Coronavirus pandemic

[webny99]

This is also a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking.  Try to think back to mid February.

Well, come to think of it, the Super Bowl did take place on Monday morning in China.

[Duke87]

"sooner" doesn't make a difference. Question is how to reduce transmission rate and quench the spread - and this is something US fails at while other countries can manage the task.
US as a whole still has 1.0 spread factor after a month of shutdown - and most states are above 0.8, meaning little wiggle room for opening up from current restrictions.

It absolutely does make a difference though, in a couple ways. First, when you flatten the curve early on, it becomes feasible to arrest it back down to zero and snuff things out. Let the curve get too high before you act, and the length of shutdown theoretically necessary to get cases down to zero grows past what is economically tenable and what people are willing to tolerate.

Second, the impact of shutdown measures on reducing transmission weakens as the percent of the population that is infected increases, because the spreading effect compounds. For example, having two infected people in a grocery store at the same time does not double the risk another customer will get sick - it more than doubles it. Because you now have scenarios where neither person alone exposes you to enough viral load to get you sick, but the combined viral load from both of them does. Naturally, as the percent of the population that is infected grows, the so does the likelihood of this compounding situation.

The country doesn't have an endless supply of secret stash of test kits for the virus.  They need to be developed, created, produced, whatever.

WHO was willing to hand them to us, readymade, and we said "no thanks". Supply was never going to be endless, but this debacle set our testing ability back by several weeks compared to what it could have been if we weren't busy boycotting WHO out of spite.

This is also a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking.  Try to think back to mid February.  We knew the virus was in China, and heard of the restrictions they were undergoing there.  Would you have been open to an economic shutdown in February?  Most people, at the time, would've said No.  Most people now would say yes, even though those same people were laughing and posting memes about how the Coronavirus was causing a toilet paper shortage.

My point is that the reason no one would have been willing at the time was precisely because we didn't have the ability to test for the virus and thus were oblivious to the fact that it was already spreading under our noses. If we had had more test kits sooner, we would have seen more positive results sooner, and we would have felt the urgency to act sooner.

It is important to not forget one crucial thing here. The outcome the US has seen was not inevitable - it is the direct result of repeated missteps on the part of the federal government. We cannot fix these missteps, but we can and should be learning from them.

[CoreySamson]

Does anyone here know the effect supermarkets are having on the coronavirus spread?

From what I've seen, no grocery stores are shutting down due to coronavirus spread among its workers, but meat processing plants are? I'd think coronavirus would spread more quickly in grocery stores than in meat processing centers or churches or parks. I'd think the workers who've interacted with the most people since coronavirus came here would probably be grocery store workers.

If the government is so intent on reducing coronavirus transmission, then why did they not tell grocery stores to use curbside pickup or delivery only instead of potential contamination in the stores, since grocery stores were literally one of the only public places that were open in full a couple weeks ago? Seems fishy to me.

Around here, grocery stores are taking actions to limit the spread.  One-way aisles, mandated social distancing in checkout line, etc.  Plus it's not just a binary fact that you're near a person, length and intensity of contact matter.  When you're in line at the grocery store, you're standing six feet apart, and you're only there a few minutes at most (I've been using the self-checkouts, so no wait).  People in meat packing plants, in contrast, stand shoulder to shoulder with other people for hours on end.

There's also the political element to this.  Most people won't notice if their meat comes from a different plant.  They will notice if they can't go in to the store and get groceries.  I for one would be absolutely livid if I couldn't go into the store and do my shopping myself, ESPECIALLY with these shortages.  If there's something that's out that day, then I need to either go to additional stores or get an approved alternate product (sometimes both, and sometimes even the approved alternates are out too, leaving me to scramble to figure out something workable).  I would not want someone else to be handling that process for me.

Very true, I see your point. The only business I've stepped into since this all started was a Buc-ee's; my family does the online ordering and pickup, so I guess I had misconceptions about stores and processing plants during this time.

