I think a key point that is overlooked is that it’s not the restrictions that the government has placed on non-essential businesses that will be an extreme financial challenge to these businesses, its the actual virus and the fear associated with this disease that will bankrupt many businesses. For example, even if all the restrictions were lifted today, you are not going to see the public flocking to enclosed restaurants, bars, lounges, concerts, yoga studios, gyms, hotels, resorts, conferences, casinos, sporting events, air travel, etc. like it was before this pandemic.
The virus is the real problem, and until its under control commerce in many, many industries will suffer greatly no matter if we have restrictions in place or not. You can go ahead and blame the government restrictions on loss revenue to businesses but I think the criticism is unwarranted and misdirected. Businesses will have to adapt or die and new business models will emerge to better address the safety of the consumer and their workers.
And even then they may not. Many companies that pivoted to WFH have been finding that the arrangement has been working surprisingly well and many will be considering maintaining some degree as part of their post-lockdown contingency plans. Expect to see a greater percentage of the workforce continue at least some degree of WFH even after restrictions are lifted. That could mean sharing workspaces (hotelling) and rotating staff to only be in the office 1-2 days a week. I know that dh has already started having those kinds of conversations at his workplace. If that trend continues businesses won’t need as large of commercial spaces as they currently occupy and will be looking to downsize. An offshoot of that will be commercial districts with fewer people which will impact eateries who are highly dependent on that traffic.
I agree that outdoor activity is less risky because UV is a good disinfectant and a breeze disperses particles. And that’s helpful, but IMO probably only a small piece of the Florida puzzle. We do spend a lot of time outdoors, but not all and indoor AC was widely in use during March and April, and there’s reason to believe certain recirculating AC can actually spread C19. As the summer progresses and people spend more time indoors in the AC I think the hot climate will work against Florida because people just don’t spend as much time outside when it’s 95 degrees with 95% humidity.
I agree with the article on these theories:
Floridians as a whole practiced social distancing earlier and will continue to do so after restrictions are lifted. Not all obviously, but enough that it makes a difference.
The national news focused solely on statewide decrees rather than what was going on a local level. Florida wasn't in statewide shutdown, but individual counties and cities acted fairly quickly to shut down things that were obvious sources of crowding. IOW, so what if the governor didn't "shut Florida down" by a certain date, the vast majority of the places that people congregate had already been shut down by the local authorities. That's still happening, BTW. In my county, some beaches are open and some are closed; some parks are open and some are closed; the county has lifted restrictions on certain business and the city has kept other restrictions in place. The clutching of pearls that 'Florida' has lifted SAH is a huge overreaction and failure to recognize that Florida is just using a different model of allowing local governments to determine what SAH is needed.
Floridians have the luxury to practice distancing because relatively few use public transportation or are living in the types of densely populated urban areas common in large NE cities.
Disagree with the article on this theory:
Increased testing capability helped. My observation is anecdotal and I'm in an area that has not had a large infection rate, but from what I've seen this is BS. Testing is still not widely available and the lack of coordination from a state level is shameful. Same with PPE. Again, this could be different and made a difference in the more heavily impacted areas like Miami, though. And if so, targeting scarce resources like testing and PPE to those areas was a good choice.
My own theories:
Locals often avoid tourist areas during peak tourist season. When the infections were first ramping up, I was concerned because February - April are our absolute peak tourist season with some areas having many more visitors than locals. Tourists from all over the world. But I didn't think about how most of us locals avoid the tourist areas like the plague during those times. We're not going to Disney during March generally and most of the hordes on the beaches are from out of state. So the tourists did come and bring infection, but they mostly infected each other. Now that tourist season is over and it's entering the time when locals take a breath and start to enjoy their local favorite restaurants and activities, that luck could change.
We are also fortunate that the infection started spreading towards the end of our growing season. Florida has a large agricultural base and our growing season for most things is roughly October - April. Starting at the end of May it's just too hot for many things so there's a decrease in activity. I suspect if C19 had been ramping up just a month or two earlier, we might have seen infections in the people who pick vegetables and fruits similar to what the meat packing industry is seeing in their plants; it's a similar workforce that works and lives in similar crowded conditions with few to no protections, PPE, healthcare or social standing.
Much of the news coverage is politically based and is really an opinion and attempt to influence rather than unbiased coverage. I didn't vote for either Trump or De Santis and am not a supporter of either but the coverage of Florida often appears slanted in a way to cast them in a bad light no matter what they do. The CNN article about how scientists are puzzled by Florida's low infection rate is a good example. Light on fact and then the few facts - like death rate - are ignored to conclude it was luck, throwing in some gratuitous insults along the way. Unfortunately, the biased reporting means it's often difficult to tell what is actually happening in Florida.
