@madamswer ..."
yet you've chosen to ignore my questions about why the number of reported cases is so low, in the context of a virus which has such a high R-zero. Do you now have a view on that?"
No I did not ignore that question, I answered it!!
I clearly explained the contact tracing that has been going on in this country is a very good reason why the community spread has been relatively low in this country. The contacts of infected people are put into isolation, so it explains why there has not been massive spread so far, despite a high R-0. I apologise for not explaining it clearly enough for you earlier.
@madamswer ..."
What do you think might be some of the unintended consequences of the path we are currently following?"
The unintended consequences are huge no matter what we do now. I've been saying for the last month that there are no easy answers, only hard decisions of which way to go. They all have negative consequences. The longer it takes to have a hard lockdown, the longer any lockdown will last IMHO, which is why I want them to get it happening ASAP, instead of dragging out when we get to the starting line.
One consequence, that I think is outside any economic thinking is the change this will bring to people's attitude towards what is important to them.
I would expect frivolous spending to go down, paying off debts to go up, and people sharing more time together, without fancy bells and whistles to be some of the major changes.
A lot of people in there 60's and 70's now that run small to medium sized businesses might just chose not to reopen and retire instead at the end of this, especially with the govt small business handout.
Tourism from foreigners is probably dead, because if we are successful in eradicating it here, we will need to keep quarantine on visitors. I've been trying to think this one through, and even if there was a group of countries that had eradicated the virus, so people could travel freely between those countries, it could only be free movement if every country in the group had quarantines in place for the rest of the world. Unfortunately the USA is one country where they will have great difficulty in eradicating the virus and it's likely to become endemic because of the huge divide between the rich and poor there. They have been the slowest to react to Covid and appear to be in a world of trouble going forward dealing with this. A disaster like this is way beyond their thinking of possibilities, simply because none have happened before in living memory, there is plenty of denial, and guns with associated rednecks. Would the USA even allow a group of clean countries to exist without them? (rhetorical question)
Supply Chains is another area that is already suffering and will continue to do so. In the UK there are plenty of eggs, but the stores are empty because they can't get the cartons from Denmark. There are going to be thousands of stories like this as businesses all over the world start and stop at different times, or some just don't re-open.
Our entire system of economic activity in the modern world runs on JIT delivery (Just In Time) with low warehousing of stock and replacement parts (it's all just a click of the mouse away and a few days of delivery time). I learnt a hard lesson about this back in the 90's when an important machine in our business broke down, and the part needed to come from Italy. It was July and the part needed to come from one factory that was closed until September due Summer holidays. It's going to be chaos when businesses restart, if they need replacement parts from all over the world, and there is nothing like having machinery idle for a long period of time to find things breaking upon restart.
There is not just some unintended consequences of any shutdown, but huge chaos upon re-opening (which is why I think many businesses will not reopen, the owners are already aware of the potential problems from experience).
@madamswer ...."
I'm not sure how one can summarily dismiss one approach over another without delineating some of the negative consequences"
I don't think you understand where I'm coming from on this. I don't think there are any easy answers at all, and every choice has bad outcomes (one goes with the other). The more time spent looking for the least worse result, wastes time guaranteeing a worse result anyway.
We have no idea what this virus will do in the long run. Any attempt to get to 'herd immunity' could easily backfire and possibly destroy civilization itself, such are the odds we are gambling with. To me, because of the unknowns, attempting to get to herd immunity is crazy and only leaves other alternatives.
There are plenty of viruses we do not have a vaccine for. There are viruses that can reinfect us and have a much worse outcome the second time you get it, like Dengue fever. There are viruses that stay alive in our bodies to re emerge years later (chicken pox/shingles). Covid is a new virus that we know relatively little about. I'm not in the camp of 'hoping' we get to herd immunity, something that is possibly not achievable, we simply don't know. Do we want to risk our children's and grandchildren's future on the 'hope' that it turns out alright??
If we dismiss the choice that has a potential catastrophic outcome, we are left with limited alternatives, as we have to eradicate the virus. So far the go slow approaches from around the world have failed, and our governments have learned from those experiences, which is why they keep getting stricter. We are effectively now under martial law in this country with any group assembly banned with steep fines for not following the rules. I would have preferred we had done this a month ago, including the quarantine for people from overseas, because we would possibly be out of it within a few weeks. Instead we now have community spread and the process will take longer and probably 'leak' for a while.
Sorry for the long post...