[wxfree]

I once heard a talking head pundit, a liberal Democrat, if you're wondering, say on television that he believed the First Amendment should be held to prohibit laws against perjury, because freedom of speech should include the right to lie under oath.  Few reasonable people think that, because individual rights have to be weighed against societal harms.  This reasonably applies to all rights.  If some of your freedoms cost others too much, and if you know this and don't care, then they're not really freedoms; they're traps.  They trap you in the mindset that the only thing that matters is whether you get to do what you want regardless of the effects.  True freedom is the ability to choose to do the right thing, not because someone else threatens you, but because you know it's the right thing.  If you fail that test, that's where laws come to be needed.

[LM117]

City of Clovis voted to reopen:

https://www.clovisroundup.com/city-council-votes-5-0-to-reopen-city-will-not-enforce-shelter-in-place-order/

Apparently Clovis is taking a hands off approach to the Governor's order akin to Modoc County.  The City of Fresno is allowing most retail and certain other businesses to reopen this week but has a standing order to May 31st.  The City Council of Clovis had some interesting things to say about one-size fits all orders not working for smaller communities...kind of a common snarky shot around these parts.

Counties in eastern NC are taking a similar view.

http://goldsborodailynews.com/blog/2020/05/06/commissioners-ask-for-regional-approach-to-reopening-state/

[jemacedo9]

Regarding curbside grocery pick-up:  it's hit or miss.  I switched to it for myself and my parents at the beginning of the shelter-in-place orders. 

The first hurdle was that there wasn't an open slot for over a week - and you still basically need a one-week lead time even now.  So that necessitated a trip to the store to pick up the things needed for that week - but that was a one-time thing. I sign up for a slot once every two weeks. 

Then the process of going online and selecting the products is cumbersome.  The website is organized by food type; kind of like aisles, and you look for and select your products.  If something isn't in stock that day you can't select it.  I'd say it's slightly more difficult vs being in the store as normal, looking for what you want.  Not overly more difficult, but slightly.  But if you're not comfortable on a computer, it would be more than just slightly more difficult. 

Our store lets you add to or change your order up until 24 hours before your pickup time, so that does help.  So if you at least "reserve" a slot, you're not stuck with thinking of your entire order immediately.

The pick-up process is fairly easy.  But the final flaw is if they run out of your product after you had successfully put it in your order, you don't find out until you get home and check your receipt.  The receipt clearly shows what wasn't available and you're not charged for it, but depending on how necessary those items were, it does mean trying to find it somewhere else. 

They've only done this with one store.  I don't know how much easier or harder other stores are.  It seems to be not terrible but not great either.  But some of that is personal preference.  I spend about 75% less time in grocery stores now...the time spent going to other stores to get those other things accounts for the 25%.

[GaryV]

From what I've seen, no grocery stores are shutting down due to coronavirus spread among its workers, but meat processing plants are? I'd think coronavirus would spread more quickly in grocery stores than in meat processing centers or churches or parks.

My brother, an accountant with an inordinate number of jobs, once worked at a turkey processing plant.  Anyone going onto the processing floor had to wear full protection - paper gowns, booties on the shoes, masks, etc.  He wonders how the corona virus spread so much in meat processing plants.  His conclusion is that they didn't get it at the plant, they got it in their interactions outside of work.  I don't know if that's true or not.  But it does seem to make some sense.

Now we are being told that once churches reopen, they should not allow congregational singing.  This is probably in reaction to the choir (community, not church) in WA that early on didn't cancel rehearsal, and a large number of them got the virus.  There is some science that says singing could cause dispersion farther than normal breathing.  But I'm not sure anything has been quantified.  If 6 feet isn't a safe distance for singing, what distance is?

[SEWIGuy]

I once heard a talking head pundit, a liberal Democrat, if you're wondering, say on television that he believed the First Amendment should be held to prohibit laws against perjury, because freedom of speech should include the right to lie under oath.  Few reasonable people think that, because individual rights have to be weighed against societal harms.  This reasonably applies to all rights.  If some of your freedoms cost others too much, and if you know this and don't care, then they're not really freedoms; they're traps.  They trap you in the mindset that the only thing that matters is whether you get to do what you want regardless of the effects.  True freedom is the ability to choose to do the right thing, not because someone else threatens you, but because you know it's the right thing.  If you fail that test, that's where laws come to be needed.