If the reports that vitamin D helps prevent coronavirus infections or lessens the severity are confirmed, that will be another factor in Florida’s relative success. Lots of outdoor time possible even Jan-March. If I lived in Florida I’d never leave the house May-September, but people do, so I hope they make lots of Vitamin D.
Many of the high density, open office based companies (meaning high-density) will not be able to accommodate all their employees in a lowed density office arrangement. So, WFH may be a necessity.
Also, certainly the virus itself, the death toll, the fear will slow down many travel and entertainment businesses. But there are people who have recovered, and people who are not that afraid of it by nature, even if they should be. And lessening government restrictions helps businesses serve those people - we can’t save all the businesses, but that doesn’t mean we have take active measures that will kill them all.
Just from comments on this very thread, I anticipate many people pick up right where they left off. They believe they are immune somehow and that their states have it all under control.
I agree that you won’t see people flocking to places with huge crowds like stadiums and conferences and conventions.
But this rule (no opening until a county has no deaths for 14 days) makes no scientific sense which only encourages disregard for all rules. When businesses see no light at the end of the tunnel in LA County, they will either open now and see if they suffer any consequences or those that can will move to a state or county that is open. Or they will close for good. No business can afford to keep people on the payroll if they see no hope of ever re-opening.
With a large airport here and flights arriving daily, it would make more sense to close or quarantine all arrivals. Otherwise positive cases will arrive and keep businesses closed.
A ‘scientific’ opening plan would be based on a scientific basis using smaller geographic areas.
The governor’s plan also penalizes counties from testing. Another aspect of the rule is that a county cannot open if it has 1 COVID case per 10,000 people. So the rule discourages counties from testing and potentially finding more positive cases.
I’m extremely discouraged when I see no rhyme or reason to these opening criteria.
Dumb people are going to do dumb things no matter what government does or does not do.
The articles coming out about how many people are now drag racing on the highways (because there’s less traffic, it’s easier to speed) are an example.
You can’t control everybody. And some actions have unintended consequences when they cause other impacts. You can only do your best to balance things as best as possible. And hopefully that’s what states will do going forward. Observe infections, mitigate risk while still allowing some activities, shutting down hot spots that arise.
@milee30 , I think your post is on point, especially this:
It is interesting to look at the cellphone mobility data. If you look here: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/florida , you can see that the mobility began to drop precipitously beginning about one week into March. It had nothing to do with whether or not there was a state-wide stay-at-home order. It is very interesting to compare the mobility curves for various states. For example, Ohio’s is almost identical to Florida’s: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/ohio
I think many people are not sheep, and they make up their own minds about what is the right thing to do. Obviously, many people in Florida felt (and still feel) that social distancing is the right thing to do. Here (and I suspect everywhere), there are some who don’t do any social distancing at all, and there are people who have varying degrees of distancing. Comparing the mobility graphs, it seems to me that most states, even with different governmental approaches, had fairly similar results.
That’s an interesting website. Also interesting to see that Ohio’s new infected cases graph is still rising, while Florida is falling. Why? We (Ohio) also are not a state with much public transportation and congested cities (compared to the NE…OH is much more similar to FL in this regard). I believe that Ohio closed down relatively early compared to most states.
Ohio has a spike and drop that I believe was when we tested all of our prisons in the course of a day or two. But when you take that out, we are still on an upward curve for infection rates despite our early shutdown. And, we are slowly opening up despite our upward curve.
True, at some companies, there may be a cultural shift from “work at home if you need to” to “work at home any time you like unless you need to do something that requires physical presence in the office”. The rotating staff in the office idea may be most common for employee services like HR and IT where some physical presence is needed every day, but not necessarily a specific HR or IT person. However, hot desking may be a bit too far for employees who are not remote a great majority of the time. Also, a need to maintain physical separation between employees in the office may prevent the company from reducing office space – the lower number of employees in the office due to increased work from home will be counterbalanced by the need to space out the desks.
But yes, increased work at home will reduce business at restaurants whose main business comes from nearby workplaces where employees get lunch in the middle of the day.
Already the contradictory rules are engendering defiance. The Riverside sheriff announced he won’t be arresting people who open their businesses. He said that it makes no sense to release dangerous criminals (which they are doing so COVID doesn’t spread in the prisons) and then jail otherwise law abiding people who want to provide for their families.
Now I’m wondering how many non-resident deaths have happened in FL. Many snowbirds don’t officially change their residency. How many of those died? Do they get counted by their home state even though they may not have been in it?
@TatinG - do you have a link to something that breaks down the California strategy in a concise way? That metes out the rules about numbers of new cases and numbers of deaths and the criteria for opening things up a bit more.