1. Building a strong social welfare state and competent public health bureaucracy is now inevitable. Here's why. In China, S. Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, the key to stopping the virus, and restarting activity, is ensuring that people do voluntarily quarantining when necessary.
2. Sick people or people who need to quarantine simply will not do that unless they know that they can get food, shelter and other essentials. If they are afraid they won't, they simply will not pay attention to quarantining measures.
3. In South Korea for example, people can go out and work and engage in social activities because they know that sick people are largely not a part of those activities. And if you get sick, then testing and contact tracing is quick and aggressive. It's working.
4. Flu cases have dropped sharply in Hong Kong. In Taiwan there are massive precautionary quarantining measures, but with a lot of social workers ensuring everyone is taken care of. ft.com/content/ad7ae6…
5. Any society that forces sick people to work, or that doesn't have a way for people to get care if they need it, simply cannot contain #coronavirus. It can lock down, but once the lock down ends flare-ups are inevitable and uncontainable.
6. The U.S. has destroyed a lot of its public health systems and support systems since the early 1980s. We will have to rebuild them. Not because it is nice or fair, but because taking care of everyone is the only way to enable real economic and social activity for anyone.
