The covid crisis entails fundamental changes to our behavior. Now that it has come to pass that the virus isn’t going away on its own like Puru Rajkumar’s career as a hero, the only way to constrain it is to redefine how we live our lives.
It needn’t be this way of course. With weekly mandatory testing, isolation and app-based contact tracing, it would be possible to do most normal things. But big countries don’t have the resources for that, even the US can’t do it.
Which puts the onus back on the citizenry, on personal discipline and sacrifice. Most states in the US are failing that. They are unable, as a community, to change some of their dead-set ways: no beach, no bars, no fun in the sun, no dining out.
While Trump has definitely made the situation worse, ultimately he has to respect the will of the people. Just now I saw Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating competition, and if a nation isn’t even willing to put stuffing 74 hotdogs in 10 minutes on the back grille for a year, well...
China can control covid because they have an authoritian state. Europe can control covid because they are split into small units, have great public healthcare, and have generational memory of wars and of extreme times. USA and India have none of this.
