low cost of action (low continuous payments) to hedge against a possible large negative outcome. It's also worth noting that some types of insurance are mandated because people are bad at calculating risk in general, and when they fail, we as a society don't necessarily want that to have too extreme an outcome, so we have societal guards in place to help. Mandated insurance shifts the burden from society (taxes) back the the individual. We see this in health insurance, car insurance, home insurance, etc. Sometimes it depends on region (some localities requires fire/earthquake/flood, etc insurance).
> people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...)
To clarify, wearing a mask, as recommended by most officials currently, is not about protecting oneself, but about protecting those around you in the case you are unknowingly contagious. It greatly reduces the spread of your contagion, it does not greatly reduce your chance of being infected unless you are using a high-grade mask very securely fastened such that all airflow is through the mask and not around it.
> so this is not your fault if they catch it
It very well may be your fault if someone catches it if you're contagious but ignoring recommendations about avoiding gatherings of people, or not wearing a mask, etc. They could literally catch it directly from you with little ability to block it. A sneeze can travel very far, yelling expels particles with more force, and direct contact with people or surfaces they touch shortly after and then may touch themselves or something else they touch after washing their hands is not something easily protected against.
> but you need to stop living your life.
This, right here is the crux of the issue. What is being asked for from people ranges from not working to curtailing social group gatherings and activities. The work portion is horrible, and life altering, and actual affects people living their lives. The group activities being classified as "living your life" is both a) relatively recent for the vast majority of the world, which did not have the free time or money to do such things on a regular basis decades ago, and b) shows a complete mismatch by people of what the need and what they like and want.
A vanishingly small number of people actually need to go to the gym (those in physical therapy that need certain equipment), and the others can get basic exercise at home or outside without anyone around. Nobody needs to go to a bar. That we classify these niceties as "living our life" is really just a shift of priorities of modern people in first world countries away from actually having to worry about survival. But this is a matter of survival, and those thought patterns are doing us real harm as a society during this crisis.
> It is not that people don't want to sacrifice, it is just that scarifying is the worst solution for everyone
No, it's that people are unwilling to separate simple and (relatively) easy sacrifices from hard sacrifices, and acting like they're all the same. Get food from restaurants, but limit or eliminate the in-restaurant eating/time (you don't have to order door-dash, just pick it up). You don't have to stop drinking, or talking to friends, but you shouldn't do those in person when avoidable.
Collectively, people stopping the non-essential gatherings such as gyms and bars will not only reduce the spread and save lives, if everyone did it we might get back to the point where the increase in cases was so low more optional services could reopen again, lessening the economic impact.
If people like you wont wear a mask or social distance and the portion that are asymptomatic pass it around you will help it spread far and wide maximizing the chances that even careful people will become ill eventually.
Wearing a mask is mostly about keeping the respiratory droplets of the ill, including the 40-50% which don't have obvious symptoms from spreading around. If only the vulnerable wear masks they wont be safe.
I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to sacrifice a lot of my freedom to prevent unhealthy or old people to die. You could tell me that I'm wrong, but as far as I know, I'm the only one able to know how I want to live my life
This is uncalled for. Lot of exercises cannot be done at home without required equipment unless you are a Hollywood actor and have a huge mansion with private gym and equipment. Think of weight lifting, power lifting etc. Impossible to do at home for most people (meaning not rich 0.1%).
You are assuming you have spare room for this equipment (ignoring that the prices you quoted are quite high and actually it costs more for serious equipment if you want realistic weights of 200-300 pounds which is not even that heavy).
I rent a room in downtown of a big city and I simply don't have space for equipment (my room is mostly just bed with small kitchen and bathroom). Don't assume everybody is rich and owns a house with spare room / garage where you can put equipment.
I am 30+ years old and never lived in a place where I would have spare space for gym equipment. You must be very privileged if you have that (top 1% at least).
I didn’t downvote you. (I don’t downvote if it’s worth commenting.) If I had to guess, people downvoted the hyperbolic nature of your comment. Lifting is clearly a middle class activity. If it’s too expensive for a working software developer, then they have other priorities, which is fine.
And by the way I looked at that reddit and almost all posts are from the gym, to do any of those exercises (seriously, I mean normal weight like 200-300 pounds for squats or deadlift) at home you must be very rich and have a large house with basically a private gym.
I agree it’s hard for city apartment dwellers to build a home gym (although a set of kettlebells can get most people by). But anyone with a small house and/or a spare room can easily and fairly inexpensively build a home gym.
I agree, if you got a house with spare room then it should be easy to build a basic gym, if you don't drive and don't need car, you can even use garage as a small gym. But in apartments it's not so easy unless they are quite big. Once I own a house I would probably convert garage into a gym as I don't really have interest in cars or driving.
Yeah consider the additional rent you have to pay excluding the machines. An additional room for your apartment is more expensive than a $50 gym subscription.
Yes, I agree that a second floor apartment is a bad place for a gym. I disagree that this equipment is the domain of the super rich. What I listed is less than the cost of a decent, not fancy, road bike.
A person can workout on the cheap though, and still gain strength and mass. A few kettlebells and a pull up bar can deliver a crushing workout to even the most in fit person. Kettlebells in particular are easily portable.
As someone who power lifted for many years I get it. I needed > 500 pounds in order to max. But, I also know that's on the extreme end. Even then though, give me a 70+ pound kettlebell and I can crush my posterior chain using cleans and snatches.
It is possible to get good workouts with minimal equipment.
Pull up bar is not something I can't install in my apartment as landlord won't approve. I am only renting so can't do many modifications here. I would love to have that option.
The door frame pull up bars are non-permanent, and can work in many cases. At most you might have to paint a bit.
If you're in a city there has to a playground nearby providing all sorts of options.
I think people just get too tied to a gym, when there are countless options to get really good workouts if the gym is unavailable for a period of time.
Good luck finding equipment at those prices. I was looking to pick up some extra equipment a little while back and everywhere was either sold out or crazy marked up because everyone is trying to build a home gym now. Just rechecked dick sporting goods and "Due to exceptional demand, Weight Sets are unavailable in your area".
That's the thing though...You don't need to lock yourself inside, just wear a damn mask when you go do your stuff. For example, I wear a mask to go run on the boardwalk because I like running there. It honestly takes 0 effort to wear the mask and I get to do what I want.
Sure, you can be selfish, but you're also negatively impacting society and saying that you don't care. You do you, but I don't get it.
I do think it's best if we are able to do certain things with appropriate precautions (masks inside, things outside when possible, etc).
Sorry if I was a bit harsh - had someone yell "America" at me while running with a mask the other day but I shouldn't project that frustration onto others.
If a gym can't be open and avoid killing people who don't actually use the gym then it can't be open. Classic example of your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
Oh come on. How is just wearing a mask or working out at home during a global pandemic that's literally killing millions "sacrificing a lot of my freedom". You're selfish, and kids in history classes are going to look back on people like you forever and question why people were so selfish and stupid.
If you're going to attack others for their alleged ignorance maybe you should get basic numbers right? Covid hasn't killed 'millions', it hasn't even killed one million people. You're off by at least an order of magnitude.
Well, we’re at 800k “official” numbers, but when looking at excess deaths for countries with data available vs official numbers nearly all are undercounting the COVID deaths, or at least were at some point. There can be many reasons for this, such as the testing capacity at the beginning of the outbreak but I would definitely say we are over 1 Million.
>I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to sacrifice a lot of my freedom to prevent unhealthy or old people to die. You could tell me that I'm wrong, but as far as I know, I'm the only one able to know how I want to live my life
The problem is that you are effectively deciding how others live their lives through your careless actions. Everyone should have a say on how they want to live their lives, not just you.
>nobody successfully proved to these people (me included)
>sacrificing is the worst solution for everyone
>this is not your fault if they [high risk people] catch it
>we stop everything for the rest of our lives
This is nothing more than a tantrum. Nobody can "prove" it. Humanity is still learning about COVID-19. No model is going to predict the outcome of closing the economy. It has not been done in modern times at this scale.
>0.5% death rate for population
Google is showing the death rate at ~3% worldwide. 6 times higher than your nonsense 0.5% water-level figure.
You're commenting later down the chain that you wish to frolic at the beach. The fact is, you're sick of inconvenience and will stomp your feet until someone hears how sick of it you are. Go cry elsewhere.
It is important to differentiate terminology here. According to DDG (which closely aligns with Google's results) the case fatality rate, the ratio of deaths to confirmed case, is 3.5%. For the death rate, the ratio of deaths relative to population size, is 0.01%.
Confirmed Cases: 21,991,954
Deaths: 777,018
World Pop.: ~7,800,000,000
Case Fatality Rate = Deaths/Confirmed Cases = ~3.5%
It would be ridiculous to assume the Deaths/World Population figure is the risk for yourself.
That's similar to claiming that, because only 93% of all humans ever born have died so far, your risk of dying is 93%. It may be mathematically sound, but completely ignores the context of the problem: That for the living/not-yet-infected the result is still outstanding.
Masks protect people who aren't sick yet. Their primary mode of operation is making it harder for the virus to spread. But since we don't know when people get sick they have to wear a mask before they get sick for masks to be effective.
Nobody particularly cares about people doing high-contagion activities like going to a gym, for the people in the gym themselves, the ethical problem is that they're very few degrees of separation away from people who can't afford to be exposed. Even if you drive by and mind your own business, that gym almost certainly has a blast radius of unnecessary infections and deaths.
The problem is, of course, that those same people in the gym—an environment which is naturally quite conducive to spreading infections—later go to their workplace, or their doctor, or their public transport, or a bar, and back to the gym. By doing that, they can carry an infection around to others, even if they aren’t themselves symptomatic.
This contributes to the general public health problem, increasing the infection rate among the population and meaning more people get sick or die. This applies whether they were in the gym, or just had the misfortune of interacting with someone who had been.
I don’t know who initially said it, but… I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.
nah, shut you down with the health board for putting everyone's lives at risk. there's no live and let live here. if folks just sit back and do nothing, people will die.
Depending on the state, calling sufficiently-far up the chain of command may do something.
The officer's immediate superior may be inclined to cut the officer some slack, but the buck stops with the person charged with ensuring that the pandemic is effectively managed.
The buck stops with all of us. We either beat this thing together or it keeps killing our relatives. Those are the only options. Pick one.
> I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
That seems to be a very widespread societal issue. Feedback and gratification are very effective conditioning loops and it applies to basically everything directly socially linked. Advertising, education, law enforcement. Everything which shapes anothe life whether done knowing or unknowingly and can come to bite the conditioner one way or another. Like the "tiger mom nightmare" case of forcing a son through med school only for him to show it to his mom say "There I am done it, happy now?" and working in a convenience store because of the sheer weight of negative conditioned meant that poverty was preferrable to six figure income and working days calling back decades of resentment.
Defying it successfully is a way to make or save money and everyone hates it essentially is rare and doing so is an outright resentment magnet. The majority will dislike anyone who points it out as a potential component to a solution. It gets one outright dehumanized even for optimizations innocous as meal prepping the same balanced and cheap meal daily to save up for something.
> Proper authorities, photo of car, and a set of local news organisations, plus a few tweets and your state reps, might get some attention.
> Play interests off each other.
> it is really strange that people feel they have to (...) get together (...)
> I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
These are two related issues, but not the same.
Before we started (half) using the office again - I'd not see anyone outside of buying groceries. For approximately 3 months straight. It's not healthy, and I absolutely can see others having even more trouble with that than I did.
It is natural even introverts need to socialize.
That said, I'm surprised there seem to be less focus on organizing in smaller, regular groups. It's likely better for preventing spread if people met up in the same group of 5 to 10 people, rather than gathering indoors - especially as it now seems quite likely covid-19 is airborne.
So yes, some personal sacrifice should be expected - but I would be careful dismissing the need for people to see other people, in person.
They work out in groups because they congregate in places with pull-up bars, bumper plates, barbells, medicine balls and so forth. Otherwise only those with houses and garages get to work out.
Not justifying it, I'm just jealous because my bedroom has turned into a gym and it sucks.
What specific long-term gain will we achieve with that short-term sacrifice? Sure we can keep most gyms closed for several more months, and that might marginally reduce the spread of the virus for a while. But the virus is now endemic and will be with us essentially forever. We have to reopen gyms eventually, and then we'll be right back where we started. As long as the curve has been flattened sufficiently and the healthcare system isn't overwhelmed then what are we really accomplishing by waiting?
I think you answered your own question: "As long as the curve has been flattened sufficiently and the healthcare system isn't overwhelmed"
The difference between "overwhelmed" and "not overwhelmed" is pretty subtle. You can measure this in ICU beds and hospital capacity, but that's not sustainable. You have to start asking "How many hours are health care workers working?". You also have to ask, if we did have any setbacks/outbreaks, what buffer do we have in terms of people and PPE availability?
You can't run the system at the red line, it's not sustainable. And any distance between our current capactity and that red line is somewhat open to interpretation, but I bet that distance feels a lot smaller for our EMTs and Doctors than it does for the average person on HN.
The healthcare system isn't running at the red line. Almost all hospitals have adequate capacity. Most healthcare providers are still working shorter than normal hours. So your concerns are unfounded.
And let's not forget all the people who decided to postpone care during COVID: most of them will have worsened conditions once they get to some hospital. The fearmongering may add a lot of avoidable deaths: cardiac problems not taking seriously, cancer found too late etc.
> What specific long-term gain will we achieve with that short-term sacrifice
It's a collective action problem. If everyone keeps to mask mandate and social distancing for a month, there is no need to close gyms and schools after. Germany and Italy are fine now with maybe ten deaths a day.
If 20% of the population keeps ignoring the recommendations because they don't give a flying fuck about the society they live in, R0 will stay above 1 forever and half of your neighbourhood will see their grandparents die in the next year.
Pandemic control measures can temporarily suppress R0, but as soon as those measures are lifted the contagion picks up again.
The average age of grandparents in the US is about 65. The actual infection fatality rate for that age group is 1.3%. That's bad, but nowhere near half the neighborhood.
What would you tell the authorities? That there are people in a gym and that they need to be arrested? What outcome would you hope to achieve by tattling on them?
How short term is short term? It's been six months with no end in sight. If you're a fitness enthusiast living in an apartment, you're screwed. All well and good if you've never had any interest in a gym, but if it's one of your primary hobbies to maintain mental health, then it's not a 'those people' thing. And again I speak as someone trying to replicate a gym in his apartment and getting exasperated.
People with houses and garages shouldn't be as critical, given their comparative privilege here.
Living in an apartment is what has fucked me over. I like living in a small space. But that was fine when everything I did was outside that space - Gym/Pool/Sports/Restaurants.
Swimming is my thing. I don't know why but it makes me feel normal like no other exercise can. but the pools have been closed for months now here in Melbourne (excluding a couple of weeks in the middle there).
Now I'm just depressed, stuck in isolation, borders are closed and can't visit my friends or family. Everyone saying this shit is easy for introverts have no idea. They seem to think introverts don't do anything or never used to leave their house?
Talking to a therapist maybe helps but as other people have said, not knowing if there is any end in sight is what sucks. Not sure why I'm venting to you.
I understand. I think you need to sub in other activities. This could be something like calisthenics if you want something more technical. There's a German online group called Calimove that have an "At home" workout and also some Calisthenics (starting from basics) levels workouts if you want that. There's some free Youtube stuff, and then there's some paid courses that give exact workouts. If something more basic is what you're after, biking or running.
It's a time of adaptation, and it sucks for sure but it's simply Necessary. If I told you what I'm doing instead of olympic weightlifting you would laugh. However it really helps reduce that exact angst you're describing (which I'm very familiar with as well). I consider physical exercise to be as critical to me as everything else, and absolutely essential for my mental health. I happen to be an introvert as well and feel similarly, btw.
I am one of those people that goes to a small gym near my apartment daily, even in the current times. The gym isn't very full, maybe a total of 4-5 people when I'm there (I picked my time based on how full it is). Everyone is obligated to wear a mask, there are disinfection sprays and one-time-use wipes that we have to use after finishing with a machine. Some people are also disinfecting equipment before they use it. The gym has the windows open and added disinfection diffuser thingies into each corner.
The reason for why I take the risk and keep go is pretty simple: Mental health.
When we had a lockdown, gyms closed and I was confined to my apartment 24/7 I felt horrible. Days just blurred into each other, I gained weight, my motivation to do anything dropped. My life was just work and I hated it.
Of course I bought a set of dumbbells (which were also ridiculously expensive because everyone had the same idea) and tried running but that only gets you so far. I can't get more equipment at home because my apartment is like 35sqm
When the gyms reopned I started going again and kept my guard up: Disinfect everything, don't be near other people, be careful when I take my mask off, wash my hands before I touch anything after I finish. Since then I started feeling much better. Even if I don't do anything else like meeting friends, going out for drinks, or if my workday happened to be shitty, I have something that makes me think more about myself and my health. Sports has incredible benefits on mood, sleep and mental health, hence why I take the risk.
For all we know, this pandemic can continue for a very long time. I'm not saying we should all forget the virus and do what we did before, but we should still try to find a somewhat healthy day-cycle that doesn't knock us in lockdown depression. Going to a small, empty gym while keeping my guard up is my calculated risk of "with corona".
> I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
The virus kills old people. Yes, it is very sentimental to let your grandmother die. But the savings in long term care alone will more than pay for any emotional distress you have in the short term.
> Adding to the post, I read it earlier... it is really strange that people feel they have to go work out in groups. Or get together, or go to bars. I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
When problems are on this massive of a scale it is easy for individuals to think "cannot be me". Reality is that it is all of us.
Personally, I'm less concerned about gyms. People in gyms are adults and can theoretically stay 6-ft away from each other and wear a mask. I've seen high-impact classes like kick-boxing being held outside in parks for better airflow. Driving activities underground however, has well understood unintended consequences of causing violence and disregard of health rules, as we know from prohibition in the 20's and the drug war since the 70's.
The uniquely American issue, is with bars and clubs being closed. In the land of big houses, everyone knows someone with a bar in their backyard or basement. Keeping bars closed now, when everyone is fed up with the social isolation (sorry, Zoom doesn't cut it) just means actual underground speakeasies serving alcohol aka house parties. Where dedicated gym rats aren't drinking alcohol at the same time they're at the gym (it hurts gainz), and are can be more responsible for their actions, people on alcohol can't. I'm not saying that to excuse drunk people's behaviors, what I'm saying is that trying to get drunk people to stay 6-ft apart and wear a mask is an exercise in futility.
Since people are gonna be drinking anyway, especially during a pandemic, and a recession, and in the face of great uncertainty, and on the cusp of a presidential election, what's needed is to open the bars, but require patrons scan-in via phone app using the bluetooth-based contact tracing (PEPP-PT), or else face suspension of liquor license. By making it required at bars, you get around some of the privacy issues since those that don't want to, can just not go to bars. Using bluetooth-based tracing gets around issues of using GPS-based tracking, and also helps amplify the effectiveness of an under-funded contact tracing corps by providing a technology based solution.
