Re-opening the economy

[red-beard]

This is NOT in PARF - Please keep the politics out of the discussion.

We need to think about how to keep the economy going or re-open it while we still have the pandemic going on.

In engineering, we think of "controls", which does not mean electronic things, but items to make you safe. Think of all of the problems in a job, then come up with ways to mitigate those issues.

For example:

Checking workers temperatures when they report for work? Anyone with a fever is sent home. Period.

Working in a warehouse. How does the virus spread? Coughing and touching things. So the obvious solution is disposable mask and gloves. But it might be more practical to have washable cotton gloves (cotton does not promote the virus life, and we won't touch out face with gloves) and a plastic face shield. The face shield is infinitely washable with a bleach solution. The gloves can also be washed and reused, unlike disposable gloves. They also don't end up in a landfill.

Restaurants: The "take out" part helps. But, how about limiting seating, maybe putting dividers between tables. Gloves for waiters. We make kitchen workers wear hair nets, they can wear masks. etc. Waiters, we can think of other ways as well.

Please chime in. The idea is adding controls to allow business to operate while minimizing spread of coronavirus, colds, flu and anything else. And in the end, we might increase the hygiene of the entire country.

[Noah930]

From a disease/epidemiologic perspective, I don't think this thing is going to blow over for 2-3 months. Our country is just in the earliest stages of this contagion. The size of this country, the time it'll take to spread throughout, the delay between infection and symptoms, silent carriers, etc. I can see this taking awhile to work through the US.

Not that we necessarily have to keep society locked down for 3 months, but we won't be back to "normal" for at least that long. Let alone the longer lasting problems with business and personal finances; some people won't find their lives "normal" for years.

[wdfifteen]

I posted earlier about loosening controls of social distancing in response decreasing new infections. The restrictions you propose would help accelerate that effort. It’s all about local control, but we can’t have any control unless we start testing a lot more people. You can’t impose strategic control on something you can’t qualify.

[Noah930]

Part of the problem is the fact that we don't fully understand this virus. We make educated guesses based upon our experience with other viruses. Bit that doesn't mean those lessons apply to this virus.

So how infectious is this via aerosolized fomites? If someone (infected) sneezes in an elevator, for how long is the air in that elevator contagious? What about the reports that this may be present in feces, and thereby contagious via the fecal-oral route? If someone poops, can the viral particles be aerosolized and inhaled by others, even a day later? We don't know, so I think it's difficult to establish appropriate safety criteria. Maybe we'll know more in a month.

[red-beard]

On the elevator front, there was an article on narrow bands of UV light (UV-C)

https://www.crr.columbia.edu/research/using-power-light-preventing-airborne-spread-coronavirus-and-influenza-virus

[aigel]

There are essential operations running as we speak and they do take some of these precautions you mention.

Putting surgical face masks on everyone seems like a good start to avoid people carrying the virus from spreading it. These masks I take it are not as crucial to hospitals as respirators and should be available more broadly?

Measuring temperature is a good idea but only about half or less of infected run a fever.

Then also space people out both individually - 10+ feet in work stations and in groups - don't let shifts overlap.

I mentioned this in the other thread, but I also think we should have a soft ramp back. People always think about restaurants, malls etc. which I guess drive the economy but there are other important areas such as construction sites, manufacturing plants etc. and there we should start allowing careful re-opening if an area has flattened out on new infections.

I agree that we have to be able to measure better with tests. If we have to wait for deaths as an indicator how many people are out there sick, we are always 3 weeks behind the reality out there.

Not an easy task, but this will be our reality until we have better meds and / or vaccines.

G

[Mahler9th]

The challenges with tests are documented. In even the best case, a negative test can be nearly instantly and unknowingly wrong based upon the nature of this virus. Something is probably better than nothing, but in some cases and some ways of thinking, not really much better.

I don't think of the economy as "closed."

Even if certain kinds of restrictions are used, and obvious measures are put in place to mitigate, I think it is hard to imagine folks will instantly take on risks, not only of death, but of morbidity, which can be financially crippling for them personally.

I also feel that folks may be reluctant to instantly take on financial risks as well.

I can envision a ramp. Its characteristics are much more difficult for me to see in my imagination than the characteristics of the implementation of austere measures I have actually observed and experienced.

I keep thinking of this as a global "crap sandwich," that most of us must bite in some way or the other, or in multiple ways.

[Mahler9th]

"... but there are other important areas such as construction sites, manufacturing plants etc. and there we should start allowing careful re-opening if an area has flattened out on new infections."

How many of these entities are actually closed?

Who would tell them to reopen? How would they do that?

[aigel]

Here in CA everyone non-essential is closed and they won't open until the shelter in place rules are lifted / changed.

Tesla is a good example. They kept working, you all read Musk's opinion on the CV, but authorities made them close shop. About 10k employees in the area many living further out in the sticks. I am sure that helped reduce spread significantly especially out from the bay counties into the surrounding areas.

But couldn't they come back with careful controls as we are discussing here? I bet you money every company out there is coming up with controls and plans on reopening right now while everyone is sitting home. And you bet the phone is ringing off the hook at the county and state level to come up with rules to safely operate even at reduced output / staffing.

As others have said, there could be health department rules and checks to certify and check safe operation. Once we are past the hump all we have to do is stay at R<1, test frequently and get off the throttle as soon as numbers start cropping back up again.

I would also expect that demand for products may be reduced as everyone wakes back up from this mess, so that will lend itself to a reduced throughput restart.

