# How would you enforce a hard lockdown across America? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [July 29, 2020, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-enforce-a-hard-lockdown-across-america/916690 "2020-07-29T07:42:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-enforce-a-hard-lockdown-across-america/916690/21 "2020-07-30T04:56:37Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Voluntary masking and distancing would be best. _Involuntary_ masking if you want to leave the house would have done wonders at the beginning. All the people upset about being forced to wear a mask can stay home…just like they should have been doing months ago. ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-enforce-a-hard-lockdown-across-america/916690/22 "2020-07-30T04:57:44Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > > [@PoppaSan](#): > > > > Suspend all rent, interest charges, and all consumer credit payments for one month. > > I’m a small time landlord, not a bank. Do I suspend part of my income? You get your lost rent back when you file income taxes. Direct tax credit. ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-enforce-a-hard-lockdown-across-america/916690/23 "2020-07-30T05:00:39Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The state and federal governments will do their best to deliver food door to door to help everyone stay in. From where are you getting this food? How much of society is made up of essential workers that need to be out and about for this to work. What reward does a min wage person get if everyone else makes more sitting at home? ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-enforce-a-hard-lockdown-across-america/916690/24 "2020-07-30T05:05:19Z")
> [@DinoR](#): > > In an American context that means yes, interstate travel has to be allowed. You would have just cut off a chunk of the metro area I live in from all the major grocery stores close to their homes. …you don’t need to get to the major grocery stores. I did nearly all of my shopping from the local [Four Square](https://www.foursquare.co.nz/), which is a bit bigger than a [Dairy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_(store)#:~:text=A%20dairy%20is%20a%20small,and%20after%20normal%20trading%20hours.), as did many others. Its this sort of niggling that will be why a lockdown in America is never going to happen. > [@DinoR](#): > > Many would also be cut off from their nearest pharmacies, gas stations, and emergency repairs for a lifeline utility (water). People on both sides of the border would be cut off from their doctors’ offices. At least on this side of the border we have **all** the hospitals for the metro area. Some people that are essential by the NZ model would also be prohibited from going to work if we completely shut state borders. You’ve taken a single sentence from me and constructed a series of reasons why lockdown can’t happen. You are looking for ways to avoid a lockdown instead of looking for ways to make it work. > [@DinoR](#): > > At least one of the three grocery stores near me would have to close unless some interstate travel was allowed. Their distribution center is across the border. Realistically the supply chains to put food on the shelves in the US relies on both interstate and international ground transport. Well figure it out then? I provided the New Zealand example not as a model for you to follow, but to provide a template for “yes, you can figure this out.” Of course its going to be fucking difficult. But you can either try and figure something out or continue to allow Covid-19 to rampage across the country. Which do you want it to be? > [@DinoR](#): > > It is a difficult problem that NZ did not have to contend with. Lets not pretend that **NZ didn’t have difficult problems to deal with.** > [@NZ Herald](#): > > Treasury officials, amongst the most-cautious branch of the public service, had abandoned business as usual the previous week and were now telling ministers the rapidly developing situation meant they were effectively flying blind. > > Decisions on the need to mitigate rapidly worsening economic impacts for which there was no precedent may need to be made with incomplete information. “By the time it is clear that action is desirable, it may be too late to implement a timely response,” officials said. > > … > > “The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet were reaching deep into the public service at 10am saying ‘Cabinet is going to be considering this move in a meeting tomorrow and we’ll need a briefing paper in four hours,’” the source said. “The process for Cabinet papers usually, from drafting to submitting, takes three months.” > > … > > A senior government figure said the pace was bewildering: “New information was arriving faster than we were able to make decisions, which were quickly being made obsolete.” It was as if test-match cricketers suddenly found themselves playing a T20 super over. > > … > > The day before lockdown, the ad hoc committee of ministers was still cobbling together a quarantine policy, having scraped together 3300 suddenly-empty hotel rooms and 1400 campervans for use by arrivals unable to self-isolate or who showed symptoms of sickness. Briefing documents from this day include many spelling and grammar mistakes and show the sense of urgency, verging on panic, that had taken hold. > **[The pandemic papers: Inside story of how NZ fought Covid 19](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-the-inside-story-of-how-new-zealand-fought-the-pandemic/STTJAT5X52BORXVEB26XXDM5ZE/?c_id=1&objectid=12332156)** > > How despite rushed missteps NZ ended up with an unlikely victory in the war on Covid. The Pandemic Papers by Matt Nippert. Paywalled but worth the read. We made the Lockdown look easy. But in reality behind the scenes the Civil Service were **moving mountains**. It was a herculean effort. Everybody had to be onboard. Briefing papers that typically took months had to be produced in hours. We had to completely rewrite how the country was run in a matter of days. Just think about that for a minute. Then spare me the “NZ didn’t have difficult problems to deal with” bullshit. If we did actually have to deal with interstate travel then we would have figured it out. It honestly isn’t that hard. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-enforce-a-hard-lockdown-across-america/916690/25 "2020-07-30T17:19:04Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > In America the purpose of a lockdown would be different to the lockdown we had. For me it would be about bringing a **reset**. The goal wouldn’t be to eliminate Covid-19, but to instead **bring it under a measure of control by significantly dropping the curve.** A hugely expensive lockdown that just did a reset wouldn’t be worth it, not unless a vaccine is imminent. No hard lockdown is worth it unless it has a chance of eliminating the virus with little chance of it coming back. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2020, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-enforce-a-hard-lockdown-across-america/916690/26 "2020-07-30T20:59:11Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > A hugely expensive lockdown that just did a reset wouldn’t be worth it, not unless a vaccine is imminent. No hard lockdown is worth it unless it has a chance of eliminating the virus with little chance of it coming back. …a “hugely expensive” proper lockdown would save thousands of lives, flatten the trajectory of the curve massively and make it look more like the curve in the EU than the scary thing it does now. It will allow testing results to go from 2 weeks or longer down to a day. It will allow a contact tracing regime to be able to actually workable. It would bring down the active caseload, clear out the hospitals, actively protect healthcare workers from getting sick. From the reset you will be able to start opening the country up again safely. You can implement the same managed reopenings that have been successful around the world. But most importantly of all, the entire premise of this thread is to argue a hypothetical, and by arguing against that premise you are fighting the hypothetical. I have zero faith that America would actually be able to pull off the lockdown I’ve suggested here. America is too fragmented, too divided. But I’m not here in this thread fighting the hypothetical. It isn’t hyperbole to state that Covid-19 is completely out of control in America and that it will have an economic impact that is going to devastate the country. Of course a hard lockdown would be “hugely expensive.” How could it not? But you do realize that without one its going to cost your country much more in the long term? Without it thousands of people are going to be dying every day until we get a vaccine, which many people in this thread point out could be years, maybe decades away, if we get one at all. Thousands more will get sick and potentially have to live the rest of their lives with long term effects. The American economy will continue to crater. Americans will be continue to be banned from travelling to other countries. America will continue to to have no tourists, no overseas visitors. Restaurants and bars and schools will reopen then close then reopen and close like a moth smacking into a lightbulb and you guys will never be able to figure out why it is happening. Yes, a hard lockdown will be expensive. But it would be for a very short period of time and it would get your country back to a state where it has a fighting chance. Because where it is heading right now is fucking terrifying and what is more terrifying is that people like you simply can’t see it. Its chaos personified. Its more than Covid-19 now. Its the knock-on effect from deciding to just let it run its course. What does happen next is predictably unpredictable. Bad things are going to happen. But I don’t know what those bad things are going to be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-enforce-a-hard-lockdown-across-america/916690.md?page=1)