This is imperfect, but perfect is the enemy of the good, and even done imperfectly, contact tracing can very successfully drive Re (the local effective value calculated from a diseases' R0) down below 1, at which point the disease doesn't continue to spread and the pandemic can be controlled. For a disease like COVID-19 with an R0 of 2.5, it doesn't take too much to drive it down.
That's fascinating, and I had wondered if it were happening. I guess I was right. Due to the timing of the last 6 months or so, I haven't been making it to the gym as much. I started focussing more on mountain biking, I broke my hand, then my clavicle, traveled to Japan, and then the pandemic showed up.
With all this more focused time during lockdown, I was tempted to buy my own equipment and toyed with the idea of letting some friends come use it, it got me thinking about the legalities and liabilities of that kind of thing.
If we go back into lockdown, I'll definitely be buying my own equipment. I do powerlifting, so bodyweight and a few dumbells don't really cut it.
There is a suprising amount of work you can do with resistance bands. That used to be the powerlifting equipment of choice before dumbbells and barbells became fashionable in the bodybuilding community a century ago. You can hit everything olympic lifting hits. Great reading here, along with tons of examples of workouts and movements:
I can certainly understand people’s need to continue their exercise routine. This is for their physical and mental health. As long as they keep the precaution in place, whip down and clean up and social distancing.
For me I’ve canceled the gym membership and taking up biking. It has been working out great. Discovered a lot more biking trials around the area. Got plenty of sua shine and vitamin D along the way.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 356 ms ] threadDumbbells are going for > $2-3/lb on various websites right now, which is insane. Adjustable dumbbells are going for > $10/lb, which is over twice their usual sticker price.
Gyms could lease out their equipment right now and make a killing.
Many have done just that here in Toronto. The equipment went very fast, though.
(And thankfully my gym is now open. Until we get a second wave and it shuts down again.)
I have some resistance bands and used to use my buildings gym but they made the process very convoluted since reopening. And with max time limits of 30 minutes each and only 10 visits a month.
That said I was very sick recently and lost a lot of muscle mass and weight so I’m barely getting back to exercising now anyway.
Surely if you feel it necessary to omit someones last name you should err on the side of caution and omit their first name too? A fist name narrows a search down significantly.
Also as someone with experience being anonymously quoted by journalist before, it seems to be standard practice for the journalist to defer any decisions on how they would like to be referred to the source. Odds are Evelyn is the one who decided to just go by Evelyn. She probably doesn't care too much about absolute anonymity, but she also wants plausible deniability.
I get that some of this can be related to body dysmorphia, but that's probably a tiny corner case. Is it the thrill of doing something "illegal"/dangerous? Is it more denial about the impact of COVID? Hustlers trying to capitalize on a crisis?
Edit: based on some of the replies, it looks like it boils down to a sense of entitlement: people wanting to stick to their routines without a care of putting others at risk.
Gym, as in the physical location, is also very much part of the "fitness habit". It doesn't feel the same doing it outside by yourself.
Nothing to do with body dysmorphia or doing something "illegal" but based on the fact that covid is not as severe that warrant stopping recreational activity.
Is simply risk vs benefit.
A thing that is very important about rituals is that there are almost always triggers of when the ritual should be performed. Often that trigger involves being in a specific place.
For exercise, that trigger is going to the gym.
For work, that trigger is going to the office
For religion, that trigger is going to the church / temple / etc.
When you deprive people of the ability to be in the correct place, then their trigger is blocked and their rituals don't happen.
Yes, you could retool your rituals (work from home is the biggest example of this), but for many things, the motivation or desire just isn't there.
The spaces are too important to the ritual itself.
So I can totally see why people would want to go to the gym even if they weren't supposed to.
Ive had a certain degree of success mimicking this by adding smells via essential oil defusers are key points like “starting work” or “preparing for bed”, but I can’t say I’ve found a silver bullet. Still, I think there’s something here.
I finally started biking recently, but I struggle to get motivated and get out of the apartment to do it. That was never a problem when going to the gym.
I imagine that the problem is much worse for bodybuilders and powerlifters.
When you’re feeling depressed or lazy, just showing up at the gym can kick start an upward spiral.
Barbells and dumbbells are appropriately ergonomic (handles, balance, etc.) and won't ruin your back if you use proper technique. Lifting a heavy stone is a recipe for injuring yourself severely.
People need specific indoor gym equipment if they lift, which is a very valid form of exercise. Or, you know, if it's raining or thunderstorming or a humid 100°F outside.
And bodyweight exercises only get you so far, even if you're doing one-handed or one-legged versions.
You can't just dismiss the fitness routines people have spent years choosing and refining and getting better at. The fact that you seriously suggest lifting a heavy stone demonstrates you don't seem to know much about safe fitness at all.
More arrogant than putting other lives at risk because you can't put your routine on hold, or alter it for a bit? No. It isn't.
"Lift a heavy stone"? That's a joke, right?
No, and it's part of strongman competitions. It's not dangerous if you have the right form and don't overdo it. Same as dumbbells & barbells.
He answered your question directly and then you change the goalposts. Clearly you hold the opinion that gyms should remain closed, and that's fine, but why even ask the question?
This is the part I'm confused about. If gyms were open, people who's lives were at risk still wouldn't go to the gym. Only people who didn't care would go. They are consenting to the risk that would inherently come with it. It isn't the type of place that at risk people HAVE to go, so why shouldn't we open it for people that are fine with the consequences? Also, restaurants are all completely open for dine-in in many of the places that gyms have yet to open. How does that make any sense? No one magically stops breathing for the hour+ they're in the restaurant.
I think quarantine should be down to the individual and the rules they'd like to implement on their private property (including their business), but you've probably already gotten that by now.
Too bad most people leave their private property and interact with people in public spaces where their personal rules are moot.
You can usually find a threadbare heavy equipment tire more easily though since most people with stones just let them sit whereas tires need to be disposed of.
On that note, construction workers do severely damaging work every day (not being sarcastic, they mess up their bodies for people who will haggle to the last cent). Show them more respect.
I've been lifting for 15 years, mostly in the gym. The last couple of years though, I've realized how much you can do with bands. You can't beat them on cost and convenience in the realm of home gym equipment. The only thing you can't reasonably do with them are squats. Deadlifts can be substituted with pull-throughs which are a better posterior chain movement anyway. Yea, you might have to do more reps. That's infinitely better than nothing.
Unless you're a competitive strength athlete, or trying to be one, not having access to a gym is frankly an excuse. In my younger days I used to have a very rigid mentality when it came to strength training which eventually led to burnout and extended vacations from the gym. Having mental flexibility instead of striving for some notion of perfection is what's kept me in this game long-term.
EDIT: typo
I am not, It must be very hard, to take away something you love and trained.
Society is asking you to sacrifice a big thing for something that may not benefit society at all. The chances of you catching and then spreading are ~ 1/1000. Assuming a 1% mortality. We are asking 100,000 people to give up something they love to save one loved one.
My own value system is that my enjoyment is not worth 1/100,000 of a person life. I would say in the order of 1/1,000,000. Based upon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALARP is where I get my figure.
I am interested which figure you think is reasonable - 10^5 or 10^6 or between or higher or dismiss the risk entirely ?
^ They definitely aren't asking
Some light reading on the subject:
https://yoga-horizons.com/pdfs/Fatmans-Guide-to-Cable-Traini...
I could probably target my leg muscles more effectively at a nice gym with barbells, but after 5 months, I'm still working through bodyweight based progressions for deadlifts and squats, so I don't feel like I've plateaued yet. I've made big progress too. When I started I could barely do a single pull-up and now I'm up to 3 sets of 6 per workout. Similar story for pushups, I can crank out 20-30 of those now no problem, where I struggled to hit 5 before.
The ease with which you can get fit at home has been one of the pleasant surprises of this pandemic.
But some people have been going to the gym for decades and take it very seriously as a hobby. Losing access to the gym will set them back years.
It can be very hard to keep the same high quality of workouts without going to a specific facility and training with the guidance and motivation from peers. Not to be rude, your suggestions sound like ideas from someone who doesn't really work out much. Pull up on a tree branch? Lift a heavy stone?
Everyone's risk profile is different. I work in statistics and data, so I certainly have a different understand that gives me a more realistic perspective on the dangers.
“Can’t go to the high tech gym? Just strap a fallen tree to your torso and drag it up a mountain!”
A 6x6 area can be hard to find. In my apartment, getting that requires moving two bulky pieces of furniture.
s/need/want/
This article could just as easily have been written about speakeasy bars that have opened during lockdown.
Working out has solved a ton of problems for me. Anxiety, Depression, Mood Swings, Rage. You get into a routine, and you don't want anyone or anything to mess with it. It's what makes you feel good. For me its the difference between a productive day and an unproductive one.
Changing things up, especially with improvisation, can result in injury. Or just not getting a desired result. For example, I squat 400lbs or more. Would I try to squat a 400lbs stone, not only no, but hell no.
For some that go to real gyms, it's not just the workout. It's the comradery that comes with doing hard things with friends. It's socialization.
I think it has very little to do with being a rebel or a denier, and a lot more to do with it being a way of life, for a lot of us.
Further, "Heavy stone" workouts do not easily lend themselves to progressive overload, or varied programming.
You asked why people would want specific equipment. You didn't ask whether the tradeoffs involved are worth it. The replies here mostly answer the question you asked, not the one you're pivoting to.
But after so many months off, I'm reaching the point where the lost gains might not be recoverable. I have to decide sometime soon whether to get back into the gym or give it up permanently.
It's not a total loss since I've been doing handyman work for my boss and 50 incline pushups 2-3 times per week. I'm in generally good health and my face is thinner. Still stinks though.
I bought a used weight bench and plan to use it soon. And I'm still paying my gym membership, only $20/mo for life at a converted Gold's Gym. But we get such a boost in the first 6 weeks of n00b gains after a break that I feel it's better to go all-in rather than dabble.
Oh and to answer your question: pumping iron is a hack. My girlfriend does kickboxing, and it's a tremendously physical exercise revolving around burpies and other crossfit-style functional training. It's really good. But, I feel that weightlifting provides a much higher bang for the buck because it takes advantage of 2 to 5 day overcompensation cycles in the body so that gains continue indefinitely. So my intensity under the bar over an hour and a half period never even reaches the intensity of her warmup. Yet I put on perhaps 2 to 4 times as much muscle as I would cross training, for 1/2 to 1/4 the effort, which works out to about a 4 to 16 times better return on investment (an order of magnitude better result).
I pump iron because I'm lazy, is what I'm saying.
https://yoga-horizons.com/pdfs/Fatmans-Guide-to-Cable-Traini...
Zero tolerance?
One potential infection of a 300million+ population?
One potential death of a 300million+ population?
Since you don't work out, I assume you like food. Imagine if you had to spend months eating nothing but Soylent because of $reasons, then when you complain you get chirping like "I don't get it, it's the same nutritional value, you don't need any real food".
It has since healed, and I am better now. However, there was a point in time where I had to continue going to the gym and keep using those weight machines. It took a few years before I was back to normal and could start working with more generalized equipment. So there's more than just a sports-focused need (like MMA fighting or football) for gym equipment, and that equipment cannot easily be substituted, nor can it be done safely with a bike or a heavy stone.
like "15 days to slow the spread"?
There was someone on WGN-TV a few weeks ago lamenting that it was insulting for all of the hairdressers and manicurists and yoga instructors to be called "non-essential."
I thought it was more insulting for that person to value the work of hairdressers and manicurists and yoga instructors on an equal basis with firefighters, doctors, paramedics, and actual real "essential" workers.
Nobody calls a holistic lifestyle consultant to run into a burning building to save a baby.
Because that's what the word "essential" means: Things you can't do without. Not "things I really really really like."
How are you measuring value?
People who save lives > people who don't save lives.
The information was out there..
Not where I live. All restaurants were shut down, even for take-out. They were only allowed to offer take-out food when restrictions started being lifted.
It just seems to me shutting down takeout makes it harder to enforce a lockdown. It assumes everyone is able to cook, which doesn't seem like a reasonable assumption.
It's no wonder we're still muddling along with this problem, months into it.
So what? What does that have to do with anything?
you could say that... even sex-workers are more essential than doctors and fire-fighters.
You can say that, but you'd be wrong. That's the great thing about the internet. Anyone can say anything no matter how false it is, and they get to be on an equal footing with people who know what they are talking about.
It's a pretty twisted definition of "essential" to include only the things that are definitely going to kill you if you go without and not to include the things that just might kill you.
Again, doctors and firefighters might look “essential” for a secular and technological society like ours (one where we’re afraid of death and where we value physical stuff that could burn) but that hasn’t always been the case. It still isn’t in many parts of the world.
Unless things change over time, as such requiring new facilities. We didn't have nuclear power station inspectors (or regulations) thousands of years ago, so are they also non-essential?
> It still isn’t in many parts of the world
There are "many" places in the world were death is not feared and people are happy to see their stuff burn? Barring nomadic jungle tribes with no persistent possessions or home locations in the first place, which societies are you describing?
The fact that our ancestors commonly died of tuberculosis doesn't mean they where happy to do so.
In my parts of the world (Eastern Europe) often times the barber was also the doctor and the dentist (was called "felcer).
Then there is the twisting of "essential" -- the home center needs to say open because if a pipe busts in your house you need to get replacement parts to fix it. But most people go to the home center to pick up materials for home projects that they can now do because they suddenly have a large amount of at-home time on their hands.
This gets tricky. Of course we know that when there's a fire, a firefighter is often imminently essential. But it's trickier to imagine a society where all "non-essential" jobs are banned indefinitely. You wouldn't die in a matter of minutes like in the fire example, but you'd also probably find such a society unrecognizable to the extent that you might reconsider what types of jobs are and aren't "essential." There'd be a lot of poverty, a lot of hunger, and yes, it would cause a lot of people to die.
Part of fairness is in treating equal things equally, and unequal things unequally.
Even talking about non-first responders, the folks in supermarkets are more essential on this spectrum than beauticians of various niches IMHO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
Income is trivially addressed, given political will.
An emergency is an emergent situation, which must be new, evolving, and carry the risk of serious harm. Emergency orders are based upon the idea that executive authority must be wielded to quickly mitigate an emergency situation. But a key attribute of an emergency (by definition) is “new” - if emergency powers are extended month after month then they are based on a situation that is no longer an emergency.
Now before you get angry, consider that we can agree that COVID-19 is a serious threat that requires government action _without_ it necessarily being an emergency or emergent situation. The threat has long since emerged.
Now we have a lot of governors issuing decrees based on emergency authorities that they’ve been using for six months. This is quite simply a conflict with our basic notion of democracy. We do not have rulers, yet our governors are issuing rules purportedly carrying the weight of law with no oversight from legislature.
Whether or not you agree with the orders, I think it’s intuitively likely that you can see how this is essentially a disruption in the relationship between people and their government, and as such it’s at least understandable how many people would feel these orders carry no moral weight (even if they’re not thinking from a legal perspective). And so the existence of gray market gyms and parties is at least understandable, even if we don’t condone such behavior.
That was my biggest issue with the whole situation in the USA. All of these emergency measures were done without any mention of timelines, all the while a vocal part of the population was saying "fuck your freedoms", and "millions of people will die if they lift the lockdown". It's like everyone forgot about the Patriot Act overnight, and doesn't realize that the government doesn't like giving up control after whatever "emergency" situation happens. Something needed to be done, but this whole situation made me lose a lot of faith in the government and my fellow Americans.
Now if we expected our government to set conditions of the lock down ending, that would be better. Something based around the pandemic itself, such as new infections per day and test positivity would probably be best. But time? That’s not how this works.
I'm sure the legislature will have no problem forgoing a game of golf with lobbyists in order to vote to extend a bill that gives government more power. They have no problem doing that every time the Patriot Act comes back up.
There's no good reason emergency measures can't have sunset clauses.
Well, in a lot of states the legislature can do that today if they want. It's completely within state legislature's capacity to force action from municipalities, either directly or through the purse strings.
Most don't want to because they're publicly supportive of shutdowns. Or because they're publicly courting anti-maskers but privately know shutdowns are necessary and therefore don't want to take responsibility.
No one is arguing whether the virus is on our clock. The argument is whether we’ve granted our governments the right to indefinitely extend their emergency authorizations.
“After X days responsibility should transfer from the executive branch to the legislative” is completely different from “the governments ability to take X measures to stop a pandemic should be limited to Y days”. I am only responding to the latter.
My fear about the former is the implicit assumption that the legislature won’t also close gyms, bars, and other businesses that a vocal minority want re opened immediately.
That's the risk and price of democracy and freedom, the people (or their representatives) aren't supposed to do what's best, they're supposed to do what the public wants
First of all, we’re a representative democracy. We do not elect people to implement our exact will, we elect people who we expect to use their best judgement to use the powers vested in them. If the expectation was that elected members do exactly what their constituents wanted, we would be a direct democracy instead.
Second, I find the notion that “the price of freedom is the risk of just not bothering to solve a pandemic” to be a serious insult to democracy. I question the legitimacy of any democratic system that would just ... not bother to protect citizens.
And finally, calls to return to normal represent a narrow minority of the population. In fact a majority of Americans are worried about the virus, a majority wants schools to remain closed, and a majority think we opened back up too soon. If we’re talking about “popular will”, then we would be talking about extending shut downs, not ending them.
Do you have a source for those numbers?
Its interesting because Gallup has shown remarkable consistency in people self isolating. The percentage of the population visiting restaurants, bars, and their friends homes remains down in the mid 20s. Only 34% of Americans have returned to the office, only 5-6% of Americans are going to their place of worship. 5% of Americans have returned to a gym.
People are by and large self enforcing the lock down. According to Gallup the percentage of Americans who would return to normal “right now” is 28%. The vast majority of Americans want at least to see case numbers fall first, with sizable groups expecting no new cases in their state (28%) or a vaccine (23%) before returning to normal. 67% of Americans say they will enforce social distancing “for as long as necessary” before their mental health begins to suffer, up 13% since April.
The groups shouting about ending the lock down and returning to normal are about 28-30% of the population, according to Gallup.
https://www.gallup.com/174158/gallup-panel-methodology.aspx
And the legal justification by which those measures apply to a situation that is going on half a year is dubious at best. The legality of those measures themselves is also generally dubious from a constitutional law perspective. Most of them have never been meaningfully challenged because they've mostly been used for short term emergencies at this point. The legislatures need to nut up and to their damn jobs. They've had nearly 6mo at this point.
That's a key phrase and begs some questions:
- Do the "extraordinary measures" have to be proven effective?
- Do the "extraordinary measures" have to be proven effective than doing nothing?
- Has anyone announced what metrics we're even tracking to determine "effective"?
- How long does something have to persist until it's no longer an "extraordinary situation"?
- Are the "extraordinary measures" persistent or limited by time, risk, etc?
Asking for the War on Poverty, Drugs, Terror, etc, etc.
> - Do the "extraordinary measures" have to be proven effective?
That's how it's been handled here. We went through a phase of virtually absolute lockdown this spring, loosened restrictions this summer, and locked a few things back down again (bars were especially bad). The governor also ramped up mask mandates as we learned more about their effectiveness.
> Do the "extraordinary measures" have to be proven effective than doing nothing?
Not sure exactly what you mean here, but the regions that have done nothing have seen worse results.
> Has anyone announced what metrics we're even tracking to determine "effective"?
Number of confirmed cases, number of tests administered, percentage of tests being positive, number of deaths. The last metric is the one we really care about the most, but we can mitigate it by tracking leading indicators. Nothing more than statistical theory at play here.
> How long does something have to persist until it's no longer an "extraordinary situation"? > Are the "extraordinary measures" persistent or limited by time, risk, etc?
Michigan has a phased approach based on various metrics and indicators: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/whitmer/MI_SAFE_START_PLA...
I would love to see this sort of prudence for other crises.
And if such a bill can't be passed - i.e. the person holding emergency powers is using them to do things our elected representatives aren't willing to sign off on - surely that proves how important it is that the powers be limited.
(Of course, if you believe our elected representatives would risk killing people to make the other side look bad, or would stuff unrelated pork into the must-pass bill, you might not follow this line of reasoning)
I genuinely don't understand this fear re: COVID.
Why would governors want keep gyms and restaurants closed post-COVID? What do mayors gain by forcing people to wear masks post-COVID? It's in the government's interest, as an institution, to open things up ASAP. They're hemorrhaging money.
The things I'd actually worry about -- using COVID to justify suppressing protests and speech, for example -- aren't happening even now.
The only way this theory makes even the remotest bit of sense is if elected officials are malevolent villains hell-bent on literally any arbitrary form of control even in cases where it undermines their own self-interest and happiness. Believe it or not, governors and mayors enjoy eating out, some go to the gym, and no one enjoys wearing masks.
I do believe there's a very real danger of emergency powers being extended indefinitely in general. But not in the case of health orders related to COVID. Because the powers being exercised aren't the sort of things even the most power-hungry person would want to enforce indefinitely. There's just no motivation to do so. And, for anyone not experiencing a literal and extreme psychotic break, lots of even completely self-interested incentives to get things back to normal.
Why would they have to? It certainly wouldn't be in their electoral self-interest.
Disease transmission is a communications and network problem -- there are the unobserved opportunities for infection, the known observed cases, the transmission rates, incubation and course-of-illness periods, acquired immunity, mortality, morbidity.
In periods of outbreak you need hightened disease surveillance, increased blocking of transmission, and reduced opportunities for infection. Barriers, reduced crowds, improved sterilisation and surface cleaning, fewer shared-touch interfaces (from touchscreens to bannisters), and the like.
These will likely be instituted through building and health codes, not so much activity restrictions. Some high-contact activities (bars, nightclubs, theatres, amusement parks) may well be subject to temporary closures. But expect these to be contingent on infection levels.
Do expect to see massive changes in office/work, retail, and transport designs, hoever. Possibly travel and quarantine restrictions.
Do you live in the US? The situation is exactly the opposite here.
Downplaying the significance of COVID is practically part of the GOP platform at this point. It's gotten to the point in the last 2 months where even extremely mild and all-volunteer public health measures are political suicide in the majority of US states.
But also, even in the small number of very left-leaning areas like mid-sized/large cities, mayors and governors are under intense pressure to get things back to normal.
Hell. Even universities, which take tons of heat for being hotbeds of leftism even relative to left-leaning cities, are pushing forward with campus openings despite contrary advice from public health experts.
As far as I can tell, being too prudent for too long would be an enormous political liability in literally every US jurisdiction. In fact, being prudent at all is a political liability in >25 states even with new cases hitting highs. Here in rural PA I get harassed for wearing a mask into the grocery store.
The "permanent COVID emergency" concern is ridiculously disconnected from political reality in the USA. So much so that it's more of an unhinged conspiracy theory than a legitimate concern.
The refusal of the GOP (Senate, mostly, though the White House seems to be on the same page and perhaps the main motivator) to provide state/local aid, given that there are legal, practical, and other restrictions limiting state borrowing for emergency costs, especially non-capital costs, and structurally they have since not long after the founding relies on the federal government to backstop them for that is a big part of this.
I do. I live in the Bay Area. Your local situation may be different.
I stand by what I said. I’m surprised to hear some think there will be a permanent COVID emergency. I’m not really doing the whole partisan thing, so I don’t know the state of that debate.
We are in a pandemic; of course there will be pressure on our leaders. My conjecture is that career concerns may be leading some to ignore principles of good governance to minimize the risk that things will turn out poorly for them. I think it is not uncommon for political leaders who call all the shots to back themselves into such a situation. We need a way out.
Talking about hypothetical pressures that a theoretical government might face is a lot less interesting when we can look outside and see that the exact opposite of your hypothetical is actually taking place. Empirically, the pressure to not bankrupt the government and have to lay off police, firefighters, and teachers, to let people go back to their lives, and to not be seen as job-hating nanny-state bureaucrats is the dominant force in state and local decision-making, only barely being held in check by a sense of civic duty and concern for long-term consequences. And in places where civic duty and long-term planning aren't in vogue, we see that the former has won out entirely. Mayor Breed and Governor Newsom are doing what they do despite the political consequences of shelter-in-place, not because of them.
I am active in our local community and contributing my own interpretation.
Edit: and if you are implying that Newsom and Breed and others are holding the line because they know in their hearts to do the right thing, well, this pandemic proves nearly every politician on the planet must have a really big heart.
I don't agree though that it's out of a sense of charity or morality. I think it's a matter of self preservation, just acting on a longer timescale than others. Politicians don't want to live in a blasted hellscape any more than the rest of us. And I think a fair number have realized that taking unpopular actions now is the only way to avoid that.
A completely corrupt mayor could use this newfound power to solicit some political donations. There are plenty other possibilities, like the need to be seen responding to the crisis or "tough on the virus".
...dear god, from who? The Big Mask Cabal? Sorry, this makes no god damn sense.
The possibility of bribes to reopen sooner make me even less worried about dx87's concerns.
Theories by which it is in a government's interest to delay reopening longer than optimal:
1. The Governor's political interests lie in "doing something," to contrast with "do nothing" political approaches. Ceasing to "do something" erases this advantage.
2. Masks and closure become a political symbol to certain classes -- almost a political advertisement -- and those classes tend to see the burdens as insignificant and a "community responsibility." Efforts to reopen, then, are seen as opposed to the good of the community.
3. Industries and activities that support the Governor will increase COVID cases, so the Governor decides other industries and activities are "nonessential," shifting costs from supporters to non-supporters.
4. The Governor is politically or legally risk averse, and defers to the most conservative health authorities to avoid responsibility for outcomes.
5. The Governor underweights economic impacts, because it believes the Federal Government should use tax policy or welfare to socialize the economic costs of the "required" costs.
Granted, these aren't fears the government will remain irrational forever, just that it will stay irrational longer than people can stay liquid.
I do think some people will swap roles after the US election, and they will rediscover a patriotic duty to muddle through, as our elected officials do the best they can.
I think your lack of understanding is because you frame the question as nuanced to keeping two types of establishments closed. Instead ask questions like: Why would governors want to keep overriding city-level authority? Why would governors want to maintain control over federal funds and subsidies related to health crises? Why would governors want to be able to selectively close certain types of businesses (e.g. close bars, allow restaurants, differentiate between the two based on arbitrary number, disallow one to become the other)? Why would governors want to disallow certain medical procedures (e.g. abortion)?
I can go on and on. The general question is whether executive power at any government level begets more executive power, and the answer is almost always "yes".
I don't really buy the power grab angle here. Most of the flack the federal government got was for explicitly _not_ doing any country-wide coordination or restriction. "Leave it to the governors". And it's hard not to find the "assault on freedom" angle disingenuous when it comes primarily from the socially conservative parts of the country that have historically worked to constrain individual rights.
I think perhaps a better attribute for what you are going for is temporary, and temporary is relative. The changes due to the emergency of COVID-19 are temporary, but longer lasting that some other emergencies, like a fire for example. Although I've now gotten used to fire emergencies lasting weeks, which is entirely new as of the last few years.
It may last for a longer term than most emergencies; but still operates on a smaller timeline than legislatures are used to operating. The only analogous situation I can think of is wars, and those are already given special treatment (and have seen a steady growth in executive authority over the past decades).
Additionally, I am not aware of any executive (within the US) that has suspended or directly contradicted the legislative branch. If your issue is that the situation has gone on for too long to be dealt with using emergency authority, then your complaint is with the legislatures that have failed to either issue the rules themselves, or override the executive orders.
I could see an arguement for updating the various authorizations for executive orders to allow them to be repealed by a simple majority vote not subject to veto; or even by a minority vote. However, as far as I am aware, there has not been a major conflict at the state level where these powers would be relevant.
https://apnews.com/b59e940736457cd98d73436be1a1d68a
Right now it's unclear if COVID-19 will behave like the 1918-19 Spanish flu and disappear after Winter 2021 because most everyone subceptible will have gotten it, or of it will be more like Picardy Fever, which hung around for two centuries.
Michigan has a procedure that may let the legislature do exactly this without even worrying about a veto:
https://apnews.com/b59e940736457cd98d73436be1a1d68a
much of what you say is reasonable, but those two examples are actually quite different, and it's important to be careful with generalized pronouncements because of those important differences.
folks going to a gym can still distance properly, and so can still reasonably curtail transmission. the primary purpose of the gym is a personal workout, not sharing indoor airspace with others for prolonged amounts of time with abandon.
most (large) parties on the other hand are willfully defiant and reckless, with no intention of containing transmission.
gyms are fine, small get-togethers are likely fine, all-night ragers are overwhelmingly unlikely to be fine.
There is also the sense of an ongoing crises, in the sense of a threat in which there is a very real likelihood of either a very bad, or very positive outcome. The Covid situation strongly resembles this.
Too there is the situation that even after the immediate onset of some emergency has passed, dealing with consequential effects carries great significance. To call on one of my preferred nonmedical disaster scenarios, in the 1975 Banqiao Dam failure (China), 170,000 people ultimately lost their lives. "Only" 25,000 or so drowned in the initial deluge. Over 150,000 perished due to an inadequate, ineffective, or incompetent rescue, recovery, and relief operation, due to starvation and disease.
Historical epidemics, even within the past century and certainly prior to it, have lasted years to decades. Come to think of it, the HIV/AIDS, TB (including TDR variants), MRSA, and hepatitis outbreaks also match this description.
The notion that six months is an excessively long response window fails any experiential comparison. It does howevee reflect failures of education, communication, leadership, and comprehension.
That said, it's perfectly reasonable for a government to keep exceptional procedures for an year. That's the minimum planning granularity they use. The GP's 6 months limit does not seem reasonable.
What happens where a long-term crisis endures requiring rapid decisionmaking, faster than legislative deliberative practice allows?
The point is that that's impossible. If the crisis is ongoing for months then there is ipso facto enough time for the normal legislative process to apply. Applying some emergency decisionmaking process that bypasses the normal checks and balance is only justifiable for novel events.
In a pandemic, lockdown, or quarantine, really is the only effective tool of control without immunity-bosting therapy (vaccination), or possibly, effective treatment (antiviral therapy). Not having people get sick in the first place is your best option, and, due to exponential growth, the faster you respond to outbreaks or rising Rt, the better.
Add to this delays in disease surveillance --- by the time you start seeing cases and they are reported, you're already 1-2 weeks behing the curve, and for COVID-19 that means two orders of magnitude more spread than you've detected, there simply is not time to convene a legislature, undergo debate, deflect disinformation, misinformation, and faulty models, to legislatively reimpose tighter movement controls.
We're seeing this in China, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Italy, Germany, Spain, and in numerous other countries and US states as the pandemic is brought under control, controls loosened, rates start rising, and controls are reimposed immediately as the resurgence is apparent. And by doing so, several of these countries (Taiwan, NZ, AU, South Korea) have avoided mass outbreaks, others have limited those to specific locations (China) or brought generalised outbreaks under control (Italy, Spain, Germany). Ongoing vigilance and vigorous response remain necessary, shown by experience.
By direct analogy, an ongoing siege remains an emergency though it continues for months or years. Ask the citizens of Leningrad. And this virus is a siege, it remains outside the gates.
An executive acts, a legislation deliberates.
Both are parts of the government. Systems vary, but in most democratic states, both are ether directly (presidential model) or indirectly (prime minister) the peoples' representatives. The power is not absolute, and legislators act as a check on the executive, increasing or decreasing powers, perhaps removing from office if fully incompetent or abusive.
Again:
- Previous pandemics have lasted years, decades, and centuries. Your imposed timeframe is utterly divorced from reality.
- The principle mechanism for pandemic control is vector and transmission reduction. Reduce numbers and rates of contacts, likelihood of exposure, amount of contagious agent shared, viability of that agent: Stay home, wash your hands, wear masks. It's not high-tech or sexy. It is effective.
- Rapid and effective executive decisionmaking is required for response, there is no time for parliamentary delay.
- In democratic states the executive remains a representative of the people.
- Powers granted are neither absolute nor without check.
- Such governance and response is proved effective in numerous regions.
- Emergence refers not merely to the initial appearance of the threat but to the situation as a whole. If it has rapidly-emergent characteristics and properties, it is an emergency. "A condition of urgent need for action or assistance: a state of emergency." (https://www.thefreedictionary.com/emergency) But the case that all issues must be resolved in a single prime-time commercial broadcast segment, or a few scant months, is parlous poor made here.
And for the record, I've made similar arguments since the beginning of this crisis:
Six months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22273830
Five months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22528060
The executive has emergency powers to respond to novel developments - and that would include unexpected outbreaks or anything that demanded a radical change in our thinking. But at this point the existence of a pandemic is not an emergency. We know it's there, there's enough time to consult experts and debate appropriate responses.
We managed to have legislative oversight when conducting wars. The president is allowed to unilaterally authorise military action for 90 days, but past that point Congress has to approve it. Surely we can manage the same thing for a disease.
If not now, then when? Seriously, this could go on for years; at what point is this just the "new normal"? Before the pandemic people were talking (with good reason) about a "climate emergency"; should that give the executive grounds to make arbitrary decrees for an unbounded time?
I don't doubt that these governors have the right intentions and are doing what they think is best. But our processes and safeguards are there for good reason, and it's not just about protecting us from moustache-twirling villains. When the stakes are high it becomes even more important to have debate, oversight, and review.
"We believe in science" is a fine mantra, though it doesn't directly lead to "liquor stores are essential". Our political elites were unable to resist politicizing every decision, gloating over others' misery and/or misrepresenting outcomes for political gain.
So, yeah, basically now it seems like many people are deciding for themselves.
Some of the people who work in grocery stores commute via bike/car. Their bikes/cars will probably keep working for a while, but after a few months to a year they might need to visit a shop. The need for bike/car repair eventually becomes urgent.
Though, I'm not sure where hair salons fit into this framework. Most people have the means to cut their own hair, they just won't like how it looks.
It also explains why workers in "essential" jobs are still low wage. An apparently baffling situation even though we were all taught the answer in highschool econ 101.
Why are people ignoring all of these risks, what kind of threat model do they have?
The exact same one - "it won't happen to me". I mean, is it really that surprising? I see this all the time everywhere.
Are you implying that the people going to these speakeasy gyms are then self-quarantining and not interacting with people who did not go to the gym? Because if not, then this is a non sequitur of a response.
> Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance.
Except OP is not about employers, schools and others.
it's not about the individual, what he wants or do. It's about this individual spreading the virus to the community later on.
But I also acknowledge this is a western culture issue more than one of intelligence alone.
Discouraging nonetheless. We’ve really messed up.
I feel the same about religion, so AFAIK this has always been so - move along, nothing to see here.
Except religion has been around long enough to excuse itself from the obvious, or a least to bare its fangs at anyone thinking of commenting on the emperor's new clothes..
Except that these people go there and then go home and spread it to their family and other friends. They go to grocery stores and other locations and touch things or cough/sneeze it in to the air. It's never about one person's individual choice.
> Surely your indignation would be better directed at employers, schools and others who are requiring in-person attendance.
Yes this deserves it as well but that does not negate the concerns
Further, there are major benefits to psychological state, social/emotional state, mental acuity, health, and maintenance/progression of physical capacity.
I'd love to see you try and add all that up in micromorts of personal risk and show me that it's actually a bad rational decision. I suspect it would be very marginal for your argument at best, and most likely neutral or positive.
That's all to say it's probably rational decision making, though certainly selfish thinking.
On an individual level, I have no doubt you're right. The health benefits from exercise would definitely outweigh the risk of COVID-19 (assuming the individual's not over 65 or has a majorly risky health condition).
But this is a pandemic, so decisions are made on the community level. The disease spreads. Healthy people don't live in separate cities from those at risk. Even if everyone is careful, mistakes happen: an unexpected sneeze, unconsciously rubbing your eyes, getting caught in a crowd. We're trying to minimize the number of mistakes (especially the more likely ones).
That's not too say whatever policy is current in your area is right. But if you think things can be done safely, consider reaching out to your representatives with a plan backed up by medical research. I know my state desperately wants to reopen businesses; the government doesn't benefit from closures.
This isn't new in any way; just look at how we've treated at-risk populations previously (e.g., homeless folks, the foster system, etc). The difference with the pandemic is that there was a rapid increase in who's considered "at risk".
Empathy =/= agreement.
It's extremely dangerous to give people the impression that the disease is only serious for those over 65 or with pre-existing conditions. That sort of impression is why people are engaging in risky behavior such as going to gyms.
Isn't that the whole reason public health is necessary? Because a large group of individuals making rational health decisions alone can, collectively, make poor health decisions for the group? It's kind of like polluting or littering. Yes it's perfectly rational for me to throw my trash on the ground because it's cheap and convenient but when everyone acts "rationally" then everyone is worse off compared to when we coordinate.
If people gave a damn about other people, they would be following best practices voluntarily, which would make policy limitations a moot point. But they do not, so here we are.
Why do randos think they understand the threat model better than the CDC and state medical authorities?
This is HN. We get a post on at least a weekly basis to the effect of: medications shouldn’t require prescriptions, anyone with an internet connection and a couple brain cells can manage their own care.
HN: home of “no one in management can possibly understand the technical complexity of software” and “who needs doctors, obviously I can easily understand that other enormous technical field.”
One, OP's question was about the threat model of underground-gym-goers not the CDC and state/local medical authorities.
Two, public health authorities don't do "exactly that calculation" because they are looking at interventions on the population level. Their job is to mandate things that would be individually irrational for the collective good. They have their own calculus about what the acceptable trade-offs are, that I'd suspect ultimately relates to the same monetary value of a human life that FEMA uses, but I'm not sure. I generally trust them to do their job correctly though.