This is it.  Exactly.  My favorite course in college was one in Civil Liberties, where we studied in depth the case law built up around the Bill of Rights and other liberties in the Constitution.  And what the courts have done over time is attempt to strike the balance you are mentioning, and by and large have done a good job.

So when people say "I'm not going to wear a mask because the government is infringing on my rights," the have no idea what they are talking about.  And they probably don't really care either.  They just don't want the government telling you what to do.  But you know what?  Sometimes the government gets to tell you what to do.  And as a citizen, you need to abide by that.

[jeffandnicole]

Does anyone here know the effect supermarkets are having on the coronavirus spread?

From what I've seen, no grocery stores are shutting down due to coronavirus spread among its workers, but meat processing plants are? I'd think coronavirus would spread more quickly in grocery stores than in meat processing centers or churches or parks. I'd think the workers who've interacted with the most people since coronavirus came here would probably be grocery store workers.

If the government is so intent on reducing coronavirus transmission, then why did they not tell grocery stores to use curbside pickup or delivery only instead of potential contamination in the stores, since grocery stores were literally one of the only public places that were open in full a couple weeks ago? Seems fishy to me.

Meat processing plants are cold environments, which are believed to be prime breeding grounds for the virus. Workers are also in close quarters.  Although it seems like whenever I see video of a meat processing plant, there's usually 1 guy just slowing walking around big slabs of meat.  Clearly some self-promoting video that they can pass along to news organizations! 

There's also going to be a concern for farms.  While most of the farm hands are out in the fields during the day, at night they are often in close quarters, and that's going to present some issues with the passing of the virus.

In Supermarkets, people are constantly moving around and are generally separated from each other.  The two worst areas for consumers: getting the grocery cart, although many supermarkets are constantly spraying them and there's usually some sort of disinfectant nearby.  1 way aisles are basically for show, as people are still going to pass each other anyway.  But the worst area is checking out, where congregating for longer periods of time is natural and you are guaranteed to be touching things that haven't been cleaned after every customer passes by.   You are also going to be hanging around employees, that are hanging around customers all day in that checkout area.  98% of the grocery shopping experience is pretty safe, and wearing masks help with that.  It's that final 2% of time at the end of the trip where it's most hazardous!

[oscar]

His conclusion is that they didn't get it at the plant, they got it in their interactions outside of work.

People were saying that about the South Dakota meat processing plant outbreak, that it didn't help that the workers lived in crowded housing (not sure it was company-provided, or rather workers choosing group housing to stretch out their low pay).

It suggests that the fix for the meat processing plant outbreaks will be more complicated than some imagine. Waving the Defense Production Act wand won't by itself improve working conditions, or worker housing. That will cost money, which will mean significantly higher meat prices down the road even if and when we get past the immediate meat shortages due to closed plants, and sick or dead workers. Not a good outlook for carnivores like me.

[kalvado]

"sooner" doesn't make a difference. Question is how to reduce transmission rate and quench the spread - and this is something US fails at while other countries can manage the task.
US as a whole still has 1.0 spread factor after a month of shutdown - and most states are above 0.8, meaning little wiggle room for opening up from current restrictions.

It absolutely does make a difference though, in a couple ways. First, when you flatten the curve early on, it becomes feasible to arrest it back down to zero and snuff things out. Let the curve get too high before you act, and the length of shutdown theoretically necessary to get cases down to zero grows past what is economically tenable and what people are willing to tolerate.

Second, the impact of shutdown measures on reducing transmission weakens as the percent of the population that is infected increases, because the spreading effect compounds. For example, having two infected people in a grocery store at the same time does not double the risk another customer will get sick - it more than doubles it. Because you now have scenarios where neither person alone exposes you to enough viral load to get you sick, but the combined viral load from both of them does. Naturally, as the percent of the population that is infected grows, the so does the likelihood of this compounding situation.

