QA：美国新冠人均确诊率马上就要超越意大利，为什么这时候美国人却如此急切想要解封复工？

原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：北海西铜 转载请注明出处

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Gennady Levitsky
Because the lockdowns is a stupidity. They can protect people from getting sick but, on another hand, a person can protect himself the same way (without being forced) if he wishes. On another hand forced lockdowns destroy economy, diminish people’s rights and have negative effect on their mental health. The lockdowns also have a negative effect on stopping or slowing down the disease because they prevent community to develop “herd immunity”
Majority of those who don’t want economy to be open are the fat cats, college students living from the wealth of their parents or those whose work doesn’t depend on the lockdowns. Those who make living by working directly have a different set of priorities.
But even rich people - how long can they survive if economy will be paralyzed, if vaccine could be a year away or a new COVID-20 will appear?

因为封城隔离是愚蠢的。虽然这样做可以避免人们被感染，但换个角度想，只要谁有意愿，他一个人就可以实施自我隔离来保护自己（而不是被迫这样做）。另一方面，强制封城破坏了经济，削弱了人民的权利，给人们的心理健康造成负面影响。此外，它对缓解或扑灭疫情还有反效果——因为它阻碍了在社区内实现“群体免疫”。

大多数不希望重新开放经济的人，都是些肥宅，是些依靠父母生活的大学生，或者封城令不影响其正常工作的人。而对于那些要出去工作谋生的人，优先级是不一样的。
可就算是那些富人——如果经济瘫痪，如果疫苗要到一年后才能接种，又或者爆发新的COVID-20（变异新冠）疫情，他们能撑多久？

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Frank Wood
Some people have savings. It’s long been recommended that people put at least 20% of their income into savings. That means that even young workers should have a significant cushion.
BTW, Gennady, the “lockdown” is indicated by the application of science. There is no “stupidity” about that.

还是有人有积蓄的。长久以来，一直有建议要大家把20%的收入储蓄起来。这样就算是年轻工人也应该能有相当不错的经济缓冲。
顺便说一句，Gennady，“封城”是一种应用科学理论得出的手段，没有什么好“愚蠢”的。

Lubomír Stejskal, lives in Europe
It might be a very shocking realisation, but in this society, different people provide different services. And we use money as a mean of exchange to sell services and buy services. If you do not have money, you cannot access those services. And there is a posibility of you not surviving.
If you have 30 000 000 of unemployed people, then the amount of terminaly ill people you have managed to protect for few more months is very much irelevant. Experience it and you will see. The reality of being useless, not being able to take care of you. It destroys soul.



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Stephen Taylor, lives in The United States of America
Cases per capita, yes. The death rate is currently less than half of Italy’s.
I don’t mean to be callous about this. It’s obviously a serious issue. But those cases aren’t evenly spread out over the (enormous) United States, or even Italy. It’s not a wonder to me why some people are afraid. This is totally human and understandable. But it’s also not a wonder to me why some people want to ease back slowly into life as we knew it just a few months ago.
When you say “open up so badly,” I doubt there’s more than a tiny handful of obvious nuts who want to do away with all precautions whatsoever. The fact that we even know about the virus puts us ahead of Italy back in February.
The United States has had that luxury for a couple months now. It’s already pretty clear that Covid-19 was in the U.S. before anyone knew it. (I’m sort of convinced it ripped through California and possibly the Southwest back in January, and was just called “the flu” on medical reports.) But whether that’s true or not, most Americans had a ton more advance warning about this than Italians did. And most Americans were capable of taking significant precautions that hobbled — not stopped — Covid-19’s advance.
If we can keep on doing fairly simple things like washing our hands frequently, wearing masks for a few months (most people seem OK with wearing them), and not being total slobs, then I don’t see why we can’t make reasonable compromises in the U.S. and start resuscitating businesses. To assume that we are automatically going to end up with the same scenario that played out in northern Italy (which, by the way, is only part of Italy) just doesn’t seem plausible to me — it seems like unscientific fearmongering and medi plague mentality.
There’s also a serious moral dilemma in governing every American as if we’re all slobs incapable of basic public health precautions. Covid-19 is banal as shit. I mean that. What everybody is calling the greatest crisis since World War II is banal. It’s amazingly mundane. It’s not Hitler. It’s not nuclear fallout. It’s not an alien invasion. We can seriously minimize it with common-sense precautions.
But Covid-19 isn’t going away soon. If you have a plan that will keep people’s livelihoods and businesses, the work of many years, from being wiped out,and plunging people into poverty and misery (excellent breeding grounds for an even bigger health crisis in the making), bankrupting hospitals, bankrupting farmers, bankrupting employers… please, tell us. What is it? Your plan has to include months and months of economic inactivity.
I’m doing peachy during Covid-19. But I’m obliged to advocate for the millions of people around the world who are not. And who do not have the enormous privilege and incredibly fat luxury of sitting at home drawing a weekly U.S. government paycheck like me. (This is not sustainable, even here.)

如果看“人均病例数”，是的（美国即将超越意大利）。但目前美国的新冠肺炎死亡率，还不到意大利的一半。
我并不想显得麻木不仁，这显然是非常严重的问题。但这些病例并非均匀分布在（版图辽阔的）美国各地，甚至在意大利都不是的。我不奇怪为什么有的人会（因提前解封而）害怕，这是人之常情，可以理解。但我同样不奇怪，为什么有些人会希望生活能慢慢恢复到几个月前，回到我们熟悉的样子。

你提问里说“如此急切地希望解封”，但我怀疑（美国人当中）除了一小部分显然十分疯狂的家伙外，有人会（在解封后）不采取任何预防措施的。事实上，仅仅是对这种病毒了解也已经使我们的情况比二月份的意大利要有利很多了。

美国已经享受了几个月的这种奢侈（因疫情晚爆发而了解更多）。很显然，新冠肺炎在大家意识到之前就已经在美国开始传播（我还挺相信1月份加州就已有新冠病例这一说法的，可能还有其他西南部地区，而诊断书上把他们归为了“流感”），但不管这是不是真的，大多数美国人的预警时间要比意大利人多得多。而且大多数美国人也有能力执行那几项能够迟滞——而不是扑灭——新冠疫情的主要预防措施。

只要我们能继续做那几样十分简单的事——如勤洗手，再戴几个月口罩（似乎大多数美国人对戴口罩也没什么问题），以及不要太过邋遢——那么，我不明白为什么我们不能让美国的经济开始恢复呢。想当然地认为我们会最终变成意大利北部（其实也只是意大利的一部分地区）那样，在我看来就没道理了——这更像是在毫无科学根据地散布恐惧，或者中世纪式的“瘟疫情结”作祟。

政府对每一个美国人的监管本身，也存在严重的道德问题——简直好像我们全都是连最基本的公共卫生常识习惯都不懂的流浪汉一样。我说真的，对新冠疫情的描述也够老套的——例如人人都在说这是“二战以来最大的危机”等等。真的是老套乏味到令人震惊！这又不是希特勒，不是核辐射泄漏，不是外星人入侵。我们完全可以用常识性的预防措施把它控制在最低限度。

可新冠疫情又不会很快消失。所以如果你能提出一个计划，能（在不解封的同时）使人民不致丢掉他们的生计、生意、多年的工作，能使人民免于陷入贫穷和悲惨（那将是滋生更大健康危机的绝佳条件），能不让医院破产、不让农民破产、不让企业主破产……请你告诉我们。到底是什么样的计划？而你的计划恐怕无论如何都将导致好几个月的经济停滞。

我在新冠疫情（封城隔离）期间过得还不错。但我有义务为全世界数以百万计不如我幸运的人说说话。他们并没有像我这样坐在家里就能每周领取美国政府救助金的巨大特权和难以置信的奢侈。（而即便是在美国，这也是不可持续的。）

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Bryan Potratz
I work in a hospital - in infection control.
My hours were cut IN HALF because of the .gov driven COVID panic.
My net income is down to less than $700 per 2week pay period (half what I normally make… ). I could DOUBLE my regular net income by being “unemployed” until July 31.
Oh yeah… loving the .gov “response” to the COVID…

我就在医院工作——就在感染管理科。我的工作时长被砍了一半，就因为政府煽动的这波“新冠恐慌”。
我的净收入因此下降到每2周工资不到700美元（是我正常净收入的一半……）。如果我“失业”，到7月31日前我的净收入反而能多1倍。
哦，耶……我太TM喜欢我们政府的疫情“响应措施”了……

Lawrence Bloom
That Federal $600 a week extra unemployment is amazing legislation to me. It’s good but it isn’t sustainable for sure. Not at this unemployment percentage.

联邦政府立法通过每周600美元的额外失业救济，在我看来真是惊人。很好，但却肯定不可持续——在目前这个失业率下是绝对持续不下去的。



Stephen Taylor
I agree with you, but to be fair, a ton of people died of smallpox who had no immunity to it. I live on old Dakota land. I’m here in part because of what that disease did to Native Americans.
But yes, it’s still a fair point that a ton of great things happened during the centuries when humans dealt with the plague, smallpox, typhoid, malaria, tuberculosis, polio and a bunch of other terrible shit. I don’t want to sound harsh here, but historically speaking, we are incredibly pampered.

我同意你的看法，但公平地说，天花导致了大量没有免疫力的人死亡。我生活在达科他州，我能来到这里，一定程度上就是天花感染美洲原住民后的结果。
但是没错，你的观点仍很公正，在人类面对瘟疫、天花、伤寒、疟疾、肺结核、脊髓灰质炎以及其他一大堆可怕疾病的世纪里，同时也发生了很多伟大的事情。我不想表现得过于严酷，但对比历史，今天的我们真是“娇生惯养”到令人难以置信。

Murray Godfrey
The Spanish Flu is the only analogue we’ve got. What’s surprised me reading about it is how similar our experience has been, especially the public opinion reactions.
Basically, a pandemic is very bad for the economy & there’s not much we can do to stop significant economic damage. The question is how bad.
There was a short recession in 1918–19, then a bad one in 1920–21. Arguably, the economy became depressed in 1918 and didn’t begin recovery until 1921.
There’s not enough research on Spanish Flu’s connection to the second, worse recession because Spanish Flu is strangely not a phenomenon of a lot of historical research. WWI and its aftermath is obviously the much more sexy topic that historians prefer to focus on.
I’ve seen articles that looked at certain U.S. cities, and they found that lockdown or not, their economies were rocked.

西班牙流感才是唯一（和新冠疫情）类似的参照。令我惊讶的是，两者的发展轨迹是如此相似，尤其是公众的舆论和反应。
一般说来，全球大流行病必然对经济非常不利，而要阻止经济遭到重大破坏，我们能做到其实很少。关键是破坏到底会有多严重。
1918～19年曾出现短暂的经济衰退，而真正严重的衰退则出现在1920～21年。可以说，1918年出现经济萧条，直到1921年才开始复苏。

关于西班牙流感和1920年第二波更严重经济衰退的关系，目前还缺乏充分的研究——因为奇怪的是，西班牙流感在（同一时期）众多历史事件中还算不上现象级。一战及其后果显然是历史学家们更热衷的话题。
我自己读到过一些描写当时美国各大城市的文章，而这些文章得出的结论是，不管是否实施封城，它们的经济都受到了冲击。

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Robin Daverman, International Traveler
If the US is about to pass Italy in COVID-19 cases per capita, then why do people want to open up so badly?
Sigh!
Look at the Budget, because the budget is the reality, stripped away all the much-talked-about-but-never-acted-upon ideological nonsense.
Because 4 out of 5 American workers live paycheck-to-paycheck. A shocking number of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck
And this is what an average American household has to pay:
Source: How Americans Spend Their Money, in One Chart
Basically, on average, an American is on-the-hook for ~ $20,000 rent and utility payment, $11,000 in government taxes, $10,000 car payment, $8,000 for food, $5,000 health insurance and medicine, $7,000 pension and life insurance, and $11,000 other (education, clothing, entertainment, haircut, etc.)
Everything is tied to the job. For the average American, his housing, utilities, food, healthcare, transportation - all these are tied to a job. Without the job, he has nothing, and his survival is immediately in doubt.
And this is what the Government is “supporting” in the big Covid-19 CARES Act:
Source: The Anatomy of the $2 Trillion COVID-19 Stimulus Bill
So basically, an average of ~ $1,000 per person cash handout. Mind you that the national average of 1-bedroom rent is over $1,000, so that handout is less than the average 1-bedroom rent. Everything else goes to the employers - loans to big companies, loans to small businesses, some money for the hospitals (to pay their doctors and buy PPEs when their major profit centers (i.e., elective surgeries”) are shut down, some money to the State Governments to pay public hospitals and buy PPEs. That’s it.
When you put these two charts side-by-side, and keep in mind that 4-out-of-5 Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, the situation is quite dire. A good credit card may give him a couple months of leeway (by way of additional household debt), but this is a very short runway, because Americans are already sitting on record household debt. Household Debt and Credit Report
Which way to go can one afford a bit more human dignity - dying with tubes coming out all over your body in the hospital, or dying in the street going through garbage for food.
I find it impossible to judge.
PS: This is the Federal Reserve survey, can you somehow scrounge enough money to last 3 months. 3 months is really the limit for 75% of the Americans! Many US States went into lock-down in mid- to late-March, so we are about half-way eating through the average American’s resources, and people are getting antsy. People should have been much more aggressive in using this 3-month window to eradicate the disease from the local community.
And it looks like the first thing to go will be the house…
Not just individual American household, the various State governments are also in the red and laying off people, and Mitch McConnell is telling them to file for bankruptcy. McConnell Says States Should Consider Bankruptcy, Rebuffing Calls for Aid

“美国马上就要在新冠肺炎人均确诊病例数上超越意大利了，为什么这时候美国人却如此急切地想要解封复工？”
唉！看看美国人的家庭预算吧，这才是最大的现实——完全不受那些只能说不能做的意识形态鬼扯的影响：
五分之四的美国工人过着“薪水背贴背”式的月光/周光生活，数量惊人。下面是一个普通美国家庭的必须开支图表：



图表引自：《一张图表，让你看懂美国人是怎么花钱的》
https://howmuch.net/articles/breakdown-average-american-spending

基本上，每个美国人平均每年要交2万美元的房租、水电费，1.1万美元政府税，1万美元汽车贷款，8千美元购买食品，5千美元的医疗保险，7千美元的养老及人寿保险，以及1.1万美元的其它费用（教育、服装、娱乐、理发等等）
一切都和你的工作紧紧绑定在一起。对普通美国人来说，他的住房、用水用电、食物、医疗、交通——所有这些都是和工作绑定的。丢了工作，他就什么都没有，他会立即面临生存问题。
而这正是政府的《新冠肺炎关怀法案（Covid-19 CARES Act）》中的“救助”重点：



图表引自：《2万亿美元新冠肺炎财政刺激计划剖析》
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-anatomy-of-the-2-trillion-covid-19-stimulus-bill/

大概就是，平均给每人分发约1千美元。请注意，在美国一居室公寓的平均租金就超过1千美元，也就是说发放的这点救助金比一居室的平均租金还少。2万亿中的其余部分全都是给雇主的——包括给大公司、小企业的贷款，拨给（私立）医院的一些援助（在医院主要核心利润（即，非必要外科手术）被切断时，帮他们支付医生薪水、购买个人防护用品等），拨给州政府的一些资金好让他们再去援助公立医院、购买个人防护用品等。就这些了。

当你把上面两张图表放在一起（记住五分之四的美国人是靠背贴背薪水度日）对比，你就会发现情况相当严峻。
一张高额度的信用卡可能会让你多周旋几个月（也就是额外增加些家庭债务），但这样做的余地其实很有限，因为美国人的家庭债务早已堆积如山了：《家庭债务和信贷报告》
https://www.newyorkfed.org/microeconomics/hhdc.html

那种死法能让人走得更有尊严些——是在医院里浑身插着管地死去，还是在垃圾堆里找食物时死在街上？
我实在无法去批判美国人（事实上做出）的选择。

附言：这里有美联储做的一份民调，问题是“你能否设法筹集到足够维持3个月生活的资金”。三个月，对75%的美国人来说真的是极限了！美国许多州是在3月中下旬开始封城的，也就是说美国普通家庭的半数资源即将耗尽，人们也正变得愈发焦躁不安。（美国人本该更积极地利用好这3个月时间窗口，在社区中根除这种传染病。）



毫无缓冲能力：美联储调研“你有办法靠储蓄、变卖资产、向亲朋好友借钱或求助，生活三个月吗”
（注：图中条形，深蓝色代表回答“能”，浅蓝色代表回答“不能”。另，这张图上只能看到，到2018年回答“能”的在40%上下；罗宾上面所说“三个月对75%的美国人来说就是极限”应是另有根据）
看起来首先会出问题的就是房贷……



2020年3月7日到4月26日，美国暂缓偿还的房屋抵押贷款比例
还不仅仅是美国家庭，许多州政府也正处于赤字激增、不断解雇工作人员的状态，米奇·麦康奈尔（美参议员）正建议这些州政府申请破产。
“麦康奈尔说，各州应该考虑申请破产，并拒绝联邦政府援助”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/coronavirus-mcconnell-states-bankruptcy.html

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Don Rolph
The US has allocated about $2T in fiscal policy and about $4T in monetary policy to deal with the economic impact of covid-19.
And we have lost about one quarter of GDP or about $5T.
Therefore if these funds are properly distributed, no one should have to face the choice you describe.
If one faces the choice you describe it is because the Federal government has failed to distribute the fund effectively.

为了应对新冠肺炎疫情对经济的影响，美国已经实施了大约2万亿美元的财政政策和约4万亿美元的货币政策。
而我们已经损失了年度GDP的大约1/4，也就是约5万亿美元。
如果这些资金使用得当，任何人都不必面对你所描述的那种（两种死法的）选择。而如果有人真的面临这些选择，只能说明联邦政府未能有效分配这些资金。