Update: 2 polls have been added to the bottom of this post.
The governor of California has ordered its 40 million residents to stay home to prevent the uncontrolled spread of coronavirus. They can still leave home to shop for essentials, but are ordered to do everything they can from home.
Despite having months to prepare, US hospitals are woefully short on tests, masks, and ventilators. We wasted the heads-up we had by denying that it would be a problem here.
The only option at this point is to lock down the country, rather than the trickle of additional daily restrictions.
Whether it’s for a minyan, school, Pesach, or any other plans people had to travel, for the sake of our community and our country, everyone needs to stay home and save lives.
Let’s follow Israel’s wise lead and get it over with. The time for a nationwide lockdown is now.
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155 Comments On "Californians Ordered To Stay Home On Lockdown; It’s Time To Make It Nationwide"
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What’s essential and what’s closed seem to be very similar to Ohio – is there something I’m missing?
Couldn’t Agree with you more
#HomeIsWhereTheHeartIs
#JustDoIt
It will be stupid not to. Glad I live in a such a progressive state as California.
Can you add a vote to see what people think
It was not called a lockdown
Except that Gavin Newsom is the governor, and he didn’t call it a lockdown. CNN isn’t the governor.
Ordered to stay home and lockdown is splitting hairs.
I disagree Dan. Semantics are particularly important in this specific time where misinformation is rampant. It should have been a lockdown. But it’s fairly lax.
There are multiple definitions of lockdown and what exactly it means.
Israel said they are on lockdown and it’s nearly the same as in California. You can go out for essential needs.
Actually, you can also go out for minyan , up to ten people I the minyan.
From the press conference it sounds like you can’t have a minyan. She specifically said 2-9 people is ok. Not 10
CNN is #FakeNews
You are wrong, Elo.
Wow. You convinced me ali. He must be wrong because you said he is. What a convincing argument!
Agreed. Im already in quarntine i dont want to have to sit another week after my 14 days are over
It’s not fun, yet I totally agree! The sooner we take care of this, the better it’ll be.
Thank God one of our governors finally takes the very first step needed in order to stop this contagious virus from spreading.
All Airlines and major financial institutions already follow Dan’s advice.
Now its time for the federal goverment to follow suit and also start listening to Dan’s advice!
Dan For President 2024!
Airlines are following reason based on many factors. I doubt many airlines are doing this so as to follow Dan’s advice. The end result is the same. LOL
Agree 100% lets be smart so we can avoid casualties r”l
Army is mobilize as we speak I can send you video
Post a link
Ohh man! Meh!
It should be done. However I will add one thing to this everyone going outside should wear a mask. This would greatly lower transmission rates.
Where can I buy masks?
I have a large quantity of face masks
Bit N-95 and regular 3 ply. I would love to sell them wholesale to government or nursing homes or hospitals or pharmacies.
Anybody know an interested party?
Your local hatzolah?
My hospital will buy them in quantity. Please contact me. Danielasher@gmail.com
please contact me: Our hostipal is in need: ajay.dilliker@gmail.com
I don’t know if you’re joking but we desperately need. Pls email me, HealthyLivingEast at g mail com
I wasn’t joking and I emailed you.
Refuah Health Center in Rockland County, am sure, will be glad.
I know of two doctors my address that would love to buy masks wholesale. They are having trouble getting them. Really heard you see patients without masks.
Is there a way for me to reach out to them?
https://twitter.com/nygovcuomo/status/1241040393086685186?s=21 nyg is buying them
You don’t need a real mask you can use anything a scarf or bandana for example. It would literally save thousands of lives if everyone wore them out of the house.
The CDC was saying not to wear masks unless your sick because it just makes you touch your face more
In healthcare we need actual N95 masks. In the community, a scarf or a bandana significantly reduces the spread by droplets. However, there is a growing body of research showing that there can be airborne particles.
Just don’t go out between people
Actually, health care providers are asking that you NOT wear a mask. That diminishes the supply for doctors and nurses.
For how long is this order on effect?
Until further notice
Flattening the curve (lockdown) is the opposite of “getting it over with.” The reason they want everyone to quarantine is so that people don’t all get the disease at the same time. They still expect the same amount of people to get it, but in quarantine it will be spread out. So while “lockdown” will possibly prevent the hospitals from overcrowding, it will mean the virus will be around for longer.