Certainly, there was a chance to stop infection at the border, pretty much the same way it happened with SARS. But there was a lot of arrogant mentality in both government and public for that to work. Frankly speaking, general public still has tons of that attitude.
And I didn't see virulence studies for this virus. Anyway. I would expect log dependence on initial virus loading, so 1 vs 2 wouldn't make a difference.
Slightly tangential, but still pretty relevant write-up on topic: http://systrom.com/blog/the-numbers-behind-social-distancing/

[kalvado]

Personally, what I would like to see is how these countries were able to reduce them so fast, especially in regards to their Shutdown/Lockdown rules.

By reacting quickly and swiftly.

Based on what we've seen from old samples being tested ex post facto and autopsies, it's clear the virus was already in the US and spreading by the end of February. We just weren't aware of the scope of the problem because of a completely botched federal response that resulted in a month-long delay in the country having test kits available in any useful quantity and quality.

If we had shut everything down a few weeks sooner than we did, our graph might look like those above. But instead, we likely blew past the point of no return without realizing it and so we're going to be stuck dealing with this until it runs its course.

The country doesn't have an endless supply of secret stash of test kits for the virus.  They need to be developed, created, produced, whatever. 

This is also a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking.  Try to think back to mid February.  We knew the virus was in China, and heard of the restrictions they were undergoing there.  Would you have been open to an economic shutdown in February?  Most people, at the time, would've said No.  Most people now would say yes, even though those same people were laughing and posting memes about how the Coronavirus was causing a toilet paper shortage.

China lied about the virus, which is big part of why the US reacted slowly.  Even with the bad info from China, the US should have immediately gone into lockdown mode once we knew how bad it was and utilized the Defense Production Act to mass produce as many test kits a day as possible until we had a billion of them.  Literally every factory that could possibly make them should have been making them.  I'm not certain a different administration would have reacted a lot better, but they couldn't have done worse.

Defece Production, my ass... You know what was the show stopper for testing program for quite a while?
DNA-free swabs. Aka all-plastic Q-tips. Those had to be imported on dedicated flights. 
Not to mention that PCR tests are pretty labor-intensive. QUALIFIED and CERTIFIED labor.

As for lockdown.. SHould that be implemented in 2003 for SARS as well? For Ebola in 2014?

[SEWIGuy]

Personally, what I would like to see is how these countries were able to reduce them so fast, especially in regards to their Shutdown/Lockdown rules.

By reacting quickly and swiftly.

Based on what we've seen from old samples being tested ex post facto and autopsies, it's clear the virus was already in the US and spreading by the end of February. We just weren't aware of the scope of the problem because of a completely botched federal response that resulted in a month-long delay in the country having test kits available in any useful quantity and quality.

If we had shut everything down a few weeks sooner than we did, our graph might look like those above. But instead, we likely blew past the point of no return without realizing it and so we're going to be stuck dealing with this until it runs its course.

The country doesn't have an endless supply of secret stash of test kits for the virus.  They need to be developed, created, produced, whatever. 

This is also a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking.  Try to think back to mid February.  We knew the virus was in China, and heard of the restrictions they were undergoing there.  Would you have been open to an economic shutdown in February?  Most people, at the time, would've said No.  Most people now would say yes, even though those same people were laughing and posting memes about how the Coronavirus was causing a toilet paper shortage.

China lied about the virus, which is big part of why the US reacted slowly.  Even with the bad info from China, the US should have immediately gone into lockdown mode once we knew how bad it was and utilized the Defense Production Act to mass produce as many test kits a day as possible until we had a billion of them.  Literally every factory that could possibly make them should have been making them.  I'm not certain a different administration would have reacted a lot better, but they couldn't have done worse.

Defece Production, my ass... You know what was the show stopper for testing program for quite a while?
DNA-free swabs. Aka all-plastic Q-tips. Those had to be imported on dedicated flights. 
Not to mention that PCR tests are pretty labor-intensive. QUALIFIED and CERTIFIED labor.

