[Genuine Realist]

[
A one day delay in implementing social distancing measures results in a 40% increase in your final case count.  That is, unfortunately, the problem with exponential growth.  So here is where federal leadership would have been helpful.  I praised the administration's guidelines for opening up the country.  Imagine if there had been a similar document for how to implement social distancing that offered guidance to states and local communities as to which measures carried the highest "bang for the buck" (slowed transmission the most for a given disruption to daily life) and when to implement increasingly severe restrictions.  You might have still seen severe restrictions placed in some parts of the country, but in others restrictions of large gatherings without shelter in place might have been enough.

So to sum up, the travel ban was ineffective on its own, and the administration could have implemented a lot of measures short of a shutdown that would have had a meaningful effect on the pandemic.  At the very least, the administration could have avoided undermining local efforts. Maybe a shutdown would have happened anyways because less intrusive measures would eventually have proven not effective enough, but the actions of the administration made the shutdowns inevitable.

BC

I'm not being as clear as I'd like. My point is not about the efficacy of the travel ban as such, but that - if you have that kind of reaction to the travel ban, you can only imagine what the reaction would have been to January national measures of social distancing.

The lockdown could have been implemented on a State or local basis much earlier. No one did so, not even the governors who are now gaining deserved credit for reactions that are more timely, but still not all that timely. I believe Ohio was the exception.

The issues with testing are a point on which the Administration feet can be held to the fire, though even there the problem seems to be not recognizing that the problem was so urgent that basic procurement regulations should have been ignored. Still, there were iceberg warnings and they should have moved faster.

The bottom line is that much of the response which now seems to be so unduly delayed was impossible in the absence of an aroused public. And if you want to blame Trump for being too insouciant (and you would be right), you'd better blame his opposition for firing away at what he DID do - i.e., similarly insouciant, but from a different perspective. 

So can we move forward?

[Genuine Realist]

[
A one day delay in implementing social distancing measures results in a 40% increase in your final case count.  That is, unfortunately, the problem with exponential growth.  So here is where federal leadership would have been helpful.  I praised the administration's guidelines for opening up the country.  Imagine if there had been a similar document for how to implement social distancing that offered guidance to states and local communities as to which measures carried the highest "bang for the buck" (slowed transmission the most for a given disruption to daily life) and when to implement increasingly severe restrictions.  You might have still seen severe restrictions placed in some parts of the country, but in others restrictions of large gatherings without shelter in place might have been enough.

So to sum up, the travel ban was ineffective on its own, and the administration could have implemented a lot of measures short of a shutdown that would have had a meaningful effect on the pandemic.  At the very least, the administration could have avoided undermining local efforts. Maybe a shutdown would have happened anyways because less intrusive measures would eventually have proven not effective enough, but the actions of the administration made the shutdowns inevitable.

BC

I'm not being as clear as I'd like. My point is not about the efficacy of the travel ban as such, but that - if you have that kind of reaction to the travel ban, you can only imagine what the reaction would have been to January national measures of social distancing.

The lockdown could have been implemented on a State or local basis much earlier. No one did so, not even the governors who are now gaining deserved credit for reactions that are more timely, but still not all that timely. I believe Ohio was the exception.

The issues with testing are a point on which the Administration feet can be held to the fire, though even there the problem seems to be not recognizing that the problem was so urgent that basic procurement regulations should have been ignored. Still, there were iceberg warnings and they should have moved faster.

The bottom line is that much of the response which now seems to be so unduly delayed was impossible in the absence of an aroused public. And if you want to blame Trump for being too insouciant (and you would be right), you'd better blame his opposition for firing away at what he DID do - i.e., similarly insouciant, but from a different perspective. 

So can we move forward?