{"id":26578,"date":"2020-04-13T12:32:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T16:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=26578"},"modified":"2020-04-12T23:01:47","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T03:01:47","slug":"shutdown-decisions-are-made-by-people-with-no-skin-in-the-game-when-would-they-ever-decide-to-reopen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/13\/shutdown-decisions-are-made-by-people-with-no-skin-in-the-game-when-would-they-ever-decide-to-reopen\/","title":{"rendered":"Shutdown decisions are made by people with no skin in the game; when would they ever decide to reopen?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A friend in Holland in is his 60s and therefore beginning to enter the real risk window for COVID-19. When I call to check on him, he is usually out in the busy square of his university town. “Some students just walked by with six crates of beer,” he remarked. Holland never truly shut down<\/a>. Unlike Sweden, however, the schools closed. “The teachers are unionized,” my friend said. “So they knew they’d get paid whether or not they went to work. Of course they immediately refused to work and said that the schools had to be closed in the name of protecting everyone.” How about the stores? “Everything is open except for the red light district,” he responded. (If the gals working there could somehow make it to Boston, they could earn a lot more than they’d been getting in Amsterdam<\/a>!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(How’s Holland doing? The Population is 17 million. As of April 9, they’d suffered 2,248 deaths compared to 10,853 in France, population 67 million. I.e., the Netherlands has had a lower death rate than France. France began locking down on March 13.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If people making the decisions on shutting down continue to get paid, when would they ever suggest reopening? Who is involved in or has influenced decision-making in the U.S. on this issue?<\/p>\n\n\n\n