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I think a more accurate analogy is "there's a wildfire and firefighters asked you to conserve water so they can fight it, but some people decided to run their taps 24/7 out of spite and now there's rationing"

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I think this is closer, but perhaps needs a slight change. I don't think it's out of spite; it's not like people are taking _more_ risk AFAICT. So maybe something like:

"there's a wildfire and firefighters asked you to limit water use to only drinking water, but some people decided to keep taking long showers, washing dishes, etc"

While on paper that analogy is sound, I feel in practice the asks being made are more extreme and disruptive than short-term water conservation. Others may disagree.

Yeah, and again, the issue isn't that your house is on fire or that there's a wildfire, it's that there's a global pandemic that in absence of any "conservation" measures on your part displays a superlinear growth path - so, yes, the asks being made are much more disruptive, because the event that's occurring is much more dangerous.

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