The bully pulpit is supremely important in these situations, and no government so far seems to have used it responsibly to disseminate a consistent message early enough to citizenry. Worse yet, in the US ones politics seems to be particularly predictive of opinion on coronavirus.
My current feeling is that the virus was not taken seriously when action could have mattered, and now the goal of government and citizenry is to reduce the carnage to both medically vulnerable folks (old people) and to economically vulnerable people. The latter risk in particular scares me, as there are many folks in the US who are going to be severely impacted by politicians reacting severely way too late who are too cowardly to protect those vulnerable people adequately.
I thought the UK (and Sweden, Finland etc) differed mostly in not closing schools yet. Are there other significant differences?
Is there a summary of the current recommendations? I mean surely gatherings etc are banned? Football is already cancelled, for example, as in other countries?
What? That sounds insane
(Today's deathcount is of course dependent on policy from weeks ago tough)
I think it's unwise for a few reasons, not least that if we delay we may have better treatments. Stuff like chloroquine and keltra seems to work but there haven't really been the proper studies - that sort of stuff shouldn't take that long. And there may be a vaccine. (China rushing vaccine stuff https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/china-coronavirus-va...)
...which presumes you don't live in a place with high-enough urban density that going outside your home immediately puts you into a large crowd.
Like, what are you supposed to do if you live in Manila? Mumbai? Dhaka?
Pretty much the only way to "practice social distancing" in those sorts of places is to never go outside.
I am getting mixed messages, I'm not sure why I think asking for another opinion on the internet will help, but there it is.
But that appears to be what we've got.
The shaming approach of "you want to be part of this effort?" (whatever that means) is unlikely to be an effective communications strategy either.
I don't know why I asked, I already had my choice of various opinions on the internet (usually given from a position of moral superiority and judgement).
I seriously don't understand why the U.S. public health infrastructure is failing so horribly here; if you want to maximize compliance, it seems obvious that you should be giving consistent and pervasive instructions, there should be literally a planned "marketting" campaign, with a consistent message. If people are getting different messages from different places of course they will be confused and compliance will be less.
Instead, we have "which chain letter on facebook and/or shaming and blaming comment on HN does my gut tell me seems right?" What the fuck America.
so don't go if you don't want to be that person.
> what are you supposed to do if you live in Manila? Mumbai? Dhaka?
Rejoice that you are with 99% certainty way under 70 years old.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-15/manila-en...
No. What everyone is advised to do right now is not to withdraw from society, it's to perform basic hygiene and social distancing in order to slow down the spread. Social distancing doesn't mean living like a recluse eating spam cooked on a gas burner, it's not getting into large crowds and trying to stay some distance from other people (outside spitting / coughing range). WaPo has an article with a "social distancing" simulator: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-si...
"Self quarantining" is closer to what you're talking about, but it's for people who are at risk or likely to have been infected, not the general public.
Of course the latter you start the more it's already spread and the harsher measures have to be. And the more you'll have to ramp them up as you realise your initial measures were not sufficient, or your citizens have decided "freedom or death" is a good choice and decide to just ignore it.
FWIW Taiwan's already reopened its schools and life has gone back to something not entirely dissimilar to normal (people do have to wear masks and get their temperature checked to step into public buildings or businesses but they can move around just fine).