If this kills 1% of the US population, the lack of cooperation by the American public will be a major cause.
Yes. It will mean they went to work or otherwise left their house.
When people go out to crowded places after they were told to stay home, this will spread unnecessarily.
It seems to me that the leaders, both official (PotUS for example), and quasi-official (church leaders), and unofficial (FOX and Friends) have often pushed them exactly that way. Saying "we have it very well under control", "come to church", and "it's no worse than the flu" respectively.
It's easy to say "the German people are responsible for Hitler"; but it turns out that most any population under the same conditions is susceptible to the same thing. We've seen it over and over.
As I have said many times, Trump needs handlers and a muzzle. He needs to listen to the experts and to trust them.
I'd go quite a bit farther than that; but we agree that he is part of the problem.
You understand that my governor still opposes them (
https://www.wsj.com/articles/floridas-governor-dissents-on-lockdowns-11585264913) and we've got calls to sacrifice whomever dies for the sake of the economy?
The rich are still vacationing as well. Hell: Trump is still travelling last I checked.
And, by being in almost constant contact or proximity to many other people, diseases are much easier to spread.
Everything has its down sides.
As far as being cheaper, the impact of high population on all of the city's infrastructure is far higher than when smaller cities/towns/villages are de-centralized and can install/maintain their own. How does high density population use fewer resources? If you're referring only to mass transit, you missed the point.
You are an electrician and you need to run power cable to two homes. The first home is 1000 feet from the end of where the cables run now, and the second home is past that. In one case, the two homes are city townhomes. In the other case, they are ranch houses each on 10 acres of their own property. Which takes more time? Which uses more copper? Which has more linear footage to have an issue.
You are doing road construction. The road is being extended for two more houses added right to the end of the existing street. These are either two townhomes or two ranch houses each on 10 acres of property. Which takes more reasources.
You need to clear land to build two houses that are each 1500 ft^2. In one case, they are two 3-story town homes right off the street. They are using roadside parking and take 500 ft^2 of land to build on. In the other case they are single-story ranch houses on acerage. They require about 2000' of driveway and take 1500 ft^2 of land (plus easments) to build.
You need to go to the grocery store. There's one store per 500 households and you are the farthest you can be, so you need to drive past 250 houses to get to it. In one case, the frontage on each of the houses (ranch houses on acreage) is 2000'. In the other, the frontage on each (3-story town home) is 45'. Which takes more resources to drive?
You are a delivery driver bringing goods to 2 grocery stores. They are 500 houses apart.
and so on and so forth.
but I have to ask why large manufacturers didn't immediately step up and ask "What can we do?".
That has more than one answer.
1) the government was saying "it's not a big deal". I can quote Trump 3 weeks ago on that. I can quote him more recently saying that we didn't need the number of ventilators we actually need.
2) It turns out: Big business isn't spending any time looking out for you. I know this is shocking, but capitalism is inherently not promoting social welfare.
3) Some did. Musk (who should be rightly pilloried for himself dismissing the severity of this) did come up and offer. He was mocked.
4) In places where the government was paying attention and asked; we go that. See Dyson.
So I'd say the question is: Why wasn't the US government taking the threat of a pandemic seriously? Especially after the Swine Flu and Ebola? Why was our dedicated pandemic team disbanded and the responsibility put back under a different group that already had a different job.
We don't elect leaders that take these things seriously because we have the memory of goldfish (the cracker, not the fish).
