What does lockdown mean to you?

It does not mean much to me because I am retired.

Only engaging in the necessary activities. And staying home as much as possible.

Lockdown means, to me, stores being closed except for essential things like groceries and maybe auto parts. People staying home from movies, restaurants, recreational activities like sports and picnics. People staying home from work and school, except for essential workers like doctors, firemen, cops, ambulance drivers, veterinarians. Not having company come visit and not going to friends’ houses for parties or dinners.

Quarantine means, to me, staying home for a required number of days or weeks and not going out at all. Family, friends or outside sources bringing food to the house. Not having company over to visit.

@gorillapaws Are all stores open? Restaurants?

@JLeslie Not really unless they’re selling essential stuff. Restaurants can do curbside takeout only.

“lockdown”: everyone is required to stay home for the most part, but essential workers are exempt. People may go out for supplies or walk their dogs, but not often and possibly not very far. This is enforced through fines and possibly arrests. If exercise is permitted, you may only be outside for a limited time. Absolutely no contact between different households. This happened in Italy and France.

“partial lockdown”: you may go out as often as you like. Non-essential stores and restaurants are closed, public transport may be limited, and you may not interact with members of a different household, or only in very limited numbers (i.e. two people). Most public buildings are closed. We had this version in Germany.

“quarantine”: you were exposed to COVID-19 and haven’t gotten (enough) negative test results. You may not leave your house and will probably have essentials delivered.

@gorillapaws I have a couple more questions for you. Let me say I’m purely just interested in people’s opinion on this Q, I’m not trying to change minds or argue.

Why is the type of businesses more important than how the business is conducted?

Who decides what is essential? What do you think is essential?

Do you think fewer businesses open possibly means denser crowds in those few stores and more risk?

Many restaurants remained open for take out.
Many stores, like Best Buy, remained open.
A real lock down would close them.

@JLeslie “Why is the type of businesses more important than how the business is conducted?”

It’s all about reducing the rate of transmission. If you can reduce the rate low enough, the virus is wiped out and we can all go back to having fun. Every unnecessary interaction is like pulling the trigger in a game of Russian Roulette. Eliminating unnecessary interactions is the first and obvious step. Making the necessary interactions (food, medicine, shelter, etc.) as safe as possible is the next obvious choice.

Hearing people complaining about not having their dream wedding, or getting to attend their favorite whatever-the-hell is like seeing the psychopath on the airplane that’s on fire trying to grab his fucking carry-on bag from the overhead and blocking the way for everyone to evacuate.

@JLeslie “Who decides what is essential? What do you think is essential?”

Here’s a useful thought experiment: fill that carry on bag with whatever it is that you think might be “essential” to you and ask yourself if you were waiting for the guy to pull a carry on from the overhead that’s full of whatever item, would you understand? So if you think having your hair dyed is “essential” would you be upset being held up from evacuating a burning plane by a guy trying to get his hair dye out of the overhead? What if it was sports paraphernalia from his favorite football team because sports are “essential”—to him, is that worth it?

New Zealand did it right. Now they are able to safely relax restrictions. The economy can reboot and people can begin to get back to normal.

I think what f’ed up the USA with the lockdown thing is each governor has their own idea of what they’re going to ask the people to do, and what they’re going to enforce. You have so many people all over crying about having to wear masks, masks don’t do anything (those people say), masks are harmful, they have a right not to wear a mask, blah blah blah.

Then you have business owners suing and crying about their rights (gym owners, for example). So they want to be open, and as long as they’re open, people will go. Then you have entitled people (Bride-zillas) who want their wedding, dammit, and they’re going to have their wedding.

So add all that into the mix, and then a country like New Zealand probably had more people cooperating and enforcing and less people crying about their rights.

@gorillapaws Well, I haven’t had a hair cut in 8 months, so I personally don’t think that is essential, but I actually agree with my governor (on this particular point) that for businesses owners and employees the business they work in is essential to them. That it should be more about safe activities rather than essential and non-essential. In Michigan the governor was prohibiting the sale of paint in big box stores initially. I can’t tell you how many friends have repainted their houses during the time of covid. Lowe’s and the local paint shops here have had curbside pick-up since March. You can even pick up the paper samples for colors curbside, you just let them know the color family you are interested in. As far as hair, some stylists are cutting hair outside here for people who want a haircut but are afraid to be inside.

