Essential/Nonessential vs. Safe/Not safe

Should government allow nonessential but "safe" businesses to open now?

  • Yes

    Votes: 32 33.0%
  • Yes, but with specific safety restrictions

    Votes: 32 33.0%
  • No

    Votes: 33 34.0%

  • Total voters
    97
They're going to need to do this in garden centers on the Michigan border by the end of the month! We've already been talking about the possibility of popping across the state line to get plants if (really, when) our governor extends our shutdown again unless she modifies it to allow nurseries and garden centers to offer the same curbside service everyone else is allowed to offer.

This is the reason I can get behind departments of the big box stores being roped off while letting people purchase their other essentials. I can't see how it's right to be buying plants at Costco or Home Depot or whatever, yet not be able to buy plants from local nurseries.

I did an electronic survey a local nursery emailed me a couple weeks back where they were trying to assess customer interest in being able to place orders for plants and book a time for curbside pickup as they were preparing to reach out to the Governor's Office in the hopes of being granted that ability to operate. They're a family owned operation and have been growing their stock in their greenhouses for a couple months now. Realistically if they can't move stock within the next month they're largely done for the year, maybe forever. I just don't see the sense.
 
real talk? if people keep getting impatient and find reasons to go against the stay home orders and distancing guidelines.....there WON'T be a light at the end of the tunnel for a long while. All of the (valid) concern about the economy should be motivating people to follow the distancing and stay home guidelines to the letter, and stop treating them as up to interpretation. The sooner we get past the peaks of the virus in each area, and the hospitals have a manageable flow of patients, the sooner we will be able to start easing back into something resembling normal.
Yep.
 
Well, that was the idea when we started... I'm not sure it is any more.



Actually, it did. The cell phone data maps have been stunning in the percentage reductions in travel - over 90% in many places. But none of the models have been particularly accurate so far. We just don't know enough about the virus to produce good ones, I don't think.



But since only the most serious cases are eligible for testing, those rates are extremely inflated by the exclusion of all asymptomatic and mild cases from the count.



Where is that the goal? In our state, leaders are deliberately vague about the prospects of anything reopening at any given time, and in California (the only other state I'm following closely because it is where my daughter goes to school), the governor has laid out several standards that are frankly impossible to meet as conditions of reopening before a vaccine. A report out of Harvard is telling people to prepare for this to continue into 2022 with possible flare ups through 2024, and our leaders are saying as long as the virus is out there, they'll do whatever it takes to stop spread.

I haven't seen any signs that we're going to see anything reopen in the next weeks or months unless politics force it (my governor is going to find herself hamstrung by the legislature later this month, I think, and other states with divided government seem to be pointing in the same direction).



They're going to need to do this in garden centers on the Michigan border by the end of the month! We've already been talking about the possibility of popping across the state line to get plants if (really, when) our governor extends our shutdown again unless she modifies it to allow nurseries and garden centers to offer the same curbside service everyone else is allowed to offer.
I have a good friend who lives in MI. Greenhouses and garden centers are open and doing curbside pick ups. I don't know where this idea came from they're closed. Call your local mom and pop greenhouse or check out their facebook page or website if you want more information.
 
The peaks are only determined at death rates and hospitalization rates. They are not determined by the number of people listed as positive of the virus. You can have a high number of people with the virus but have a manageable rate of hospitalization and utilization of the health care system. You can have a high number of people with the virus but have a lower overall death rate. You can also have the reverse. It's why there was so much focus on the ICU bed shortages, hospital beds in general, PPE, etc

Your statement is the reason a lot of people have pushed back. It's the veered off the path of the thoughtprocess behind what stay at home orders and flatten the curve were originally designed to do.

I definitely understand that. And I can totally understand pushback when there is medically verifiable evidence that the hospitals are faring well and resources aren't in danger of being stretched too thin. Here, we are just barely coming up to our peak and our hospitals are barely keeping up. But people here look to other parts of the country, and too-soft language from our state government, and find reasons to ignore or stretch the quarantining guidelines. Friends and family that work in multiple hospitals here are very worried about what the next couple of weeks bring.

