[ericd]

You seem like you're panicking. If you need evidence for the necessity, go read literally anything about what Italy is facing. China locked down cities with 0 infections pretty completely for ~4 weeks, and they still have isolation measures going. I believe the heavily hit cities are still totally locked down. This is what it took to get numbers under control once it had spread, and because of the US' late reaction, it's what's necessary now.

[tempestn]

And because China reacted with extreme measures, they got the virus under control, and are now starting to reduce the restrictions, and commerce is starting back up. It's nowhere near normal, but by reacting quickly and decisively you reduce the likelihood of longer lockdowns being required in the future (as well as the likelihood of significant loss of life).

This video gives a sense of the measures taken in cities outside of Wuhan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfsdJGj3-jM

[spookthesunset]

America is not even close to Italy. Not demographically, not density, not medically. Nothing is the same between us. And it isn't "Italy" it is a region in Italy with the problem. Same with china. China isn't locking down "China". Just a small part of it. You cannot take those two datapoints and apply them to the rest of the world. Not even close.

And I'm not panicking, I'm just tired of people running around doomsaying. There is so much trash information out there and people have completely shut down their ability to think rationally. It kinda ticks me off.

[kelw22]

You're comparing America to Italy and saying they're different (which I don't fully agree with). You should also be comparing our response to Italy's and seeing they're the same. We're both under poor leadership who downplay and deny basic scientific facts. The spread here will be the same. The timeline will be the same. Our shortage of hospital beds will be here within a week. The interruption to life is not going to be measured in weeks; it'll be months. I'm not trying to stress you out more, but you keep saying "two weeks" without any actual reason for saying so. I'd put $100 that in two weeks all we see is the very well understood and predicted 2-4x in infection rates.

Last point: I live in Seattle. You have previously mentioned how people won't stand for this and there will be riots. What you're failing to grasp is that when people are scared, 90% of them stop going out on their own. Yes, there were some young people still going to bars, but Seattle shut down FAR before any kind of order to do so. People chose to stay in once it became apparent their choice was either staying in or risking needing a hospital that is oversubscribed. That will happen in many, many other places in our country, and there won't be riots because people don't want to be around enough people to riot.

[yiyus]

You keep saying people don't think rationally, but you do not make any rational argument.

You say: "lock-down 2 weeks tops", when the incubation period is known to be around that or even more, and we have clearly seen that a 2 weeks period does not have any appreciable effect. You say the situation is different than in Italy, even when the number of people in ICUs and deaths is growing exactly in the same way in every other part of the world, with the only exception of countries who took measures earlier. You say it won't be so bad when you admit it will kill a 1% of the infected and all studies talk about at least ~50% of the population catching it at some point. You are not being rational.

I am also tired of the doomsaying but I have not seen any serious study that is minimally optimistic, and I've seen many pessimistic ones.