Here’s my threat model:
- we’re all young, healthy, and in good shape
- we all wear masks during normal life, some of us even while training
- we all social distance and follow the right protocols outside of boxing
- it’s always the same group of people
- 2x/week seems like low enough frequency that exposure won’t add up
- we stay home or even cancel class when someone feels off
- we’re outside so it’s nice and windy
- we keep distance when not punching each other and groups of 2 are kept far apart
So far so good. It feels like an acceptable level of risk to me.
Going to the farmer’s market (with masks) every week is probably way more risky than the boxing class.
But is it an acceptable level to all the people you counteract with say within a week?
Is the cashier at your supermarket, that lives with their 6+ family members, ok with you doing this?
Is your elderly neighbour that also uses your elevator OK with this?
This is the moral and societal conundrum we are in.
If memory serves, the probability of transmission is under 1% with those measures.
Could you link the study that backs the 1%? How is that statement better than just coming up with a number?
CDC says the numbers “show the right idea” but we don’t yet have studies that yield a specific percentage.
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/verify...
If anyone in your group gets infected, there's a good chance you'll all catch it (you seem to acknowledge this). In that case, in one day of infectiousness, there's a 0.995^10 = 95.111% chance nobody else gets infected. So a 4.889% chance of infecting. That's low.
But if you all remain infectious for 14 days, there's now only a (0.995^10)^14 = 49.571% chance nobody new is infected. So the odds are your group spread it to at least one other person. And this process will probably repeat through those new infections.
Obviously, these numbers are arbitrary. It's a terrible model for an infectious disease. My point is to show how probability is very hard to reason about. It's unrealistic to expect average citizens to do this.
I have no supermarket cashier to request consent of; amazon fresh contactless delivery.
I live a pretty wealthy lifestyle away from the coasts, no shared elevators here.
Odds of dying this year: 0.002138 [1]. Odds of dying this year if they get Covid: 0.00271 (~n*1.3) [2]
Odds of contracting Covid over 160 days if going to gym: 60% Odds of contracting Covid if not going to Gym: 43% (assuming 10 people at the gym each time, 1 hour workout durations, odds of someone at Gym having it in any one session at .025%, and odds of catching it 20% at gym).
Now what about the negative second order affects of spreading it to others? I did not model those, but I think at this point there could be a compelling case that not catching it now might be net harmful to the folks at high risk, since they would need to remain in lockdown if there remains a large number of people around who are not immune.
[1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html [2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v...
Looking at the stats I'm more likely to spread the disease if I go to the gym, but much less likely to personally die of the disease if I stay healthy by going to the gym.
Complicating the situation is due to work and food delivery situation, I can't actually spread the disease to anyone at risk because they just aren't in my life.
In the US, roughly 150 per 1m people catch covid per day. Infection fatality for 20-29 is about 7/100,000. For 365 days, that is about a 1/million chance of dying of covid (for a 20 something year old) .
For context[1]: For similar ages, the suicide rate is 200/ million. Deaths from unintentional injury is 600/ million Deaths from heart disease is roughly 100/ million
When I put this into a threat model, I should put about 1000X more effort into these areas. A 10% reduction in risk of heart disease is an equal trade-off with +900% chance of contracting covid.
[1] https://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe
If so, that really bothers me. Any excess contagion would endanger everyone, not just the gym users. Please consider reporting the details to the appropriate authorities.
EDIT: If someone is inclined to downvote this comment, I'd be very grateful for a clarification why (comment or DM). I'm trying to address some problems in my communication style, and I can't always infer how I could have done better.
For context, from the SBA’s advocacy page (2019):
“ U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is the market value of the goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States. Across the 16 years from 1998 to 2014, the small business share of GDP has fallen from 48.0 percent to 43.5 percent. Over the same period, the amount of small business GDP has grown by about 25 percent in real terms, or 1.4 percent annually. However, real GDP for large businesses has grown faster, at 2.5 percent annually.”
I have not critically considered whether or not these statistics are the best indicator of the most effective contribution to the economy (or society).
https://advocacy.sba.gov/2019/01/30/small-businesses-generat...
Qatar has 44000 cases per 1m pop and 69 deaths per 1m.
That is not much higher than flu.
What does Qatar do to a person who is confirmed infected? Does the same action occur to someone with the flu?
What is Qatar asking it's population to do differently today, compared to this time a year ago? Does that have any meaningful impact on transmission rates?
I illustrated it as a place in which there is so much mass testing that the mortality figures are more fact than fiction.
When the actions to prevent these people from dying, uh "just earlier than they would have," are as simple as wearing a mask and social distancing, it is unethical to not do so.
I'm not gaining muscle mass but I'm having absolutely no trouble whatsoever maintaining it at home with exercise bands and calisthenics. It's a tiny, tiny price to pay for helping keep my community safe.
I would sacrifice the gym for the rest of my life if it meant adding even a year of life to a single person. Sentient existence is immeasurably more valuable.
Why bother treating any sick person if this is your position? The healthcare system would be a hell of a lot cheaper and easier if we just "frontloaded some death" for everyone who gets seriously ill.
Total predicted number of excess deaths since 2/1/2020 across the United States:
All causes: 174,930 - 235,728
All causes except COVID-19 : 29,416 - 78,932
> the Wuhan virus
Propaganda pro-tip: If you want people to trust you, suppress the obvious tells.
It shows:
39,000,000 – 56,000,000 flu illnesses
18,000,000 – 26,000,000 flu medical visits
410,000 – 740,000 flu hospitalizations
24,000 – 62,000 flu deaths
Which is actually kind of on the higher side for the flu season. They attribute that most likely on the increased testing happening this year due to people getting tested for Covid.
Until you provide overwhelming evidence (because that's what you're up against), you're spreading misinformation.
Seems to me like you're speaking from a feelings position, rather than a facts one.
> It's pretty locked down. You have an app that unless it's says healthy you are not allowed into any public place.
The explicit comparison to the flu doesn't really seem to hold, since the conditions applied to the infected aren't equal. If those carrying the flu were subject to the same conditions as those carrying this covid-19, the comparison would hold up a lot better.
> I illustrated it as a place in which there is so much mass testing that the mortality figures are more fact than fiction.
Mortality numbers as a % of tested peoples are hugely variable due to the differences in testing between nations.
Mortality numbers as a % of the population (deaths per 100k/1m) make for good comparisons, and unless the nation is engaging in outright deception, those numbers are reasonable to use as a comparison.
According to https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality the USA has 52.52 deaths per 100k. In line with your previous, Qatar has 6.94 deaths per 100k.
10x more people have died in the USA vs in Qatar. What's going on?
Look - my country no one bothers to observe measures and our system is far from overloaded.
I think that a lot of influential l people threw too much social capital on stay at home and stuff like this and now they just can't handle the situation if covid is less dangerous than thought.
I think we are in the sink cost fallacy.
There are 10x more deaths as a percentage of the population in the USA than in Qatar. The number of tests / positive cases is not relevant to that number.
That makes Covid 5.6 times more deadly than the flu.
But, the Covid numbers here are from a complete lockdown, where people are social distancing, wearing masks, schools are closed, everyone is working from home if possible, etc. And even with those level of precautions, it is at best 5.6 times deadlier.
That's why the estimate from the CDC is that Covid is 10 times deadlier than the flu.
The other thing is, this only measures immediate death. But there are unknown long term risk. Other type of SARS virus are known to cause long term issues to people that recovered from it. Hopefully this doesn't turn out to be the case for Covid but it could, and we don't know yet.
The last problem is mutations are possible. There's already one known mutation that makes it even more contagious. And the more the virus spreads, the more likely it mutates as well. So containment is important for that as well.
Now, that's the risk of it from the data today. You can decide that it is a risk worth taking or not. That's kind of a personal thing. But it is absolutely much higher than the flu.
So our current understanding is that COVID-19 is both more deadly and more infectious.
This does take into account infection rates, it's absolutely relevant and it's the big reason for Covid being deadlier, because it is more contagious.
So from the data, we see that with social distancing, lock down, and all that, it still infects and kills 5.6 times more people than the flu does every year given the measures taken for the flu, which is to have some amount of the population vaccinated. Thus assumed that without any protections, it would be even worse, possibly killing around 620k people per year. That would put it above cancer and up there with hearth disease as the number one cause of death per year.
And that's precisely why we're hoping for a vaccine. So that we can hopefully get the infections down and stop it's crazy contagion rate to manageable numbers that result on much less deaths per year, and doesn't force us to continue with the more challenging measures for limiting the spread of the virus.
Perhaps they are an essential worker, and don't have the option to stay at home?
Perhaps they have medical issues that leave them immunocompromised and may require hospitalization, putting them at a high risk of death from exposure to COVID patients?
Perhaps they are unemployed or at risk of unemployment due to pandemic restrictions, and the irresponsible behavior of people who are too cool to do body weight exercises at home could directly harm them by lengthening the time these restrictions are necessary?
"It's none of your business if other people break the law in a way that harms others."
I'm not entirely sure which part of my comment you're arguing against:
> How is a gymgoer endangering you, if you are staying 6ft from all others, wearing a mask, washing your hands and not touching your face?
Are you saying that as long as the measures you listed are followed, any additional shutdowns required by the local/state government are unreasonable and are okay to ignore?
If instead you're saying that the measures you listed satisfy the local/state requirements for gyms, then I'm confused because I wouldn't expect the gym to be shutdown in the first place.
Yes. How does a government shutdown help me, if I'm already isolated?
If you go to the grocery store or receive deliveries, you're not isolated, and government policy that reduces viral spread benefits you.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/faq.html#Spread
What, without evidence of it ever spreading from one person to another in a grocery store, you believe it isn't possible? Is extrapolating the knowledge of how it spreads to the possibility of encountering that situation in a grocery store not viable here? Shall we wait for evidence of spread in every single possible permutation of leaving the house before we consider such an activity potentially dangerous?
I was challenging isolation. I go grocery shopping - I think it can be done safely. But, I wouldn't do it if I lived in some red state full of pandemic deniers with huge spread rates - it's too dangerous. In my area, everyone wears masks, everyone makes sure to social distance, so it's not as much of a risk. But I acknowledge that I'm not isolated, and that was the claim that was made.
We have extensive contract tracing now in every state in the US, and around the world. I would think it wouldn't be that hard to show. Were you able to find any cases?
You failed to answer my previous question: is it impossible to extrapolate knowledge of how the virus spreads, to judge risk of various scenarios?
Do you require evidence from every permutation of possible activity?
I'm not expecting society to follow that line of reasoning any time soon, though.
To me it is a matter of goals, when posting.
I seek to learn something and/or share something, and think this is best achieved by replying to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.
I find that satisfaction of baiting a stupid post then refuting is short lived.
This post is a good case in point. I don't thinking drawing the analogy helped to educate anyone who read it or establish the appropriate moral obligations of an individual living in a society.
Imo, it is effectively trolling, especially when presented in a one sentence post. Do you think it spawned productive discussion when reading the child discussions?
Once we start comparing and contrasting the two, it becomes a more interesting discussion. I don't think they are strictly equivalent, but am open to a difference of degree and exploring where the line is drawn and why.
Living in a world with other people involves risk, even without covid. Driving anywhere sober, for pleasure or work, puts yourself and others at some level of risk. This is legal and socially accepted, so we know there is some threshold.
Another interesting area of comparison is consent/ acceptance of risk. When I get on the road (or walk down the street) I accept the fact that another vehicle could careen out of control and kill me. In the case of the speakeasy gym, the members presumably are accepting the risk.
This brings up the last area of comparison, second order effects. Even if the two Speakeasy gym members consent to take a risk, what about 3rd parties that could be harmed. what are the chances a 3rd party is harmed, and how do we typically handle comparable 3rd party risks? Airborne particulate is estimated to cause 200k premature US deaths per year. How does the particulate from a road trip, flight, or web browsing compare?
If we were so inclined we could try to throw some numbers to these.
The result is that gyms are an excellent space for spreading COVID-19. And measures that reduce the spread for things like walking around a store are not sufficient to reduce it to a safe level in a gym.
Here is some evidence in the NY Times that counters your argument: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/health/coronavirus-gyms-f...
Researchers have been tracking many superspreading events around the globe, and there seem to be recurring locations no matter what the country. In addition to those we have heard most about, like prisons, food processing plants, and elder care facilities, there have also been numerous large superspreading events at bars, churches, offices, gyms, and shopping centers.
(Note gyms are on the list.)
I’m on the fence with something like this. Covid-19 isn’t turning out to be nearly as scary as it looked like it might be in December (at least based on rumors coming out of wuhan). I still feel like there’s information at a high level (security clearance type stuff) that we don’t get to see, and so have to assume the stay stay at home orders are still founded.
That said, people in the US can only maintain this type of social distancing so long. A lot of people are reaching a breaking point. And if some speakeasy gyms help prevent a massive ‘fuck it’ style rave, then it might be a lesser of 2 evils kind of thing.
Furthermore, virus or no virus, the right to peacefully assemble is a human right that cannot legally or morally be abridged.
I don’t want the police to shut down protests. I also don’t want them to shut down gyms, or voting, or churches, or any other peaceful reason (dumb) people wish to assemble.
Assembly in the middle of a pandemic is stupid and irresponsible. I don’t do it.
I also don’t want men with guns stopping those that do. You can’t fix (or stop) stupid with a Glock and a uniform, which is what TFA is illustrating.
No it doesn't.
It could mean code enforcement, or the health department.
It’s not men carrying clipboards. They’re carrying pistols, and they have machine guns in the trunk of the vehicle they drove there.
DO NOT call the state to solve your problems.
If you wouldn’t solve the problem by taking a gun over there, don’t call someone else to do that.
This seems like simply a dodge or dismissal of the legitimate criticism that breaking most of society’s rules should not cause an armed opponent to suddenly appear. It’s unreasonable and uncivilized and frequently results in the small-rule-breaker being physically abused or even murdered, especially if they aren’t white.
Your casual dismissal of these consequences suggests that you are never targeted by these people. For that I am glad. I hope everyone can be as callous about the consequences for minor rule breaking one day.
You are attempting to equate assembly for the purpose of fighting racism or exercising vitally important activities like voting, with "assembly" for the purpose of "sick gainz bruh". This is such a false equivalency that it's laughable, and honestly also a little insulting.
Free speech means freedom to shitpost, not just write literature.
Correspondingly, freedom of assembly is for stupid and pointless things like church, moderately important things like gym, and not just critically important things like insurrection.
The proliferation of “illegal” gyms suggests that many people feel similarly.
Yes it absolutely is. I have no idea why you think otherwise. The right to "free expression" is conditional as well. We prohibit certain "peaceful assembly" and "free expression" every single day and have done so for centuries. The classical example: you do not have the "right to free expression" to go into a crowded place and falsely yell "fire", because that would be a public danger. Similarly, going to a gym during a pandemic causes a public danger. "Right to peaceful assembly" doesn't apply.
"Peaceful assembly to work out" is in no way similar to "peaceful assembly for protesting". It's ridiculous of you to claim otherwise. It's so ridiculous that I can only believe you're trolling or trying to make an argument in bad faith.
We can have a discussion about whether this particular rule really does benefit everyone, but clearly the ones that do should be respected, otherwise what's the point?
That ethic is really counterintuitive to me. I'd be really interested if you want to expound on it a bit.
E.g., Are there limits to where you'd apply it? Does it apply to laws that you (personally) do want to have vigorously enforced?
Most people can come to decisions like this without the mediation of a legal system. In this particular case, I don't think that ratting on gym owners who are trying to salvage their livelihoods by serving willing customers is worthy of reporting to the authorities.
Never thought I'd see the day where Americans turn in their neighbors to the state.
> Please consider reporting the details to the appropriate authorities
No, on the contrary I'm encouraging people to go out and resume their normal activities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_withdrawal_syndrome
> In the Western world about 15% of people have problems with alcoholism at some point in time. About half of people with alcoholism will develop withdrawal symptoms upon reducing their use, with four percent developing severe symptoms. Among those with severe symptoms up to 15% die.
It's not about you. It's about everyone else.
How can someone be so selfish and self-absorbed that they think their "muscle mass" is more important than the health of hundreds or thousands of other people?
I know this question may violate some HN policy, but I can't help but ask: What's wrong with you?
I fear that after this every time there's a bad flu season we will see this same shit again because "think of the most vulnerable among us, you're literally killing them!!"
My coworker has been told he may never taste or smell again as he "recovers" from covid.
There's evidence that COVID survivors might have long term heart conditions https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...
Think of the most vulnerable among us. You are killing them.
None of this is new! This coronavirus is a novel coronavirus, not a magical one. It has effects that are in line with other viral illnesses in humans. It's just a bit more virulent than them. It's a matter of quantitative difference, not qualitative difference.
There is a qualitative difference as well. The lingering side effects of the Lyme-causing bacteria is on a level apart from what happens when you get food-poisoned.
So it's all perfectly fine then? Because there are other viruses that do harm, we should allow this virus to run rampant.
Guess how I know you're not a doctor.
If we are spending hundreds of times as much mitigating a virus five times as bad as common illnesses (yes a once in a century event) are we now going to spend dozens of times more money/effort mitigating the flu every year? If yes then we will see lockdowns like this regularly going forward. If no, then the vast majority of the response to COVID is an emotional overreaction, not rational risk mitigation/pricing in externalities.
I will say in mid-March, when things looked quite different based on our limited knowledge of the virus, that the response wasn't entirely unwarranted. But we've known for months that this isn't nearly as bad as feared. It isn't the second coming of smallpox. Yet we still have most of the restrictions and shaming from March, even to this day.
how do you quantify "five times as bad" ? if I run my car into a brick wall at ten miles an hour, vs. 50, one event damages my car the other kills me. is that "five times as bad"?
> are we now going to spend dozens of times more money/effort mitigating the flu every year? If yes then we will see lockdowns like this regularly going forward.
no, why would we? the flu does not overwhelm hospitals [edit: the 2018 flu season comparison is a counterpoint but there is no argument this is anything on the scale what covid has done in places like NYC], cripple the entire medical system such that thousands of patients are left to die in hallways and parking lots, and spread exponentially to kill hundreds of thousands of people within just a few months.
> If no, then the vast majority of the response to COVID is an emotional overreaction, not rational risk mitigation/pricing in externalities.
you have made no argument to support this case.
> I will say in mid-March, when things looked quite different based on our limited knowledge of the virus, that the response wasn't entirely unwarranted.
what exactly "looked quite different" ? the main things that were known in march, e.g. spreads exponentially, r0 is something like 2 or 3 if steps aren't taken, has a 20% hospitalization rate, has a high death rate for those hospitalized which has improved somewaht but that is predicated on the fact that hospitals are availble, are still true.
