Science! (Herd Immunity)
Since this was posted, we've also now had three vaccine candidates announced with very promising results. This significantly changes the premises behind the Great Barrington declaration.
PVW said:
susan1014 said:
nohero said:
terp said:
Dr Sunetra Gupta pens opinion piece on the reaction to the Great Barrington Declaration.
I expected debate and disagreement about our ideas, published as the Great Barrington Declaration
...My goodness. Dr. Gupta discovered that there was a negative consequence (one could even say it was "viral") as a result of the group's "don't worry about people getting infected" argument. It's better than the alternative of actually following that advice.
What a silly, disappointing article. Instead of addressing any of the rather serious critiques of the Declaration (non lethal long-term risks, how to handle intergenerational households, the likely extra half million US deaths, etc.), she simply complains about how she has been treated. Kind of shows where her priorities are. Not an impressive outing — insisting we should be talking facts while responding to none of the criticisms or questions about her plan.
The constructive response to complaints that people focus on politics over substance would be to... focus on substance over politics. I certainly won't dispute that our public discourse is often shallow and overly politicized, but there are serious substantive questions on the proposal Gupta put forth that she's declined to address.
How did she decline to address anything? I think it's rather shallow to assume that she hasn't addressed any questions on her positions. What research have you done to back this assertion?
jamie said:
terp said:
What an odd non sequitur. Anyhoo, This is a much better piece on not voting
What a dismal piece. ugh He basically tried to say why I don't vote for non-libertarians. I've seen videos with him - he's all over the place. I'm not going to debate this any further here - because we're trying to keep this discussion non-political. You should start a Mike Malice - voting is useless thread in the politics area.
A rather interesting point in the thread to call out politics.
PVW said:
Since this was posted, we've also now had three vaccine candidates announced with very promising results. This significantly changes the premises behind the Great Barrington declaration.
Does it solve the fact that about 1/3 of New Jersey small businesses have closed? What about the issues with distance learning given that schools have closed(which we have known that children were not effective carriers for over 6 months and Fauci just came around to understanding) What about the psychological effects where lockdown policies could cause an estimated 75000 deaths of despair?
Are the lockdown and mask policies even effective? It's hard to tell. Ask LA. The CDC didn't even recommend these policies prior to this specific pandemic. They suggested policies pretty similar to the Great Barrington Declaration. But, we're supposed to follow the science, whatever that means. It's really "do as you're told"
ml1 said:
bub said:
True. What exactly is "lockdown" anyway? Nobody here was forced to stay in their house, were they? This isn't Wuhan China.
I guess it refers to restrictions on businesses and schools. It's kind of a moot point because let's say NJ allowed movie theaters and concert halls, restaurants, casinos, etc to open at full capacity indoors. Who would go to a packed theater or restaurant? Where would they find people to work there? Until the pandemic is behind us most people are going to isolate themselves by choice to a great extent regardless of regulations. As much as libertarian oriented people are going to blame governments for the isolation people are feeling stressed by, it's the virus itself that is the cause of all these collateral problems. Most people are going to try to be safe. If anything the laws are helping to give people a minimal amount of opportunity to go out and engage in socially distanced behavior. Because with no regulations the knuckleheads would be running rampant in super spreader events, further trapping the cautious people in their homes. For example I wouldn't be going to grocery stores if there were no mask mandates. I'd be ordering for delivery.
You know this exactly how? This sounds more like you have been propogandized than you've reasoned this out. Most people who are comfortable with all the new mandates can work from home or are collecting checks somehow. People are hurting due to these policies. And most of these people are poor. Meanwhile the investor class is doing quite well.
Where do we draw the line? They tried to create rules around Thanksgiving dinner in some places. There are these arbitrary policies(that the knucklehead politicians don't even follow themselves) that are made by decree and most don't even ask for proof. I'm sorry, but the burden of proof should be with them. These policies are causing real pain. And they will NEVER admit it if we find they were not effective. They have done way too much damage.
A couple articles in regard to mask effectiveness:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6947e2.htm
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/21546014/mask-mandates-coronavirus-covid-19
One thing I feel that we've completely dropped the ball on is contact tracing.
https://slate.com/technology/2020/11/contact-tracing-covid-states-failure.html
Has anyone had any experience with contact tracing? I signed up to help out early on and didn't hear back until late October. Then nothing after I responded.
Hopefully a easier to access test will become available.
terp said:
ml1 said:
bub said:
True. What exactly is "lockdown" anyway? Nobody here was forced to stay in their house, were they? This isn't Wuhan China.
I guess it refers to restrictions on businesses and schools. It's kind of a moot point because let's say NJ allowed movie theaters and concert halls, restaurants, casinos, etc to open at full capacity indoors. Who would go to a packed theater or restaurant? Where would they find people to work there? Until the pandemic is behind us most people are going to isolate themselves by choice to a great extent regardless of regulations. As much as libertarian oriented people are going to blame governments for the isolation people are feeling stressed by, it's the virus itself that is the cause of all these collateral problems. Most people are going to try to be safe. If anything the laws are helping to give people a minimal amount of opportunity to go out and engage in socially distanced behavior. Because with no regulations the knuckleheads would be running rampant in super spreader events, further trapping the cautious people in their homes. For example I wouldn't be going to grocery stores if there were no mask mandates. I'd be ordering for delivery.
You know this exactly how? This sounds more like you have been propogandized than you've reasoned this out. Most people who are comfortable with all the new mandates can work from home or are collecting checks somehow. People are hurting due to these policies. And most of these people are poor. Meanwhile the investor class is doing quite well.
Where do we draw the line? They tried to create rules around Thanksgiving dinner in some places. There are these arbitrary policies(that the knucklehead politicians don't even follow themselves) that are made by decree and most don't even ask for proof. I'm sorry, but the burden of proof should be with them. These policies are causing real pain. And they will NEVER admit it if we find they were not effective. They have done way too much damage.
people are hurting because the solution is two pronged, but we have a gutless and destructive death cult of a Republican party that doesn't want to provide financial help.
Surely you see this. It's not like they're trying to hide it.
terp said:
How did she decline to address anything? I think it's rather shallow to assume that she hasn't addressed any questions on her positions. What research have you done to back this assertion?
I assume the "research" was to read the article posted, which was described as "Dr Sunetra Gupta pens opinion piece on the reaction to the Great Barrington Declaration." So, it was a fair criticism of her article addressing the reaction.
Meanwhile, the young millennial son of my spouse's cousin has been on a ventilator since before Thanksgiving, as a result of Covid-19, but please continue about the benefits of "herd immunity".
I guess one of the main questions for those who endorse herd immunity is whether or not stressing out our health centers beyond capacity is sustainable? Are ICUs critical or not? Is life back to normal to avoid mental stress to the population more important then overwhelming our hospitals? Should we always bring things to the brink before we take action? It's so weird that people can handle this situation as if we've been here before.
jamie said:
A couple articles in regard to mask effectiveness:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6947e2.htm
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/21546014/mask-mandates-coronavirus-covid-19
One thing I feel that we've completely dropped the ball on is contact tracing.
https://slate.com/technology/2020/11/contact-tracing-covid-states-failure.html
Has anyone had any experience with contact tracing? I signed up to help out early on and didn't hear back until late October. Then nothing after I responded.
Hopefully a easier to access test will become available.
I've been working as a CT since August. I handle Newark cases & contacts. There are other Essex county folks besides the Newark-specific crew. DM me I guess if you have questions
jamie said:
I guess one of the main questions for those who endorse herd immunity is whether or not stressing out our health centers beyond capacity is sustainable? Are ICUs critical or not? Is life back to normal to avoid mental stress to the population more important then overwhelming our hospitals? Should we always bring things to the brink before we take action? It's so weird that people can handle this situation as if we've been here before.
That's an easy one. If pursuing "herd immunity" results in some people suffering from Covid-19 being unable to get the essential treatment to stay alive - them's the breaks.
There are other mechanisms for maintaining economic stability than encouraging, incentivizing, or forcing people to risk their health. Why push for throwing the most vulnerable into the highest health-risk situations? It's an approach of lazy (at the most forgiving end of the spectrum) economists and governments.
People seem to prefer to avoid pandemic health risks if it is possible. For example, fewer are going back to their offices now that the health risks are increasing. Creative solutions while we wait for vaccination-based herd immunity would better fit the preferences of the people, who mostly reject putting themselves at risk.
A New Setback for Big Cities as Return to the Office Fades
The low level of employees back at their workplaces is intensifying pain for cities geared toward office life
U.S. employees started heading back to the office in greater numbers after Labor Day but that pace is stalling now, delivering another blow to economic-recovery hopes in many cities.
The recent surge in Covid-19 cases across the country has led to an uptick in Americans resuming work at home after some momentum had been building for returning to the workplace, property analysts said. Floor after floor of empty office space is a source of great frustration for landlords and companies, which have invested millions of dollars in adapting building plans and developing new health protocols to make employees comfortable with a shared location.
terp said:
You know this exactly how? This sounds more like you have been propogandized than you've reasoned this out. Most people who are comfortable with all the new mandates can work from home or are collecting checks somehow. People are hurting due to these policies. And most of these people are poor. Meanwhile the investor class is doing quite well.
Where do we draw the line? They tried to create rules around Thanksgiving dinner in some places. There are these arbitrary policies(that the knucklehead politicians don't even follow themselves) that are made by decree and most don't even ask for proof. I'm sorry, but the burden of proof should be with them. These policies are causing real pain. And they will NEVER admit it if we find they were not effective. They have done way too much damage.
When you say I've been "propagandized" you lose me. I didn't read the rest. Maybe try arguing respectfully next time.
On the science aspect, we know that wearing masks, social distancing, and good ventilation greatly reduce the spread of the virus. We have several month of observations confirming that places where populations practice this have much less spread than places where people don't. People can dispute this if they like, but they're not making arguments based on empirical facts in doing so.
Many people are socially distancing, indeed started doing so from the very beginning, as this is a natural response to contagion. This of course has negative effects on the economy. This is all before any talk of mandates or lockdowns or anything along those lines -- pandemics inherently cause economic pain. That's an observational baseline.
Observations are part of science, but they're not enough to guide us. Figuring out how we as groups of people should respond is politics. How should we react to the economic pain caused by a pandemic, for instance? One approach would be to try and counteract people's natural inclination to reduce their risk of exposure -- strongly deny or downplay the danger of the disease, frame going shopping as a civic virtue, ramp up the culture war aspect so that actions like mask wearing become partisan identifiers. This is a choice we've seen several countries take, particularly in the Americas (including large portions of our own country)
Another choice might be to directly give public money to help individuals and businesses offset loss of income and revenue. This is a choice of lot of other countries have taken, especially in Europe, and our own country in the spring.
Other political choices involve the question of how to encourage behaviors that reduce the spread of infection. If people are naturally social distancing and voluntarily wearing masks, do public authorities need to be involved? And if people are not, what actions can public authorities take to try and change behavior? I suspect that, at minimum, having national figures publicly encouraging mask wearing and distancing is important. What about more restrictive measures such as closing down businesses? Of course any choice here interacts with the political choices around addressing the economic pain.
It's no good trying to frame this as "science." The science is clear -- when people congregate in poorly ventilated areas, the virus spreads. When they keep their distance and wear masks, the spread slows. If Gupta et al want to argue that our political choices are the wrong ones, then they need to be honest about what the trade offs of their preferred approach is. That's what I haven't seen -- how many people do they expect will die under their proposal? How many seriously injured? How many cases of long-term serious health issues? Telling us the costs of the current approaches, without estimating the costs of their preferred approach, is only a half argument.
PVW said:
On the science aspect, we know that wearing masks, social distancing, and good ventilation greatly reduce the spread of the virus. We have several month of observations confirming that places where populations practice this have much less spread than places where people don't. People can dispute this if they like, but they're not making arguments based on empirical facts in doing so.
Many people are socially distancing, indeed started doing so from the very beginning, as this is a natural response to contagion. This of course has negative effects on the economy. This is all before any talk of mandates or lockdowns or anything along those lines -- pandemics inherently cause economic pain. That's an observational baseline.
Observations are part of science, but they're not enough to guide us. Figuring out how we as groups of people should respond is politics. How should we react to the economic pain caused by a pandemic, for instance? One approach would be to try and counteract people's natural inclination to reduce their risk of exposure -- strongly deny or downplay the danger of the disease, frame going shopping as a civic virtue, ramp up the culture war aspect so that actions like mask wearing become partisan identifiers. This is a choice we've seen several countries take, particularly in the Americas (including large portions of our own country)
Another choice might be to directly give public money to help individuals and businesses offset loss of income and revenue. This is a choice of lot of other countries have taken, especially in Europe, and our own country in the spring.Other political choices involve the question of how to encourage behaviors that reduce the spread of infection. If people are naturally social distancing and voluntarily wearing masks, do public authorities need to be involved? And if people are not, what actions can public authorities take to try and change behavior? I suspect that, at minimum, having national figures publicly encouraging mask wearing and distancing is important. What about more restrictive measures such as closing down businesses? Of course any choice here interacts with the political choices around addressing the economic pain.
It's no good trying to frame this as "science." The science is clear -- when people congregate in poorly ventilated areas, the virus spreads. When they keep their distance and wear masks, the spread slows. If Gupta et al want to argue that our political choices are the wrong ones, then they need to be honest about what the trade offs of their preferred approach is. That's what I haven't seen -- how many people do they expect will die under their proposal? How many seriously injured? How many cases of long-term serious health issues? Telling us the costs of the current approaches, without estimating the costs of their preferred approach, is only a half argument.
you are correct that cellphone mobility data showed people changing their behavior from the start of the pandemic. Because it's common sense that regardless of what the policies are, people don't want to get sick. Even now, surveys show the majority of people say they are either somewhat or very concerned about being infected, and the vast majority say they've changed their behavior in response to the pandemic.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/coronavirus-polls/?cid=rrpromo
Of course, even more people say they are concerned about the economy. But clearly a very large number of people are concerned about BOTH. But it's going to be really hard to do anything to bolster the economy as long as the pandemic is still with us. Because opening everything back up is almost certainly not going to bring consumers back as long as they are concerned about becoming infected.
Speaking of cell phones, NJ has deployed an app that can anonymously monitor the possible spread of the virus and notify a person if they have been in contact with someone who is contagious with the COVID virus.
https://covid19.nj.gov/pages/apptoolkit
I encourage everyone I speak with to use it. It asks you to check in each day to report any symptoms or not. There are stats and information modules as well. From what I understand, if a person who is running the app has a positive test, they are given a code to enter into the app. Other phones running the app are able to sense when a phone carrying such a notification code is near enough for enough time to warrant a close contact.
Here's an example of the interplay between science and politics:
CDC says 2-week coronavirus quarantines can be cut to 10 or 7 days (WaPo)
The CDC acknowledges that this new guidance involves a trade-off. The existing 14-day quarantine recommendation reflects the ability of the virus to incubate for a long period of time before symptoms appear. But lack of compliance — for example, among people who fear that they will lose a job, or two weeks of income, if they admit to being exposed — can undermine the public health benefit from that standard.
The range of possible incubation periods is science. Looking at various tradeoffs, trying to encourage people to change behaviors to reduce risk, is politics. Is the CDC making the right call here? Did they make the right call earlier?
We can't just say "science!" and magic away the uncertainty and messiness inherent here.
Re "Herd Immunity", there is a great deal of misunderstanding about this. In and of itself, "herd immunity" is a good thing, but the issue is how to achieve it. For many diseases, that has only happened via vaccines and we have seen the costs of losing the needed level of "herd immunity" when people start to avoid those vaccines, such as has been shown in recent times with measles for one example. Those who have touted "herd immunity" for Covid up to now have been talking about just allowing the virus to "take its course" and infect people to achieve that immunity. But the cost of that is very high with this virus. Avoiding infection until a safe and effective vaccine is widely available would seem to be the better way to achieve "herd immunity" in this case.
PVW said:
On the science aspect, we know that wearing masks, social distancing, and good ventilation greatly reduce the spread of the virus. We have several month of observations confirming that places where populations practice this have much less spread than places where people don't. People can dispute this if they like, but they're not making arguments based on empirical facts in doing so.
Many people are socially distancing, indeed started doing so from the very beginning, as this is a natural response to contagion. This of course has negative effects on the economy. This is all before any talk of mandates or lockdowns or anything along those lines -- pandemics inherently cause economic pain. That's an observational baseline.
Observations are part of science, but they're not enough to guide us. Figuring out how we as groups of people should respond is politics. How should we react to the economic pain caused by a pandemic, for instance? One approach would be to try and counteract people's natural inclination to reduce their risk of exposure -- strongly deny or downplay the danger of the disease, frame going shopping as a civic virtue, ramp up the culture war aspect so that actions like mask wearing become partisan identifiers. This is a choice we've seen several countries take, particularly in the Americas (including large portions of our own country)
Another choice might be to directly give public money to help individuals and businesses offset loss of income and revenue. This is a choice of lot of other countries have taken, especially in Europe, and our own country in the spring.Other political choices involve the question of how to encourage behaviors that reduce the spread of infection. If people are naturally social distancing and voluntarily wearing masks, do public authorities need to be involved? And if people are not, what actions can public authorities take to try and change behavior? I suspect that, at minimum, having national figures publicly encouraging mask wearing and distancing is important. What about more restrictive measures such as closing down businesses? Of course any choice here interacts with the political choices around addressing the economic pain.
It's no good trying to frame this as "science." The science is clear -- when people congregate in poorly ventilated areas, the virus spreads. When they keep their distance and wear masks, the spread slows. If Gupta et al want to argue that our political choices are the wrong ones, then they need to be honest about what the trade offs of their preferred approach is. That's what I haven't seen -- how many people do they expect will die under their proposal? How many seriously injured? How many cases of long-term serious health issues? Telling us the costs of the current approaches, without estimating the costs of their preferred approach, is only a half argument.
Have you read what they wrote? There is a lot there about tradeoffs. If anything our government has avoided talking about the costs of these policies. We have been monomaniacal on this issue. This only makes sense from a political perspective. Politicians are going to want to dissuade people from looking at alternatives to their policies.
And the science is far from clear. If masks and mask mandates were as effective as claimed, we would expect to see cases dip after mandates are put in place. However, that is not what we see. Would you please point out the pattern in the below charts?
ml1 said:
terp said:
You know this exactly how? This sounds more like you have been propogandized than you've reasoned this out. Most people who are comfortable with all the new mandates can work from home or are collecting checks somehow. People are hurting due to these policies. And most of these people are poor. Meanwhile the investor class is doing quite well.
Where do we draw the line? They tried to create rules around Thanksgiving dinner in some places. There are these arbitrary policies(that the knucklehead politicians don't even follow themselves) that are made by decree and most don't even ask for proof. I'm sorry, but the burden of proof should be with them. These policies are causing real pain. And they will NEVER admit it if we find they were not effective. They have done way too much damage.
When you say I've been "propagandized" you lose me. I didn't read the rest. Maybe try arguing respectfully next time.
And had mask mandates not have been implemented - scientists have said spikes could have been much worse.
Unfortunately when you use mostly republican states you case is pretty skewed. Can you share the site you're getting the mask graphs from?
terp said:
Have you read what they wrote? There is a lot there about tradeoffs. If anything our government has avoided talking about the costs of these policies. We have been monomaniacal on this issue. This only makes sense from a political perspective. Politicians are going to want to dissuade people from looking at alternatives to their policies.
What is your solution - Liberate New Jersey and remove the mask mandate? Also - post videos, but watch what you're writing - a pretty offensive comment was removed.. This is a covid discussion as I've said - not politics.
jamie said:
terp said:
Have you read what they wrote? There is a lot there about tradeoffs. If anything our government has avoided talking about the costs of these policies. We have been monomaniacal on this issue. This only makes sense from a political perspective. Politicians are going to want to dissuade people from looking at alternatives to their policies.
What is your solution - Liberate New Jersey and remove the mask mandate? Also - post videos, but watch what you're writing - a pretty offensive comment was removed.. This is a covid discussion as I've said - not politics.
Watch what I write? Don't bring up politics? Pretty offensive?
Note that where you censored me was a reply to this that included a video of the speaker.
people are hurting because the solution is two pronged, but we have a gutless and destructive death cult of a Republican party that doesn't want to provide financial help.
Surely you see this. It's not like they're trying to hide it.
The problem with conversing with people like you is that you are so biased you can't even see it. You are fine with someone saying roughly half Americand subscribe to "death cult". Nothing political or offensive there. When it is pointed out that this supposed death cult had a $1.8 Trillion package on the table but the speaker refused for seemingly political reasons, that's where the Rubicon is. Sure.
terp said:
The problem with conversing with people like you is that you are so biased you can't even see it. You are fine with someone saying roughly half Americand subscribe to "death cult". Nothing political or offensive there. When it is pointed out that this supposed death cult had a $1.8 Trillion package on the table but the speaker refused for seemingly political reasons, that's where the Rubicon is. Sure.
Why do you “unmaskers” think you are somehow smarter than the people who believe masks save lives? The death cult is very active down in Florida with Di Santis. Why do you stick around where you’re obviously miserable? Go get your herd immunity.
terp said:
The problem with conversing with people like you is that you are so biased you can't even see it. You are fine with someone saying roughly half Americand subscribe to "death cult". Nothing political or offensive there. When it is pointed out that this supposed death cult had a $1.8 Trillion package on the table but the speaker refused for seemingly political reasons, that's where the Rubicon is. Sure.
