China, Iran, and South Korea don't stamp passports. If a traveler from one of those countries wants to bypass a "closed border" they can simply connect through an unblocked country.

An interview might reveal that the traveler came from an affected region, but someone working to bypass border restrictions is probably less inclined to answer those questions honestly.

Couple that with the fact that traveling to a country with far fewer cases and is not under quarantine related lock-downs, and being sick in another country but getting treatment, even if it's expensive, might be a compelling option when people in your home country are dying because there aren't enough facilities to care for them.

It's a pretty shitty moral perspective, but it is a perfectly valid individual perspective. This is one of the reasons why the WHO pointed out early on that increased screening at borders was more effective, and why closing borders may actually accelerate the spread of the disease.

Closing the borders wasn't a strong action, it was a misguided action intended to look strong and play well with the Republican base, and was the first in a string of shitty mistakes that the US Government, and other organizations within the US have made in handling this crisis.

Thank god!

In their defense, apparently they got trigger-happy in H1N1 days and got burned for calling pandemic too early.

It’s crazy people now think who downplayed the epidemic. I had the opposite feeling until the situation got really bad in italy too : that they cried wolf for something that looked a lot like a flu..

My impression was they were very clear, said (to my recollection) that they considered a pandemic to be significant growing endemic transfer on all continents, then appear to have called that when it happened. They don't appear to have hidden numbers, and seem to have helped with knowledge sharing and expertise.

Hmm, do you have evidence of the threat being downplayed?

The initial advice against the travel ban was quite political, but it's the classic case of a nonprofit needing to appease its donors. At any rate, I recall them saying that travel bans are ineffective against stopping viral spread (which has clearly been proven true). Their utility on slowing transmission is less clear, though I've read that travel controls have indeed proven helpful.

The problem with travel bans is that there can be all sorts of unintended side effects that exacerbate the problem. It encourages people to make heavier use of illicit and non-mainstream travel channels that can't be monitored or controlled effectively. It may reduce overall travel, but much of the travel that does occur takes place in conditions that are dramatically more likely to cause problems. Also travel bans can lead to severe humanitarian issue on top of the existing health crisis.

I think it's more likely that low voter turnout in November (if this lasts that long) allows the administration to reject the results on the basis that "the people's voice was suppressed" - I agree they're not just going to call off the election, but I think it's pretty likely they'll try and cast doubt on the results if it goes against them.

Or test this:

"is a Presidential Directive establishing a comprehensive policy on the federal government structures and operations in the event of a "catastrophic emergency". Such an emergency is defined as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_and_Homeland...

It organizes the three branches under the President.

Giuliani did it. If anyone reminds Trump of this he might just get ideas in his head.

Correct. They are using this to again snuff Bernie.

Agreed, probably (hopefully) some combination of: drug therapies succeeding; mitigation measures succeeding; seasonal variability; accumulating immunity; normalization of risk of disease impact, will eventually get us to a new normal steady state.

e.g. we happily accept some risk of being killed in an airplane or road traffic accident even though those things could almost certainly be made less risky than they are now. We're ok with some non-zero risk, provided it's reasonably constant and known.

The constitution doesn't actually decide what we do. Elections could be postponed, probably not all of them but enough that you wouldn't have real results. States would sue, it would make its way to the supreme court. The supreme court might find in the administration's favor, because they vote how they like; they aren't required to follow the constitution. They may rule against trump and trump ignores them; if the military is on his side, does he need anything else?

I'm not saying any of that will happen, but you talk as if our social constructs and institutions are barriers that limit where we can go, when in actuality they're breadcrumbs that we choose to follow.

Societies have flipped out before.

A much smaller and less urbanized population.