See, there’s someone having the argument you seem to want. Have fun. Lol.
Here’s a recent NPR story that at least tangentially addresses a couple of the questions recently raised:
I guess most of America is not near as dependent on tourism as is Los Cabos, but here’s a look at what’s happening there:
Early on in the pandemic, in late March, Los Cabos shut down entirely. With nearly 80% of jobs in the region dependent on tourism, the losses were huge.
According to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography, tourism lost more jobs than any other industry. Nearly a third of all businesses in Baja California Sur, the state where Los Cabos is located, closed down.
Nearly a third of all businesses – now that’s something. You’d have to figure there are significant knock-on effects to restaurants closing in the US, even if they were of the unhealthy type, given all the vendors they do business with.
It’s getting to be a separate topic altogether, but one important feature of tourism (complete with hospitality, for its relevance here), and perhaps one not discussed as much as it should be amid all this, is that it’s one of the best ways that exists to transfer wealth. This, of course, would in normal years be a part of the strategy to reduce poverty and inequality the world over – and with it, you would figure, help to diminish the gap in health outcomes between the wealthy and the poor. Border closures and restrictions on hospitality/entertainment/tourism businesses are contributing at least indirectly to poorer health outcomes for underprivileged classes. Or at least, that’s how it appears.
As far as whether businesses would be without customers anyway, even without restrictions…well, there’s this from the story:
Figures for October, the last month available, show that nearly half a million Americans arrived in Mexico by plane.
I’m not sure if that number is low or high compared to what it would have been in October of last year, but it’s surely not nothing. You’d think that for every person who’d get on a plane to Mexico amid this pandemic there would be hundreds who’d go down the street to have an indoor meal.
I don’t really think that’s accurate. Sure, a lot of restaurants fail in a given year, and brick-and-mortar stores have been fending off bankruptcy for years. But even healthy businesses are not able to weather 25% usage for very long. Without relief on their expenses, like rent and utilities, they will either go massively in debt or fold.
Yes, this exactly. We could have taken direct, bold action at the beginning to save both the economy and lives. But people thought that would be “too expensive”. So instead we get massive job loss, businesses folded, unemployment at highs not seen since the Great Depression, people lined up for miles at food distribution sites, people losing their homes and their healthcare. And that’s ignoring all the pesky dying.
So we are agreed on the math, but you still think that as long as the death profile fits the normal profile, the number of deaths is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter that more people die as long as they match the normal data profile. I vehemently disagree.
So select “Daily trends”.
I’m not sure what you are saying. Take the CDC page, deaths start on Feb 29. So on March 31 there are 3602 total deaths but that is day 32, so the value is 112.56. On May 31, there are 104,396 total deaths and that is day 93, so the value is 1,122.54. That gives Dec 25 at 329,592 deaths on day 301 = 1094.99.
Wait, you are proposing a completely new way to look at the numbers as “the proper way” to look at the numbers, but you admit you don’t know if the results even mean anything?
What you appear to be looking at is the slope of the graph of the Total and rate. Basically, that red line on the plot normalized by the number of days since the first case. I don’t know what the normalization is supposed to help you see. Here’s what that data shows on the plot I linked.
The red line is flat at 0 until March 27. That plot actually measures deaths per 100,000, so it rounds the fractional numbers to 0. Thus the deaths from Feb. 29 to Mar. 27 don’t show up.
Then there is a surge upward at a fairly high rate (I could compute something if you really care, but you should be able to with simple math: slope = rise/run). Then the slope goes down a bit starting around April 21. It then fluctuates a bit but fairly steady until November 15, whereupon it spikes upward similar to the slope around early April.
What does that mean to you? To me, it says that the rate of deaths is increasing at least to the days of the initial take off. The trend is increasing, not level or decreasing.
{Jaw drops open} Really? The only way the pandemic is getting worse is that people keep dying? That’s your takeaway?
So I replicated your plot using data from the CDC page because it was easier to format for me. Took me some manipulation, but I generated a plot. It just means that data can be plotted without any meaning. I suspect you are looking for some kind of linear result, perhaps a level line to show that the dying is constant over time or something.
Instead, I looked at the CDC plot of daily deaths vs. date. You can clearly see new deaths 7-day average peaked on April 21 at 2,856, dropped to a low on July 7 of 538, and now is up to Dec 24, 2,574. I see that the number of deaths per day is up. It doesn’t matter how long the pandemic has been going, what matters is the rate of death at any point on the scale.
Well, the only point of the shutdowns is to save lives, so the measure of value of the shutdowns has to be compared against something.
My solution involves a massive use of government money to directly pay businesses to stay closed. Employees are paid, bills are paid, people stay home. This lasts for a limited time, but long enough to knock down the virus spread. Then the economy reopens and businesses go back a lot closer to normal because case counts are low and contact tracing and isolation can keep it under control.
Restaurants don’t have to fail, businesses don’t fail, everything just goes on a pause, without interfering with the transfer of money throughout the economy. And bonus, lots less people die. But hey, I’m an idealist. It’s not like any countries have succeeded in this plan. Except New Zealand. And Australia.