As for lockdown.. SHould that be implemented in 2003 for SARS as well? For Ebola in 2014?

No, cause SARS 2003 killed people relatively quickly and Ebola was blood borne.  You almost have a perfect storm with this virus.  Relatively easy to transmit....long time before symptoms appear....assymptomatic spread....more deadly than the flu.

[kalvado]

No, cause SARS 2003 killed people relatively quickly and Ebola was blood borne.  You almost have a perfect storm with this virus.  Relatively easy to transmit....long time before symptoms appear....assymptomatic spread....more deadly than the flu.

Thing is, understanding the scale of the problem takes time and - sigh - experience. While it is pretty clear in hindsight that the problem was pretty bad, most people ( me included) thought up to some point, (in my case  till mid- to late february), that the problem would be contained, authorities are on top of things, and we will have another SARS-like confinement scenario.
My belief was somewhat shaken mid-february, when I realized the scope of US testing is heavily restricted, but not totally ruined till very late February or early March. And I know I was pretty much ahead of the curve in realizing the scale of it. We were joking about the virus during Saratoga meet on 2/27, but none of us was really serious. Nobody would accept lockdown at that point.

UPD: Saratoga meet was actually March 6th..

[SEWIGuy]

No, cause SARS 2003 killed people relatively quickly and Ebola was blood borne.  You almost have a perfect storm with this virus.  Relatively easy to transmit....long time before symptoms appear....assymptomatic spread....more deadly than the flu.

Thing is, understanding the scale of the problem takes time and - sigh - experience. While it is pretty clear in hindsight that the problem was pretty bad, most people ( me included) thought up to some point, (in my case  till mid- to late february), that the problem would be contained, authorities are on top of things, and we will have another SARS-like confinement scenario.
My belief was somewhat shaken mid-february, when I realized the scope of US testing is heavily restricted, but not totally ruined till very late February or early March. And I know I was pretty much ahead of the curve in realizing the scale of it. We were joking about the virus during Saratoga meet on 2/27, but none of us was really serious. Nobody would accept lockdown at that point.

UPD: Saratoga meet was actually March 6th..

I agree with you.  I wasn't really even all that concerned the first weekend in March. 

[Roadgeekteen]

Personally, what I would like to see is how these countries were able to reduce them so fast, especially in regards to their Shutdown/Lockdown rules.

By reacting quickly and swiftly.

Based on what we've seen from old samples being tested ex post facto and autopsies, it's clear the virus was already in the US and spreading by the end of February. We just weren't aware of the scope of the problem because of a completely botched federal response that resulted in a month-long delay in the country having test kits available in any useful quantity and quality.

If we had shut everything down a few weeks sooner than we did, our graph might look like those above. But instead, we likely blew past the point of no return without realizing it and so we're going to be stuck dealing with this until it runs its course.

The country doesn't have an endless supply of secret stash of test kits for the virus.  They need to be developed, created, produced, whatever. 

This is also a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking.  Try to think back to mid February.  We knew the virus was in China, and heard of the restrictions they were undergoing there.  Would you have been open to an economic shutdown in February?  Most people, at the time, would've said No.  Most people now would say yes, even though those same people were laughing and posting memes about how the Coronavirus was causing a toilet paper shortage.

China lied about the virus, which is big part of why the US reacted slowly.  Even with the bad info from China, the US should have immediately gone into lockdown mode once we knew how bad it was and utilized the Defense Production Act to mass produce as many test kits a day as possible until we had a billion of them.  Literally every factory that could possibly make them should have been making them.  I'm not certain a different administration would have reacted a lot better, but they couldn't have done worse.

Defece Production, my ass... You know what was the show stopper for testing program for quite a while?
DNA-free swabs. Aka all-plastic Q-tips. Those had to be imported on dedicated flights. 
Not to mention that PCR tests are pretty labor-intensive. QUALIFIED and CERTIFIED labor.

As for lockdown.. SHould that be implemented in 2003 for SARS as well? For Ebola in 2014?