There were a lot of tweets from people who work in public health about the argument you're making. "If people said we overreacted, then we will know we did our job". That's how it works when you prevent a horrible thing from going out of control. People who for whatever reason don't seem to understand what happened will crow about how unnecessary that was. Can you see how this looks to anyone who is actually trained in this area?
yes it does https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie...
flu may not kill as much as covid or spread as fast as covid but still thousand of people die every year, so somehow that is acceptable without lockdown ?
https://www.contagionlive.com/news/why-comparing-flu-covid-1...
>there was not a global lockdown for the 2018 flu season
Yes, so despite that there are thousand of death due to flue and hospital overwhelmed, somehow is was acceptable to not have lockdown back then?
Due to lockdown the hospital are furloughing, lying off nurse, freeze hiring.
Just look at Sweden where they didn't lockdown.
Doesn't mean I say we should not take any step. Step to make vaccine still has to be done, improving treatment still have to be done, increasing health care capacity still have to be done.
I would hope economists would make judgements based on more than aping what happened "in recent memory," but somehow I'm not surprised. IIRC the last time we had major pandemic like this, gathering places were closed (like now), social distancing was done (like now), masks were worn (like now), and some people chafed against the restrictions and decided that it was better to endanger others (like now).
2. Sweden tried this route. They now have the deaths plus the economic fallout (-6% GDP, just like the locked down neighbours Denmark and Norway), mostly due to the international interconnectedness (collapsing supplier chains etc.)
The US tried something a little like this with forgivable loans to pay businesses' paychecks, but the trouble is they did this after rolling out an unemployment boost that left less well-paid people better off than if they were employed, so it was a little difficult to convince business owners who didn't want their employees to try and murder them in their sleep to take it up.
But I like going to the gym, partying, and maximizing the profits of my business! I'm fine with helping, but asking me to make sacrifices is just too much. Isn't what I prefer most important? /s
I've also contrived some sympathetic-sounding reasons to justify the choices I already wanted to make, so it's pretty clear that if you disagree with me, you're obviously wrong. /s
Lockdowns are killing the most vulnerable among us. We need to take them into account too.
Is America really that filled with narcissists?
COVID inspired woke-scolding is more narcissistic.
> COVID inspired woke-scolding is more narcissistic.
I have a feeling you would say the same thing with or without a deadly virus ravaging your country.
i.e "egocentricism", as mentioned. Are you arguing about the perception of a narcissist, or your own? I'd rather not bite, thanks.
"Symptoms include an excessive need for admiration, disregard for others' feelings, an inability to handle any criticism, and a sense of entitlement."
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-...
I get that you enjoy splitting hairs to confuse an otherwise simple discussion, but I don't.
But specifically we went from "avoid overwhelming the health system" to "let's do the things that stops people from continuing to die". And those things involve avoiding human contact unless it is essential, mask wearing, and social distancing. It's not crazy that our government is asking us to do things that make us less likely to die. You know, unless you're a seatbelt truther.
"The response wasn't perfect so shut down all current and future attempts to save lives."
Cool.
There have been times in the past where I've made HN comments that were meant as constructive criticism to another HN user. But my accidental tone ruined any chance of my comment being helpful. @dang was gracious enough to provide me detailed feedback [0], and it seems to be working for me.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24100238
Who cares? Why is "economic" harm so important?
I'm really tired of people saying "But what about the economy?" I really don't care. I care about my health and the health of my family members. If some artisan dog biscuit company goes out of business, so be it.
It's not just about you
The "economy" is just our way of measuring what people do for themselves and others all day. "Some artisan dog biscuit company" is someone else's lifelong work and dream, not just a number in a spreadsheet. Minimizing may make you feel better about selfishly demanding everyone turn their lives off, but it's not an accurate representation of the world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/17/opinion/covid-19-heart-di...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2020/08/17/covid-...
That's the first article that shows for googling [covid-19 vascular disease].
Basically my understanding of the current understanding is that COVID-19 is better thought of as a disease that can cause blood clots, particularly in several organ systems, particularly in the lungs -- you start getting blood clots in your lungs and consequently can't breathe very well.
If muscle mass or fitness is a concern, work out at home. Or outside. Ride a bike, go for a run, do some pushups. Pick up large rocks. Buy a squat rack or rowing machine. Go climb a mountain.
Access to a gym is absolutely not required to maintain fitness.
And let's be clear here: This isn't about the "health" of the gym-goers. It's about preserving their self-image.
Sadly, this is the source of your downvotes. For so many (even here on HN of all places), it's all about ME. My freedom. My choices. My comfort. My convenience. My need to eat at that restaurant or buy that ranch dressing. My absolute right to do squats next to some random person at a gym. Anything that gets in the way of my freedom to do every little thing I want to do any time I want to do it is bad.
We're not talking about genocide here or shredding the constitution. We're talking about sensible and temporary public health policy. But no, I just have to go get my hair done.
Also, I am not concerned how others perceive my beliefs because I know what works for me, so to each their own.
I'm an athlete myself so I get it. Working out is important. But people are reporting that they are not back to 100% even _months_ after the primary symptoms of COVID are gone. And health professionals are saying that it's very possible to lose things like lung capacity PERMANENTLY. Honestly that scares me more than the idea of being badly sick for 1-2 months. I worked hard to make my lungs strong.
Also, of course, the whole concept of responsibility to our communities in a global pandemic is even more important, but an appeal to self-interest is there as well.
Yes, there are possible outcomes that are absolutely terrible and potentially even permanent! Nobody is debating this.
However, what we need to have a real and fact-based discussion is that how prevalent these outcomes are, what are they based on, and what groups are most affected.
Then we as a society can come together and choose what the appropriate response is.
Of course this all breaks down when you have a country of 382M people that refuses to even attempt the creation of smaller, more manageable communities.
I don't understand that comment. I keep up to date on the latest scientific papers on the coronavirus pandemic, and the one thing I wouldn't call it is obvious. We repeatedly see things happening that run contrary to what the consensus expectation was. Obviously some of this is due to improvements in our understanding over time, but we are still very much in the dark about how it is currently spreading, who is most likely to suffer fatal or severe consequences, how we best treat the disease, etc.
Charitably, it is neither as bad as we feared nor as innocuous as some hoped, but that was bound to be the case and easily predictable. I don't feel at all confident predicting what comes next, however.
The fact that we are still following the same guidelines as we did in February makes it pretty obvious that governments are not really working with the new data currently coming out, but instead still trying to scramble to put a cap on any possible downside COVID has.
To put it in other terms, most world governments (and majority of their people in some cases!) are thinking like this currently, in terms of "amount of danger"
potential, currently unknown, negative outcomes related to COVID > millions without jobs, tens of millions stuck inside getting cabin fever and whole industries collapsing.
Who is "we"? My state went from "no one go anywhere, disinfect surfaces" to "wear masks everywhere, avoid groups of people indoors". We've gone through a lot of phases as more information became available, and while things are very much not yet back to normal, many restrictions have been lifted once it was apparent they weren't needed.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2020/08/17/covid-...
1/2 not worth it. 1/1000 - will take my chances. Covid seems to have flipped a switch in people's brains that make every probability 1.
It's more like:
- X/1000 chance for people who go to the gym, get sick, lose health permanently, probably infect others
- 0/1000 chance of the same if you stay away from the gym and try to do some sort of similar workout at home, even if it's not ideal. Body weight exercises are great by the way
Who cares if X is 1 or 999? Why would anyone choose the first option?
True if there is no downside, but I can easily think few benefit going to gym :
- some sports can't be done indoor
- some sports can't be done alone
- some sports require equipment that you don't have at home
- social benefit
For now it seems like indoor gyms as we know them today are probably a bad idea. Hopefully due to a combination of better mitigations in the gym itself (sure put the squat rack in a giant bubble), decline in case counts, etc means the day where going back is not too far away (fingers crossed).
People choose the first option because they weigh risks differently. The risk of permanent health damage as a result of coronavirus disease in my age bracket with no pre-existing conditions is effectively nil.
I'm hoping that the early vaccine trials go well and are approved. There is promising progress there but who knows.
There seem to be other nasty long term effects that are mostly unknown.
The idea that kids don't get or spread covid is not supported by evidence. They seem to get less symptoms, but there isn't enough evidence to say they don't get or spread it. Some studies suggest they are more likely to get and spread it, but there isn't enough to make strong statements yet
Of course, there always non zero probably of death for anything.
>There seem to be other nasty long term effects that are mostly unknown.
Of course, it could happen with any other diseases
>The idea that kids don't get or spread covid is not supported by evidence
Of course they may get or spread it but its very unlikely.
>but there isn't enough to make strong statements yet
Exactly, if there isn't enough evidence then don't close school.
Or do some 100m max effort hill repeats
Or jump squats
Or buy a futon and try moving that heavy and bulky mattress up a flight of stairs, alone.
There are hundreds of ways to get great workouts that do not require an indoor gym.
100m max effort hill repeats aren't really anabolic the same way squats are.
Jump squats aren't the same as pulling weight.
Your futon doesn't weigh as much as what I'm squatting and I'm much more likely to injure myself hauling it's awkward shape up stairs
There are hundreds of ways to get a workout but people go to the gym for good reasons
Great if that's what you want but not a replacement for proper weighted squats.
I'm not working out with buckets full of liquid or materials thats hard to clean up.
Dumbells, kettle bells, and weighted vests are all off topic on the reply given the person was talking about doing bodyweight exercises.
Jump squats are great but not the same thing as properly weighted squats.
Neuromuscular fitness all well and good, but how many months now? My nervous system is great, what I'm missing is load.
The exceptions are sport specific exercises which require certain movements that may require certain equipment.
The fact that push-ups exist refutes the false dilemma. The fact that gyms exist does not refute the idea that you can stay fit without a gym.
Me too. I live alone, and for the first 110 days of lockdown in the UK, I saw another human being that I know in person for 6 of those days. The toll that has taken on my mental health is huge.
Combine the lack of human interaction with the loss of everything that has value to me and my life outside of my job: restaurants, museums, sporting events, theatres, gyms, sporting activities, all of these things disappeared overnight, and most of them haven't returned still.
Instead, I've taken up volunteering (while still holding down a 60hr/week job) with local charities, helping those in the community around me who are more vulnerable and more in need than I am. Mostly helping out with food deliveries, which makes for good exercise, but often collecting drugs for them and delivering to them, which can make for decent cardio if the distances are right.
TL;DR: There are ways to achieve the goals you need for yourself, and simultaneously helping others rather than endangering them.
EDIT: watching the count on this post is amusing. Maybe it's worth being explicitly clear: despite the volunteering work, I am absolutely still depressed, and will continue to be until I can make meaningful changes to improve my life. There's no magic bullet when you sacrifice the things that give you meaning.
While the hair salons were closed, my wife's hairdresser was texting her every three days to get her into her underground makeshift totally illegal hair place.
And slightly realated, quarantines don't work when people aren't actually quarantined. There was an article in the newspaper last week or the week before about all the people from California driving into Nevada to get their hair done.
Just what the world needs: People who make poor health decision driving around the country.
I'm confused, if the participants wear a mask, will the virus be transmitted or not?
I'm trans male, so I've gotten both female and male haircuts. Female haircuts generally took much less time. Put the hair in a ponytail, one snip, tidy up a little. Even a buzz cut takes a little bit longer. It's also much easier to cut long hair yourself than short hair, and people with long hair can go much longer between hair cuts. It took me a while to realize that men's haircut needs to be cut every 2-3 months instead of the once or maybe twice a year I was used to.
Hair dying definitely takes longer, but it seems that can be done at home easily as well.
Well, if it's an illegal place what are the odds they follow CDC protocol?
Just open things up with strict masks / disinfectant / distancing rules and heavy fines for violators.
For some, it's not about whether the virus is transmitted or not, it's about the moral implications of deliberately violating the law.
But considering these underground places aren't licensed, regulated, or inspected, I expect they're more risky than a regular place. There's very good health and sanitation reasons that hair cutting places are regulated in the first place.
> but I hope it's not controversial that driving drunk is still extremely dangerous.
Which _implies_ that you perceive "haircut with a mask on" to be similarly dangerous.
If my understanding is wrong, please correct me!
Which is an excellent point, which may make some wonder if it was realistic to try in the first place. It's like imagine if the US govt forced everyone to lose weight and then was shocked that people were hoarding ding dongs in the underground market. "How dare those illegal ding dong hoarders break the law!"
If we're going to make laws that are fundamentally against human nature (see also drug prohibition laws, which is also has parallels to TFA), we shouldn't be surprised that some people don't follow these rules.
Childcare is one of those basic and ancient jobs that's accrued a lot of compex laws over the years. In PA, anyone caring for four or more children not related to them is required to get some sort of certification, even if they're doing it out of their house for friends for free. Home daycares aren't uncommon here.
I'm not sure about the laws in your area, but my money's on that business having to apply for certification and pass inspections. They'll probably hire a certified childcare worker.
Speak for yourself. I live in a hot and humid place and exercising outside is incredibly unpleasant. It's 10 times worse if you're standing in direct sunlight.
>Calistenics aka exercises with the weight of your body are quite efficient and don’t make one look like an ogre
What if I want to look like an ogre?
Sure, adding a bit of shape to your body is not a bad thing but exaggerating it doesn't lead to good outcomes
i struggle to see this as not shaming. also there's plenty of other middle ground between bodyweight exercise and "ogre".
i don't disagree w safety of outdoors and avoiding illegal infection incubators. i just think your suggestions around Calisthenics and comments on ogres are ignorant. not everyone has your preferences for body shape, access to climate and physical abilities.
>I have 2 friends who bulk up and are actually in a very bad shape mobility wise, their arms are so big that they can't reach arms behind their backs
Bodybuilding is only one type of strength training. Furthermore, the primary goal of bodybuilding is aesthetics, not necessarily strength. That's not to say that they're not strong, but there's a reason why body building competitions will involve flexing in front of the judges while olympic lifting competitions won't.
I go to a gym with a lot of bodybuilders, and I often forget how much of the world sees them as mindless thugs. And yet among us are at least two real-estate executives, a famous death-metal singer, a handful of computer nerds, a very famous (regionally) pop singer, a former Ambassador, at least one former Olympian, and a bunch of Hollywood stars when they happened to be in town. Plus, you know, ordinary men, women, boys, and girls who like to be fit, or are trying to get fit. Some are large, some are not. The oldest is 75.
Evelyn should swing by the Bay Club and do a bro count, see how that goes. Might offend a judge or two, especially if they're swole.
This turns up in many places in technology --- bugs, design flaws, architectural errors, implicit assumptions, security issues, unintended consequences, UI affordances, algorithmic biases, data corruption, ...
A typoogy of various forms of such cognitive biases would be interesting. Too small, far, distant in time, transparent, big, diffuse, etc., etc.
See also Robert K. Merton's Manifest and Latent Functions.
I would call the "proper authorities", but since there is a State Police car parked outside every morning, and he is in there working out, just like before the pandemic, I doubt calling anyone would do anything.
Adding to the post, I read it earlier... it is really strange that people feel they have to go work out in groups. Or get together, or go to bars. I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
In addition, there's basic upkeep and maintenance that you're required to perform to keep a building insured, let alone to make it re-openable at some point.
I see the reasoning and don’t think the ethics of our pandemic behaviors have been fully discussed.
the patrons apparently don't believe that their behavior is unethical, and in fact, think that the dictates of their rules are unethical, and potentially illegal too.
is it so hard for you? lol
It's not like there are alternative tenants who can pay around.
We are now on month 7 of being told to not socialize or see or do anything. I continue to obey the orders, but I totally get why some people are starting to crack.
"Keep your distance, wear a mask, and stick to small groups" is not the same as "do not socialize".
All of the normal places where you see people socialize have bee closed or went out business. Restaurants, bars, night clubs, sporting events, live music (festivals and stadiums) and many, many others.
It would be one thing to conform to what your saying, but its become hard if not impossible to find safe places where people CAN socialize, so they take what they get regardless of the risks to them or others.
If you can't socialize outside a bar, that's on you.
Even in articles about house parties, major media outlets go and grab a beach photo for some reason. It's bad reporting.
Comments like this and the ever popular "it's just a mask!" show a remarkable lack of awareness and understanding. Yes, that's perhaps overly selfish of me. Yes, there are people at serious risk, and many people dying or developing life-long serious complications. But this has been the worst period in my entire life, by far. I was regularly, very seriously, suicidal (have since moved back in with my parents now that they're stateside, starting to get better). All the policies and all the talk are oriented around having a network of close relations to fall back on. That doesn't exist for everyone.
We're going to see pretty significant long term effects to both the economy and children / young people due to a lack of social development.
I couldn't even imagine how shitty being a 20 something in a new city would be now. Dating has to be practically non-existent.
Should say that I'm for and obey covid restrictions in my country (Canada), but I'm amoung the privileged few already working from home, and have a family and kids that keep me busy.
2. Why can't people socialize online? It's even easier nowadays. It might not be the same thing but it can get pretty close.
It is not anywhere near close. Video calls transfer speech, tone of voice, and facial expressions at best. Body language is a vital part of face-to-face communication, and there is no video call equivalent of leaning in towards someone or putting your hand on theirs.
There are ads on pretty much every medium that say "Stay Home", which is not at all what you're describing. To say "nobody is saying do not socialize" is untrue, but to say "We're not allowed to socialize" is also untrue.
Ok, but then we have people doing solo activities, all by themselves, minding their own business -- getting arrested by lunatics[1] because we said no beach allowed during Covid[2]!
How do we reconcile that?
[1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-03/paddle-b...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpsaSfoqUtU
You'll find California (and everywhere else) has loosened up substantially on outdoor activities, as we have substantially more information in recent months on outdoor versus indoor transmission. We've learned a lot since April about COVID-19.
It wasn't about safety. Arresting a lone surfer or lone beach jogger isn't about safety. It's about compliance. You must comply.
This whole discussion is absurd. If people actually did comply, then they wouldn't get arrested and we would have had a far more successful outcome nationwide.
We said "No beach during Covid" because a bunch of lunatics flooded the open beaches.
And while the beach may not be a problem, those same lunatics flood the gas stations, Walmarts, etc. and DON'T WEAR MASKS.
In addition, California never really locked down. California has almost continuously had an R0 above 1.0. Mostly due to the lunatics in Southern California.
If you want to open the beaches and arrest anybody not local, fine. The problem with THAT is that you now have to patrol for it--which creates in-person contact.
So, we shut the beaches completely. Sorry you can't surf. Tell your population cohort to wear your masks and stay the hell out of parties and maybe California will get below R0 one day.
Or not. And this crap can continue until we get a vaccine.
Don't allow large gatherings? OK fine, I might object to this, but I can see the other side at least.
Not allowing individuals to do individual activities? That seems misguided at best.
After all, we do allow Ice Cream Parlors to be open, and outdoor seating at restaurants where you sit in close proximity to other people who are not wearing masks... how is that better than jogging on the beach all by yourself?