Two thoughts -
1. The GOP leader in the Senate was against that $1.8 Trillion, and I believe still is.
2. You're confusing two issues. One issue is the size of the financial relief package. The other issue is encouraging measures to slow down the rate of infection in the population. The "death cult" label is applied to those who, for partisan reasons, oppose and mock and flout their disregard for such measures. Examples of the latter abound.
Terp, perhaps you missed my comments about how no one on my first aid squad has contracted a single case of Covid from treating and transporting people who are by definition the sickest Covid patients (coughing, labored breathing etc.) in contrast to the experience of the President and his mask-mocking circle. If the difference is not explained by masks, please give me an alternative explanation. I'm all for reasoned debate and against the worship of sacred cows but the continued attack on mask-wearing is strictly for the loony.
terp said:
The problem with conversing with people like you is that you are so biased you can't even see it. You are fine with someone saying roughly half Americand subscribe to "death cult". Nothing political or offensive there. When it is pointed out that this supposed death cult had a $1.8 Trillion package on the table but the speaker refused for seemingly political reasons, that's where the Rubicon is. Sure.
I take it you won't be sharing the source for your images? And thanks for actually bringing ideas to the table. Usually a science topic would do this. Why are we spiking - and also demonstrate the scientists who are disputing the need for masks.
When did I use the phrase "death cult"?
I should have censored the line and not the video. Feel free to post the video again.
terp said:
Have you read what they wrote? There is a lot there about tradeoffs.
I've tried to read what you've posted from them. I haven't seen how many deaths, serious injuries, and long-term health issues they expect with their approach. If I've missed this, I'd be grateful if you showed me where they do go into this.
And the science is far from clear. If masks and mask mandates were as effective as claimed, we would expect to see cases dip after mandates are put in place. However, that is not what we see. Would you please point out the pattern in the below charts?
So first I'd like to go back to my distinction between science and politics. The effectiveness of masks is in the realm of science. Mask mandates, otoh, are about politics. Are mask mandates effective in increasing mask usage? What various kinds of mandates are there -- eg some carry fines, some don't, some are more restrictive, some less. I haven't done any deep reading on this, but there's bound to be quite a variation in types of mandates and actual behavior. If you're sincerely interested in getting into this, I'm happy to dive in and learn more along with you. But the general point is that places where people actually do where masks and social distancing experience lower rates of infection.
As for the charts you posted, a few of those charts there are from the LA area, which has been hit pretty hard, and if you look at the scale the peak looks to be around 280 or so per 1m. Compare to that to your chart of Mississippi though, where the peak looks just shy of 400 per 1m. And compare either of those to France, where people are more consistently practicing social distancing and mask wearing, and which in your chart has a steep rise at the end, going towards 160 per 1m..
I have to say, though, it's a bit difficult to compare in this format. Not all your charts are the same time scale, some are cities whereas others are countries, and at least one confusingly has a different y axis on the left than on the right. So apples-to-apples comparisons are tricky. It would be helpful if you posted the source for these (and in general, it's good practice to always provide the source for data).
Here's a site where it's easier to make some comparisons: https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/cases-per-million-by-state. Compare CA or NJ with, for instance, SD and ND.
ETA -- thx to DavidSchmidt for finding the source. One of the sources is the covid tracking project, which I linked to in the paragraph right above this. It'd recommend just going to that source for comparisons rather than relying on the confusing presentation at Rational Ground.
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I guess it refers to restrictions on businesses and schools. It's kind of a moot point because let's say NJ allowed movie theaters and concert halls, restaurants, casinos, etc to open at full capacity indoors. Who would go to a packed theater or restaurant? Where would they find people to work there? Until the pandemic is behind us most people are going to isolate themselves by choice to a great extent regardless of regulations. As much as libertarian oriented people are going to blame governments for the isolation people are feeling stressed by, it's the virus itself that is the cause of all these collateral problems. Most people are going to try to be safe. If anything the laws are helping to give people a minimal amount of opportunity to go out and engage in socially distanced behavior. Because with no regulations the knuckleheads would be running rampant in super spreader events, further trapping the cautious people in their homes. For example I wouldn't be going to grocery stores if there were no mask mandates. I'd be ordering for delivery.