No, cause SARS 2003 killed people relatively quickly and Ebola was blood borne.  You almost have a perfect storm with this virus.  Relatively easy to transmit....long time before symptoms appear....assymptomatic spread....more deadly than the flu.

So coronavirus isn't deadly enough?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

We have people On this forum pretty much defying masks requirements.

I hope that wasn't aimed at me, because I don't live under a single mask requirement, nor have I even entered a building that had one.  The only time I've worn a mask was to try it on after my wife made them like a month and a half ago.

Meanwhile, KS is above 1.0 spreading factor. Good luck, mask orders may not apply, but Darwin theory does-  regardless of your opinion about it.

Surprisingly, despite many of the states in this area being "never lockdown" states, that can't be the only cause – Minnesota, which was previously doing really well, is just like the nearby states in doing poorly.

1. Increased testing.

2. The same issues that have plagued Iowa and SD meat plants have happened in southern Minnesota as well.

The state expected case numbers o go up.

[ozarkman417]

Personally, what I would like to see is how these countries were able to reduce them so fast, especially in regards to their Shutdown/Lockdown rules.

By reacting quickly and swiftly.

Based on what we've seen from old samples being tested ex post facto and autopsies, it's clear the virus was already in the US and spreading by the end of February. We just weren't aware of the scope of the problem because of a completely botched federal response that resulted in a month-long delay in the country having test kits available in any useful quantity and quality.

If we had shut everything down a few weeks sooner than we did, our graph might look like those above. But instead, we likely blew past the point of no return without realizing it and so we're going to be stuck dealing with this until it runs its course.

The country doesn't have an endless supply of secret stash of test kits for the virus.  They need to be developed, created, produced, whatever. 

This is also a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking.  Try to think back to mid February.  We knew the virus was in China, and heard of the restrictions they were undergoing there.  Would you have been open to an economic shutdown in February?  Most people, at the time, would've said No.  Most people now would say yes, even though those same people were laughing and posting memes about how the Coronavirus was causing a toilet paper shortage.

China lied about the virus, which is big part of why the US reacted slowly.  Even with the bad info from China, the US should have immediately gone into lockdown mode once we knew how bad it was and utilized the Defense Production Act to mass produce as many test kits a day as possible until we had a billion of them.  Literally every factory that could possibly make them should have been making them.  I'm not certain a different administration would have reacted a lot better, but they couldn't have done worse.

Defece Production, my ass... You know what was the show stopper for testing program for quite a while?
DNA-free swabs. Aka all-plastic Q-tips. Those had to be imported on dedicated flights. 
Not to mention that PCR tests are pretty labor-intensive. QUALIFIED and CERTIFIED labor.

As for lockdown.. SHould that be implemented in 2003 for SARS as well? For Ebola in 2014?

No, cause SARS 2003 killed people relatively quickly and Ebola was blood borne.  You almost have a perfect storm with this virus.  Relatively easy to transmit....long time before symptoms appear....assymptomatic spread....more deadly than the flu.

So coronavirus isn't deadly enough?

This virus has killed more people than the previous Ebola and SARS outbreaks because it is far more widespread then those two ever were. While the death rate might be lower, total deaths are higher. Say you have 1000 people and the death rate of a virus is 5%. 50 people die. However, if you have 5000 subjects with a 1% death rate, the same amount of people die.

[SEWIGuy]

Personally, what I would like to see is how these countries were able to reduce them so fast, especially in regards to their Shutdown/Lockdown rules.

By reacting quickly and swiftly.

Based on what we've seen from old samples being tested ex post facto and autopsies, it's clear the virus was already in the US and spreading by the end of February. We just weren't aware of the scope of the problem because of a completely botched federal response that resulted in a month-long delay in the country having test kits available in any useful quantity and quality.

If we had shut everything down a few weeks sooner than we did, our graph might look like those above. But instead, we likely blew past the point of no return without realizing it and so we're going to be stuck dealing with this until it runs its course.