They aren't better, and none of this is actually about safety nor is it about "Flattening the Curve" anymore. We flattened the curve long, long ago.
No, it's not about safety, it's about compliance. You will comply, regardless of how illogical or contradictory certain County Health Official Edicts are.
Please reread my post. I already told you what the problem was.
A zillion people flooded the open beaches. The problem is that those zillion people then go places other than the beach and spread Covid.
The only real way to prevent that is to simply close the beach. Yes, that sucks for locals. So far, you have not presented an alternative solution. "Reopen the things!" is NOT a solution--it's idiocy.
However, you know what sucks more for locals? Getting Covid 19 from a bunch of out-of-towners because you work at the grocery stores, gas stations, etc. that they all flood after the beach.
Stop being a selfish prat. If you just have to be outdoors, go hike the mountains.
> it's idiocy.
> Stop being a selfish prat
Wow, that's quite an aggressive response, no?
The solution to your problem is to not allow large gatherings on the beach. That's pretty simple, right? We're doing that already everywhere else - lines to get into stores, etc. Or enforce wearing a mask? There's plenty of ways to do this that don't result in a squad of cops running down a solo jogger, or a task force of patrol boats and helicopters for a solo surfer... just because the Mayor or County Health Official said it must be so!
So, what's wrong, for the 3rd time, with a solo jogger on the beach, with nobody around them?
The answer, for a 3rd time, is nothing.
> However, you know what sucks more for locals? Getting Covid 19 from a bunch of out-of-towners
You really think that risk doesn't exist for locals going to grocery stores too? Touching a can of food, then putting it back on the shelf? Handling paper money, grocery bags, etc.
What we have here are not rules for the sake of safety. What we have here are not rules for the sake of "Flattening the Curve".
No, we have rules for the sake of rules. They make some people feel safer, even though there's zero evidence to suggest they are effective at achieving their intended goals. The reason people are disobeying these "orders" is because the government has not done a sufficient job convincing people the rules are based on logic and actual science, not "science" and politics.
It is not inherently more risky to jog on the beach by yourself than to go sit at an outdoor restaurant, no mask, and be around a bunch of other people.
It would be intellectually dishonest to argue otherwise. Yet, here we are.
What part of "It's not the activities at the beach, but the flood of people doing activities AFTER." do you not understand?"
At this point I need to stop as it is entirely possible that I am arguing with a GPT-3 based bot.
On the whole, both of us loved the lockdown for the 2-3 months but after that, not being able to see our close friends really started wearing on us. We were some of the first in our group to start expanding our quarantine units. Sometimes I need to remind myself of this, but the right amount of social interaction is a very rewarding and enriching part of the human experience.
What? That's a pretty exaggerated misrepresentation of what's actually being recommended. You can socialize and see or do plenty while still obeying the recommendations. For instance, my elderly neighbors regularly socialize with others -- they just put chairs out on the driveway or patio and maintain two or three times the distance as they would before the pandemic.
And if people had actually sheltered in place back in March, we might be opening back up (or opening with fewer COVID clusters).
As of now, the US has more than 100x deaths per capita from covid than New Zealand because of measures like that.
"Everyone stop moving around for a few days so we can contact trace and test these people without it spreading more" seems like a very good mitigation.
It has worked well for NZ thus far; they've been able to demask, hug, and live life pretty much normally for a while now.
I'd happily take the occasional few days hard lockdown in exchange for that.
The US death toll is over 170.000 now because both people and government alike did not take the measures needed to contain the disease.
But hey, 170.000 is just a number, right? Just like the trillions gained in the stock market. Fuck the people that died, they were weak. Right?
There's a genuine culture difference in America, call it American Exceptionalism if you want, that's caused all sorts of normal preventative measures to be ignored or actively rejected. Many businesses actively rejected the idea of requiring masks, today some businesses still refuse service if you're wearing a mask. That's pretty ridiculous if you ask me.
Moreso in this thread you have hundreds of comments hemming and hawing, nitting and picking at every detail of proposed lockdowns and mask requirements. People hate this stuff and they call it an imposition on their freedom.
In other countries people just put on masks and stayed home. They didn't make nearly as much of a fuss about it all.
Yes. But my point is, I don't see how that could make them any closer to re-opening. The virus still exists. All the factors in play when the lockdowns started are still in play.
Remember, lockdown isn't about 100% prevention, it's about keeping infections at a level that's acceptable (generally defined as keeping enough ICU beds and ventilators available for COVID+normal use).
If people all wear masks, keep distance when possible, and generally "follow the rules", we should be able to return to a more normal lifestyle.
But, as politicians force schools to open, pastors insist on in-person services, and the "mah rights!" crowd refuses to play by the rules at all, we get more COVID clusters than we might otherwise.
That levels in other urban areas generally stayed below thresholds is proof that the lockdowns worked.
Until the pandemic passes (either via mutation, vaccine, or herd immunity), we should be in a state of maintenance where we move in/out of various levels of lockdown/open to keep it that way.
I couldn't find more than one case of this so I'm curious if you have any evidence it's widespread.
The problem I do have is a substantial number of people appear to be ignoring any/all orders to stay home, distance, etc. Everything from the speakeasy gyms mentioned in the article to churches holding indoor services to in-person classes at local schools. All three of which, by most accounts, are likely to result in new COVID clusters.
There is an exit strategy, and we'd be part of it if we could have just followed the directions of doctors and epidemiologists.
What directions did they follow that allows Wuhan to have pool parties? I don't understand how having pool parties can be ok. Does the virus not exist there? How can that be possible?
Well luckily we have this thing called the internet that lets you see images, video, and text from far away places.
> What directions did they follow that allows Wuhan to have pool parties? I don't understand how having pool parties can be ok. Does the virus not exist there? How can that be possible?
Full lockdown, including stipends to help people out economically, heavy maks usage, massive amounts of tests (when they saw six new cases after not having any, they did 6.5M tests in a week in wuhan), and scanning temperatures of pretty much anyone anytime they go into public area.
Which leads to this https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/asia/wuhan-water-park-party-i...
Except maybe the door welding thing.
Maybe these extroverts aren't extroverts and instead they're regular people suffering from withdrawal because we live in an over-socialized society.
Buy yeah, we are just finishing out month 5 and heading into 6. But the most stringent lock downs were only into May for a lot of places; at least hear in San Antonio.
Thanks.
That said, there are many types of training you can't do without the right equipment, so it's at least a bit more than just wanting to be with others. Strength training/powerlifting/olympic lifting all come to mind. It's often really difficult to keep a rack, barbell and hundreds of kilos of weight at home, and obviously not something people had just lying around in case of an emergency.
There is certainly a social aspect to it as well, I love training with a couple of friends, the atmosphere can't be replicated at home. But like I said, I've abstained, and I would have been hopeful others would have to.
Joined my local gym. It's packed everyday.
This is not a social injustice. I want to lift. Not chat over sweat.
Yeah, this is pretty important. I used to lift and there's simply no way that I would make the investment to have all that equipment in my house. In normal times it's incredibly wasteful for each individual to stockpile their own redundant junk, rather than share a common pool with others. [0]
I switched to a more equipment-light calisthenics routine years ago with a few items I have around the house, so the current pandemic does not impact my own fitness routine - but for people looking to get really strong this is no substitute for lifting heavy.
[0] As an aside: this shouldn't only apply to gym equipment, communal resources should be way more common for economic and sustainability reasons. There's no reason at all every homeowner should have a lawnmower, for example.
This has not been my experience at all. I used to have a membership to my local gym for my wife, myself, and their childcare program (basically watch your kids while you exercise for 1 hour).
I cancelled that membership and instead put that same amount of money into buying equipment at home (where I have enough space for it) and it only took me about 5-6 months to get enough equipment to replicate about 90% of my routine from the gym. Now I also don't have to wait in line or spend the time travelling to/from and I can exercise whenever I want. For me it has been way more effective.
And when I'm done using the equipment it's not going to go in the trash, I'll sell it in the local classifieds.
Personally I can walk to my gym, and I get far greater quality and variety of equipment by not having to pay for, maintain and store it myself. There are no duplicate machines at my gym, yet it spans a whole warehouse, and I've used every machine at some point as my programme evolved.
As a renter, when I move I don't have to lug hundreds of kg of weights and equipment with me.
I don't see a problem with lawnmowers but I think maker spaces should be in every city. I can easily buy high quality tools for myself but I have no space in my apartment and once I'm done with a tool it feels like a waste to let it collect dust in a drawer.
There is one big problem with communal resources. Not everyone is qualified to use a tool and communal resources make it easier for unqualified people to get tools and break them.
That's all I'm trying to point out, for many disciplines there is no substitute for equipment. But so be it, these are unique times.
Calisthenics moves on the other hand require an enormous amount of strength and muscle control, something you can't gain from "just" lifting weights.
Maybe because nobody successfully proved to these people (me included) that this sacrifice is useful.
You can't tell to people, you have no risk of dying (0.5% death rate for population, much much lower for healthy and young people), people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...) so this is not your fault if they catch it but you need to stop living your life. That can't work.
And above all, what is the long term strategy, we stop everything for the rest of our lives ? (a vaccine doesn't always work, example the flu vaccine, which works approximately).
It is not that people don't want to sacrifice, it is just that scarifying is the worst solution for everyone
Edit: If you don't like what I said then go work for Xi Jinping. It's no secret a lot of people in tech are crypto or full-blown Communists. Telling on people for wanting to get on with their lives is nothing short of Commissar tactics.
The rest of the (developed, and many underdeveloped) world dealt with it and are moving on. I'm watching Champions league finals on TV and Wuhan pool party clips on twitter, thinking wtf went wrong here.
I'm not really sure on that, lets take greece, which was praised for their strategy (I was in greece during the lockdown). They didnt have a strategy, they just locked down before there was an outbreak and blocked flights, so no spread. Now they have an outbreak because they stopped all there restrictions. They were just lucky
Look at New Zealand, their strategy is to prevent anyone to enter the country with covid, well that works as long as not a log of people fly to NZ. Now that flights have restarted, they have like 3 cases so they lockdown the entire city, well, doesnt seem very smart in my opinion.
The only countries which are doing well, are the Asian countries, China (can't really trust their figure), Taiwan, south korea same as NZ, but restricting all freedom of citizens.
The smartest country of all, is Sweden, never locked down, explained to citizen the situation. Managed to get the situation under control without any lockdown, and probably will reach herd immunity before anyone else. Time will tell this is too soon to judge, but they seem well positioned for winning
I keep seeing this narrative but I can never find the data to support it. When you look at the data, Sweden has the worst of both worlds.
1. Among their neighbors, only Germany has more deaths than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland have fewer almost an order of magnitude less cases and deaths.
2. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down.
There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors.
The number of case is under control [1], almost no death now (and not hiding after a lockdown, really no death) so probably less death in the future compared to those countries
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS...
Geographic comparisons are of limited usefulness; MA had 10x the death rate of near neighbors NH,VT& ME. There are too many other factors to consider. Sweden still did better than UK, France, Spain, Italy and many others.
>> 2. Despite not being government sanctioned, people still chose to self isolate meaning that the still suffered the economic fallout of that decision. Turns out, a global pandemic is bad for business whether or not your government decides to shut everything down.
Mobility data would suggest otherwise; no masks, kids still in school etc. Life has continued with some restrictions. We could have done the same with similar outcomes. Economy definitely took a hit, but less so than other eurorzone countries.
>> There is no metric by which Sweden is doing any better than anyone else, and is doing a lot worse than their neighbors. The fact that the pandemic is effectively done in Sweden is one. We still dont have an exit strategy.
Acting like this is a foregone conclusion is the height of arrogance. Diseases spread in waves. They could just be at the low point between two waves.
We won't know until years from now. Just asserting you're right when there are still this many unknown factors smacks of someone looking for data after coming to a conclusion.
fair point, but do you know that the under 65 excess deaths metrics for Sweden is already almost identical to previous years ie. if you were looking at the charts you would not even know they had a pandemic. I suspect "years from now" looking at the US metrics it will be similar.
You can clearly see excess mortality for Sweden, higher than previous years.
Edit: missed the under 65 bit, would be interested in seeing that data for Sweden, but you can see the collated graphs for all the countries that contribute and you definitely can spot spikes in the lower age ranges.
Deaths per 100k:
Norway: 4.9 Finland: 6
...
France: 46.8 Sweden: 57.6 Italy 58.6 U.K.: 61.1 Spain: 61.7
https://studylib.net/coronavirus
If you look at Belgium 859 deaths per millions, Sweden (and the US) could go much higher without any preventive action (I believe Sweden is now acting more in line with other countries?).
(Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-mi... )
So the numbers are bigger, on purpose.
Source: I'm from belgium
They did at the outset of the current administration but chose to fire the people trained for 'reasons'. When the pandemic finally pressed on the country, the game plan handed down from the previous admin had been abandoned for years at that point by the current administration.
The logic remains breathtaking, and the irony would be delicious if it weren't so deadly.
The US also has spectator-less sports going on, I'm not sure how that's any different.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
That in addition to the federal government not supporting people and businesses while the economy is shut down, leads to this obvious outcome we're experiencing right now.
Originally he erred way on the side of caution, because we did not know enough. We learn more every week, and his current outlook is a lot like what you just wrote.
The big remaining problem is this is not going away anytime soon. There's more politics than science going on, and there have been institutional failures world-wide from top to bottom.
> people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...)
This makes it clear "nobody successfully proved" really means "I didn't bother to listen". The messaging on masks has long been "they reduce transmission by infected people", not "they prevent you from getting it".
Of course it is clear that if someone has covid and wear a mask, the probability to transmit covid will decrease (I was actually encourage people to wear a mask 6 months ago), but will it stop ? no. people can still transmit it by touching you. So yeah this is decreasing the risk, but is it decreasing the risk high enough that it will prevent the virus to spread ? Nobody has answered the question yet.
In France the mask is mandatory almost everywhere and still the number of cases keep increasing
> "If we were to run into the same disease, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would end up doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done."
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
He's on record saying mask requirements will be needed if cases started going back up:
https://www.thelocal.se/20200804/tegnell-if-we-see-problems-...
and Sweden wound up with de-facto lockdowns anyways, as many people did it on their own without government instruction. The end result: Same economic damage as the other Nordic countries, but substantially higher deaths.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/business/sweden-economy-c...
> no. people can still transmit it by touching you.
That's an argument for "don't touch people", not "don't wear masks".
So if cases started going back up, which is not the case for now, so this is not an argument
> The end result: Same economic damage as the other Nordic countries, but substantially higher deaths.
You compare the economic impact of one country which was hit by the virus (Sweden) and one which was not (Germany,Finland, ...). What is going to happen if the virus restart in Germany and Finland and not in Sweden ?
If you're going to make the "Sweden did things right" case, "Sweden got it bad and Germany didn't" is an odd position to support the argument with.
Of course, a lot of the US has lost patience with the difficulty of safety, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's worse now. But that's not because of lockdown not being effective. In fact, it's the opposite.
And let's not forget, in the US H1N1 infected 60M people and only killed 12K of them.
The second category are masks such as N95, P95, N99, P100, etc. Things like disposable painter masks or reusable masks with replaceable filters. These are meant to filter out particulate in the air and they do reduce the likelihood of you getting the disease. To call your mask P95 it must be certified by NIOSH and tested to meet the given rating, ie P95 must filter out 95 percent of particulate and be resistant to oil.
In the beginning the US and CDC were not recommending using masks. I believe the main reason for this was, not that they didn't believe it was effective, but that they were worried about a shortage for health care professionals.
Yeah, but instead of saying that they lied and said masks don't work.
I wonder how much of the current anti-mask sentiments arise from these lies.
I think he was right. If your glasses are fogging, RainX isn't your answer. Make the damn mask fit better.
"I don't regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting themselves in harm's way every day to take care of sick people," Fauci told O'Donnell.
"When it became clear that we could get the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don't know they're infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks," he said.
"And also, it soon became clear that we had enough protective equipment and that cloth masks and homemade masks were as good as masks that you would buy from surgical supply stores," Fauci added. "So in the context of when we were not strongly recommending it, it was the correct thing."
And that's what Fauci was indicating at the beginning.
But all the good quality evidence we have so far struggles to find a benefit to masks. This is especially true for DIY cloth masks that are being mandated for the public, but it's also true of high quality N95 masks. We only see a benefit when we drop the quality of evidence down, but this means we have less confidence in the result.
https://www.publish.csiro.au/hc/pdf/HC15950
> RCT evidence was limited and showed no effect but accumulated evidence from retrospective case controls and cohorts all showed these strategies decreased transmission. N95 respirator mask OR 0.17 (CI 0.07–0.43), Gloves OR 0.32 (CI 0.23–0.45), Gowns OR 0.33(CI 0.24–0.45), All OR 0.09 (CI 0.02–0.35)
Note that this is for an N95 mask, not worse masks like surgical loop masks or cloth face coverings.
There's some research looking at post-operative wound infection rates. It can't find a benefit to surgeons wearing masks in clean surgery.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7138271/
> Main results
> We included three trials, involving a total of 2106 participants. There was no statistically significant difference in infection rates between the masked and unmasked group in any of the trials. We identified no new trials for this latest update.
> Authors' conclusions
> From the limited results it is unclear whether the wearing of surgical face masks by members of the surgical team has any impact on surgical wound infection rates for patients undergoing clean surgery.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20524498/
> Conclusion: From the limited randomized trials it is still not clear that whether wearing surgical face masks harms or benefit the patients undergoing elective surgery.
Here's the most recent, very high quality, paper about masks and covid-19. This wasn't available when Public Health organisations were making their recommendations.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
> Although direct evidence is limited, the optimum use of face masks, in particular N95 or similar respirators in health-care settings and 12–16-layer cotton or surgical masks in the community, could depend on contextual factors; action is needed at all levels to address the paucity of better evidence. Eye protection might provide additional benefits. Globally collaborative and well conducted studies, including randomised trials, of different personal protective strategies are needed regardless of the challenges, but this systematic appraisal of currently best available evidence could be considered to inform interim guidance.
This para is saying we just don't have the evidence yet. It's saying people should wear facemasks because masks may help, but we don't know, and maybe masks cause harm.
> Interpretation
> The findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis support physical distancing of 1 m or more and provide quantitative estimates for models and contact tracing to inform policy. Optimum use of face masks, respirators, and eye protection in public and health-care settings should be informed by these findings and contextual factors. Robust randomised trials are needed to better inform the evidence for these interventions, but this systematic appraisal of currently best available evidence might inform interim guidance.
Look at the difference in the description of distancing (supported) and masks (optimum use may help).
> Face mas...
So if you think masks _can_ help (now or in the future, with training, used correctly, when we have enough of them in the future, etc etc) then DO NOT say they do not help and then come back to that because you have "new information".
