Essential vs Non Essential

Can someone explain how only allowing "Essential" workers to leave the house and go to work will help with the spread of Covid? 

I'm sorry but if social distancing is needed to help stop the spread then EVERYONE needs to sit it out for 2 weeks. I understand the need for medical professionals but there needs to be a way for them to stay away from home while they work. If an essential employee contracts this virus and takes it home, well now what? 


Here in Jersey City I think liquor stores have been deemed essential.


"Essential" means what it takes to have a functioning economy/society at a base level.

Food, beverage/water, shelter, electricity, heat, waste pickup, police, fire, ambulance, hospitals, communications (Internet), etc.



yahooyahoo said:

"Essential" means what it takes to have a functioning economy/society at a base level.

Food, beverage/water, shelter, electricity, heat, waste pickup, police, fire, ambulance, hospitals, communications (Internet), etc.

 I know what Essential means, BUT if everyone including essential workers are not staying home or at least still traveling home, this virus will continue to spread. Somehow people are confusing essential with being immune. 


Doctors/nurses and all other essential workers for the time being need to stay with one another and not travel back home. Supermarkets need to close for two weeks as well, from what I've been seeing the past couple weeks are a bunch of people congregating inside of these essential businesses, 4 Shoprites so far have had workers who tested positive, Two Trader Joe's facing the same issues. If everything can't shut down then this virus will continue to spread. It's comical at this point


Tall_Mocha said:


yahooyahoo said:

"Essential" means what it takes to have a functioning economy/society at a base level.

Food, beverage/water, shelter, electricity, heat, waste pickup, police, fire, ambulance, hospitals, communications (Internet), etc.

 I know what Essential means, BUT if everyone including essential workers are not staying home or at least still traveling home, this virus will continue to spread. Somehow people are confusing essential with being immune. 

I don't think anyone believes essential workers are immune.  Where would all of the essential workers stay?


yahooyahoo said:

I don't think anyone believes essential workers are immune.  Where would all of the essential workers stay?

 Exactly! Meanwhile people are yelling and screaming telling everyone to stay home. It only takes 1 person to spread this virus and unless the whole world is going to stay home this "social distancing " will not work. Is the point I'm trying to make


What do you suggest TallMocha?

Essential workers must live at work?

Non essentials must stay at home at all times? How do we resupply ourselves with food?


Tall_Mocha said:

Doctors/nurses and all other essential workers for the time being need to stay with one another and not travel back home. Supermarkets need to close for two weeks as well, from what I've been seeing the past couple weeks are a bunch of people congregating inside of these essential businesses, 4 Shoprites so far have had workers who tested positive, Two Trader Joe's facing the same issues. If everything can't shut down then this virus will continue to spread. It's comical at this point

 This is ridiculous and will never happen.


The virus will spread. There is no stopping it.  But we can slow it, and that's what we are doing.  If 75 percent stay home, that's good.


FilmCarp said:

The virus will spread. There is no stopping it.  But we can slow it, and that's what we are doing.  If 75 percent stay home, that's good.

Exactly. Social distancing is about slowing down the rate of infection to a manageable level.  Social distancing is not about completely stopping the virus.


If there are an average of 4 full time shifts a week, then for every employee you see at a hospital, pharmacy, EMS, fire department, police department, utility workers, trash collectors, etc, there will be three employees off.  This is very simplified and does not take into account part time workers.  Now imagine how many essential workers you have at an average hospital.  Multiply that number by four.  If they’re not going to go home, then where do you propose they all go?  Now add in the pharmacy workers, EMS, police, fire, utility workers, etc.

Saying they should not go home and just stay together is not just impossible, it’s insanely impossible 


And hospitals alone have many more workers than you think of just to be able to run.  You might be thinking of doctors and nurses.  There are also techs, maintenance, food services, janitorial, security, etc, etc.

And let’s be realistic, with part time and per diem workers taken into account you won’t have 4x the average number of employees you see there, you’d probably have closer to 6x 


The_Soulful_Mr_T said:

Here in Jersey City I think liquor stores have been deemed essential.

sadly, this is no joke. there are plenty of people dependent on alcohol, and making them go cold turkey is kind of cruel.


as to the main point of the thread, tall_mocha is misunderstanding what it takes to stop the spread of the virus.  The math behind it is a bit complicated so I'm not going to try and explain it here, but this post gives a good idea of how this all works.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2020/03/25/martin-guest-post-questions-on-data-modeling-in-the-epidemic-part-1/


There’s no way we can shut down the state or country and have no one on the streets. Not possible, not happening. People just have to keep a safe distance and keep everything clean. Only one  person in a family should be allowed in any essential business.   no kids no browsing no hanging out. Discipline is what will break this pandemic. The Asians are more disciplined, we, not so much. Look at South Korea as a perfect example. 


Here in SC, gun shops have been deemed "essential". Go figure.


Governor Murphy has deemed my industry (printing) to be essential even though offset printing companies are dead at the moment. However, we're a digital shop and also a mailing company (another niche to have been deemed essential). We have contracts with a few states and get files from them on a daily and weekly basis, so we have to come to work. Four of my family members work in my company. One daughter has chosen to move back to Maplewood for the duration so as to not expose her "senior-age" parents - with whom she works on a daily basis - to potential infection; the other lives at home. So, we're four essential workers living together even if our exposure-to-virus level is minuscule compare to other fields.

On another note, we have a 6 bedroom/5 bath home in the Poconos. After considering medical employees' fears of becoming infected and bringing the virus home to their families, I called the local hospital (a large health care system) last week and offered them free housing for any medical worker(s) who would like to take advantage of it. They administrator agreed to post it on the board; haven't had any takers yet. FWIW, when I called the rental agent to alert her, she was shocked to learn of the extent of the problems in our area so I guess they don't have a big infection rate there. Yet.


The_Soulful_Mr_T said:

Here in Jersey City I think liquor stores have been deemed essential.

 I think this is a statewide thing.  Maybe because it's possible to use pure grain alcohol to make your own hand sanitizer?  



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