The country doesn't have an endless supply of secret stash of test kits for the virus.  They need to be developed, created, produced, whatever. 

This is also a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking.  Try to think back to mid February.  We knew the virus was in China, and heard of the restrictions they were undergoing there.  Would you have been open to an economic shutdown in February?  Most people, at the time, would've said No.  Most people now would say yes, even though those same people were laughing and posting memes about how the Coronavirus was causing a toilet paper shortage.

China lied about the virus, which is big part of why the US reacted slowly.  Even with the bad info from China, the US should have immediately gone into lockdown mode once we knew how bad it was and utilized the Defense Production Act to mass produce as many test kits a day as possible until we had a billion of them.  Literally every factory that could possibly make them should have been making them.  I'm not certain a different administration would have reacted a lot better, but they couldn't have done worse.

Defece Production, my ass... You know what was the show stopper for testing program for quite a while?
DNA-free swabs. Aka all-plastic Q-tips. Those had to be imported on dedicated flights. 
Not to mention that PCR tests are pretty labor-intensive. QUALIFIED and CERTIFIED labor.

As for lockdown.. SHould that be implemented in 2003 for SARS as well? For Ebola in 2014?

No, cause SARS 2003 killed people relatively quickly and Ebola was blood borne.  You almost have a perfect storm with this virus.  Relatively easy to transmit....long time before symptoms appear....assymptomatic spread....more deadly than the flu.

So coronavirus isn't deadly enough?

2003 SARS had a fatality rate of something like 9%.  And it only took a couple of days for symptoms to appear.  Those two factors limited the "community spread" of the disease. 

[NWI_Irish96]

China lied about the virus, which is big part of why the US reacted slowly.  Even with the bad info from China, the US should have immediately gone into lockdown mode once we knew how bad it was and utilized the Defense Production Act to mass produce as many test kits a day as possible until we had a billion of them.  Literally every factory that could possibly make them should have been making them.  I'm not certain a different administration would have reacted a lot better, but they couldn't have done worse.

Defece Production, my ass... You know what was the show stopper for testing program for quite a while?
DNA-free swabs. Aka all-plastic Q-tips. Those had to be imported on dedicated flights. 
Not to mention that PCR tests are pretty labor-intensive. QUALIFIED and CERTIFIED labor.

As for lockdown.. SHould that be implemented in 2003 for SARS as well? For Ebola in 2014?

No, cause SARS 2003 killed people relatively quickly and Ebola was blood borne.  You almost have a perfect storm with this virus.  Relatively easy to transmit....long time before symptoms appear....assymptomatic spread....more deadly than the flu.

This can't be stressed enough.  Everybody who keeps comparing COVID-19 to any other recent virus purely by using numbers of infections or deaths is missing the key factor of how and when this spreads.

People can have this virus and transmit it to others without having symptoms themselves for a long time, and after that they can be sick for quite a while before dying.  There really isn't anything that compares in this respect.

Until we can test everyone who is asymptomatic, minimizing the number of interactions that people who don't live together have within 6 feet of each other, and wearing masks when those interactions are unavoidable, is still the only way to minimize the number of deaths we ultimately have.  That reality hasn't changed just because after 7 weeks we're sick and tired of staying home.

Other countries that responded quicker and flattened their curves quicker have had to shut back down after opening things back up because cases and deaths spiked again, because so many people had it and were asymptomatic and started coming in contact with a bunch of other people again.

[kphoger]

How are the emergency coronavirus restrictions any different than temporarily setting the fire marshal limit to 10 in every building?

Or, for another common approach, limiting occupancy to X% of the fire marshal's occupancy limit, to allow more space per customer.

A few key differences:

(1)  In those situations, the government wouldn't be telling you (or anyone else) that you can't go in the building.  You would be perfectly free to go there, just not when there are more than a certain number of other people there.  And, once inside, you'd be perfectly free to associate with the other people there.  In the situation we have now, there are jurisdictions telling every citizen they're flat-out not allowed to go somewhere.