If the problem was sourcing PPEs for health professionals why didn't the government use emergency powers to seize shipments and ban selling of such critical products to the general population? At least temporarily while building stocks for health professionals (which I'm surprised we didn't already have stocks of, you know, that seems like normal preparation procedure for a national health emergency?)
I also don't see how you can blame the health authorities for this when half the political leadership in this country continually questioned (and in some cases still questions) the efficacy of masks and successfully politicized the issue.
Scott Alexander covers your point under this blog post https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t.... I believe at one point he felt similarly to you.
>“What the World Health Organization [WHO] and the CDC [The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] have reaffirmed in the last few days is that they do not recommend the general public wear masks.”
A quick googling also produced this, from a site I've never heard of, but it naches my memory of the time: https://techstartups.com/2020/06/17/dr-fauci-admits-health-e...
It's possible they were wrong w.r.t. the harms outweighing the benefits but that's easier to say in hindsight.
"They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus" reads to me exactly as "you shouldn't wear a mask because they won't work".
That's not a lie, it's fact.
It's really easy for you to prove it's a lie: post a link to your best quality evidence that shows masks work.
This happened anyway. Telling noble lies to the population just increases populism and makes people distrust the government even more. Which is paying off wonderfully right about now.
Are you saying there have been studies showing approximately 0% reduced risk of infection from wearing a paper or cloth mask?
I'd have assumed that these masks are much less effective than an N95, but I haven't seen any data showing they have no effect.
Related: https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/31/ssc-journal-club-macin...
In EVERY other country you can buy masks, and they were strongly encouraged, that prevented YOU from getting sick.
South Koreas KF94 masks come to mind, very good coverage and fit (3 parts including one under chin). And despite the lies basically posted by you and plenty of others including health authorities (don't wear masks if you are "healthy", masks can't protect you from covid) masks CAN be used to protect you from infection, and that is a MUCH more powerful motivator for folks to wear them, and can also be targeted to those who are at higher risk.
We need to get a grip of basic facts. Masks help reduce transmission and if reasonably designed (look overseas) infection. Why else do doctors in hospitals wear N95 masks? To avoid getting sick.
I am somewhat higher risk. I wear and N95 under a surgical mask. This reduces my risk of getting covid.
The other issue you miss is that there really has not been good evidence of outdoor transmission, and the claims of covid living on outdoor surfaces for 7 days also are suspect.
So when folks say - no one go to the beach, it's a bit of an eye roll. If covid were THAT infectious (huge open ocean airflow hitting the beach, blasting sun) then we'd all have it already just from going to the grocery store.
I think health professionals lost a megaton of credibility in claiming masks don't help, to not wear masks, or that masks can only help reduce transmission not infection. Other countries went all out on masks - with great results.
They are reaping the rewards of these basic lies. Now I'm told going to beach on a sunny breezy day is high risk. I'm listening, show me the outbreak, show me the data that says this is high risk.
Cloth and non-medical disposable masks are not considered protective (although it's likely they block some inbound particles, and there's evidence they may thus result in a gentler illness on average) but do reduce transmission.
You're right that there are multiple kinds of masks; in the US, it's kinda pointless to talk about N95s. No one's wearing them, in part because they're hard to get, and in part because our anti-maskers threw enough of a fit about fairly comfortable ones.
> The other issue you miss is that there really has not been good evidence of outdoor transmission, and the claims of covid living on outdoor surfaces for 7 days also are suspect.
You'll actually find me elsewhere on this thread noting that outdoors tends to be safe, so I'm not sure what statement of mine you're arguing with here.
> anti-maskers threw enough of a fit about fairly comfortable ones
How's this for a solution? Make masks with inhalation valves. You can find masks for dusty work with exhalation valves. It wouldn't be too big a change to reverse those valves. The lost protection against inbound particles isn't much, and the gain would be near elimination of the inherent discomfort of re-breathing CO2. I'm not an anti-masker, but I notice I'm a lot more comfortable with my mask off.
Why would it not be impacted? You'd be breathing in unfiltered air, and that's the main method of transmission.
> the gain would be near elimination of the inherent discomfort of re-breathing CO2
Which isn't really the comfort problem with N95s; they're just tight and hot.
Why would it not be impacted? You'd be breathing in unfiltered air, and that's the main method of transmission.
It would be impacted. You'd lose 100% of that benefit. But 100% is still not much.
What would even be the point then? That'd just be reduced to obstinate anti-maskers wearing lace 'masks.'
The mask still protects other people from transmission by you.
Anti-maskers wearing lace 'masks' does not protect other people.
They are completely different, and that is the main point of mask wearing for the general public - to protect each other by reducing the chance of ourselves transmitting it if we have it.
You're pretty much back at ubiquitous and widely available surgical style masks at that point.
If you want to do that you can just wear a surgical mask instead.
An inhalation valve preserves the mask's primary purpose by closing off during exhalation. It gives up a small amount of protection for the wearer, but obviously a lot of people aren't interested in that anyway and refuse to wear masks. With an inhalation valve they could at least protect others.
> Where is this coming from that only a small amount of protection is provided to wearer [...] public health authorities
I clicked the HN link to your comments. I couldn't quickly find studies, just a mention of Korea having success with KN94 masks. I think it's safe to repost them now without being repetitive.
It doesn’t just assume it. It’s the whole point of the masks.
If your aim is just to prevent making people sick, a surgical mask is just fine (exhibit A, normal doctors).
If your aim is to prevent getting sick yourself, a N95 respirator is a better choice (exhibit B, doctors treating COVID patients).
An inhalation valve does less to protect other people, because the expelled air still has to go somewhere, and will just blow out of the sides of the mask. It could theoretically go through the mask material if it was thin enough, but there’s probably too much pressure inside and it’ll burst out the sides.
That in reverse is the whole idea for masks with an exhalation valve. Breathing in creates negative pressure inside the mask, so air gets pulled inside through the mask. When breathing out the valve opens and releases the extra pressure without blowing out the sides (not really a problem per-se, but would compromise your protection).
No, an inhalation valve makes 0.0% difference here. Here's a simple mental exercise to understand better. Imagine two people side by side. They are wearing identical masks, except one has an inhalation valve. They breathe in, pause, breathe out. In your mind, freeze the frame at the pause between breathing in and breathing out. At that moment, what's the difference between the two? Nothing. Now watch them breathe out. What's the difference? Still nothing.
No they are not. This misconception is absurd. I bought 200ct of KN95 in early April from AliExpress and got them in 10 days. They are still plentiful.
NPR article from today on even medical clinics and dentists still struggling to keep up N95 and other PPE supplies: https://www.npr.org/2020/08/19/903612006/yep-masks-and-prote...
N95's are available on eBay as a black market ish item. Sellers come and go. I've bought dozens and given them to friends and family and use them when in an Uber.
KN95s are fragile, have crappy fit (leak air enormously, obvious if you wear glasses since they fog), and aren't very well regulated. But they are better than surgical or those ridiculous cloth masks.
How certain are you they are authentic? Remember a couple years back when everyone bought glasses online for watching the solar eclipse and then it turned out they were all fake and wouldn't protect your eyes?
Especially given the economic incentive present today for anyone willing to sell "N95" masks.
Yes, our government has been incompetent all around. That's a bad thing.
If the country can't gear up production of masks to fight a pandemic, why am I supposed to believe we could do anything of meaning competently? I know I'm a lot less impressed with our military's readiness if we ever get into a real war than I was a year ago. We've shown we're very good at throwing money at fraudsters and very little about actually producing things we need ourselves.
We also seem to care very little about over a million deaths, if we go with something like a 0.5% fatality rate. Puts the reaction to 9/11 and the whole "how dare you disrespect our troops" racist reaction to athletes protesting into perspective...
I don't understand the people who go from "wow, we've handled this badly" to "we might as well never try anything again," though.
That should be the motivation to start paying more attention, from local politics all the way up, not give up.
That is something to ponder. What does this say about us as a people? "Hey, we must retaliate, they attacked us!!" vs "Hell no I will not do one simple thing to protect others when we are all under attack from a virus." Hrm.
Nothing. A large fraction of the population does not feel this way at all.
There's an analogy to US police forces there, too. And to US politicians.
I don't agree. This is not incompetence. It is malice. The government absolutely could be responding far better, and doing much of the same things every other western democracy is doing. A popular political position in this country is to prove that we need less gov't by making sure it appears incompetent. Combined with the similar political need to believe the virus is a hoax means we get zero federal response.
I believe that national politics gets an undue spotlight, and that local government (in particular) does not receive the attention warranted.
Or we are a federalist society where by the states need to ask for assistance and not have the response mandated by the federal government.
We are a Union of States, and the states do and should have their own sovereignty from the federal government even in pandemic response.
What works in NY may not be the the same as what works in SD as an example so a Federal response is just not needed
While I disagree with the strategy and execution it is completely dishonest to say they were sent "to do community-level police work", they were sent to protect Federal Property after the City and State Governments failed to provide any protection for said property in the face of riots.
Again if it were me I would have just abandoned the building, and take with it all federal money letting Portland burn setting up a new Federal Courthouse (and giving the money that comes with it) to a new city in the region that would welcome the economic output of such a venue.
>>And they are certainly more than happy to dictate many other aspects of our lives using whatever levers they have available.
2 wrongs do not make a right... As a libertarian I advocate for the reduction in Federal power all the time at every level. It seems however Democrats only complain about federal power when a Republican is in charge, and Republicans only complain about Federal Power when a Democrat is in charge. Democrats and Republicans alike have transferred HUGE amounts of power from the Legislative to the Executive which enabled both Obama and now Trump to use that federal power in ways many people disagree with
They may wish that the local police were more successful at suppressing the violence, but that doesn't make it their responsibility to deal with the rioters. And why did they feel the need to meet the Portland protesters with violence but not the guys who occupied federal property out in Eastern Oregon? Politics, perhaps?
> 2 wrongs do not make a right
Sure. However, promoting the general welfare of people in the US by supporting pandemic response is a good bit less bad than creating arbitrary new regulations and laws that criminalize behavior which is really a local concern.
People that say government can or should impose/strongly-suggest/mandate mask wearing to protect overall population. Essentially the pro-mask wearing individuals.
Individuals that believe that we need end-to-end encryption, and that we can't have government watching our emails, tracking our movements, doing facial recognition, profiling, etc to stop violence.
In both cases, one could argue, the solutions being pushed-back against can effectively stop their respective problems. E.g. large scale big-brother surveillance of all individuals could effectively reduce crime to near zero. Just as 100% large scale government lockdowns/SIP and mask-orders can stop the spread of an epidemic.
Obviously I'm generalizing to try draw a comparison and point out the hypocrisy. Both of the problems require a suspension of some set of rights for "the greater good", yet we somehow balk at one (surveillance, facial recognition, centralized DBs, etc) whilst applauding and being offended when people question the other (mask wearing, SIP laws, social distancing, etc).
It's probably time that we decide as a society what we want instead of incessantly debating back and forth with contradictory requirements and expectations we impose on our governments.
If you sit long enough you can come up with a potential abuse for any government law or idea. Just as is done with mass-surveillance. What we don't do is sit down and come up with extraordinary ways and means for us to use powerful tools/ideas/solutions such as surveillance in a responsible and safeguarded manner that is not exploitable by bad individuals in government, or bad governments themselves.
So they can fine them? There are already hundreds of offenses that can be used for that purpose and that can actually land you in jail.
> the negative social aspect of creating laws that have neighbors secretly reporting each-other for this?
Is that really happening? There is no special incentive for reporting people for not wearing masks.
> Or the potential for child-traffickers to gag + hide the gag with a mask while they're busy engaging in trafficking?
They could already do that, wearing masks was already legal.
> If you sit long enough you can come up with a potential abuse for any government law or idea. Just as is done with mass-surveillance.
False equivalence, the potential abuses from mass-surveillance are much more dangerous.
By comparison wearing masks to slow down infection rates of viruses/diseases that spread via nose/mouth secretions has centuries of evidence backing it up and the government doesn't really gain anything by enforcing the use of masks in places like supermarkets. Maybe it can artificially increase demand to benefit some mask manufacturers but that's it.
Do you still think it's hypocrisy?
Freedom of speech is another matter.
For some reason it is absolutely CRITICAL for me to not go outside to a beach, but it isn't critical for the folks lecturing me to get their act together and make masks that cost basically 10 cents to $1.50 and would allow myself and others to carry on productive and healthy activities?
This is the issue - YOU are not listening. People see through the pantomime. Google and apple have API's to help with exposure notification - no apps developed at national level and few at state level. Other countries went big on apps.
Sure, they may not work great, but there just is a total lack of effort to actually solve the problem.
Same thing with masks. Countries with fractions of our per capita GDP and income levels crank up huge mask production. Total availability - literally the post office handing them out. No, not N95's always, but KF94s and other very effective masks. We are still talking about mask availability?
Same thing with testing. I'm talking walk up no dr referral needed testing. My health care provider WILL NOT test unless you are basically dying. I had a collegue, a once in a lifetime chance to see family (10 years) came up. I told him, find a private pay / doesn't do insurance / doesn't deal with govt testing facility and get tested before traveling so you don't spread it by accident.
What about contact tracing. You have millions of folks unemployed, are paying out 1+ trillion in checks etc to all sorts of people, and you can't get a contact tracing program going. Your telling me none of these people can go down a call list and call folks up?
All I hear from health professionals is how they can't do anything about anything, nothing helps, except staying alone at home. Masks don't help if you don't wear them perfectly, masks can't be found, the apps won't really work so they aren't going to do that. PLEASE get a grip.
Masks will help - so get production going. Contact tracing - hire folks sitting around. Get the apps going, get testing up, get rears in gear. I think if we saw more credible action by the "proper authorities" lecturing us we'd all be more enthusiastic in doing our part (now we can't even get good masks or apps etc).
No. Beaches are quite safe.
> but it isn't critical for the folks lecturing me to get their act together and make masks that cost basically 10 cents to $1.50 and would allow myself and others to carry on productive and healthy activities?
It is! (It's not happening in the US, though.)
> This is the issue - YOU are not listening. People see through the pantomime. Google and apple have API's to help with exposure notification - no apps developed at national level and few at state level. Other countries went big on apps.
You seem to be ranting as if I'm supporting the current state of things. The current state of things is bad; the Feds are largely AWOL. States are muddling through with various levels of competency, mostly poorly.
Everything you're saying I agree with. The reaction to the pandemic has been absolute shit, and it leaves us in this position now - ongoing lockdowns, supply shortages, and the like. One need only look at Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, etc. to know it didn't have to be this way.
Yes. That's pathetic at this late date. Worse, many of the off-brand ones don't do much. Some tests found masks performing around the 20% level, instead of the 95% level. This problem should have been fixed months ago. Part of the problem is that manufacturers didn't want to invest in the equipment, because the epidemic was supposed to be over by now.
Good N95 masks use a clever technology. The inner layer is a stretched film with holes. That layer can stop particles smaller than the holes - it's an electret, with a permanent static charge. Anything solid small enough to get through the holes gets pulled to the edge of a hole electrostatically and sticks. This has the interesting property that it works better on smaller particles; the static charge pulls them in more easily. So these can filter solids far below the hole size. Masks lacking that technology either don't work or obstruct breathing too much.
3M 8210 masks work that way. You can get them expensively on eBay, and cheaply if you're willing to wait 60 days for delivery. The "8210 Plus" model has a better elastic strap, which mostly matters for long-term use or storage. Aging of the elastic band is the weak point in the base 8210 model.
There's a vast supply of cheap "surgical" masks available. At least get a supply of those. Only ones with a bendable nose clip. Anything that leaks around the nose is worthless.
Machines for making N95 masks are available for sale, although some of them look like prototypes and are far too slow.
All verifiable sources I've seen have them reserved for medical personnel, although I haven't looked too hard.
https://maskorlando.com/
I think for the most part health professionals answered specific questions about specific types of situations or types of transmission, and the media runs with overly broad statements when are then pushed/rejected by different parties.
There are many inputs that go into something as simple as a recommendation of "should the general public wear masks", including "are there enough masks for health professionals currently", "what's the current infection rates", "how far has it spread", "what type of masks". Additionally the answer might be different at different times in the past depending on whether talking about a locality with an outbreak or the whole nation. Expecting the answer as to whether wearing a mask to help to not change over time is as silly as expecting it to not change pre-COVID-19 start and after it.
The bottom line is that the inputs that influence the recommendation are fluid and change over time, so we should expect the recommendation to change over time, and the only reason people aren't getting that is because it's in the best interest of different groups to position it otherwise so they can use it to score points (and while the obvious groups in question are political, they aren't limited to one side of the spectrum, this is a common tactic used across the board which is particularly troublesome when it attacks the credibility of the people we trust to tell us how to protect ourselves).
The US Surgeon General https://twitter.com/Surgeon_General/status/12337257852839321...
> Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk! http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm
Highlighting
> They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus,
Consider, the situation is that people think if they get a mask, they are protected, and can go about their lives as they were. Also, there's a shortage of masks. Given the option of "stay away from large groups of people and public events" or "wear a mask and feel protected", saying "stop buying masks" might mean something slightly different then than it does now.
At the same time, I acknowledge that's a particularly egregious example. To that I say that the Surgeon General is a political appointee, and our government and the politicians that make it up (all of them) have failed us to various degrees. That interacts with what and how the health professionals have communicated with the public, but in a much less straightforward way (if there's different messaging coming from government health services and the general health community, and the government sources are counterproductive, who did you trust, and who do you blame?).
You can read Fauci's statements on what he said and why here[1], but the main things to thing about are:
- What did we know about transmission at the time those statements were made?
- Where was the outbreak at those times? Localized to specific areas, or nation-wide?
- Was it responsible to report to the whole nation that they should be wearing masks given those facts? What if we know there's not enough masks, and that means masks go to areas that don't need them?
The bottom line is, should we have expected anyone to act differently given those conditions and that knowledge at that time? You can note someone made a wrong decision in the past, but if they made the correct decision given the information they have, you can't rationally hold them accountable for the outcome (and if we're not speaking rationally, then we're not actually discussing anything, just airing grievances).
1: https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-doesnt-regret-advising...
Yes? This isn't a school classroom. It's okay to cheat on the test. You know who's best at handling this because you know they handled it last time. You ask your boss to ask his boss to get on the line with Chou Jih-Haw and ask for some of his best people. They're an allied nation with close ties who want even closer ties. They will gladly help.
And this isn't news. People were saying this in February, in March, in April. People whose full time job is other things knew this.
The real problem is that American public health institutions have NIH (haha, a pun!) syndrome.
You think that's Fauci's call? That's Trump's call. You're blaming healthcare professional's for doing what was best given the knowledge and resource they had available. I've made it pretty clear that the politicians failed us, and you've just pointed out another way.
> And this isn't news. People were saying this in February, in March, in April. People whose full time job is other things knew this.
All this does presuppose they have any actual help they could provide. It's unlikely they were willing to ship us a few tens (or hundreds!) of millions of N95 masks.
