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We need shut-down metrics next time, not just open up metrics
I get that when the current situation was getting underway we had little information to go on, so most people in government panicked at the thought of hospitals getting overwhelmed. We had to “flatten the curve” so they shut down just about everything, everywhere. Now they’re slowly opening things back up in stages based on metrics such as declining hospitalizations for 14 straight days.
But now we know more, and it turns out that running out of hospital beds didn’t happen. It was a concern only in the New York City area and maybe a couple of other places, for a little while. If anything, hospitals are empty because of stopping most other treatments. Maybe all the shutdowns helped, but we don’t actually know that. Some places didn’t shut down and did ok.
If something like this happens again, I suggest we don’t shut down everything everywhere all at once. We use metrics such as a steady decrease in available hospital beds so that running out might actually happen. We do this at the county level, not even the state level, because of how localized the hotspots were. It’s the shutdowns that need to be justified in stages, not the re-openings.
I suspect many people would voluntarily go back to masks and distancing and working from home if they could. We don’t need the blunt instrument of government disrupting our lives because of something someone said might happen.
Published in Domestic Policy
What they will remember is a trashed economy, no jobs, and Trump in charge. I suspect there is a good chance that Trump and GOP will be swept out with everything that will bring.
It is a good thing we didn’t have a national shutdown.
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