It is hard because different states have different needs. But unless we are going to put a halt on interstate travel for nonessential reasons (which would be nigh on impossible), someone from an area like mine where it's still running like wildfire could easily travel to an area like yours where it's under control and a week/ish ahead in the process, and start the bus rolling all over again. Planes are still flying and folks can still get in a car and drive across state lines. Are restrictions tightening because of what's going on inside the state, or what could be brought to the state from outside state lines? I don't really know, but I do know that I'm trying to look at things from as high an overview as possible. There are still states where the peak isn't due to hit them for another 2 weeks...but with no measures to prevent travel from those yet-to-peak states, how do you prevent areas from being reinfected and creating a new surge? I can't see it being containable unless we hold off reopening until most of the country is in the clear.
 

It's been said in the past... you want to get past the peaks quicker? Open everything up. "Flattening the curve" EXTENDS the amount of time you're dealing with this. It does absolutely NOTHING to make anything go quicker.

Im ready to “rip the band aid off” and start opening up in areas that aren’t active hot spots with overburdened hospitals. As long as hospitals aren’t overwhelmed (hospitals in my area are very slow) you should be able to resume some normalcy at your own risk. If not this is going to last forever.
 
I have a good friend who lives in MI. Greenhouses and garden centers are open and doing curbside pick ups. I don't know where this idea came from they're closed. Call your local mom and pop greenhouse or check out their facebook page or website if you want more information.

I live in MI myself. I have received emails from 2 garden centers I do business with stating they are closed per Governor's orders.
 
What light do you see? I'm honestly curious about this. Because in my state, the unemployment fund will be completely drained in two months, suicide, overdose and domestic violence calls are all rising, and we're being told 1 of every 4 businesses in our state is unlikely to survive. I don't see a lot of light in that, especially as the conversation is shifting from "flatten the curve to allow the healthcare system to keep up and buy time to increase capacity" to "stay home until there is a vaccine".
People keep repeating this but I have not seen any official saying this? Who is saying 'stay home until there is a vaccine'?
 
I live in MI myself. I have received emails from 2 garden centers I do business with stating they are closed per Governor's orders.
Sorry, I don't know what to tell you. They are open by her, because they are allowed to be.
 
Sorry, I don't know what to tell you. They are open by her, because they are allowed to be.

They're operating contrary to the governor's orders if they're open.

Golf courses are closed. JoAnn Fabrics specifically received a directive to close when they tried to run curbside operations. Lawn services are not supposed to be out cutting lawns -- which is being openly violated at the encouragement of many, many local officials all over the state.
 
People keep repeating this but I have not seen any official saying this? Who is saying 'stay home until there is a vaccine'?

There has been lots of "news' reports on it.

I just want my day to day activities back, kids activities, bible study, trips to the zoo and so on, but I don't know how any of it is going to work, especially for my kids activities because keeping 6ft apart isnt possible.
 
Many states have closed all but what the government deems to be "essential" businesses. While that was a quick and easy way to limit public exposure to the coronavirus, it might not be the best solution. I'm starting to think that it is time for government to start to distinguish between safe and unsafe business as far as public exposure goes. For example, landscapers are allowed to do maintenance and repair work but they can't install a new landscape. How does that work create a public health threat? Another example is with construction. Governments have deemed construction of new affordable housing as essential but no other housing. How is building one house different than another? I can go to the supermarket to buy food but I can't drop off donations to Goodwill. One can argue that dropping bags off at Goodwill is far less risky than spending an hour in a supermarket with many other people, some of whom don't follow social distancing and other safety measures. I can get on a NYC subway but I can't go to a movie theater (even with social distancing enforced). In some areas, I can go to a store like Walmart to buy food, but I can't buy a TV in the same store. As government starts to develop plans to reopen the economy, I think they should start with opening business that can be safe (with or without additional safety rules). What do you think?

Every state, every county, every district, every town, every business will be handling the same scenarios differently in accordance to what is best for them (or what they think is best).

Landscapers here are doing everything, no restrictions. We just had a bunch of trees cut down, no issues.

I know of no construction restrictions here, they are still building some commercial buildings, building the park down the street, putting new roof on our post office ... construction is exempt.

We've been taking donations to Goodwill all along and they are only stopping accepting them after Saturday because they have no more space.

Public transportation is essential but has been changed keeping drivers safe. No charge.

As far as stores that are open, it's up to store to dictate their own business. Lot of small businesses are open but for curb pickup only. We purchased at Best Buy, you can't go in, just pull up and they put in trunk. But in other places maybe the rule is only groceries can be open/sold so the multi-dept stores like Walmart & Target are restricted.

In our town because the governor made some rules and says he is over ruling locals ... our police will not enforce any virus rules. If a rule is being broken they said for us to call the state. The next town has strict rules and they plan to enforce, charge and fine residents. Likely a court case in the making. Hard to be aware of every rule for every area but ....

ALL OF THIS is working within the rules set in place for here .......... everywhere is different. Some is dumb, some is short sighted but our only complaint is with each governing body where we live.


I did vote no because I don't think we have enough info at this point to make a blanket statement. Maybe in a few weeks to start a slow opening but then it will still be up to every single business to decide what is best for them, their employees and their customers. Only the government offices can be forced open.
 
Im ready to “rip the band aid off” and start opening up in areas that aren’t active hot spots with overburdened hospitals. As long as hospitals aren’t overwhelmed (hospitals in my area are very slow) you should be able to resume some normalcy at your own risk. If not this is going to last forever.

OK but what's to prevent people from hotspot areas from showing up in the open areas of the country just because they can be less restricted than at home? How do you prevent people from areas still dealing with peaks from traveling to areas past their peak? You can't.

And it's not your average layperson who is spreading this far and wide. My brother and I were joking that this was a disease of the privileged in the west, but it's not really a joke. Business travelers and those who could afford to travel to China for pleasure brought it back to the states. The Boston outbreak's ground zero was a Biogen gala that included all high ranking execs and donors. The outbreak in southern NH originated with a small group of university brass and college donors. You simply can't guarantee that once areas of the country that are recovering reopen, people with the means and the desire from areas still peaking won't travel and bring the virus with them all over again.
 
There has been lots of "news' reports on it.

I just want my day to day activities back, kids activities, bible study, trips to the zoo and so on, but I don't know how any of it is going to work, especially for my kids activities because keeping 6ft apart isnt possible.
The people saying this should show those 'news' reports so it doesn't sound they are creating a straw man.

I think everyone wishes they could just go back to normal, but unfortunately that can't happen right now.
 
OK but what's to prevent people from hotspot areas from showing up in the open areas of the country just because they can be less restricted than at home? How do you prevent people from areas still dealing with peaks from traveling to areas past their peak? You can't.

And it's not your average layperson who is spreading this far and wide. My brother and I were joking that this was a disease of the privileged in the west, but it's not really a joke. Business travelers and those who could afford to travel to China for pleasure brought it back to the states. The Boston outbreak's ground zero was a Biogen gala that included all high ranking execs and donors. The outbreak in southern NH originated with a small group of university brass and college donors. You simply can't guarantee that once areas of the country that are recovering reopen, people with the means and the desire from areas still peaking won't travel and bring the virus with them all over again.

This virus isn’t going away. We need to learn how to live with it. Being quarantined for months is just going to prolong everything. No matter when we decide to open up all of your points will have to be taken into account. I say let’s do it sooner rather than later.
 
It's been said in the past... you want to get past the peaks quicker? Open everything up. "Flattening the curve" EXTENDS the amount of time you're dealing with this. It does absolutely NOTHING to make anything go quicker.
I used to think people didn't understand this, but I've come to the conclusion that it is a mostly willful misunderstanding. Some people just need someone to blame, and people who shop or visit family or go out for walks in the wrong places or whatever are a good scapegoat.

