Unfortunately the US dithered so long that the low-impact route that Singapore and Taiwan took is impossible. It is now necessary to go to hard social distancing. We will know that the US is taking COVID-19 seriously enough to limit spread when Disney World shuts.
If theme parks are still open next week, and yes, days are all we have given that this is an exponential phenomenon, you know that we're headed to the Italy scenario. Unfortunately, I think that's where we are going.
I could be wrong of course. It might be that things are a bit less bad than that. Or they could be vastly worse. I do know that at this point, we no longer have the assurance that we're getting out of this without severe damage.
Our choice is stark. Either we trash the economy, or we kill a lot of people and also trash the economy. The scenario where we could have avoided trashing the economy ended when the US didn't start doing tens of thousands of tests a day a week ago.
