[ETCM]

Best case scenarios are not as bad as you think. First, you can remove about 1/2 the cases, as their infections will be so mild they will not even be detected. Secondly, people ARE taking precautions that will reduce transmission. Washing hands, hand sanitizer, avoiding crowds, cancelling travel, working from home, and staying home if they feel sick. Employers are taking precautions, cancelling meetings and travel, implementing social distancing, distributing hand sanitizer, directing employees to stay home if sick. Thirdly, Public Health Departments are or will be implementing policies like cancelling large public gatherings like sporting events and concerts, advising older people to avoid travel and public gatherings, closing schools, informing the public, and tracking outbreaks and clusters. If an outbreak gets bad enough, actions will be taken to contain it, up to quarantines if needed.

Laugh at these precautions if you like, but they do slow down the spread, and I can assure you that a LOT of people 60 and older are starting to pay attention. Those are the people that would overwhelm the system. As things get worse, you will see older folks getting much more serious and taking individual precautions. For those who ignore it because it's "just the flu", Darwinism will apply. Slowing the virus has been the only goal from the beginning. CDC and Public Health departments have stated this since January. A lot of people are screaming to "stop everything" to stop the virus, but that is not going to happen. The biggest casualties will likely be to our economy, and balancing the economic impact with healthcare and public health policy is the challenge.

[GulfMan]

I am in complete agreement with you.

[cgbg]

Everything you said does slows down the spread, but the problem is the virus moves faster than “half measures”.

Even if the “half measures” slow down the virus spread by half, they have actually slowed it down by a few days at most...

[The Westerner]

Reasonable post. Anecdotally, the usually crowded roads are lovely to drive. Keep an eye on trucking. Since Trump, trucking has increased on our freeways to pre-2008 levels.

[mrsmith]

Yeah.
Great to see the twitter coronavirus threads1/4 full of meetings/conferences cancellations.
Just common sense measure that’s cheap and effective.
Hope there are many, many more.

[blueplum]

a LOT of people 60 and older are starting to pay attention. Those are the people that would overwhelm the system. **

It’s the 50-60yo’s that are the majority of business owners. Most of them can’t ‘work from home’. Take them out, handcuff their ability to produce, and it won’t matter if the medical system is taken down or not. Instead of looking at seniors as ‘people that would overwhelm the system,” perhaps seniors should be looked at as ‘people who hold up the system’, to be protected at all costs - same as first responders. Seniors are first responders to commerce.