Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Essential and inessential services under corona virus lockdown (guess before reading--coffee, cannabis, etc?)

We're under "shelter in place" orders in Santa Clara County, with everyone hunkering down, except for essential services:

Bay Area orders ‘shelter in place,’ only essential businesses open in 6 counties

"Six Bay Area counties announced “shelter in place” orders for all residents on Monday — the strictest measure of its kind yet in the continental United States — directing everyone to stay inside their homes and away from others as much as possible for the next three weeks in a desperate move to curb the rapid spread of coronavirus across the region.

"The directive was set to begin at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and involves San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda counties — a combined population of more than 6.7 million. It is to stay in place until at least April 7.
...
"Businesses that do not provide “essential” services must send workers home. Among those remaining open are grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants for delivery only and hardware stores. "
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So I was glad to get this email from our local Stanford campus coffeehouse (which I agree is an essential service):

These Coupa Locations are still Open For Take-Out, Curbside-Pickup & Delivery
Today 9:00am - 3:00pm
 Green Library
571 Escondido Mall in Stanford
(nevertheless, our Wednesday morning market design coffee will meet by Zoom, while we shelter in place...)
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Schools are closed (I guess they might be both essential and sources of contagion).  This being California, there are other essential services:
San Francisco: Cannabis deemed as an essential medicine, dispensaries to remain open
"The San Francisco Department of Public Health released a statement on Tuesday letting San Francisco residents know dispensaries will remain open despite having a shelter in place order.

"The Department states cannabis is an essential medicine."

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Nevada is different:  Nevada Brothels Requiring Customers To Wear Masks

Germany (where prostitution is also legal) is different in a different way, Stephanie Wang forwarded this shelter in place announcement from Germany:
https://www.land.nrw/de/pressemitteilung/landesregierung-beschliesst-weitere-massnahmen-zur-eindaemmung-der-corona-virus
via Google translate, a list of what is inessential:
"Already on Sunday, the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs decrees that almost all leisure, sport, entertainment and educational offers in the country will be discontinued. As of Monday, all so-called "entertainment companies" such as bars, clubs, discotheques, arcades, theaters, cinemas and museums have to close. The same regulation applies to prostitution companies."

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