You are responding to what can be called a Putinesque scenario. Nothing being said is based in reality. It is blather some comrades use to push a scenario designed to confuse the uniformed. Ignore this brand of thinking.
To what program? Unemployment isn’t set up to handle it. Medicare isn’t set up to handle it. The devil is in the details and this fictional program has no details at all.
Have you thought it all the way through? By that I mean, are you willing to remain locked down as long as the virus still exists in other places?
You’re making an assumption in the other direction without any evidence, just questions that you haven’t answered. Your assumption is that the economy will be better off if the restrictions are lifted. You need more evidence to show that.
If the economy is just as bad off with restrictions lifted, the question in the OP is moot because lifting the lockdown won’t do enough to change the scenario.
Sweden Refused To Shut Down Its Economy Over Coronavirus — Is It Working? on April 10, 2020
This is in the Daily Caller so it might be weighted on that basis, but it says that Sweden’s GDP is expected to shrink more than the US GDP.
Critics question Swedish approach as coronavirus death toll reaches 1,000 on April 15, 2020
This is from The Guardian. The numbers are from Sweden’s finance minister showing some worse projections that GDP of Sweden could shrink by 10% and unemployment could rise to 13.5%.
Swedish labour board says unemployment at 8% as virus hits economy on April 20, 2020 from Reuters
To compare, here are some projections about the US economy and unemployment.
The upcoming job losses will be unlike anything the US has ever seen
This is a prediction made on March 30, 2020.
Sweden is forecasting its unemployment rate at 13.5% by its finance minister. An economist, Jeremy Lawson, chief economist at Aberdeen Standard Investment, in the US is predicting the unemployment rate to be at 10.6%.
At the same time, deaths per million are 200 in Sweden vs the US at 152 according to Worldometers on April 23, 2020. Many of those deaths are from elderly care homes that the government was unable to protect despite their focus on them.
Sweden has the higher death rate so far, the higher predicted unemployment rate and the higher predicted contraction of GDP.
Besides Sweden, what is your evidence that lifting the lockdown will improve the economy?
You need evidence of that? Really? I can think of a dozen errands I’d run today if I could, all of which involve spending money and all of which can be done with little more interaction than I get at home and less than I get at the grocery store. Like visiting my tailor, my optical shop, and my laundry. Maybe buying something at a hardware store.
I imagine I’m not far from average in that respect. Yes, I’m sure that many will stay away from crowds even when events start happening again. But I’m also sure that people won’t really fear one-on-one interactions, or close to it, that happen in a whole, whole lot of ‘economic’ transactions. It’s kinda how the whole thing works.
I WILL fear one-on-one interactions for a long time to come, because I don’t trust other people to have my best interests at heart. There are a lot of people who unfortunately will have to go back to work as soon as possible for financial reasons; those are the folks who cannot afford to miss work even if they’re sick. I don’t need to be around them in crowds or individually, and there are a lot of people like me who aren’t going to go to the optician or the hardware store or the dentist for anything short of a dire emergency for probably quite a while to come.
That depends on which professionals you are referring to.
Professional scientists?
Professional politicians?
Professional corporate leaders?
For every one of you, SayTwo, how many are going to be like slash2k?
If, for example, a restaurant opens to a very dwindled crowd, they still have to pay employees for showing up. Right now, there’s government assistance for them to stay at home. If that leaves, then it will be all on the owners to take on that cost. Will it be worth it to them?
In some sense, that’s what’s happening with Sweden. They’re still open, but the demand is a lot less, so the projections are a lot less too. And the economy isn’t just determined by local demand. The other countries in Europe being shut down affects them.
It looks like we might be seeing how it goes with some of the States opening up shortly. But I’m not sure the States that are opening up are indicative of the economies of the other ones opening up. In the same way as on the country level, it remains to be seen if they’ll be affected by everyone else being shut down.
…we aren’t remaining locked down though. Despite the virus still existing in other places. You just quoted me saying that the plan is to hopefully get the country to Level 2 in three weeks. We are definitely moving to Level 3 next week.
So I don’t understand your question. The process and the plan was made quite clear when we went into lockdown. We were going to hold at Level 4 for four weeks (two full incubation periods) and evaluate. When we drop to Level 3 we will hold for an additional incubation period (another two weeks) and evaluate again. The fact that you probably live in a place that doesn’t have a clear strategy in place doesn’t change the fact that I live in a place that does.
The way to fix that part is easy. Universal healthcare funded through general taxation. The system in place in every other developed nation.
I mean your borders. I assume that’s part of what you call ‘lockdown’, and I also assume that fully opening them again isn’t a featured part of your ‘reopening’ plan.
I actually do live in a place with a plan. But no one here (or much of anywhere else I know about, save maybe some neighbors in Europe) is talking about freely opening their doors once they get things under control in their own house.
My guess would be somewhere between one-tenth and one-hundredth. Maybe less.
Any evidence for your guess?
Um. No.
You’re attempting to compare Sweden, a country of 10 million, to NYC? Manhattan itself has a weekday population of 4 million (all in a 20 sq.mi. area). Plus many of these people live in NJ and Connecticut. Sweden’s inactions are the epitome of a failure. At 200 deaths per million, it blows away its neighbors. Denmark is at 68 deaths per million; Norway is at 36 ; Finland is at 32.
…still not understanding the question. If you want to discuss borders then yes that is outside of the scope of the lockdown. Being able to hop on a plane and fly out of the country doesn’t fit my definition of being in “lockdown”, especially since its been nearly 30 years since I last hopped on an international plane.
Businesses that rely on overseas visitors know that the borders aren’t going to be open for a while. Things aren’t going to be getting back to normal for a very long time. You better just get used to it.
And what would that plan be?
We’ve got a step-by-step plan to reopen the economy. That plan doesn’t involve opening the borders. In answer to your original question: yes I have “thought it all the way through.” What is it, do you think I’m missing?
It’s been shown that shorter lockdowns when things get bad actually work better than one long lockdown. You do start running into the effects of thelockdown itself being deadly if you go too long, and then, when you are forced to come out to save those people, you get large spikes because we’re not ready yet.
The main problem we have right now are political leaders getting itchy to start letting up too soon because they’re overly concerned about the economy, but the economy should only matter inasmuch as we need to keep it running to keep people from suffering or dying.
But the scientifically backed plan has always been shorter lockdowns, with likely repeats until we get this sorted. Everything else does worse.
I think you’re missing that your plan isn’t the end-all-be-all you think it is unless your country is willing to isolate itself from the rest of the world. Maybe yours is, but I don’t think most of the others can really get away with that.
…I’m not missing anything at all. Opening the borders: even in a limited fashion, wouldn’t be sensible at all in the short term. We **have **isolated ourselves from the rest of the world. Most of the rest of the world is a hotzone. The only practical way we can open up the local economy is to shut down travel from the rest of the world. Almost everyone here accepts this. The goal isn’t to simply contain the coronavirus, its to (medically) eradicateit from our shores.
So I still don’t understand the question. In answer to your original question: yes we have “thought it all the way through.”
Perhaps that’s why in countries like America and the UK they are struggling to get this under control, and why I think that trying to reopen the economy in that sort of environment is going to end up in disaster.
I think he means medical professionals like Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil.