GoofGoof
Premium Member
Ok. Sorry for the back and forth on this, but several people were accusing me of not understanding your position and putting words in your mouth. I just wanted to know if that was the case because I was pretty sure I knew where you were coming from. Outside of defining “current measures” my description of your position was fairly accurate.
As far as your question I’m not seeing anywhere outside of maybe NYC where you can argue a large number of businesses are forced to be closed today. The stay at home orders are all expired at this point. I support mask requirements, social distancing, indoor capacity limits, limits on large group gatherings. If we did all of that in conjunction with more contact tracing and testing that’s the best path to having the majority of the economy open. If in your worst case scenario the vaccines fail and the virus lingers for 4 years I believe most of these restrictions should/will continue. Improvements in testing and tracing will be the only way to relax some restrictions. We are seeing that now with plans for airlines and cruise ships doing quick tests. I would assume that the longer this carries on the more of that we will see. I don’t see the country just removing all restrictions and letting the virus rip while isolating the elderly.
On to the concept of removing all restrictions and just isolating the elderly because they represent the majority of deaths. How would that work exactly? So businesses are open but if you are over a certain age (55? 65?) you are refused service? Putting aside for a minute the high risk people that are not elderly you are essentially saying isolate the elderly so the country can fully open for everyone else who are unlikely to die if infected. So older Americans are supposed to just stay locked in their houses? What if they still need to work or provide child care for their grand children? How would they eat? Someone could deliver groceries to them but they wouldn’t be able to go to stores and shop for themselves. What about doctors appointments? If there are no restrictions and the elderly are supposed to be isolated how do they see doctors or go to a hospital? On the quality of life side isolating the elderly means they can’t do much of anything. In the last few pages alone there have been multiple posts with anecdotal stories about people over 70 who don’t want to be stuck with their lives limited by Covid. Your plan essentially limits them from shopping, eating out, visiting family and friends, going to WDW. That’s a lot to ask to keep bars fully open, bring full crowds back to sports and lift indoor dining capacity limits.
IMHO we don’t need to isolate the elderly if we can make it safer for everyone to be out in public and also reduce the total number of infections so they are less likely to get sick. We do that by wearing masks, social distancing, limiting large group gatherings, limiting indoor dining capacity and only allow bars to be open if people are seated at a table. For older Americans, especially those with health issues it is better to avoid unnecessary exposure but I don’t think it’s practical to make that the only plan. The vast majority of the economy can stay open under the restrictions I laid out. Some bars/clubs will suffer, some restaurants too. Over the long term that’s a much more practical way to handle this situation vs just isolating all of the elderly and letting the virus rip.
