People flocking to the hospital now to demand treatment for a simple cough, or for influenza, will overwhelm hospitals just when we need them most.
It’s far harder to do contact tracing and reaching out to the community to get them messages about what they should or should not do when people are panicking.
When there are sufficient supplies of things like food, like now, and people start hoarding, shortages become a self-fulfilling prophecy. (On the other hand, if there would be shortages anyway, then the only justification for encouraging hoarding is because you want to buy things instead of someone else who may need it more. From a utilitarian perspective, that seems obviously unjustifiable.)
“The government” in the US certainly doesn’t have the authority to do most of these things. Governors can declare a state of emergency on a per-state basis, but commandeering resources would still be hard to justify legally. They would try to do it anyways, but a state government doesn’t have enough people to actually do most of this.
Lots of essential industries like the water company and the electric company need other parts of the economy, like delivery trucks and computer-logistics systems to continue functioning. These can all break down in a panic. Worse, I’m very uncertain how robust the US economy is to shutting everything down, then trying to start back up.
“The government” in the US certainly doesn’t have the authority to do most of these things.
Both the federal and state governments have vast powers during public health emergencies. For instance, the Supreme Court has made clear that the government can hold you down and vaccinate you against your will. Likewise, the Army (not just National Guard) can be deployed to enforce laws, including curfew and other quarantine laws.
Yes, it’s unclear whether government officials would be willing to use these options, and how much the public would resist them, but the formal authority is definitely there.
Why is that? I’m assuming that panic would mean more isolation and only going out to gather essentials like food and medicine. With that assumption it seems like it’d be easier to do contact tracing.
and reaching out to the community to get them messages about what they should or should not do when people are panicking
If the internet stays up I don’t see why there’d be a problem here.
Lots of essential industries like the water company and the electric company need other parts of the economy, like delivery trucks and computer-logistics systems to continue functioning.
Delivery trucks certainly seem essential. Would throwing money at it solve that problem? Eg. paying workers 2-3x their wages? What about the army stepping in to help here?
“The government” in the US certainly doesn’t have the authority to do most of these things. Governors can declare a state of emergency on a per-state basis, but commandeering resources would still be hard to justify legally. They would try to do it anyways, but a state government doesn’t have enough people to actually do most of this.
Like you say, it seems likely that they would do it anyway. In that case, the question is whether they have the resources to pull it off. I assume the federal government would step in. And there are about 2M active + reserve personnel in the armed forces. I assume they would be utilized to help deal with this during a true panic.
When there are sufficient supplies of things like food, like now, and people start hoarding, shortages become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Would it make sense to encourage the panic to start too soon? First the customers would cause a shortage, then the producers would increase their production in hope for easy profit, then the shortage would end with everyone having enough stuff at home… and then the actual need would come.
More simply, if people are going to empty the shops eventually, I prefer if they do it one month before the actual crisis rather than one week before it. Because during one month, the market may fix the shortage, but one week is not enough time to do much.
It sounds like a good idea, but won’t actually work in practice for most goods. Supply chain resilience is minimal, the demand would be near-global, rather than local and possible to fulfill via redicrecting supplies, and forecasting of supplies and just-in-time production requires far more warning than the current crisis allows for most goods. It’s not like there is tons of excess goods or farm capacity just sitting around to be used when demand suddenly jumps—and the dynamics in these systems can be messy.
It seems to me that it doesn’t have to work for most goods. People can make do with eg. beans and rice for a while until things settle down. Would the government be able to distribute big bags of beans and rice to people?
Here are a number of points:
People flocking to the hospital now to demand treatment for a simple cough, or for influenza, will overwhelm hospitals just when we need them most.
It’s far harder to do contact tracing and reaching out to the community to get them messages about what they should or should not do when people are panicking.
When there are sufficient supplies of things like food, like now, and people start hoarding, shortages become a self-fulfilling prophecy. (On the other hand, if there would be shortages anyway, then the only justification for encouraging hoarding is because you want to buy things instead of someone else who may need it more. From a utilitarian perspective, that seems obviously unjustifiable.)
“The government” in the US certainly doesn’t have the authority to do most of these things. Governors can declare a state of emergency on a per-state basis, but commandeering resources would still be hard to justify legally. They would try to do it anyways, but a state government doesn’t have enough people to actually do most of this.
Lots of essential industries like the water company and the electric company need other parts of the economy, like delivery trucks and computer-logistics systems to continue functioning. These can all break down in a panic. Worse, I’m very uncertain how robust the US economy is to shutting everything down, then trying to start back up.
Both the federal and state governments have vast powers during public health emergencies. For instance, the Supreme Court has made clear that the government can hold you down and vaccinate you against your will. Likewise, the Army (not just National Guard) can be deployed to enforce laws, including curfew and other quarantine laws.
Yes, it’s unclear whether government officials would be willing to use these options, and how much the public would resist them, but the formal authority is definitely there.
Why is that? I’m assuming that panic would mean more isolation and only going out to gather essentials like food and medicine. With that assumption it seems like it’d be easier to do contact tracing.
If the internet stays up I don’t see why there’d be a problem here.
Delivery trucks certainly seem essential. Would throwing money at it solve that problem? Eg. paying workers 2-3x their wages? What about the army stepping in to help here?
Like you say, it seems likely that they would do it anyway. In that case, the question is whether they have the resources to pull it off. I assume the federal government would step in. And there are about 2M active + reserve personnel in the armed forces. I assume they would be utilized to help deal with this during a true panic.
Would it make sense to encourage the panic to start too soon? First the customers would cause a shortage, then the producers would increase their production in hope for easy profit, then the shortage would end with everyone having enough stuff at home… and then the actual need would come.
More simply, if people are going to empty the shops eventually, I prefer if they do it one month before the actual crisis rather than one week before it. Because during one month, the market may fix the shortage, but one week is not enough time to do much.
It sounds like a good idea, but won’t actually work in practice for most goods. Supply chain resilience is minimal, the demand would be near-global, rather than local and possible to fulfill via redicrecting supplies, and forecasting of supplies and just-in-time production requires far more warning than the current crisis allows for most goods. It’s not like there is tons of excess goods or farm capacity just sitting around to be used when demand suddenly jumps—and the dynamics in these systems can be messy.
It seems to me that it doesn’t have to work for most goods. People can make do with eg. beans and rice for a while until things settle down. Would the government be able to distribute big bags of beans and rice to people?