One of the traits of this virus that makes it so different from past potential epidemics is that it's able to spread rapidly through a population for up to two weeks before it starts becoming "visible" (symptoms start to arrive in large enough numbers to become alarming). At the tail end of those two weeks, the infection may have spread enough to become very difficult to control.
So, if we took some kind of middle road, and then two weeks later the virus exploded, would that change how you felt about the approach?
I'm still treating this question honestly, btw. I completely agree that it would be nice if such severe measures were unnecessary and the damage to people's livelihoods could start getting addressed. But, the problem that policy-makers are dealing with is that this isn't an infection that responds well to a "wait and see" approach; by the time you start to "see" and react, you could be in deep trouble.
Another complication and I'm sure the task force is wrestling with this. If you undo the restrictions you're never going to be able to put them back in place and have the adherence you did the first time. I just don't believe the people will accept being on lock-down for weeks, then getting a taste of getting back to work and then being asked to go back on lock-down. I also didn't believe people in the US would follow the lock-down rules anywhere near to the degree they have so :shrug: who knows?
Ooof, I hope you're wrong about this, and that people would enjoy more having sporadic periods of freedom rather than months straight of lockdown, but I can't say that for sure. You may be right.
It's also an open question for me. I'm wondering though if, even with the limited data we have now, there are examples of countries that took a similar approach and had their two-weeks-later 'explosion' (or possibly three, is what I've heard).
People want to make things complicated and not take anything at face value, but if you look at global cases on a log scale, you see how they started exponential, flattened out, and then once there was a foothold outside china, went exponential again, and now is flattening again.
Wouldn't it be logical to assume this will repeat as soon as people decide it's under control again? How can you go back to normal, before everyone has caught it, and expect the rate not to go back to exponential?
One of the traits of this virus that makes it so different from past potential epidemics is that it's able to spread rapidly through a population for up to two weeks before it starts becoming "visible" (symptoms start to arrive in large enough numbers to become alarming). At the tail end of those two weeks, the infection may have spread enough to become very difficult to control.
So, if we took some kind of middle road, and then two weeks later the virus exploded, would that change how you felt about the approach?
I'm still treating this question honestly, btw. I completely agree that it would be nice if such severe measures were unnecessary and the damage to people's livelihoods could start getting addressed. But, the problem that policy-makers are dealing with is that this isn't an infection that responds well to a "wait and see" approach; by the time you start to "see" and react, you could be in deep trouble.