I’ve spent time in Italy and have friends there. It’s a horror show, for sure. All my close Italian friends have made there way here to the States.
It all just seems such overkill to me. That said, nothing exactly like this has occurred in my lifetime.
I have friends and family in Germany. It isn’t bad there, yet, I’m told. I have acquaintances from around the world. Many have disappeared from the web. I don’t think they’re dead or even sick, just busy amidst the turmoil. Some kids from the local youth choir were touring in Italy. Came back just as things were exploding there. Guess who’s in quarantine, along with the teachers that were chaperoning them? Yeah. Two of my daughters participated in that choir, one graduated a couple years ago, the other too young for the trip. But that is just one degree of separation.
All this stuff is needed to keep Italy from happening here. I’d do more, frankly, if it were my purview, but I expect President Trump is doing as much as he can. I noticed that many of the political class did an about-face on policies, all around the same time, and almost everybody is on board. Guess they got briefed.
Much of what is being done has precedent. In the last real global pandemic, the disease didn’t get around nearly as fast, so all the countermeasures didn’t happen simultaneously like they are now. But closures, isolations, city quarantines, travel bans - none of this is new.
Simple, basic prep, for the possibility of a few weeks at home, should be enough. Utilities and services should continue to work pretty much at normal levels. More intense prep isn’t likely to be necessary, but don’t take that as any kind of discouragement. Panic of any sort is counterproductive. The more you stay away from other people, the better your chances of not even catching this disease.
The vast majority of people that would die if our HCS collapsed, like Wuhan, like Italy, will live if everybody does their part.