Edit: Source added.
[1] https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/03/devi...
You'll be in a situation where people will die by contagion of other people who isn't even aware they are infected. You might infect your loved ones.
If you don't lock down now, it will be bad.
The US already moving that way in baby steps but things will certainly get there. That it isn't there already is already bad but I can't see this taking more than a few more days.
I've also been getting some too scarily close fitting done (not sharing that, it'd be irresponsible, this is not my job and I'm nowhere close to being an epidemiologist). I think the number of confirmed cases in Spain is going to grow appallingly this week and morale is going to be hit hard. Tiny in comparison of what we'd get if we did nothing about it, though. I also think (and hope) it'll start getting much better after that if we're effectively quenching contagion. I hope the authorities share their models with the public in order to give them a fuller picture. That might help psychologically.
At any rate, you don't have to wait for anything, you can start implementing social distancing and careful personal hygiene practices right now.
Sheriff David Clarke, who has nearly a million followers on Twitter just said this a few hours ago and got thousands of retweets and favorites:
> It is now evident that this is an orchestrated attempt to destroy CAPITALISM. First sports, then schools and finally commercial businesses. Time to RISE UP and push back. Bars and restaurants should defy the order. Let people decide if they want to go out.
> GO INTO THE STREETS FOLKS. Visit bars, restaurants, shopping malls, CHURCHES and demand that your schools re-open. NOW! If government doesn’t stop this foolishness...STAY IN THE STREETS. END GOVERNEMNT CONTROL OVER OUR LIVES. IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
https://twitter.com/SheriffClarke/status/1239324440934133760
These people are psychotic and should be expelled from polite society.
That is not an opinion much less an extreme one.
That's kind of problematic. The population in New York City is much denser than in Las Vegas and the number of infected much higher, consequently you might need a lockdown in NYC while in suburban Las Vegas everyone can just retreat into their McMansion on Cobblestone Court Road and watch Foxnews for two weeks.
As a politician you can angle for votes by mocking the healthcare system in Lombardy, one of the best in the world, because your local hospital won't be hit quite as hard, while the healthcare personnel on the frontlines risks infection with coronavirus. The free-rider problem in politics in unsolved, it seems.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/14/older-ame...
Do you believe the US is special in this regard?
Stupid has no party.
You may say stupid has no party, but the hallmark of stupid is trying to pretend reality doesn't exist so that it fits whatever you said (sharpie'ing out the exponential growth curves won't cut it this time), instead of admitting you were wrong and changing as the facts require.
"We are not saying you shouldn’t go to restaurants, but we certainly don’t want any restaurants with more than 250 people, we have ordered that. If you are in a restaurant, try not to be on top of other people, increase the social distancing, social separation."
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/487666-nunes-urges-americ...
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-a-great-time-to-go-out...
Honestly it does seem to have a lot of blatantly manufactured steps added on top of a normal health situation. Australia has implemented a 50k fine for people who break curfew.
When did 1984 become reality for the public? This is not the stiff upper lip, we don't give our lifestyle away to foreign threats, classic western attitude. This is blatant politicking for a police state off the back of dead people. Nobody wants to live like this and sometimes you have to choose for yourself.