G

[onewhippedpuppy]

Honest question, at what point does the cure become worse than the disease? We seem to be willing to sacrifice the entirety of our society for something that we don’t fully understand. And if you look at the data I personally have a hard time wrapping my head around the situation we are in today. In a world where the flu kills nearly 100k in a normal season and nobody blinks, I have a hard time computing today. We are risking the very foundation of our society. People may survive the virus and come back to no jobs and a crumbling society. This isn’t black or white, it’s very gray, but fear has made us black or white. We need to take a step back and determine what shade of grey is best for the entirety of America.

[red-beard]

One of my buddies, correctly but vulgarly, pointed out it is a GREAT time to be fixing the roads. No one is out there. If a road repair crew could be outfitted with the proper PPE, so much could be fixed without disruption.

Again, I don't expect all of the answers, but lets start thinking.

[Arizona_928]

They have the RN take our temp as we come in for a mandatory one day a week.
Almost shat a brick as I had low grade fever....

Anyways.... **** the economy. When are kids going back to school!?

[red-beard]

Report on the news about Veterinarians.

People drive up in their car. The animal is triaged in the parking lot. It it then taken inside. Questions can be discussed by cell phone with the VET.

[aigel]

Matt - you witness right here that we are working on the greys. This board is a good cross section of people that are out there.

We are stuck between a rock and a hard place:
If we don't pause, we will have a runaway situation that causes great human suffering AND economic demise. If half our population would get infected in a couple months, nobody could work much either or buy goods or partake in activities. Either you are sick, or one of your family is, and one out of 6 will be down hard needing medical intervention. Once we go this direction it will be unstoppable.
If we pause too long and too aggressive we may help on the virus front but we will have economic suffering that can cause human suffering as well. We may have people become homeless, not have enough to eat etc. But this is a situation that can be easier managed AND reversed by doing soft turn on programs like we are discussing.

Personally I doubt our society will melt down over an economic crash including it causing people to die in high numbers. People worried about this do certainly care about their fellow humans but I have a hunch they also peek at their stock portfolio out of the corner of their eyes.

G

[RSBob]

It’s actually very simple. We lock down the ENTIRE country for 14 days, like S Korea and the virus will not be transmitted from person to person and dies on hard surfaces. Or we take our current course without a federal mandate to lock down the country and watch it spread and grow for months creating havoc on death tolls and our economy. Take our medicine now, or suffer long term. I have a huge hunch that we are doomed to the latter.

Red Beard, you are obviously a problem solver and I sure wish we could logic ourselves out of this, but there are just too many dumb@$$e$ out there whom will never do the right thing. Kids at spring break, large Hasidic weddings in NY in defiance of shelter in place and even a few of my relatives that allow their teenagers to have parties. PS It has been shown that people can have the virus and spread it for 5 days and be completely a symptomatic (no fever, no nothing).

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by RSBob

It’s actually very simple. We lock down the ENTIRE country for 14 days, like S Korea and the virus will not be transmitted from person to person and dies on hard surfaces. Or we take our current course without a federal mandate to lock down.

Except S, Korea didn’t put their entire country on lockdown. Not even close to it.

[rfuerst911sc]

Basic problem solving relies on data to come to a solution or solutions . You need to know the scope of the problem , evaluate , determine pro's and con's and come up with solutions . Because test kits are sorely lacking I guess the best data we have is how many folks are currently in hospitals for the virus , how many are responding to treatment and how many have died . Not ideal but that is our baseline.

Every day for the next two weeks ( just a time example ) we continue to self quarantine and monitor the changes from all hospitals . If there is a huge spike in cases as many/most medical professional predict then the decision to reopen currently closed businesses has to be made based on the data .

When the new cases flatten out and then start to recede that will be another decision point . The medical community will have to make a judgement call on when the worst is behind us and politicians in local/state/federal levels can make decisions based on that data . As much as we all want this to be a perfect science it isn't and never will be . Regardless of what we do or don't do people will die . Keeping those numbers to a minimum is the best we can do .

[hcoles]

My 2 cents.
There are going to be Covid-19 cases and associated deaths for a long time.
The desirable goal is to bring the economy back online and maintain a tolerable hospital load and death rate. Will we have good enough data to support doing this and/or leaders that will make this call?
Probably not - right now most are supporting being on the "safe" side and keeping restrictions in place. As the economic realities start hitting home in a more obvious manner - the mood will shift. There will be more weight given to the economy as elected officials come under more pressure to resolve the economic fallout.

[Sooner or later]

Originally Posted by rfuerst911sc

Basic problem solving relies on data to come to a solution or solutions . You need to know the scope of the problem , evaluate , determine pro's and con's and come up with solutions . Because test kits are sorely lacking I guess the best data we have is how many folks are currently in hospitals for the virus , how many are responding to treatment and how many have died . Not ideal but that is our baseline.

Every day for the next two weeks ( just a time example ) we continue to self quarantine and monitor the changes from all hospitals . If there is a huge spike in cases as many/most medical professional predict then the decision to reopen currently closed businesses has to be made based on the data .

When the new cases flatten out and then start to recede that will be another decision point . The medical community will have to make a judgement call on when the worst is behind us and politicians in local/state/federal levels can make decisions based on that data . As much as we all want this to be a perfect science it isn't and never will be . Regardless of what we do or don't do people will die . Keeping those numbers to a minimum is the best we can do .

We started too late with our testing but we have ramped up at an unbelievable rate.

On the 10th we had a total of 5,054 tests
17th up to 54,957
24th at 359,161

Over 66,000 each of the last two days.

Our data is getting better every day. Still a tiny % of total population.

[Sooner or later]

Damn, I typed up a long post on how to bring us back on line and I was kicked out and had to sign back on. Post lost.

Damn