Sure, but it didn’t have to. Real financial assistance from the government could have prevented it with lockdowns.
Do you have a link to some costed out plan like that? Say, two months of the government paying everything?
No, the number is certainly relevant, no doubt about that. And it’s statistically far, far closer to ‘unremarkable’ than it is to ‘apocalyptic’. I wish we could dismiss with this seeming notion that anything above a linear projection based on prior years is unexpected, or worse yet means something or someone should bear blame. Things do not behave in such a predictable fashion. There is variance, and this fact should not be shocking.
So, yes, since the total, absolute number of deaths by all causes is not itself necessarily reason for panic, falling as it does within about ten percent of a routine projection, the fact that the distribution by age also mostly aligns with the rest of life as we know it further solidifies the assessment of risk. By that I mean to say, there’s not an age group under 75 that is going to walk around more likely to finish the year alive without covid than they would with it. And that’s really saying something, if you think about it. It’s at the heart of the assessment of risk.
On the way of looking at the numbers, yes, you’ve got the idea exactly. If you accept, or believe, that nothing short of a highly effective vaccine is going to keep the thing from continuing to take lives in the way that other respiratory viruses do, then there is little insight to be gained in commenting on an increase in the numerator while ignoring the denominator.
I think that restaurants, as a class, are vulnerable businesses in general, and positioned to be hit hard by this particular pandemic - they are the nursing home residents of businesses. Even restaurants that gave been around a while can be perpetually on the edge, a few bad months away from bankruptcy.
Most businesses survived the pandemic just fine and many thrived. It was just a certain class of business ( entertainment and food service )that bore the brunt of the casualties of this pandemic - just like certain subgroups of people bore the brunt of the medical casualties.
Some people stayed away from restaurants only because they were closed. Other people stayed home because there was a pandemic happening, and continued to stay home after they reopened. It doesn’t take a large reduction in customers to make a restaurant unprofitable, and I doubt most restaurants would be getting the volume they need to survive even if they were allowed to open.
I’m not even sure if restaurants in my city are currently allowed to open their dining rooms at this moment - I’m not going to one so I haven’t been keeping track.
Most businesses weren’t shutdown! Yes, the social gathering businesses weren’t unexpectedly more vulnerable to social distancing regimes.
Grocery stores are also super tight margin businesses. If they were ordered to do pick up or delivery only, would we be talking about grocery chains that were always vulnerable? Maybe. But if anyone’s got a plan to reinvent those businesses to be pandemic proof, I’d love to hear it.
If you’re interested, there’s a good overview of what the Australian government has been doing to support businesses here. Australia has a population of about 25 million, so multiply all numbers by about 13 to get a sense of what something like this might look like in US terms. Since the document is correct as of November, it represents about 6 months of pandemic relief. “JobKeeper” is the core program that does basically what @Irishman was suggesting. I was never on it so I’m not totally across all the details, but basically if businesses agree to keep paying their workers’ wages while compulsorily shut down, the government pays them money to support that.
I’ll look. There’s a few countries that did flat payouts to the unemployed and payroll assistance for different businesses*. Some rent assistance. I don’t recall anything quite as expansive as he seems to be going.
*Germany went with an already in place system for industry downturns.
This I totally agree with. Not an answer to my specific question since restaurants don’t really stay open, but nonetheless the best solution. If we are asking businesses to forego revenue for the good of society, society should compensate them for it. The poverty rate went down thanks to the first stimulus bill. Things are looking much worse now thanks to failure to act.
The other component of major governmental support for a finite shutdown is that it sustains businesses and individuals who pay tax, so it gets recouped far more quickly than a slow strangulation of the economy, leading to closure of businesses and debts that cannot be recouped.
Its interesting that some of the more hardline people who’ve been quite comfortable with a Darwinian culling of the elderly and unfit amongst the human flock seem to be reluctant to accept ‘nature’ taking its course among restaurants. Given that more than half of new restaurants fail in their first year, and half the rest shut within 5 years, this seems to be a population where longevity can never be considered a given.
I just don’t get it. Are you quite comfortable with the Darwinian culling of the non-pandemic resistant restaurants?
No I’m not personally comfortable - near me some of the places I liked most were not resilient yet places I’m not a fan of survived well, so there’s a karmic inequity right there.
The main point was the revelation (to me, others got there a while ago) that there is an interesting divergence in how some people like SayTwo have argued that we cannot afford the expense of saving lives, in order to save businesses from more or less the same process.
The only point I was making with the stats [assuming my memory of them is correct] is that it is an industry where businesses fold all the time, and it will be complex to determine what role Covid had in individual closures.
That’s really what counts here; as callous as it sounds, we can lose a lot of restaurants, and they’ll be replaced nearly just as fast once restrictions are lifted. If there’s anything the business world abhors, it’s an un-taken chance to make a buck, and being “down” on the restaurant count is exactly that.
