Waiting for a vaccine is almost certainly not feasible, but I think there's some hope that long before we've got a vaccine, we may have better information about how to treat the disease. Another alternative would be to get up to a testing capacity where we could quarantine just areas or groups with outbreaks, tracking cases and following up on their close contacts, while allowing unaffected areas to remain open, as they've been doing successfully in some places in Asia. But it seems like states want to reopen right now (my state is reopening in two days) despite having no plan at all for dealing with the disease. We still don't have enough tests, we still don't have enough PPE, and we still don't have much of an idea how these infections even work or how to treat them.
And as you say, it seems like the real point of opening everything is so that the states don't have to pay unemployment, and small businesses are all going to get completely screwed because they won't be able to cover their costs but they'll have to stay open anyway, until they just go bankrupt. So the idea of reopening now seems fairly terrible all around. If we did have better treatments or better testing and tracking of cases, people might actually feel safe going to stores and restaurants again, and small businesses might gradually get back on their feet. And also we might be able to avoid isolating everyone while also avoiding killing a ton of people. But that just doesn't seem to be the actual plan here.
willing to inflict widespread trauma on the entire population
I mean, I guess? Given the choice between "a lot of people I know have isolation-associated trauma" versus "a lot of the people I know are dead," one option is obviously preferable to the other? Besides, surely more death means more trauma, maybe not the same kind or for the same people, but probably not any less, all around.
It just seems to me like reopening without a better plan is like saying, "We've decided that if you're one of the people for whom this virus is deadly, well, sorry, I guess you're probably going to die this year." Waiting for herd immunity means just letting a lot of people get the disease, and a fair number of them die. And on top of that, there's no way to really know whether or not any given individual is one of those people who may not survive. We've got our lists of risk factors, but there are also young people with no prior health conditions who are dying, being hospitalized, suffering strokes. And though it's true that of course you can't stop some people from being selfish and putting others' lives at risk, it doesn't seem like the solution to that is to just go ahead and condone that action. When you have underage sex, you're making your own choice and you've got your own consequences to deal with. But here, you're putting other people at risk, not just yourself. And even if we can't change the fact that there will always be people in the world who don't care if their actions hurt other people, that doesn't seem like a reason not to try to stop them. :/
It would be a start if the plans to reopen at least had some provision where people over 60 or with serious health conditions could continue receiving government support after businesses reopen and jobs are available. As far as possible, it would be good to try to develop herd immunity using only the part of the "herd" in which most of the members are likely to survive...
no subject
And as you say, it seems like the real point of opening everything is so that the states don't have to pay unemployment, and small businesses are all going to get completely screwed because they won't be able to cover their costs but they'll have to stay open anyway, until they just go bankrupt. So the idea of reopening now seems fairly terrible all around. If we did have better treatments or better testing and tracking of cases, people might actually feel safe going to stores and restaurants again, and small businesses might gradually get back on their feet. And also we might be able to avoid isolating everyone while also avoiding killing a ton of people. But that just doesn't seem to be the actual plan here.
willing to inflict widespread trauma on the entire population
I mean, I guess? Given the choice between "a lot of people I know have isolation-associated trauma" versus "a lot of the people I know are dead," one option is obviously preferable to the other? Besides, surely more death means more trauma, maybe not the same kind or for the same people, but probably not any less, all around.
It just seems to me like reopening without a better plan is like saying, "We've decided that if you're one of the people for whom this virus is deadly, well, sorry, I guess you're probably going to die this year." Waiting for herd immunity means just letting a lot of people get the disease, and a fair number of them die. And on top of that, there's no way to really know whether or not any given individual is one of those people who may not survive. We've got our lists of risk factors, but there are also young people with no prior health conditions who are dying, being hospitalized, suffering strokes. And though it's true that of course you can't stop some people from being selfish and putting others' lives at risk, it doesn't seem like the solution to that is to just go ahead and condone that action. When you have underage sex, you're making your own choice and you've got your own consequences to deal with. But here, you're putting other people at risk, not just yourself. And even if we can't change the fact that there will always be people in the world who don't care if their actions hurt other people, that doesn't seem like a reason not to try to stop them. :/
It would be a start if the plans to reopen at least had some provision where people over 60 or with serious health conditions could continue receiving government support after businesses reopen and jobs are available. As far as possible, it would be good to try to develop herd immunity using only the part of the "herd" in which most of the members are likely to survive...