Gov. Newsom was right to shut down the state when other governors and the President were still calling COVID-19 a hoax. Gov. Newsom will be right again to keep it shut down until businesses and schools can safely reopen. Don't listen to those people who value corporate profits and stock prices above human lives. Those people on TV who say that senior citizens should be killed to protect profits should be arrested for terrorism.

"the governor offered a glimpse of post-pandemic life where restaurants check temperatures at the door, servers in masks offer disposable menus and diners sit at tables spaced 6 feet apart."

My belief is that if such onerous social distancing rules are placed after the shelter-in-place is lifted, by Christmas it will be the end of >75% of the independently owned restaurants/cafes that existed prior to COVID-19.

SF Bay Area restaurants were already a poor value in the past few years.

This will likely spell the demise of restaurant table service for years, at least on the SF Peninsula.

If killer viruses can and will jump or be transferred from animals to humans and then be communicated human-to-human around the world, adjustments are needed: adjustments to how humans live and interact. Stadiums - schools - airline travel - mass transit - huge open-air corporate workplaces - sit-down restaurants - bio-weapon research facilities. They may not be such a good idea. Going back to business as usual could kill most everyone on the planet - if not from this virus, then from the next. Maybe Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump might still be able to sit down to dinner in a Trump Tower in Moscow. But not you.

> My belief is that ...

Yes. Those results may occur. Having to shut down AGAIN after cases and deaths rebound will be much worse. Why don't you offer a solution instead of stating the obvious path?

I support the Guv's plan based on science and health professionals. What do you support?

* support the Guv's plan based on science and health professionals. What do you support?

I also support the health care community.

@resident

Please drop the "corporate profits and stock prices" vs "human lives" rhetoric. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Zoom, etc. are doing okay during the shelter-in-place orders. It isn't about getting the big corporations back to work, or protecting their profits or stock prices.

It's about whether the small family-run businesses down the street will survive the shelter-in-place order. People have invested years building these small businesses, and everything they've built will disappear. How many have closed already? What will happen to suicide rates or substance abuse rates? What about those in recovery who rely on regular meetings to support their sobriety?

Ignoring the virus is a bad option. But so is shutting down everything until the virus goes away, because it never will. We need to figure out how to live with it, not just shelter in place indefinitely.

So what is the goal? If the goal is herd immunity then why not sooner rather than later? We can still protect the at-risk people while letting others go back to work. Let small businesses reopen. We never even got close to maxing our capacity in Santa Clara county. I don't see how reaching herd immunity slowly is better.

Sweden did lots of mitigation but they stopped short of telling the "non-essentials" that they had to stay home. They are on the road to recovery just like everyone else. Denmark just reopened their schools while we still have people calling the police on gardeners for non-essential gardening.

Good grief.

> Sweden did lots of mitigation but... Denmark just reopened...

Sweden has two and a half times the per capita death rate of Denmark. The fringe talking points about Sweden are lies.

> So what is the goal?

As is well documented - the goal is to keep hospitals and medical staff below capacity, so they can work on *all* cases in an efficient and safe environment.

You apparently don't care about that goal.

"Good grief."

In response Darin you said:

“Please drop the "corporate profits and stock prices" vs "human lives" rhetoric. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Zoom, etc. are doing okay during the shelter-in-place orders. It isn't about getting the big corporations back to work, or protecting their profits or stock prices.”

I cannot argue against this. These corporations are owned by some of the smartest people on earth. They have planned for this contingency for years and had many levels of protection but you also said:

“It's about whether the small family-run businesses down the street will survive the shelter-in-place order.”

That statement simply doesn’t address that public health and safety is not an acceptable risk, like when Ford designed the Pinto and it had a design flaw but accepted it because it would cost $10 more to build a safer care. A Contagious Disease in effect requires a very strict safety standard. You said:

“People have invested years building these small businesses, and everything they've built will disappear.”

Unfortunately, this is a situation which is VERY bad. But you cannot ask the public health and safety system to ignore a risk that we still do not have enough scientific data regarding public infection. You said:

“How many have closed already? What will happen to suicide rates or substance abuse rates? What about those in recovery who rely on regular meetings to support their sobriety?”

Yes this is a VERY bad situation. And we do not know when we will have enough information nor testing to establish when it is going to be safe. You said:

“Ignoring the virus is a bad option. But so is shutting down everything until the virus goes away, because it never will. We need to figure out how to live with it, not just shelter in place indefinitely.”

THAT IS WHY WE NEED A TREATMENT THAT IS RELIABLE OR A VACCINE. Until we have either, the public health cannot be ignored simply because of the loss of money.

A week or two ago, President Donald Trump pointed out that 1.5 million Americans die every year from various causes - including aspects of old age. He claimed that doing nothing, maybe an extra million Americans would die. Everyone will die eventually. How people die - how awful the death from Covid-19 - forget that. Just compare deaths with financial losses. Trump says we need to get the economic engine back online. It is corporate thinking. Corporations view humans as resources. Hence the term "human resources." Humans have value - depending on their productivity and how easily they can be replaced. But, you protest, corporations do not think - they are not even human. And neither is Trump.