[cinquemb]

> 2. some kind of actual change was/is required to snap most people out of just going about their business as usual.

If the basis for such change comes from state diktats rather than understanding and willingness of the population to adopt such from their own initiatives… it's not surprising things are turning out the way they are.

> That expensive course of action should have been used to regroup and implement a sensible containment plan. Instead that time was basically wasted, which is need the real tragedy.

Short from martial law, my confidence in any government to succeed in such from the get go is nil. Bull in a china shop.

> But I would have thought that a pan-partisan shared threat like a pandemic would have put more people on the same page.

I would think the same thing to if the incentives for most people to be on the same page were there pre pandemic… they were not. Now there's a free for all of conflicting ideologies, while still being crushed under the weight of decades of malfeasance that has only been exacerbated even more.