It will mean, as you stated, the virus will be allowed around longer and also because the hospitals will have more capacity to cope people that will live rather than die.
By get it over with I don’t mean the virus. I mean the lockdown to slow down the virus and stop it from killing thousands of Americans.
Untill when do we lockdown? Untill there’s a vaccine or cure, that could be a yeai from now
I know what you mean Dan. We all have to pull together and do the best we can to flatten the curve. It can be very easy to wonder about all of the What ifs. I had to stop reading the comments. Its way too upsetting to see some of the statements here, or in any discussion right now. I think every single person is scared and coping in whatever way works for them. I’m going to remain calm by browsing for online deals 🙂
Dr Anthony Fauci says that is incorrect. The illustration of the curve is misleading as it looks that the total number (i.e. the area in the curve is the same). However, flattening the curve does indeed mean the total amount of infected will decrease as well. The idea of the quarantine is also to prevent it’s spread. The less it spreads the less people get it… That’s the idea anyway
It’s not exactly clear that the federal government has the legal authority to order a national lockdown. That’s something which is left up to States. Constitutional scholars debate this and appears to be majority seem to think it’s outside the federal government authority.
I was in the airport in Texas on Monday and I saw lots and lots of National Guard coming in. (Now I’m sick at home waiting for my test results).
Question is if lockdown will even be effective at this point…
Not for you
“Let’s follow Israel’s wise lead and get it over with”
Doesn’t work that way. This virus isn’t going anywhere until we find a vaccine. It will slow it down but as soon as social interaction increases, we’ll be back to square one. I truly do not understand the long term strategy. We can’t stop our lives for a year because of a virus that is a bit more deadly than the flu. My opinion is that herd immunization is the only answer. This is costing easily 1 trillion dollars, had we spent this money to improve our health system, many many more lives would’ve been saved
There are several medicines and vaccines that are being tested. What other choice do we have but to wait them out?
Indeed, unfortunately we are dealing with potentially last resort moves while we wait and daven that a cure and vaccine will be found. As we value life more than quality of life, we must prioritize living at the cost of quality of life if necessary… (At least that is my belief)
The timeframe until definitive results are returned from these tests and they are deemed safe for the masses is way too long a time period to shut down the country and have it survive. You can quarantine all of the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can’t quarantine all the people all the time without absolutely destroying the country.
If anything, a better strategy would be to make it absolutely illegal for anyone in the high risk groups to leave their house. Everyone should be required to enter their age and health history into an app like South Korea has, and if the app deems you high risk, it should be illegal for you to go out in public. If your phone is tracked being in public, you will lose eligibility for health care should you contract this virus. (Obviously, this would be deemed a massive governmental overreach and invasion of privacy, as well as tremendously unethical in terms of denying treatment, and will never fly.) Everyone (or 35% at a time or something according to a program that takes into account actual risk factors and hospitalization rates) in the low risk group should continue life as normal, and these high risk patients should be taken care of by people utilizing PPE. Everyone will get COVID-19 if this plan is carried out, but only a minimal amount will need hospitalization, which the system can handle, and everyone will be immune after recovering. An orchestrated orderly system to develop herd immunity may be the only way the country can really survive until treatments or vaccines are developed.
However, this is all useless conjecture, as it would be considered too much of a privacy breach and too discriminatory to actually be carried out.
Instead, we will chase our tails until we starve.
The UK tried this. It failed.
Even with old people in quarantine, we still can’t keep everyone from dying as there aren’t enough ventilators for a large spike.
Dan, please explain your statement. I’m very confused by what you mean “we still can’t keep everyone from dying”. If all at-risk are in quarantine, so who is still dying?
“as there aren’t enough ventilators for a large spike”
What “spike”? Ventilators for whom, the young healthy demographic?
Many young and healthy people are still requiring ventilators. This is not a problem that only affects the old.
They didn’t completely isolate the high risk groups (unless I’m incorrect, and the majority of the hospitalizations and fatalities in the UK are from low risk groups, but I think I’m right).
Very well said. This is insanity and will not work in the long run.
