Which Businesses Should We Open or Close?

Researchers are already applying this approach to determine which businesses should open first:

Source. Notes: danger is calculated taking into account the number of visits, the number of unique visitors, and person-hours of visits above two density thresholds. So banks are quite safe because few people visit, those who do tend to be the same all the time, and they don’t spend a lot of time. Conversely, lots of different people go to gyms and cafes, and they spend a long time there—in the case of cafés, talking a lot face to face. The importance comes from a combination of how much people care about different businesses based on surveys, and how much wealth they generate based on employment and receipts. Note that this model isn’t perfect because it doesn’t account for face-to-face conversations or singing. Further models should account for that, and ideally for other things such as empirical evidence.

Based on this analysis (which looked at real-world data such as mobility, consumer preferences, and government statistics) banks and grocery stores are the most important to maintain open, while gyms or cafés should remain closed and be the last to reopen. It is not perfect, but it gives a broad priority for the order of reopening:

• If they were closed, banks, finance companies, grocery and general stores should be the first to reopen
• After that, reopen department stores, colleges and universities, clothing and shoe stores, and auto-dealers and mechanics
• Next would come furniture and home good stores, electronic stories, barbers and salons, hardware stores, places of worship, casinos, office supply stores, and movie theaters
• Next come amusement parks, book stores, museums, pet and supply stores, and liquor and tobacco stores.
• The last to open should be sporting goods stores, gyms, cafes, and dessert parlors

Interestingly, the analysis confirms the types of businesses that countries have already prioritized intuitively, even with imperfect data.

Models like this are not perfect yet. For example, I disagree with their conclusion on eateries. It’s true that fast food restaurants should open before sit-down restaurants, since people stay for much less time and talk less, but this paper suggests we could reopen some of them at full capacity early on. That’s because they don’t account for the huge danger that is added in eateries of people sitting face to face for long periods of time. They also don’t account for creative ways businesses could adapt to reopen safely. Gyms, for example, could limit attendance, reorganize floor space, require people to maintain a 6-feet distance, and/or have someone on staff keeping all spaces clean full time, like in this gym:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtUYZsBaIkI&t=60s

Businesses could also impose stronger restrictions during exclusive business hours for older clients. This is just an example, and in the end, the broader question might not be “Which businesses should open?” but rather “How can businesses reopen safely?”

Families and Transit

In China, outside of Hubei, around 80% of infections involved families and close contacts in the household. This is surely an effect of home quarantines since mass gatherings were limited. But it illustrates how much the virus spreads in families. 

Among these contacts, the highest risk by far is transmission to spouses: 28% of them end up infected, compared to 17% for other adults in the household and just 4% of kids below 18 years old.

Nevertheless, we can probably draw conclusions that are applicable elsewhere:

• Stopping infections at home can have a dramatic effect on the epidemic
• You are not very likely to catch the virus from random people on the street. 
• You are, however, very likely to catch it from your spouse, your kids, your parents or the friends you visit. 

Transit also has an impact, although it’s unclear if it’s due to traveling with family members or caught in transit from other people.

So treat your family members with caution. Try to avoid interacting physically with members that are at risk. Call them instead. If somebody has symptoms, try to isolate that person. It’s hard to do that with a family member, but the alternative can be more sickness, a visit to the hospital, or death. So if there are symptoms, avoid kisses, hugs, or even talking face to face without a mask.

Thank you Dr. Muge Cevik for your round-ups of papers.

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