As Paul B noted…“People in general can be stupid about basic steps and mitigation to limit spread.”
As YAR’s has noted…“Testing offers no reliable assurances. You can test negative this morning, then contract the disease this afternoon – without having a clue that you’re infected. And numerous persons have exhibited the disease more than once. Again, no reliable assurances.”
As Gary B has noted…“Further, I am definitely noticing “lockdown fatigue” with more and more people starting to go back to their usual business as if things were back to normal.”
As Tom C noted…“Until the appropriate testing is acquired and in place, until we have a vaccine, let nature take it’s course. You cannot shut down an entire economy and sacrifice the majority of the population to save the minority. To do that is just immoral, self centered and just plain beyond comprehension. Better than 75% of deaths reported from the virus are people over the age of 65. People are smart. They will take the precautions necessary and weigh them against the risks. Get over it. Time to move on.”
These comments reflect a high percentage of the attitudes of the US citizenry. Based on a lot of personal research, carefully examining ever-increasing, evidence based science that is coming to light daily, aggressive testing will be the backbone of effective strategies that will greatly speed up opening up the economy safely.
Aggressive testing means not just one test as YAR’s correctly notes would be relatively useless, but sustained multiple testing. Why? As noted by Paul B and Gary B…the average US citizen has little stamina or desire to do minimally what has proven to, at the very least, slow down the spread of Covid-19.
Considering those accurate observations, aggressive testing would help form rapid, targeted strategies precisely because of “lockdown fatigue” and “People in general can be stupid about basic steps and mitigation to limit spread.” Why? As Tom C has noted…“Until the appropriate testing is acquired and in place, until we have a vaccine, let nature take it’s course. You cannot shut down an entire economy and sacrifice the majority of the population to save the minority.”
I am a strong proponent of aggressive, multiple, long term, sustained testing because it seems all lot of US citizens feel as he does. Maybe I am a bit more sensitive because I fall into the category of the largest percentage of Covid-19 deaths so far. Seems to be an acceptable demographic, an acceptable price for a lot of folks to justify getting herd immunity by culling out the 65 and older through simple Covid-19 attrition letting " nature take its course".
Not to me, however. Nor is this an acceptable price to pay from my wife’s, kids, grand-kids, and close friend’s perspectives. Even the EAA, AOPA, and ABS aviation groups I belong to do not want to see the 65 and up folks go away by “letting nature take its course”. My demographic group spends a significant amount of money throughout GA and represents a lot of active pilots, owning and flying a fair amount of GA airplanes. Cirrus sells a significant amount of SR22’s to us seemingly disposable 65+ year old’s who have been suffering the bulk of Covid-19 deaths up to now.
But Covid-19 has only infected only about 10%-20% of the US population based on recent numbers gleaned thru NYC, Boston, Chicago, and LA’s Covid-19 experiences thus far. Once again, aggressive testing would have provided better evidence. But we use what we got up to this point. With 90K+ dead and rising on an average of 1,000+ per day with “lockdown fatigue” setting in providing more opportunity for “People in general can be stupid about basic steps and mitigation to limit spread.”…can you imagine the death toll numbers throughout all age groups when we hit 50-60-70% infection rate thru " let nature take its course"?
What kind of nation, economy, and quality of life will be left after that culling? Pretty hard for me to be smart, if I don’t know if I am infected, who is infected, who is not, and who has already been other than quit working, stay at home, isolate myself, and hope to not die because I went to the store to buy groceries as we “let nature take its course”.