The UK government has suggested this approach and continuous to do so, it just doesn’t believe in mandating quarantine and allows people to make their own decisions on whether socializing is worth the risks.
“We are advising those who are at increased risk of severe illness from coronavirus (COVID-19) to be particularly stringent in following social distancing measures. This group includes those who are: aged 70 or older (regardless of medical conditions).
You want to be required to enter your age into your phone and let the government track you?
Also about 50% of the hospitalizations are between 30-60 years old so your plan doesn’t work.
Well said. Not enough attention is being given to the crippling effect a long term lock-down or social distancing would have on the economy, nor the Armageddon that will ensue if the economy fails the implications of which could be a lot worse than what we are looking at as a result of COVID 19. Unless we want to live in a completely different world a year from now, I don’t see a viable approach other than asking the the healthiest of society to go out there business as usual and bear the brunt of work for those who are more at risk and need to be isolated. That way the economy continues as we slowly expose the virus to the those in isolation at a pace that allows the hospitals to cope with the intake. It would need to be a national effort. But hiding indoors indefinitely, hoping for a vaccine or some miracle to save us all, just seems like a very unsophisticated strategy.
it’s also not going to work as many old ppl or immunocompromised live with their young kids etc
Yes it’s the only option from a humanitarian and economic stand point bill ackman lays it out perfectly watch this if you have a few minutes https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/18/bill-ackman-pleads-to-trump-to-increase-closures-to-save-the-economy-shut-it-down-now.html
We wouldn’t need a mandatory lockdown if people would just comply with recommendations and stop doing stupid things like making minyanim.
couldnt have said it better, also ppl are making such a chilul hashem with these big weddings
how are small minyanim of 10 people in a big empty shul, more dangerous or causing more chilul Hashem than crowds at the beaches in Florida which the governor refuses to close, or grocery stores & supermarkets full of people? seems to be that life is going on at almost normal pace or even a 50% pace, yet everyone cries “Minyanim & weddings” lol… yes, of course they need to be done in a safe way, but that is not causing deaths more than grocery shopping or unnecessary essential shopping and tons of people still going out to work every day. May Hashem continue to guard over all of us. This is an unprecedented situation for anyone around today and we need to be careful what we say.
its a chilul hashem because we’re held to a higher standard. I believe ppl are in denial as to the severity of this disease and that’s why they’ re still going to shul/minyan or weddings. why does our president need to call rabbanim to ask the orthodox jews to take this seriously and stay home??????? how is that not a chilul hashem that the president needs to reach out to us t ocooperate???
both of the proposals should happen and are actually overdue the question is a lockdown might really hamper for people who have to shelter in place while they do not have all their preparations for pesach up yet.
You would still be able to buy groceries and medicine.
Rabbi should be addressing what can be used that’s not KLP and also how to simplify
Kitniyot for all
And what’s gonna happen if people don’t listen are we to start arresting people? Would that help the situation? Having police arresting people and putting them in jail is a good recipe for social distancing? Israel is tapping people’s phones and violating their privacy, do you want us to follow that lead? How much of your rights and freedoms are you willing to give up? Is becoming a police state worth it?
Like I said, now is this going to help public health
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2020/03/19/israeli-protests-accuse-netanyahu-imposing-dictatorship/dQ9fBCKf3u7QG40rpjABWL/story.html
Without a vaccine or simple medical treatment, lockdown needs to be paired with a massive rollout of regular testing of the entire US population to be able to quickly isolate and quarantine each resurgence cluster.
What California is choosing to do right now, is what the entire country needs to do at the same time.
When their quarantining ends, the rest of the country might be just starting, making Californians quarantine somewhat longer than it needs to be.
WE THE PEOPLE “need” to be in sync or it’s not going to work.
I’m not sure if there’s any truth in it, but this afternoon I heard that Trump will be quarantining the entire country by this weekend, and is in the process of setting up the national guard accordingly and strategically to do this.
If this is true, I’m guessing that it’s probably not being announced earlier than necessary to avoid total chaos.
Not gonna happen
It’s actually incredible seeing people who for a long time were calling Trump an insane tyrant and a racist dictator. Now advocating that he have the power to lockup the entire country of 320 million people.
I haven’t seen the same people do that and I’m sure you haven’t either. But it sounds good.
