I think those of us who are living under ‘shelter in place’ orders can all agree it can quickly start to feel a bit claustrophobic. I’m grateful that my house has a yard (something I didn’t have when I lived in the DC area all those years). People in Austin can go walking or running outside as long as they maintain at least six feet of distance from others.

Businesses are being destroyed. No matter how much money the government throws at the problem, enterprises people have worked their whole lives to build may never come back. Looking on the bright side I guess Megan McArdle argued this week that if the economy were 100% shut down for four months this year we’d still be twice as wealthy as those living during the 1918 Spanish Flu.

While the number of confirmed cases in Austin remains relatively low, it’s been growing at a quick pace the last few days – on Tuesday 28 spring breakers who traveled mid-month to Cabo all came back with the virus (and walked around with it for several days of course) out of a total of 38 new cases, and on Wednesday we registered 65 new cases. It’s be nice to think that the rate of growth wouldn’t increase, but some of that remains still due to lack of testing – and to a lag in processing tests, with nearly 60,000 pending in California alone.

So what do those not under shelter in place orders do? Well, play golf I guess! Right on the Las Vegas strip!

If you’re using your own equipment, and not interacting with staff, and you’re playing by yourself that seems like maybe not such a bad idea. Playing with the people in your own household? You’re exposed to them anyway. That doesn’t create perfect safety, though, since there’s some limited evidence of aerosol transmission (although largely during invasive health care procedures).

This idea I can’t quite get behind: “Bring an out of town guest!”

With golf courses deserted and no customers, $69 tee times are the new $13 cross country airfares

(HT: losingtrader)