The Extreme State Lockdowns The California and New York orders to stay at home are unsustainable.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-extreme-state-lockdowns-11584745130?mod=opinion_lead_pos2
“These shutdowns are extraordinary and have costs, not least the harm to small business owners. Americans may simply decide to ignore the orders after a time. Absent a more thorough explanation of costs and benefits, we doubt these extreme measures will be sustainable for long as the public begins to chafe at the limits and sees the economic consequences.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered the state’s some 40 million citizens to “shelter in place,” meaning they shouldn’t leave their homes except to perform essential activities such as picking up food or medicine.
Then on Friday Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York ordered all non-essential businesses to keep their workers home, as did Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont. Governor Philip Murphy of New Jersey said he would do so on Saturday. These actions got a federal imprimatur when Dr. Anthony Fauci of the White House’s response task force endorsed the degree of shutdown ordered by Governors Newsom and Cuomo.
The speed at which the government-ordered clampdown has escalated is remarkable. Last week most businesses were still operating albeit at reduced capacity as people heeded public health recommendations to social distance. Restaurant reservation website OpenTable reported that year-over-year reservations were down 38% in California, 43% in Connecticut and 49% in New York as of March 12.
Then on Monday these Governors ordered gyms, restaurants, casinos and bars to close and banned social gatherings of more than 50 people. It makes sense to limit opportunities in which people can transmit the coronavirus to large groups of people. But we wonder if such massive public lockdowns as these Governors have ordered are warranted by the available data on the virus’s course.
Mr. Newsom warned that more than half of California’s population could be infected within eight weeks, but that obviously frightening assertion assumes no social distancing or other precautionary public health measures.
We praised Mr. Cuomo in these pages for pushing back this week against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s suggestion that New York City residents would soon be told to “shelter in place,” which caused panic across the city. Now the Governor has ordered a statewide shutdown that is just short of what Mr. de Blasio suggested.
These shutdowns are extraordinary and have costs, not least the harm to small business owners. Americans may simply decide to ignore the orders after a time. Absent a more thorough explanation of costs and benefits, we doubt these extreme measures will be sustainable for long as the public begins to chafe at the limits and sees the economic consequences.
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