You obviously haven’t seen CNN NBC or any other networks
you guys have to read what it says. look online. yes its a lock-down. but essential means basically every job out there you can think off. so its not really a lock down…
Not true. I live in LA. All stores & businesses are closed as of 10pm PDT tonight unless truly essential–doctors, grocery stores, pharmacies, laundry facilities. People who have office jobs & can work from home have been.
All schools, malls, restaurants, dept stores have already been closed all week. There’s been a curfew all week. All platforms for grocery deliveries (Amazon Fresh, Instacart, etc) stopped as of last night.
There is NO traffic—a rarity in LA.
If you don’t call this a lockdown, I don’t know what is…
i think its allot safer for groceries to be delivered to peoples homes (by people properly protected with masks, gloves etc.. than for people to go out to groceries. same with the pharmacies, laundry or any other essentials. It will have allot less people out on the streets. the delivery guy can just drop it at the door so no exposure is needed at all.
Only if everything is locked down including everything
How is a lockdown in kalifornia going to help?
There is ridiculously rampant homelessness all over the state. So all of them can just say “i am in my home,now get outta my way”
Stop adding to the hype because you’re shorting the stock market. Also, read WSJ not CNN. WSJ editorial board is writing to get back to work, this quarantine is not sustainable.
I’m a WSJ subscriber and read everything I can, thank you very much.
I’m also not shorting the market, but thanks for asking.
This is not hype, this is matter of life or death if we don’t act now. And really, Anonymous, you couldn’t use your real name.
I’m no expert but haven’t seen anyone discuss this. The effects of fully shutting down our economy for a month or 2 will have devastating financial consequences that can eventually result in everyone including younger people being denied essential medical care or food because of economic poverty similar to the Great Depression. Is it worth setting the country back to the woes and deaths of the Great Depression just to slow the curve?
It’s a lesser of 2 evils but one sounds way more evil.
I’m not saying this to be provocative I’m genuinely curious (and scared)
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/488383-from-viral-infection-to-financial-armageddon-could-a-recession-kill-more-than Actually this is being discussed widely by people who track data. It’s called the Preston curve meaning income and life expectancy goes hand in hand
The world has come a very long way from the 1930s. Today’s technological advances make it easily possible for enough production to be done by a small amount of people running large machines to sustain an entire country in terms of gross goods. Perhaps the main industry that needs such close person to person contact and cannot be done remotely is medical care. Almost everything else can be done in relative isolation or remotely utilizing robotics. For such a process to be streamlined effectively, there would need to be totalitarian control of the country by the government, and effective nationalization of all industry in a Marxist mannerism.
Fascinating how we can see government temporarily transform the economy into nationalization which will be quite hard to revert back to free markets. This pandemic is either going to be a medium duration recession or a monumental moment in history where governments and nations change dramatically in a way that we can’t predict (so much for my business degree I complete this summer and my LSAT score I studied months for)
I’m into doing anything to keep us safe including lock down, but do we know that lockdown helps?? Look at Italy and israel, since lockdown they had larger spikes in cases. Do we really have any data??
It’s like changing the water temp on your shower and expecting results within 2 seconds so you change it again.
These things take time.
The spike you see now really took place a week or 2 prior.
How can you compare Israel to Italy?
Israel doesn’t have one death because they didn’t wait to long. Italy ignored it for way to long. Unfortunately the us government seems to be following the path of Italy.
There are 35,000 Homeless people Living in downtown LA within a 10 block radius. I heard last night from a family member who works with the Mayor of Los Angeles that the mayor is scared Shless about the virus ripping through the homeless in downtown. Good luck with stopping that.
For newlyweds why do we have to make Pesach by ourselves? @Dan you’re not a newlywed, please realize you’re biased!
That is such a menial point
Making pesach is really not a big deal. Don’t always go running to Mommy. Grow up. One day you are going to have to deal with real problems, and Mommy isn’t always going to be there holding your hand.
My daughter is married just a year & has a newborn. She will most likely have to make Pesach & she’s not freaking out. She’s disappointed they can’t visit (we live in CA & they’re in NY) but she understands this is LIFE.
I started making Pesach @ 21 as a newlywed. We had a small apartment so not much to clean.
We made sedarim for the relatives & kept the food very simple.