I'm actually well aware of what flattening the curve was meant to do. Controlling and slowing the infection rate to keep hospitals and medical resources from being overwhelmed was always the goal. Getting past the peak use of resources without completely overtaxing our medical resources was the goal. I am completely fine with the restrictions lasting as long as they reasonably need to - what I don't want to see is the peak resource use extending for long periods of time because we didn't slow the infection rate enough. Too many friends and family working in healthcare that are literally working themselves to extreme exhaustion just trying to keep up.
 
I definitely understand that. And I can totally understand pushback when there is medically verifiable evidence that the hospitals are faring well and resources aren't in danger of being stretched too thin. Here, we are just barely coming up to our peak and our hospitals are barely keeping up. But people here look to other parts of the country, and too-soft language from our state government, and find reasons to ignore or stretch the quarantining guidelines. Friends and family that work in multiple hospitals here are very worried about what the next couple of weeks bring.
I think you'd get pushback regardless because instead of treating the situation like it was in the beginning where if only we reduce the burden on healthcare systems we can do this we can do this we can do this. Too many people latched onto that but IMO didn't see the potential ramifications of repeating "if only". Psychologically it helps us cope that part I understand.

I'm far more worried about my state and county (which is only just now ramping up who they test) lack of testing because orders in place and orders extended and orders modified without data aren't for the betterment of the citizens of each area as a whole..paying attention to how it's gone down it's mostly a game of domino effect..once one area does something it puts pressure on another area to do the same. The aspect of being able to look at each area differently is somewhat lost in part of that process especially with how some stay at home orders were formulated. It's easy to look at in my county for example that the rate of positives is increasing at a level above comfortability...yes well when you only tested for weeks those who were hospitalized you're bound to have an increase when you're widening who you test.


It is hard because different states have different needs. But unless we are going to put a halt on interstate travel for nonessential reasons (which would be nigh on impossible), someone from an area like mine where it's still running like wildfire could easily travel to an area like yours where it's under control and a week/ish ahead in the process, and start the bus rolling all over again. Planes are still flying and folks can still get in a car and drive across state lines.
I don't really know, but I do know that I'm trying to look at things from as high an overview as possible. There are still states where the peak isn't due to hit them for another 2 weeks...but with no measures to prevent travel from those yet-to-peak states, how do you prevent areas from being reinfected and creating a new surge? I can't see it being containable unless we hold off reopening until most of the country is in the clear.

These above two statements are part of what I mentioned a bit ago on another thread. Here's that quote:

"There are several different kinds of people out there right now but here's two kinds:

1) Those that will not accept that any presence of the virus is allowable
2) Those who accept that the virus will likely be around us (it's already strongly suggested it will be seasonal) and make decisions from there"
-----------------------------------------
Closing our borders as a country or screening those coming in or selectively baring citizens is one way but within our country itself by means of the highway and road system is not feasible nor truthfully practical nor does it guarantee the rate of spread doesn't occur IMO so I agree on your comment about it being basically impossible.


Are restrictions tightening because of what's going on inside the state, or what could be brought to the state from outside state lines?
This is part of maybe the different experiences around.

Where I live is a metro straddled between two states. Our metro for the most part is working together however the largest city in the metro independently extended the stay at home from April 24th to May 15th, I expect other counties around to do the same including mine but they aren't required to and haven't just quite yet. It's a fact of life here that you will cross city lines, you will likely cross state lines. We treat ourselves as 1 for the most part despite being in two different states.

However, the states have their own stay at home orders. My state as a whole is now May 3rd up from April 19th. The governor is trying to do what's best for the entire state, the local government (as in my county) is trying to do what's best for our own particular area (of which is in the area with high cases comparitively to the rest of the state).

