The question is do we recognize this as adults–the Swedish PM went so far as to say “we are adults, and we understand the risk”–or do we pretend that hiding in our houses long enough, no matter the cost in jobs lost and failed businesses, will eventually make this boogey man go away?
Until there is a cure, or a vaccine that is made, tested, manufactured and distributed in sufficient numbers, then the only way out is through. This is how all historic epidemics have ended, or so I believe.
I seem to be the only one citing Farr’s Law, which basically says epidemics happen in the shape of a Bell Curve. Once you get to the top, they decline and end, naturally.
Here is the thing: if you start on the up slope of the Bell Curve, then STOP, because the social intercourse of people has stopped, the disease does not disappear. There are trillions of spores or whatever viruses are out there, and it only takes ONE to start everything up again. The curve has to be traversed, absent mass vaccination, or a cure. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. Or so I understand.
We ARE decadent. Barzun–and I am just restating the obvious–was right.
It is equally true, though, that as Yogi Berra said, “it’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.” Those of us capable of seeing–self evidently I include myself in that category while granting both that I am sometimes blind and always not aware when I am being blind–need to just keep doing the best we can. It’s all we can do. With a miracle, it will be enough.