Don’t stress. Life’s too short. It’s all in your attitude-that’s the only thing you can control.
So don’t make it yourselves. Use your wedding gift money and order takeout. Enjoy the company of each other at home
I live in Brooklyn and ordering takeout is not happening. The Kosher supermarkets are refusing orders. We shopped weekly at our local flatbush supermarket, not a discount store. The minute this hit they started refusing our orders. They said they could not cope.
Funny thing is, I worked retail for decades and when the busy time hit you worked harder and longer and put life on hold.
It’s like the pulling of the band-aid debate. It would seem that the most difficult choice is likely the most effective and will last the shortest…gotta yank that band-aid right off…
Exactly.
No the Easiest choice is to lockdown the hardest is to keep businesses open let ppl get infected which frightening to think about but the result will be far better because we won’t go into a depression bc of a lockdown and in a depression way more will die. Just saying there are many opinions of what should be done. It’s not that simple
The UK tried that. It failed. Too many people got sick too quickly, which is going to lead to unnecessary deaths.
To clarify. We probably should do a lockdown but we should realize there’s going to be bad effects No matter what we do
Exactly so just let everyone get it and let’s move on with our lives already
what about the0d sick and weak should they all die out if u say get it and carry on it will be impossible to protect them.
Sí, lockdown is relative as we see that each country or location that institutes has their own degree of restrictions….
A lockdown wont work, are they going to wait until the last case in the entire world is reported and then reopen the state otherwise it’s a giant waist of time unless the elderly and immuno compromised actually listen and self quarantine for a month and let this run its course we cant destroy the country/world economy which will cause a lot more death in the long run. Let everyone get it and then you have true herd immunity
A 2 week lockdown will slow the spread to a trickle. You can then isolate areas that still need lockdowns.
Herd immunity sounds great, but getting there without a lockdown means massive amounts of unnecessary deaths as we don’t have the capacity to handle that.
Yes for 2 weeks but it will explode as soon as the lock down is over. And who says it will only take 2 weeks at what point do we say get back to work 4 weeks 8 weeks by that point it’s too late
After X amount of time it should all be gone. Might need to keep the borders closed for a while though if other countries don’t have a simultaneous lockdown.
Either way, where are we now? People are out of work, kids are out of school, but what’s being fixed?
You’re right about that. There is zero plan of action here. Zilch. Nada. It’s quite pathetic. At some point we’ll figure out that all the plans in the world are useless. We have nothing and nobody to turn to but Hashem (for those who really believe).
There are many, many people (such as myself) who will voluntarily continue to shelter in place after two weeks pass. Why? Because we don’t want to get it, and we don’t want to be asymptomatic carriers either.
Whomever has the luxury of working/studying from home should definitely stay put in the coming few months until we get an effective treatment or the curve has been flattened to a safe point.
Your right we probably do need some sort of lockdown to avoid mass death.
what’s more important is getting ppl to realize the enormity of the situation. An the sacrifices we need to make. I’m 24 live in an apartment with friends and none of my friends realize the severity
Of the situation. They take it seriously relative to the severity they think it deserves which is minimal (One of my friends came down with symptoms and made a quick run to the supermarket)
Many young people go on your website. moreover many young ppl respect you.
You should dedicate a thoughtful post to this written specifically for young (18-30) readers.
If everyone in the high risk groups isolate, herd immunity should theoretically be manageable. 235000 cases in, they should have the available dates to ascertain whether this is true or not. The lack of coordination and clarity and overall government response has been clumsy and abysmal. It’s shocking that Trump only went bankrupt 106X more than the average American, considering what a poor leader and manager he is.
NY needs a lockdown also, weddings still going on in ultra orthodox areas
I live in Los Angeles and although it’s very inconvenient, the lockdown will hopefully curb the spread of the virus.
People are way too panicked which never helps anyone. There’s not much we can do; it’s all out of our hands. So, everyone should just stay home, read, play cards or board games, organize your closets (& your life) and take care of things (you never have time for) at a leisurely pace. Slower pace in the pre-Pesach rush is something we should welcome, however it comes.
