Were they lying to us then, or are they lying to us now?
They weren't. I don't think Dr. Fauchi, Dr. Acton, or the various governors and their medical teams thought Americans would initially take well to social distancing.
The public narrative changed once the WSJ Editorial Board let out the "the cure is worse than the disease" anti-science pro-business hack job. President Trump saw it and then he started off on it. Shortly after this the protests started which then leads me to your next point.
My biggest problem with the whole thing of opening up or not opening up is that the goal posts have consistently moved to the point where I'm not even sure there are goal posts any more. If you want to understand the frustration that many of the people feel, those who believe we should open up, this is it. I'm not talking about the AK wielding, flag waving ones at rallies, I'm talking about the otherwise intelligent people who share their opinion that something about this is really really wrong and nobody will tell us what it is.
This is due to a lack of science literacy, viruses being incredibly odd and complex pieces of matter, and people more willing to yell and scream rather than seeking to trust and understand the experts.
Anytime the experts would try and talk, they'd be gagged or immediately downplayed with some snake oil cure (Chloroquine for example...).
When stay-at-home orders were first discussed it was to flatten the curve... I didn't do the calculus on it but the area under the flattened curve looked similar to the area under the curve of the spike if we did nothing.. meaning the same number of people would get infected, just over a longer period of time so as not to overwhelm the healthcare system and thus fewer people would die.
Flatten the curve was part of it, and the other part was to lower with R0 which is known as the rate of transmission. You want the R0 to be less than 1 as it would lower the transmission rate and effectively die out. A 1 one would one other person would get it, and so on with the chain. Most experts think that if left to its own devices, covid could be as high as 4 which means lots and lots of people will get it.
More on R0 and why it's important We were told that between 200K and 1.4 million people would die and well over 100 million would be infected. We were told that 70-90% of the population needed to be infected before we could feel safe. We currently stand at about 1.4 million infected and 80K dead and the daily infected and death rate has been running at less than half of what it was at its peak... We were told a lot of stuff by the experts that everybody said we should listen to that is now ignored like it never happened.
Well, when our national briefing turns into campaign rallies, not allowing experts to speak unless given prior approval, half-baked conspiracy theories about the origin...why do you think there's been the messaging there is? There's good information to be found out there if you know who to turn to.
PM me if you want to know where I've been sourcing a lot of this from.
In actuality, it was only hospitals in a very select few urban areas that EVER go overwhelmed.. the vast majority of the country has had a relatively mild caseload compared to what we were told to expect.. curves have been flattened over most of the country for a while.. and now we are told, wait a minute, that's not good enough, we've moved the goal posts.
The problem is how easily this virus transmits, the time it takes for symptoms to show, and the large possibility that people transmit this before even showing symptoms.
Once again, this could've all been explained if our national messaging actually stuck to science rather than nonsense about politics.
Most viruses are either highly deadly and not so transmissible, or highly transmissible and not so deadly. This one is rare in that it's highly transmissible and the mortality rate seems to be anywhere between .9%-3%.
The true mortality rate can only be determined by wide-spread testing, and right now that's not a priority in our country.
You have sacrificed your jobs, your businesses, your graduations, your retirement funds for 10+ weeks instead of 2 or 3.. but that's not good enough, we've moved the goal posts.
Your falling into the trap the anti-science messaging wants you to fall into. Look at the hard scientific data behind this virus and you'll understand why information is the way it is.
Sorry Arkansas, Idaho, Utah, Maine, West Virginia, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Hawaii, Montana, Alaska, and Wyoming with your grand total of 527 deaths and your steady rate of about 10 new deaths per day, that's not good enough, we've moved the goal posts again.. if you want to go back to work it's surely because you want to kill my grandmother in New York...
I'll speak to my experience as an Alaska transplant from Ohio on this one.
A third of the population of the state, roughly 350,000 or so, live in Anchorage. The second biggest population center is Fairbanks. The next few biggest cities are Wasilla, Palmer, Juneau, Seward, etc. We're incredibly spread out, double the size of Texas, and our population density is the lowest in the entire nation. We've talked and I know that you understand the remoteness of this place, so I know you understand why our numbers have been low.
Our governor has also followed DeWine's playbook, and it's paid off for us. We're now under 40 active cases, and over 300+ have recovered.
Now we have governor Newsom saying that California won't completely open up until there is a vaccine... that was never part of the deal, nobody said in the beginning that we would all be stuck at home until they developed a vaccine.... they've moved the goal posts again...
No one knew how this transmitted at the start. No one knew how contagious this would be.
This is a once in a hundred years type event. There was a playbook and a team formed a few years back to help in an instance like this, but it was cut for some reason or another. Don't blame me on that. I didn't make that decision.
Some people feel that those who want to get out are being ridiculously irresponsible...
I don't. I understand completely what you're feeling.
I don't fault you at all, either. The national messaging on this has been atrocious. If we would let the experts actually talk, explain, and educate we would all be in a better place.
A nation should educate and calm its populace.