(2)  Fire marshal codes exist because, if more people than that limit are in the property at once, then it has been determined to cause imminent danger to the others in case of a fire–by virtue of the very number of people on the premises.  That's not the same thing as saying that you are by your very existence an imminent danger to another person without even having been determined to be carrying the virus.

You're really just splitting hairs here.  The fact is that the government at times has a compelling interest to restrict assembly in a reasonable manner.  The questions then are "is the interest compelling?" And "is the restriction reasonable?"

Sorry, I guess we'll just have to disagree that it's splitting hairs to distinguish...

(1)  Being told by the government where you can go and what you can do when you are a criminal or have tested positive for a communicable disease;

(2)  Being told by the government where you can go and what you can do when they have nothing against you.

[NWI_Irish96]

Defece Production, my ass... You know what was the show stopper for testing program for quite a while?
DNA-free swabs. Aka all-plastic Q-tips. Those had to be imported on dedicated flights. 
Not to mention that PCR tests are pretty labor-intensive. QUALIFIED and CERTIFIED labor.

As for lockdown.. SHould that be implemented in 2003 for SARS as well? For Ebola in 2014?

No, cause SARS 2003 killed people relatively quickly and Ebola was blood borne.  You almost have a perfect storm with this virus.  Relatively easy to transmit....long time before symptoms appear....assymptomatic spread....more deadly than the flu.

So coronavirus isn't deadly enough?

COVID-19 is in a very weird middle spot as far as death rates go.  Something with a much higher death rate, like 2003 SARS, kills people so quickly that it naturally limits the spread which ultimately keeps the death toll down despite its deadliness.  Something with a much lower death rate, like your garden variety flu, kills so few people that we can just use normal measures (vaccines, handwashing, staying home when you're symptomatic) to fight it.

COVID-19 kills too many people to just allow it to spread without trying to stop it, but it doesn't kill enough people to stop itself.

[kphoger]

This crisis has, if nothing else, exposed a fundamental lack of trust by Americans in government.

They just don't want the government telling you what to do. 

And our most venerated founding fathers would be proud.  Distrust of the government lay at the heart of our nation's foundation.

[kalvado]

2. The same issues that have plagued Iowa and SD meat plants have happened in southern Minnesota as well.
The state expected case numbers o go up.

One thing I heard many moons ago that after some vigorous DHS raid on undocumented immigrants, Tyson approached the government with the message that sure, DHS is within their rights - but once chicken price doubles, the government would have to deal with that as well.
I suspect that things didn't quite change...

[NWI_Irish96]

How are the emergency coronavirus restrictions any different than temporarily setting the fire marshal limit to 10 in every building?

Or, for another common approach, limiting occupancy to X% of the fire marshal's occupancy limit, to allow more space per customer.

A few key differences:

(1)  In those situations, the government wouldn't be telling you (or anyone else) that you can't go in the building.  You would be perfectly free to go there, just not when there are more than a certain number of other people there.  And, once inside, you'd be perfectly free to associate with the other people there.  In the situation we have now, there are jurisdictions telling every citizen they're flat-out not allowed to go somewhere.

(2)  Fire marshal codes exist because, if more people than that limit are in the property at once, then it has been determined to cause imminent danger to the others in case of a fire–by virtue of the very number of people on the premises.  That's not the same thing as saying that you are by your very existence an imminent danger to another person without even having been determined to be carrying the virus.

You're really just splitting hairs here.  The fact is that the government at times has a compelling interest to restrict assembly in a reasonable manner.  The questions then are "is the interest compelling?" And "is the restriction reasonable?"

Sorry, I guess we'll just have to disagree that it's splitting hairs to distinguish...

(1)  Being told by the government where you can go and what you can do when you are a criminal or have tested positive for a communicable disease;

(2)  Being told by the government where you can go and what you can do when they have nothing against you.

But we don't have widespread testing, which is exactly why we can't single out people who have tested positive.

Would you feel safe resuming "normal" life or something close to it, if you knew that 10% of the population had this virus but didn't know it?  What if it's 25%?  Or 50%?