FYI FWIW even in Israel where there is complete lockdown, one of the many exceptions is to go to a minyan of max 10! So please keep that in mind in your rant…
Do it now for 2 weeks-1 month. Worse than dragging this out.
couldn’t say it better. the longer we wait for this, the worse it will get. it boggles my mind that we saw what happened with Italy and not taking it seriously enough, yet the politicians are dragging their feet to a lock down, the sooner you do it, the more lives you save
We need tests! If we had tests we could isolate the asymptomatic people and stop this in its tracks
I’m sorry, but am I the only one in the world that thinks this is a gross overreaction?
I preface this by saying my family and I are abiding by all of the restrictions in our state (not leaving the house except for essentials, no playdates, etc.)
Seems like we are taking extremely drastic steps that could have devastating long term effects for something we are completely unsure about. If we did this for every potential pandemic, the world would not be able to function.
I’m not saying this isn’t serious. I’m not saying that a national lockdown won’t save lives. It inevitably will. But draconian restrictions would save a significant amount of lives for many different kinds of death. There were 35k motor vehicle related deaths in 2018. Changing the speed limit to 10 mph would save THOUSANDS of lives. Close to all of them. Sure, it would take 3 times longer to get around, but so what? What’s one life worth? Surely saving thousands of lives is worth a little inconvenience.
That’s the argument here. People are very quick to judge those of us that are not reacting as harshly as everyone else with this virus. As if we don’t care about saving people’s lives. Of course we do. Many members of my family are elderly and/or immunocompromised. I care deeply about their well being.
Everyone is comparing this to the flu. They are talking about mortality rates. The flu’s is .01 and this virus seems to range anywhere from .02 to 8% or even higher. Very scary!
However what’s not often written is that the flu’s mortality rate is based on ESTIMATED cases, not confirmed. The CONFIRMED cases of the flu this year (source https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm) are only 222k. With about 22k deaths, that’s almost a 10(!) percent mortality rate. It’s only when using the estimated number of flu cases (36 milliion) that we get to that .01 percent.
When looking at the covid19 mortality rate (https://covid19info.live/), we are only using the CONFIRMED cases to calculate the rate.
I’m not saying that this isn’t worse than the flu. I’m saying we don’t know. But there are a lot of things in life we don’t know. This just seems like the perfect storm of mass hysteria. Just not certain it’s warranted.
Wow, so we’ll said. Thank you.
This is exactly right. The WHO and other groups have tried to do exactly this for SARS, MERS, Ebola, Swine Flu, etc. in the past but we went on with our lives. Suddenly the whole world is complying and it just comes across as one giant power trip. Mayor, Governors and other politicians are falling all over themselves trying to announce the biggest restrictions out there just to make the news.
The death toll worldwide from this just cracked 10K last night. This is not the apocalypse.
Get busy living or get busy dying.
Excellent write up! Thanks.
Have you ever seen the healthcare system get completely overwhelmed from the flu?
its not just about the mortality rate, its about infecting the eldery & immune compromised. the hospitals have only so much capacity and only so many respirators. if we go out in the street and infect everyone the hospitals will have to choose who to keep alive and who to give respirators to, just look at what happened in Italy because they took the attitude you described
Yes, but if the hysteria would tamp down, I guarantee there’d be less panic, and less people going to the hospital. Also the same effect would be had to simply have the elderly and immunocompromised self quarantine. Which is happening now anyway. (along with everyone else).
Everyone brings up Italy. Italy is the worst case scenario. They’re healthcare system is not comparable to ours (31st vs 1st). Also look at the number of dead there. Horrific. But the total deaths do not even come close to the amount of people killed every year by the flu…or car accidents…or homicides..or any number of preventable deaths using extreme measures.
These are silly comparisons.
We know about the annual deaths from other problems. None of those things overwhelm the system.
This is a new illness and we don’t know how many deaths it will cause if left unchecked.
That’s a silly argument. H1N1, Mers, Sars, etc were all new viruses. All could have overwhelm the system the same as covid. The difference is the hysteria.
Except we see what this is doing in other countries and how it overwhelms the system. Those didn’t.
The point is even if it DOES overwhelm the system, at what number of deaths does it justify these sweeping changes to everyday life and devastating the economy?
That was NOT your point. Your point was disproven.
The scariest part of this whole thing is how quickly and easily people are willing to give up their basic human rights/constitutional rights to the government.
