Hopefully any subsequent shutdowns will be more robust with fewer people and businesses being deemed essential. Originally Posted by TexTushHogFor a liberal, you don't seem to have much sympathy or compassion for the low wage worker who lives paycheck to paycheck or the small business owner running a small Mom-and-Pop restaurant or store or barber shop. Don't tell me about PPP, because they still have rent and utilities and other expenses to pay and it isn't going to cover that. The government can't print enough money to save them from what is being inflicted on them.
Yes, staying at home for two years would be extremely difficult and should be avoided. The way to do have a three to four month SERIOUS social distancing policy, and then to test everyone every week or so. Isolate or even quarantine those who test positive. And track and trade all of their contacts within a minimum period. Then everyone Who has had any contact with them is isolated for 15 days. Originally Posted by TexTushHogWhat you're describing here sounds to me like a police state.
Test everyone every week? Are you serious? Even an enormous operation like the census doesn't seem to be able to find everyone in a month or two, much less every week. What about the homeless? Or itinerate workers? Who's going to go find them? And can you imagine the lines at the testing centers? That will make the Drivers License office look like nothing. And with social distancing and 6-foot spacing the line will stretch for miles. And even though there's a lot of testing capability in the major labs, I seriously doubt there's capacity to process 330 million tests every week. What about the logistics or handling and transporting the samples, and the communication problem of getting the results back to the person who was tested? What about following up on the positive results, who is going to handle that? The resources don't exist to pull it off.
In any event, all of this shutdown stuff isn't going to work. It's sounding more and more like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx are going down the wrong path. The virus won't go away until there's a vaccine or until herd immunity develops. There won't be a vaccine soon enough to really help in the near term, so the best we can reasonably do without destroying the economy is to recommend those we know to be vulnerable take precautions, regulate situations like nursing homes and similar facilities, and let everyone else go about their business until sufficient immunity develops. See what Dr. David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, FACP, FACLM has to say about that: https://davidkatzmd.com/. More highly-qualified experts are emerging that agree with him.