Taiwan didn’t close any businesses they wore masks and very strict follow up by the government for quarantine. Taiwan has had 7 deaths to date. Their population is similar in size to Florida. Is New Zealand’s plan better than Taiwan’s? I think America won’t comply enough with how NZ did it, but maybe we could have done what China did: completely shut down key cities, no one in or out.

I think @jca2’s point about people who refuse to comply with staying home or masks is part of the big problem in America. The government needs to find ways to manage those people. Some of them mask up when orders are put in place.

I just saw Rand Paul in the senate hearings touting how Sweden handled covid, his message is horrible! It is only partial truths about Sweden and a lot of people are listening to him. Fauci invited him to discuss the situation one on one, I hope he agrees.

Having said all of that “Lockdown” to me means closing everything but grocery stores and medical facilities. Controlling the traffic in grocery stores, I think it should be done by last name. I would encourage people to stock up before a lockdown so they do not need to go into any store at all, no traveling, and treat it like a quarantine. A massive lockdown for just three weeks of no movement should stop the virus in its tracks. I’m noticing some people have a much looser definition though.

@JLeslie “I actually agree with my governor (on this particular point) that for businesses owners and employees the business they work in is essential to them. ”

Florida is the perfect model of what NOT to do. People are easily confused and mixed-messages are confusing and lead to mistakes and risk-taking that gets people killed. Lock it down, kill it off, and then relax restrictions with lots of testing and hardcore contract tracing, and eliminating large superspreader gatherings until after a vaccine.

A lot of people here in NYS hate Cuomo, but Cuomo put the restrictions in place, enforced mandates for masks and shutdowns, and now we’re on the better side of it. Now, other states, like southern states (VA, etc.), are in the middle of it and if we visit there, we have to quarantine because those places are a mess while we’re doing ok.

@gorillapaws The problem in Florida was not hair and beaches. The governor prohibited hair cuts for months. Beaches have not been the problem, but the restaurants and bars at the beaches were a huge problem.

Florida had people pouring in from other countries and place like NYC and Detroit metro area that had very high caseloads. That was our initial problem just like that was NYC’s initial problem. The difference is NYC tri-state area has masked up and complied and their rate of infection is way down, while in Florida we continue to have a lot of tourist traffic and a lot of people in my state are Republicans and many of the Republicans are brainwashed by Q and groups scaring people about masks.

My governor could definitely have made our caseload lower here if he would have put in a mask order inside public places, because some Republicans who don’t want to wear a mask will do it when ordered. He should have. Hell, I think MSNBC could have made my caseload lower here if they had shown my governor giving mask advice over and over again and wearing a mask since April consistently on camera.

@JLeslie “The problem in Florida was not hair and beaches. The governor prohibited hair cuts for months. Beaches have not been the problem, but the restaurants and bars at the beaches were a huge problem.”

It’s the CONFUSED MESSAGING that is the problem: “It’s no big deal on the beach, but it’s really serious at the deli, and during choir, but not at the ice-cream parlor. Wear masks indoors and sometimes in crowds of 4, but not after 8pm if you have a….” blah, blah, blah

There needs to be 1 consistent message: DON’T FUCK AROUND, THIS IS LIFE AND DEATH. PERIOD. Treat it that way and you have New Zealand, treat it like Florida and you have, well, Florida and a MUCH bigger hit to the economy as this thing drags along for another 12 months.

I agree that this pandemic has been virtually left up to the initiative of individuals. The businesses in the city here have been excellent in their compliance, and it is extremely rare to encounter anyone in a public place without a mask. But I see news reports of crowds at the beaches and crowds of demonstrators and wonder at the great variety among us in matters of responsibility and just plain common sense.

@gorillapaws In Florida initially almost everything was shut down like everywhere for weeks. We had road blocks asking people driving into the state where they were coming from like going through immigration at a country order.

A friend of mine who lives in PA and FL was always so happy to come to Florida so she could not wear a mask and be normal. I blame DeSantis for that, but I also blame more liberal news media for promoting that DeSantis is allowing a free for all and portrayed to him to be exactly like Trump, no he’s not, but that’s the imagine in a lot of the media.

I wish DeSantis could have stopped flights, from what I understand that is federal domain.

I agree some people are confused, but it really isn’t confusing, the thing is people are stupid, and that was part of my governor’s problem. He’s actually very smart I think, but he got too cocky and didn’t predict well how dumb people are, which makes him a bad leader.

America is not going to be New Zealand in my opinion, but we could have been Taiwan.