I don’t actually think we disagree that much. The problem is that we were supposed to use our early lockdowns in the “high cases” states (NY/NJ/CA) to control the epidemic and bring it down to manageable levels. At least in NY/NJ this seems to have worked. We were supposed to use our lockdowns in the “low cases” states to bring the caseload down near zero. This has not really worked that well, largely because the lockdowns were poorly implemented, and because states ended them before they had really crushed community spread to a level where testing and tracing could work.

Now there’s superficial (early) evidence that many of the low-cases states are entering a second stage of exponential growth. There may not be much room for us to simply manage the caseload at some “acceptable level” if those states really catch fire. The problem is that the only tool we have to manage this — if indeed it bears out and hospitals become overwhelmed - is another lockdown. But the lockdowns have become a political hot potato, and at least one side is dead-set against them. It seems unlikely that we’ll be able to use this tool again until things get Very Bad.

Compare this to most of continental Europe, where both high-case and low-case nations have succeeded with lockdowns, and governments are moving into a phase where careful management is likely to control the epidemic entirely going forward.