There are talks of doing a regional collaboration with CO,KS and MO like the west coast and east coast have been doing. Those collaborations are taking into consideration economies and realistic aspects of borders. I do not anticipate them tracking down our license plates to pull us over if we are on the other side of the state line, most especially in my area where that's just plain unrealistic given how many people work and live on one side and work and live on the other side. But I do expect them looking into rate of new cases, testing protocols while keeping in mind the ramifications of it all if they end up doing that collaboration.

____________________________
I should say I'm not all for opening just like that it's not a light switch to me. I am quite concerned with the ideology of closures til the virus is gone for this wave we're in now especially if it's seasonal and we experience the virus habitually.
 
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People keep repeating this but I have not seen any official saying this? Who is saying 'stay home until there is a vaccine'?

No one is saying it in so many words. If they did, I suspect a lot more people would just decide to start ignoring the orders rather than face the prospect of living this way for a couple of years. But the shifting strategy - no more talk about expanding hospital capacity or increasing testing, warnings to schools to prepare to continue online in the fall, tightening restrictions even when new cases are declining - all points that way. I suppose you could look at Newsom's standards for reopening California, which include such impossibilities as schools not being able to reopen before a vaccine unless they can maintain social distancing, as evidence that we're moving toward reopening... but it is an impossible standard (can you imagine trying to enforce social distancing recess or hiring enough teachers and building enough portables for 6' spacing in the classroom?! or college dorms trying to establish social distancing plans for bathrooms that serve a whole floor?!) and little more than a round-about way of saying there will be no school until there is a vaccine.
 
This virus isn’t going away. We need to learn how to live with it. Being quarantined for months is just going to prolong everything. No matter when we decide to open up all of your points will have to be taken into account. I say let’s do it sooner rather than later.

Other countries that have been ahead of the US as far as when the virus began ravaging the population haven't moved any quicker than we have to reopening, why do you assume it's correct for the US to abandon a strategy we went into knowing it was a sacrifice the moment it looks like we're reaching pikes and plateaus? Do you think the Chinese don't want to get their economy firing on as many cylinders as they can, full speed ahead? They're only beginning to make moves in that direction. A lot was sacrificed for this strategy, I'd hate to see it flushed down the drain and completely wasted because we all are worried and impatient.
 
I have a good friend who lives in MI. Greenhouses and garden centers are open and doing curbside pick ups. I don't know where this idea came from they're closed. Call your local mom and pop greenhouse or check out their facebook page or website if you want more information.

If they're doing that, they're doing it in violation of the governor's order. The Farm Bureau and Growers Association are lobbying to get permission for curbside service, but so far, they've been ignored or denied.

https://www.michiganfarmnews.com/garden-centers-greenhouses-to-gov-whitmer-we-doubt-we-will-survive-
Greenhouses in my area are still updating their Facebook pages and, in some cases, taking orders but it is all built around a May 1 opening... which we know is highly unlikely to actually happen because the governor isn't going to let the order expire on 4/30 as scheduled. The hope, according to a friend who is from a well-known farm family in my area, is that the next 'generation' order will allow them to offer curbside service or delivery rather than simply being an extension of the existing rules.
 
No one is saying it in so many words. If they did, I suspect a lot more people would just decide to start ignoring the orders rather than face the prospect of living this way for a couple of years. But the shifting strategy - no more talk about expanding hospital capacity or increasing testing, warnings to schools to prepare to continue online in the fall, tightening restrictions even when new cases are declining - all points that way. I suppose you could look at Newsom's standards for reopening California, which include such impossibilities as schools not being able to reopen before a vaccine unless they can maintain social distancing, as evidence that we're moving toward reopening... but it is an impossible standard (can you imagine trying to enforce social distancing recess or hiring enough teachers and building enough portables for 6' spacing in the classroom?! or college dorms trying to establish social distancing plans for bathrooms that serve a whole floor?!) and little more than a round-about way of saying there will be no school until there is a vaccine.

Perfect!
 


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