A lot of you are pretty mad at me because I'm pretty serious about not opening up too soon with Covid-19, and you want hope. Well, here's what I really think, and it's not as bad as you paint me up. Of course, I'm not an epidemiologist, so... grain of salt, people.

I don't think we can really start opening up yet, not in the usual sense, but we can look at what's happened so far and make some judgments. Social distancing worked far better than expected. The models weren't broken, but this unexpected good news makes people think they were.

We can, however, deduce some things about transmission routes, which I think we need good, solid, empirical information on more than anything to guide a process that softens the lockdowns, which I also think needs to happen for a wide variety of reasons.

The lockdowns so far have been extremely effective even though we're not great at social distancing measures (at least not here), which means the virus is probably contagious through very specific means. Most likely, those can be heavily controlled for by wearing masks.

In particular, there have been surprisingly few outbreaks relevant to grocery stores, so far as anyone can tell. This suggests that long-suspension aerosols may not be a primary mode of transmission. This is good because even cheaper masks filter larger droplets quite well.

Since I'm not a virologist or epidemiologist, I can't make recommendations, but if I were advising public health officials and people in government, I'd advise them to look very closely and seriously at anything to do with transmission methods right now, ASAP.

If transmission is primarily by means of larger respiratory droplets (which are still microscopic, mind you), then a simple policy of avoiding certain types of public gatherings (like parties and church) while allowing other business--while wearing masks--would be appropriate.

I know my libertarian friends, if I have any left, don't like to be told they have to do things like wear a mask, but I'd probably advise (if I was in a position to do so) that going in public spaces should require one. This is much better than stay-at-home orders.

Again, I'm not making recommendations on what *you* should do. I'm not qualified. I'm making suggestions about what we should be encouraging our officials to do research into quite seriously and to start adapting forward-directed policies around.

For myself, I feel quite confident from what I'm seeing at present reducing my trips into public, maintaining better-than-usual strictures of hygiene (washing hands, clothes, wiping down surfaces, etc.), so long as I'm wearing a decent-fitting mask of essentially any type.

Staying under strict stay-at-home orders isn't going to be feasible for a lot of things as a nation, or psychologically for that matter, especially given what a shit job our government is doing about easing the burden of social distancing that we've taken up mostly willingly.

Rushing back out into public rashly, without a clear understanding of disease transmission, at least absent effective treatments or a vaccine, is also stupid. Yes, stupid. Rash (like, go read your virtue ethics about the range from cowardly through brave to rash).

The result of opening up stupidly and too soon is almost as predictable as the sunrise: rates will start creeping back up until the frog realizes the pot's coming to a boil, and then the lockdowns come back, and they'll necessarily be deeper and longer.

Opening up intelligently and with awareness of the relevant data -- modes of transmission, mostly here, and effective means for minimizing transmission -- makes sense and can split the delicate balance between "economy" and "lives" (which is a false dichotomy anyway).

I don't think people really understand the numbers, though, and this is important. What we've done so far hasn't flattened the curve; it has flattened the growth rate. Saying past tense that what we did *worked* when we have ~30k new cases happening a day is preposterous.

What we have done, it looks like, is reduce the effective reproductive rate to 1, which makes the growth rate no longer exponential but linear, though it will be exponential again the second we loosen up what we're doing now.

That means we haven't overreacted. It means we've reacted barely enough or not quite enough. That's bad news, especially since we've taken a hatchet to this job instead of a scalpel. Knowing modes of transmission and tailoring accordingly improves the tool, though.

With a sharper tool, we can confidently have a more open economy and start opening things back up in an informed, intelligent way. This requires good (hopefully quick) research into modes of transmission and suppression that can keep the effective reproduction rate low.

To reiterate, though it's possible I could be wrong (not being an epidemiologist here cuts both ways), I'm virtually certain that rashly reopening will result in a few thousand more deaths but several more weeks of (stricter) lockdowns to come. It's not a smart move.

If the primary method of transmission is highly suppressible by a simple action like wearing a mask in public at all times, closing certain large gatherings (though not necessarily all), and maintaining good hygiene, that gives us more options and REAL, not false, hope.