Excargodog

Absolutely

An acceptable state of affairs? What kind of an idiotic statement is that? It is what it is. Reality is reality, independent of what you or I or anyone else WISH it would be.

What is going on in Italy has little if anything to do with what you or I or anyone else find ‘acceptable.’ Italy is a country with a population with a median age of eight years older than the US, and a population density five times greater than that of the US. Conditions for prompt propagation of the virus are far better than in the US and the people who will be infected are in an age group that will do far worse than in the US, with far higher rates of smoking induced COPD, cardiovascular disease, and other comorbidities that set them up for bad outcomes - even apart from the age differential. They are a target rich environment. and yep, they are getting hammered.

Do I LIKE that? Of course not, it’s a stupid question. Do I find that ACCEPTABLE? An equally stupid question. I have no control over that - and neither do you.

As for the major population centers of the US, they too have certain demographics of population density and median age that might either promote or retard infection with the virus, the result of millions of historical decisions that we won’t be able to do much about at this time. They are stuck with the demographics they have now and the resource decisions they have made over centuries. They can, to some degree, mitigate risk or at least the rate of infection by social distancing and shutting down mass transit, etc, but if this really does take off here like it has in Italy (unlikely due to the different population age but possible) the limiting factor won’t be ventilators but medical personnel competent to manage patients on ventilators.

None of which changes the reality that this is an epidemic like many that have happened before, and while there is going to be pain this is not an apocalypse. Society is going to get through this.