For pekuach nefesh we all have to sacrifice. That means temporarily giving up things that we would otherwise enjoy – including, yes, davening in a minyan, spending Pesach with family, and much more. This. Is. Temporary. No, we don’t know how long it will last, but even in a “free country”, some things are far more important than our individual freedoms (whether granted to us by the states, the federal government, or a Higher Power).
@Jesse
+1
Then perhaps you’d agree that we should reduce the speed limit to 10 MPH or completely ban cars altogether because lives would be saved and we have to give up conveniences…. As mentioned above.
Temporary is not necessarily an answer I don’t believe it was right to lock up the Japanese during ww2 even though it was temporary although maybe you do. And exactly how temporary is it, what if this goes on for months should we wear mean locked up in our homes for many months
The effect of shutting down entire industries and peoples lives can have devastating and long lasting effects and harm many people too.
My 22 yr old says there are a lot of conspiracy theories out there- Beware-You should be aware that troll farms (people hired to post messages that divide us), foreign states, and bots actively post comments online. These agents post comments as both “democrats” and “republicans”. These comments are intended to get us to turn on each other, and dìvide us as a nation. It’s a form of Psychological Warfare. You can identify them by their outlandishness. e.g. calls for civil war, gross misrepresentation of facts, obvious invoking of anger/hate, etc.
One thing is clear.
We are confused.
And we are but pawns in process that is so drastic, it can only be orchestrated from Above. Sit tight and let’s see where this all leads to…
Feel the ground under you. It is supporting you. right now.
Breath. It is keeping you alive. right now.
I don’t run the US of A.
I run myself. A little, anyway.
I live in LA and currently there is NO lockdown
I think about how fragile our sustenance is. If the Farms aren’t harvesting, if the factories aren’t making food, if the trucks aren’t delivering, if there’s no fuel for the trucks because the refineries shut down. I feel tremendous gratitude to Hashem and to the factory workers, the truck drivers and loaders, the refinery workers, the utility workers and all the other ordinary people who are keeping things going. What would happen if it all shut down?
Illinois is about to issue a stay at home order
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/illinois-governor-expected-to-issue-stay-at-home-order-sources/2241118/
The whole goal of quarantine/lockdown/stay at home is to slow the spread of the disease and keep safe those who are high-risk. They will be protected both by decreased exposure to the disease, and by better access to medical aid when it is needed because the system will not be overwhelmed by a huge influx of cases in a short period of time (flattening the curve).
This is not the only way to protect those who need protecting. What we should be doing is isolating all the people who are high-risk. Tell them to stay home, even for essential things. Do no go outside, or you risk being exposed. This will allow children to stay in school. This will allow the majority of jobs to continue, and will significantly lower the financial hardship currently being experienced by so many.
For those who say that the UK tried this and it failed them, not exactly. The UK told old people to stay home, and that was about it. Of course it didn’t work! There are so many young people who are high-risk too, as many are quick to point out when the isolation of old people is suggested. That’s why many are suggesting that anyone who is high-risk should stay home. Smokers, vapers, heart disease, old people, asthma, etc. In Italy, 99% of those who died had at least one underlying health condition. (https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-COVID-2019_17_marzo-v2.pdf)
If you are HIGH RISK you should be self-isolating. And not just staying home but isolating. We can keep these people safe by keeping them away from everyone else. This will allow us to achieve herd immunity without risking the lives of all these people. This will allow us to navigate this pandemic without driving the country into the ground.
We can only keep the entire country on “pause” for so long. And is it even worth it? If we all stay in quarantine for two weeks, or four weeks, or 3 months, or a year, or however long it ends up being, what will stop CoViD from just coming right back? If we are successful at stopping the spread by staying away from each other for as long as is deemed necessary, why assume that when we all come out of hiding everything will be ok? As soon as Corona rears its ugly head, we will be back where we started.
We absolutely need to be protecting our old and our sick and our immunocompromised. But destroying the country is not the only way, and certainly not the best way, to keep our friends and family and neighbors safe.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing.html
great article, thank you!
TN residents started self quarantining days before the local, then state governments “mandated” it. (Which really can’t be enforced as it stands right now. Has anyone been arrested in CA, NY or elsewhere?)