COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US)

FootballLady said

All of this could have been far more easily dealt with if the people of this country had the fortitude to do one extreme lockdown for a month. If we could agree to do that periodically, until a treatment or vaccine is found, this would all be more manageable. But so many people here only think of themselves or their political ambition or anything other than the common good.

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Well, to be fair, whether that would actually work isn't as cut and dry as one might think. One, it's really not feasible. People still have to go out and get food/necessities. Infrastructure still has to be maintained to some degree. Hospitals and associated systems need to function to not only handle the epidemic, but also other urgent or emergency medical issues that occur every day. Not to mention police, fire and other emergency responders. A month long complete lockdown will never happen here, or anywhere, really.

Even if we did, we can't isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. Inevitably, sick or asymptomatic people will come into the country, and potentially we'd have to start all over again. The point has been made that we're not necessarily trying to take cases to zero, but rather keep the peak of the curve at or below hospitalization capacity. We've been able to do that pretty much everywhere except the most hard hit areas.