> The real problem is that American public health institutions have NIH (haha, a pun!) syndrome.
The problem is that they are beholden to the politicians, and even more so now, where appointees that speak out using their experience but contradict the party line are replaced.
There's been a lot of talk about how Trump is eroding people's faith in government and institutions, and here we have a prime example of that, where the institutions were clearly dysfunctional for obvious reasons that have to do with the executive branch, and we still have people shooting the messengers.
(Edit: This is from March, just to be clear that he's not saying that now.)
>Fauci: Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.
>LaPook: You’re sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this.
>Fauci: …There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/outdated-fauci-video-on-fa...
When there was a toilet paper shortage, businesses were still able to get their supplies since they used a different supply chain compared to the end consumer. I'm surprised that this isn't the same case with PPE.
PPE is often literally the same product sold in consumer vs. healthcare markets. Sure, the distributors may be different, but it's the same goods from the same factories, and often the same packaging.
That includes my county health department (I asked if they would arrest me if I put a mask on or didn't take my mask off on a crowded transit vehicle - they said they would STRONGLY encourage me not to wear a mask on crowded transit vehicles if I was "healthy" despite my higher level of risk and that I shouldn't believe "disinformation". A month later they issued a mask mandate!)
Masks are cheap. For 10 cents to $1 you can save a life - perhaps cheapest intervention out there.
Unfortunately, health recommendations regarding this outbreak have been seen as fair game from both sides for political plays (there's no point in debating why or who started it for this discussion), and as such recommendations from the top had a political bent.
If there is a difference between what healthcare professionals and government agencies employing healthcare professionals recommended, we should note that and target our ire to the correct location.
Much less pathogen is needed to get you sick if it is stuck to something covering your breathing pathways on every breath.
Masks are currently not required in public transport across the country, but that changes this Saturday. Up until last week I can count on one hand how many people I have seen wearing masks.
Now that people seem to have forgotten what social distancing means, masks are a useful tool. But if everyone just keeps their distance, they're not a must have.
I always thought they are meant to protect the patient from doctor coughing directly into an open surgery wound.
The relationship between particle size and the ease of filtering them is U-shaped, not linear, with the dip at around 2.5 micrometers being the bottom of the trough.
Your N95 mask reduces your risk of getting covid by about 99.9%.
Why even wear a surgical mask?
Anyway, I think the issue with going to the beach isn’t the part where you play in the open air on the beach. It’s where a bunch of people go to a beach house and drink a bunch of beer in a small room.
To prevent others from getting covid from _you_ [0]
N95 masks are more expensive, take more effort (and training?) to use correctly and have limited reusability IIRC.
As a society, it's more efficient if everyone wears surgical masks, because that means every infected person is also wearing one, even those that don't know (yet) that they are covid positive. So in my opinion, it's a good thing if countries force everyone to wear them.
Good surgical masks are much nicer to breath in then fabric ones.
[0] https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/11/66/67/19361245/3/850x0.jpg
> I wear and N95 under a surgical mask.
They’re wearing both a N95 and surgical mask at the same time.
What? I’m East Asian from a country known for mask wearing and this is definitely not how mask wearing is treated. It’s definitely to protect other people from you!
(1) Best available evidence indicates pretty clearly that masks will prevent you from getting it sometimes. This is sharply different from early messaging that masks could increase your risk due to them somehow being viral-magnets and thus you risked infecting yourself.
(2) We have done many studies on many viruses and the consensus seems to be that the initial viral dose matters a great deal -- the lower the dose, the lower the severity. It's also fairly clearly established that, at their worst expected performance, masks will lower the dose you receive.
This is a disease in which the severity matters a great deal. We see wildly different ranges of outcomes/levels of severity.
And indeed, many of the worse outcomes are setting where it's reasonable to assume that there was a significant viral dose.
I think it's irresponsible to promote the idea that masks only help protect others from the wearer. While they clearly do that, the balance of probabilities of available data strongly indicates that they sometimes protect the wearer.
We've even had studies as specific as having examined masks with SARS-CoV-1 -- to pretend that none of our medical knowledge indicated that masks are helpful for SARS-CoV-2 is insane.
The "risk compensation" concern which was claimed as one of the reasons to pretend that masks weren't helpful has been thoroughly debunked as a false concern. Additionally, while they were busy talking about "lack of evidence", their "risk compensation" concerns were also completely lacking a foundation in evidence.
The whole situation disgusts me. "Doctor knows best" and "we can't tell people the truth because they might not respond the way we want" attitude has to stop -- it destroys the fabric of society and the credibility of health experts.
Why would people ever trust words of officials when it is obvious to anyone paying attention that their messaging was focused on avoiding blame for contingency planning failures instead of focused on providing true, accurate, not-misleading and helpful information.
Here's an example from the United States Surgeon General:
Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!
They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!
You want people to believe that your plan is to use these ineffective masks to protect healthcare workers? Are the healthcare workers a different species than the general public?
The obvious solution is: If you are at risk, or worried about COVID, don't leave your house. To everyone else: wear a mask, stay away from people, follow the precautions...but go do what you like (mostly).
What we're doing now is the worst of both worlds: not enough to actually eliminate the virus (not gonna happen in the US...it's just not. Welcome to America) and just enough to mess up the economy and put a lot of businesses out of business (and also just generally make life annoying).
So it seems to me pretty clear: let people do what they want as long as they wear a mask, and just pass a bloody law that says you can't fire someone cause they don't want to come into work because they are overweight. Seems a lot cheaper to just support those people staying home with a welfare payout/BI than shutting down the country for no reason.
Tell that to my buddy who almost died. Healthy, early 40s, no pre-existing conditions.
Also... there are plenty of people who do not fall in out-group rhetoric of being “Very sick, very old, or very obese” who are extremely vulnerable. Or, is that you just define “very sick” as anyone who is not like you?
If you're ready to listen, the proof is already there.
It's not a matter of proof, it's a matter of weighing the cost of action vs the possible outcome. Just like insurance, there's a low cost of action (low continuous payments) to hedge against a possible large negative outcome. It's also worth noting that some types of insurance are mandated because people are bad at calculating risk in general, and when they fail, we as a society don't necessarily want that to have too extreme an outcome, so we have societal guards in place to help. Mandated insurance shifts the burden from society (taxes) back the the individual. We see this in health insurance, car insurance, home insurance, etc. Sometimes it depends on region (some localities requires fire/earthquake/flood, etc insurance).
> people who are at risk of dying can protect themselves even around sick people (wearing a mask, staying at home, washing hands, ...)
To clarify, wearing a mask, as recommended by most officials currently, is not about protecting oneself, but about protecting those around you in the case you are unknowingly contagious. It greatly reduces the spread of your contagion, it does not greatly reduce your chance of being infected unless you are using a high-grade mask very securely fastened such that all airflow is through the mask and not around it.
> so this is not your fault if they catch it
It very well may be your fault if someone catches it if you're contagious but ignoring recommendations about avoiding gatherings of people, or not wearing a mask, etc. They could literally catch it directly from you with little ability to block it. A sneeze can travel very far, yelling expels particles with more force, and direct contact with people or surfaces they touch shortly after and then may touch themselves or something else they touch after washing their hands is not something easily protected against.
> but you need to stop living your life.
This, right here is the crux of the issue. What is being asked for from people ranges from not working to curtailing social group gatherings and activities. The work portion is horrible, and life altering, and actual affects people living their lives. The group activities being classified as "living your life" is both a) relatively recent for the vast majority of the world, which did not have the free time or money to do such things on a regular basis decades ago, and b) shows a complete mismatch by people of what the need and what they like and want.
A vanishingly small number of people actually need to go to the gym (those in physical therapy that need certain equipment), and the others can get basic exercise at home or outside without anyone around. Nobody needs to go to a bar. That we classify these niceties as "living our life" is really just a shift of priorities of modern people in first world countries away from actually having to worry about survival. But this is a matter of survival, and those thought patterns are doing us real harm as a society during this crisis.
> It is not that people don't want to sacrifice, it is just that scarifying is the worst solution for everyone
No, it's that people are unwilling to separate simple and (relatively) easy sacrifices from hard sacrifices, and acting like they're all the same. Get food from restaurants, but limit or eliminate the in-restaurant eating/time (you don't have to order door-dash, just pick it up). You don't have to stop drinking, or talking to friends, but you shouldn't do those in person when avoidable.
Collectively, people stopping the non-essential gatherings such as gyms and bars will not only reduce the spread and save lives, if everyone did it we might get back to the point where the increase in cases was so low more optional services could reopen again, lessening the economic impact.
It's ...
Wearing a mask is mostly about keeping the respiratory droplets of the ill, including the 40-50% which don't have obvious symptoms from spreading around. If only the vulnerable wear masks they wont be safe.
Power rack: $300-500
Weights: $200-800
Bench: $100
Bar: $75-100
Plywood and rubber: $40-100 max
I rent a room in downtown of a big city and I simply don't have space for equipment (my room is mostly just bed with small kitchen and bathroom). Don't assume everybody is rich and owns a house with spare room / garage where you can put equipment.
I am 30+ years old and never lived in a place where I would have spare space for gym equipment. You must be very privileged if you have that (top 1% at least).
Thanks for downvote though.
It is possible to get good workouts with minimal equipment.
If you're in a city there has to a playground nearby providing all sorts of options.
I think people just get too tied to a gym, when there are countless options to get really good workouts if the gym is unavailable for a period of time.
Sure, you can be selfish, but you're also negatively impacting society and saying that you don't care. You do you, but I don't get it.
Sorry if I was a bit harsh - had someone yell "America" at me while running with a mask the other day but I shouldn't project that frustration onto others.
If you're going to attack others for their alleged ignorance maybe you should get basic numbers right? Covid hasn't killed 'millions', it hasn't even killed one million people. You're off by at least an order of magnitude.
The problem is that you are effectively deciding how others live their lives through your careless actions. Everyone should have a say on how they want to live their lives, not just you.
This is nothing more than a tantrum. Nobody can "prove" it. Humanity is still learning about COVID-19. No model is going to predict the outcome of closing the economy. It has not been done in modern times at this scale.
>0.5% death rate for population
Google is showing the death rate at ~3% worldwide. 6 times higher than your nonsense 0.5% water-level figure.
You're commenting later down the chain that you wish to frolic at the beach. The fact is, you're sick of inconvenience and will stomp your feet until someone hears how sick of it you are. Go cry elsewhere.
Confirmed Cases: 21,991,954
Deaths: 777,018
World Pop.: ~7,800,000,000
Case Fatality Rate = Deaths/Confirmed Cases = ~3.5%
Death Rate = Deaths/World Pop. = ~0.01%
That's similar to claiming that, because only 93% of all humans ever born have died so far, your risk of dying is 93%. It may be mathematically sound, but completely ignores the context of the problem: That for the living/not-yet-infected the result is still outstanding.
It is also very strongly correlated with pre-existing conditions and age.
The "masks only protect others from you" narrative (which may turn out to be false) certainly increased that.
Why? What harm is going on here? If you don’t like it, don’t participate. Leave us alone, narc.
This contributes to the general public health problem, increasing the infection rate among the population and meaning more people get sick or die. This applies whether they were in the gym, or just had the misfortune of interacting with someone who had been.
I don’t know who initially said it, but… I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.
There might be a different source, but I first saw it here - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/i-dont-know-how-to-explain-to...
The officer's immediate superior may be inclined to cut the officer some slack, but the buck stops with the person charged with ensuring that the pandemic is effectively managed.
The buck stops with all of us. We either beat this thing together or it keeps killing our relatives. Those are the only options. Pick one.
That seems to be a very widespread societal issue. Feedback and gratification are very effective conditioning loops and it applies to basically everything directly socially linked. Advertising, education, law enforcement. Everything which shapes anothe life whether done knowing or unknowingly and can come to bite the conditioner one way or another. Like the "tiger mom nightmare" case of forcing a son through med school only for him to show it to his mom say "There I am done it, happy now?" and working in a convenience store because of the sheer weight of negative conditioned meant that poverty was preferrable to six figure income and working days calling back decades of resentment.
Defying it successfully is a way to make or save money and everyone hates it essentially is rare and doing so is an outright resentment magnet. The majority will dislike anyone who points it out as a potential component to a solution. It gets one outright dehumanized even for optimizations innocous as meal prepping the same balanced and cheap meal daily to save up for something.
Play interests off each other.
Papers please!
i suppose you freak out when the health department does restaurant inspections too? "it's my right to eat as much rat poop as i want!"
> I find it amazing we can not see short term sacrifice for long term gain.
These are two related issues, but not the same.
Before we started (half) using the office again - I'd not see anyone outside of buying groceries. For approximately 3 months straight. It's not healthy, and I absolutely can see others having even more trouble with that than I did.
It is natural even introverts need to socialize.
That said, I'm surprised there seem to be less focus on organizing in smaller, regular groups. It's likely better for preventing spread if people met up in the same group of 5 to 10 people, rather than gathering indoors - especially as it now seems quite likely covid-19 is airborne.
So yes, some personal sacrifice should be expected - but I would be careful dismissing the need for people to see other people, in person.
We are social animals.
Not justifying it, I'm just jealous because my bedroom has turned into a gym and it sucks.
The difference between "overwhelmed" and "not overwhelmed" is pretty subtle. You can measure this in ICU beds and hospital capacity, but that's not sustainable. You have to start asking "How many hours are health care workers working?". You also have to ask, if we did have any setbacks/outbreaks, what buffer do we have in terms of people and PPE availability?
You can't run the system at the red line, it's not sustainable. And any distance between our current capactity and that red line is somewhat open to interpretation, but I bet that distance feels a lot smaller for our EMTs and Doctors than it does for the average person on HN.
In April doctors were pondering why there was 40% to 60% heart attack patients. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/well/live/coronavirus-doc...
It's a collective action problem. If everyone keeps to mask mandate and social distancing for a month, there is no need to close gyms and schools after. Germany and Italy are fine now with maybe ten deaths a day.
If 20% of the population keeps ignoring the recommendations because they don't give a flying fuck about the society they live in, R0 will stay above 1 forever and half of your neighbourhood will see their grandparents die in the next year.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-protests-coronavirus/a-5445665...
Pandemic control measures can temporarily suppress R0, but as soon as those measures are lifted the contagion picks up again.
The average age of grandparents in the US is about 65. The actual infection fatality rate for that age group is 1.3%. That's bad, but nowhere near half the neighborhood.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.23.20160895v...
What would you tell the authorities? That there are people in a gym and that they need to be arrested? What outcome would you hope to achieve by tattling on them?
People with houses and garages shouldn't be as critical, given their comparative privilege here.
Swimming is my thing. I don't know why but it makes me feel normal like no other exercise can. but the pools have been closed for months now here in Melbourne (excluding a couple of weeks in the middle there).
Now I'm just depressed, stuck in isolation, borders are closed and can't visit my friends or family. Everyone saying this shit is easy for introverts have no idea. They seem to think introverts don't do anything or never used to leave their house?
Talking to a therapist maybe helps but as other people have said, not knowing if there is any end in sight is what sucks. Not sure why I'm venting to you.
It's a time of adaptation, and it sucks for sure but it's simply Necessary. If I told you what I'm doing instead of olympic weightlifting you would laugh. However it really helps reduce that exact angst you're describing (which I'm very familiar with as well). I consider physical exercise to be as critical to me as everything else, and absolutely essential for my mental health. I happen to be an introvert as well and feel similarly, btw.
We're not all satiated simply by popping pills and plugging into the cloud or whatever it is you do with your free time.
Most humans have a strong need for social interaction.
What is the point of preserving life if nobody is allowed to live theirs?
The reason for why I take the risk and keep go is pretty simple: Mental health.
When we had a lockdown, gyms closed and I was confined to my apartment 24/7 I felt horrible. Days just blurred into each other, I gained weight, my motivation to do anything dropped. My life was just work and I hated it. Of course I bought a set of dumbbells (which were also ridiculously expensive because everyone had the same idea) and tried running but that only gets you so far. I can't get more equipment at home because my apartment is like 35sqm
When the gyms reopned I started going again and kept my guard up: Disinfect everything, don't be near other people, be careful when I take my mask off, wash my hands before I touch anything after I finish. Since then I started feeling much better. Even if I don't do anything else like meeting friends, going out for drinks, or if my workday happened to be shitty, I have something that makes me think more about myself and my health. Sports has incredible benefits on mood, sleep and mental health, hence why I take the risk.
For all we know, this pandemic can continue for a very long time. I'm not saying we should all forget the virus and do what we did before, but we should still try to find a somewhat healthy day-cycle that doesn't knock us in lockdown depression. Going to a small, empty gym while keeping my guard up is my calculated risk of "with corona".
The virus kills old people. Yes, it is very sentimental to let your grandmother die. But the savings in long term care alone will more than pay for any emotional distress you have in the short term.
When problems are on this massive of a scale it is easy for individuals to think "cannot be me". Reality is that it is all of us.
You must be a really nice person.
The uniquely American issue, is with bars and clubs being closed. In the land of big houses, everyone knows someone with a bar in their backyard or basement. Keeping bars closed now, when everyone is fed up with the social isolation (sorry, Zoom doesn't cut it) just means actual underground speakeasies serving alcohol aka house parties. Where dedicated gym rats aren't drinking alcohol at the same time they're at the gym (it hurts gainz), and are can be more responsible for their actions, people on alcohol can't. I'm not saying that to excuse drunk people's behaviors, what I'm saying is that trying to get drunk people to stay 6-ft apart and wear a mask is an exercise in futility.
Since people are gonna be drinking anyway, especially during a pandemic, and a recession, and in the face of great uncertainty, and on the cusp of a presidential election, what's needed is to open the bars, but require patrons scan-in via phone app using the bluetooth-based contact tracing (PEPP-PT), or else face suspension of liquor license. By making it required at bars, you get around some of the privacy issues since those that don't want to, can just not go to bars. Using bluetooth-based tracing gets around issues of using GPS-based tracking, and also helps amplify the effectiveness of an under-funded contact tracing corps by providing a technology based solution.
This is imperfect, but perfect is the enemy of the good, and even done imperfectly, contact tracing can very successfully drive Re (the local effective value calculated from a diseases' R0) down below 1, at which point the disease doesn't continue to spread and the pandemic can be controlled. For a disease like COVID-19 with an R0 of 2.5, it doesn't take too much to drive it down.
With all this more focused time during lockdown, I was tempted to buy my own equipment and toyed with the idea of letting some friends come use it, it got me thinking about the legalities and liabilities of that kind of thing.
If we go back into lockdown, I'll definitely be buying my own equipment. I do powerlifting, so bodyweight and a few dumbells don't really cut it.
https://yoga-horizons.com/pdfs/Fatmans-Guide-to-Cable-Traini...
For me I’ve canceled the gym membership and taking up biking. It has been working out great. Discovered a lot more biking trials around the area. Got plenty of sua shine and vitamin D along the way.