If anything, we’ve shaken out the restaurants that would have failed anyway in the same time frame, or ones that were barely hanging on, and likely would have failed eventually anyway. To use my example from upthread, the Highland Park Cafeteria was holding on, but it was nearly exclusively patronized by old geezers who liked cafeteria versions of “American” food. It was going to go under in the next decade for sure as the customers died off and weren’t replaced. All that COVID did was accelerate that process. It sucks for the workers and the patrons, but it’s not a major blow to the Dallas restaurant industry. I bet there’ll be another restaurant there within 4 years, and probably even something similar in concept, but more resilient.
Very interesting indeed.
Please don’t put words in my mouth. That is not what I believe. What I believe is that our flailing (and yes, very expensive) efforts are not saving lives, and to believe that they only would if we could just do more of them is naive at best and reckless at worst.
As for unhealthy restaurants having their impending doom simply accelerated and not created, I think it’s a very valid point. But it still remains that the death knell is being delivered by our own hands, which is not the case with the natural virus. That is not just a distinction of some nuanced type. That makes the two things in different categories altogether.
I’m not sure of your position. Do you support restaurants reopening with no restrictions at all, and claim that this would not lead to an increased spread of the virus?
Or do you support restaurants reopening with, say, reduced seating. If this turns out not to be viable economically for a restaurant, and it closes, do you think we killed it or did the virus kill it?
If people stay away out of (justifiable) fear, so the restaurant isn’t as full as it is allowed to be, is that death by our hands or from the virus?
I support removing most all restrictions on restaurants, as I believe that most of them do not make a significant impact on the spread of the virus. And I say that because I believe there is next to no credible scientific evidence that they do, and an abundance of observational evidence that open restaurants, much like open gyms or schools, aren’t really our problem here.
In fact, just a few hours ago I came across this (entirely predictable, from my point of view) article from the Denver Post about a study on gyms:
The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, which commissioned the study, reported in October that its data showed a minuscule infection rate in U.S. gyms of 1,155 cases out of 49.4 million gym check-ins (0.0023%). Then it asked the Oregon Consulting Group, based in the University of Oregon’s college of business, to conduct an independent study. Those researchers picked Colorado to study, analyzing data provided by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
You certainly don’t want such a self-interested study, so it’s good that they asked an outside group to do an independent study. (Though, I certainly think it’s fair to note that the study was done by the business school and not the medical school or department of public health, in which case different results would be, let’s say, less than shocking.)
The study, based on CDPHE statistics through Nov. 18, was published Dec. 7. It covered 32 weeks of Colorado gym attendance data, representing nearly 8.5 million check-ins, and found no link to 59 outbreaks reported by CDPHE.
“Available data suggests that compared to other settings, gyms are not a prevalent source of COVID-19 outbreaks,” the study said. “There were no outbreaks reported in gyms or comparable athletic facilities.” An outbreak is defined as a transmission event that includes two or more people in a workplace or facility setting.
Seems that restaurants weren’t found to be quite as ‘safe’, but do note the rest of this sentence:
The data indicated that gyms are safer than bars, restaurants and grocery stores, while more than half COVID-19 outbreaks came from “health care settings.”
More than half! Now, that’s a place I’d recommend people lose sleep over. Not what happens after 10 pm at the neighborhood pub.
The article, I’m afraid to say, doesn’t say anything about the health of these businesses:
The Colorado Fitness Coalition, which was created in August to speak for the industry with one voice, said the state is facing the loss of an estimated 200 gyms, 22,000 jobs and $12 million in payroll taxes if restrictions aren’t eased soon. In a typical year, the Colorado fitness industry generates $695 million, the coalition said.
And here’s where someone notes the apparent lack of robust, critical, mature and sober thinking that imagines closing certain industries here and there is going to save us all while other industries continue to afford ample opportunities for humans to exist in proximity to one another:
“Gyms are continuing to struggle at a dramatic rate and we are losing more and more gyms,” said JoAnna Masloski, a member of the coalition’s advisory board and chief operating officer for the Colorado Athletic Club’s seven Front Range facilities. “We need to get to a higher capacity to survive. We’re not spreaders. We’re working as hard as we can to get this Five Star certification.
“But either way, we’re not spreaders and we are being punished, unlike malls — uncontrolled environments, uncontrolled people walking around and touching each other,” Masloski said. “They’re not getting punished, and our gyms are in dire straits. We’re going to malls and saying, ‘Oh, my God, our businesses are about to die, and you’re not controlling them.’ ”
To answer your final question, if people stay away from restaurants out of justified (or justifiable) fear of the virus, then yes, it would be the virus causing destruction to that industry. It certainly doesn’t appear to me that that’s presently the case.
There’s the crux of the issue. It’s not about what you “believe”. For all I know, you might believe in Bigfoot, the Easter Bunny or underwear gnomes. And that’s the point- it’s not about what you believe, it’s about what people who are qualified to assess these things know and extrapolate.
Are you an epidemiologist? A public health professional? A microbiologist? Any of the myriad of infectious disease or health-related professions who are qualified to opine on these things?
If not, then your belief is about as useful and valid as my 6 year old son’s belief in Santa Claus.
Well, he asked.
But thanks, I guess, for letting me know the value of my free thoughts. Even though I didn’t ask.