Originally Posted by velosnow

First off hope your son stays healthy through this and long past it.

But don't we already have an expectation of dictating other's actions to a degree as a part of living in a society? From (reasonably) obeying speed limits, to washing one's hands, to not randomly chucking rocks at people because you feel like is all a part of a social contract. Extending that during times of pandemic is perfectly reasonable to me. No, we can't force people to do the right thing all the time, but since we've moved on from being selfish heathens (well most of us) we should have by now figured out it isn't just about ourselves.

The trouble is with something as highly transmissible as this is, it's near impossible to know what our actions can cause downstream. Isolating those who we believe are high risk just isn't feasible, we can't seal up millions of people in isolation chambers for the foreseeable future. Just as we can't expect people to stay locked down forever, but a reasonable approach to combating this doesn't mean willy nilly opening it up and getting 'back to normal' overnight.

Originally Posted by Thor

We'll know by Labor Day if there's a second and more pronounced spike as a result of opening certain states too soon. My prediction is no matter what, the "don't tread on me klan" will continue to be belligerent and frame the public health policy associated with the pandemic as an assault on freedom and apple pie.

Originally Posted by nludy

Well said!

What's really an embarrassment is the pilots on here downplaying 65,000 Americans that didn't have to die in the past couple of months. The rational is unbelievable. It's like saying we should make drinking and driving legal because it will only kill 50,000 people a year.

Originally Posted by Thor

We'll know by Labor Day if there's a second and more pronounced spike as a result of opening certain states too soon. My prediction is no matter what, the "don't tread on me klan" will continue to be belligerent and frame the public health policy associated with the pandemic as an assault on freedom and apple pie.

Originally Posted by Tom Bradys Cat

Allowing the non vulnerable out is not going to change the stats one bit, no matter how much you wish it.

Originally Posted by Excargodog

That is not strictly speaking true, the first part at least. Like people who have been immunized against an organism, the presence in the population of substantial numbers of people WHO HAVE ALREADY HAD THE DISEASE dilutes down the population of susceptibles and decreases the effective R0 of the infecting organism. The ideal situation in any epidemic is if everyone who won’t be hurt by an illness has already had it.

Prior to the development of the rubella vaccine it was not uncommon for young girls to be taken by their parents to “German Measles parties” where they were encouraged to catch the illness before they reached child-bearing age.

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/co...ticles/rubella

Originally Posted by Aero1900

Americans are too dumb to deal with this.

The US has done by far the worst job containing the spread of this disease and will therefore suffer the most. Lots of other countries have significantly slowed the spread and can safely start reopening. We are going to reopen before we see any progress. The United States response to this pandemic is an embarrassment.

Over 60,000 Americas have already died. That's 20X more than 9/11 and more than the entire Vietnam War.... And it only took 3 months!

Our incredibly poor handling of this will ensure that we suffer the most. While other countries go back to normal, we will be floundering. We have already had 5x more cases than anywhere else, and triple the deaths of the next worst country.

But yeah, we should totally protest the stay at home order. Let's see how bad we can make this. Let's all disregard information and rational thought. Let's pretend this is the govt trying to take away your liberty. Let's reopen everything and see if we can kill 100k people by the 4th of July. Let's keep spreading the virus so we can keep our schools closed and planes grounded for a long time! Let's open it up so we can make the problem far worse. Let's open it up and delay the return to normal as long as possible. Let's keep digging this hole deeper! Let's make this political! You know, because the virus cares who you voted for.

We have got to stop taking political sides on everything. We need to do the right thing so we can actually slow the spread and start to resume normal life. In case you haven't noticed, the Gov't hasn't stopped the airlines from flying. In fact, the govt just handed the airlines 25 Billion dollars and said "you can have this money so long as you keep flying." But.... no one is flying. People are scared of getting sick and dying. People are trying to stop the spread of the disease. Protesters at the capital are not part of the solution.

I fear that the United States will suffer far worse than anywhere else on earth. And we can thank the non stop, political BS this country consumes.

You can flame away and be mad at me or think I'm an idiot. I don't care. We are failing this miserably. And the folks who refuse to take officials advice and recommendations because of a political meme they saw on Facebook will continue to make the problem worse.

Originally Posted by Beech Dude

Just because someone carries a gun, that is not a threatening act. Unfortunately, it makes alot of people afraid. I support them exercising their rights, and carrying legally, but I think they should have left their guns in the truck on this one, so that the redneck, armed "white mob" , yada yada, crap could have stayed out of this problem.

Originally Posted by Burton78

Ironic. Where was your outrage of all the deaths from the flu that many people have pointed out? Or are you down playing those deaths because it doesn't fit your narrative? Carry on with your poo flinging contest.

Originally Posted by Excargodog

That is not strictly speaking true, the first part at least. Like people who have been immunized against an organism, the presence in the population of substantial numbers of people WHO HAVE ALREADY HAD THE DISEASE dilutes down the population of susceptibles and decreases the effective R0 of the infecting organism. The ideal situation in any epidemic is if everyone who won’t be hurt by an illness has already had it.

Prior to the development of the rubella vaccine it was not uncommon for young girls to be taken by their parents to “German Measles parties” where they were encouraged to catch the illness before they reached child-bearing age.

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/co...ticles/rubella