Quarantines obviously do work. Few virus just blow in the wind... I don't follow the denial of basic knowldege.
I can understand an argument of where to draw the line between lives and cost. But to just call this the flu and no big deal and that it just needs to run it course naturally is something else.
I believe that the comparisons to the flu were made to try to put the death toll in perspective, not to say this is the flu, a variety of flu, or even will behave necessarily the same way.
But perspective has left the building and was trampled on the street in the panic outside.
Of course, this is not the flu. It is in a different group of viruses (Coronaviruses) which ranges in lethality from MERS and SARS to the common cold. It falls somewhere in between, exactly where, we don't really know.
We don't really know because this is a novel virus, something new.
We do know it tends to be most dangerous for people over 60, and especially those over 60 with pre-existing pulmonary, coronary, or metabolic diseases and those with compromised immune systems are believed to be at higher risk.
How many of those who have died in the US had one of those preexisting conditions.
Comparing what is happening in Italy and using it to project what is happening here is useless. Apples to Oranges.
Unless, of course, the purpose is to cause panic.
Panic is something that can be herded, like a stampede, it is destructive of anything in its way, without thought, and ultimately can be grossly self destructive, just like the buffalo jump, the lemming migration, and other examples of creatures running headlong to their demise, humans apparently will do the same thing.
When enough of the economy has broken down, who will deliver the goods to your town that it needs to survive? If people (as people often do) become so envious of, or desperate to have what you have and they don't (a recurring theme in media) will they recall having seen iterations of
The Purge and decide to come for all you have, even if you don't have it?
What will the body count be then?
See, I can go all hyperbolic, too.
But mobs and riots are a fact of human existence.
Fear of starvation and the cries of a hungry child will overcome fear of
maybe catching a disease at some point, that
might make you sick. What then?
Back up, America. Back off. Take the wide view in, and get the job done.
This panic will kill more people (if we let it) than the disease itself.
But while you are sitting behind those barred doors, noshing on freeze dried apricots, I heartily recommend reading Edgar Allen Poe's
The Masque of the Red Death for entertainment. At least the highway accident toll may drop....
