Just to be clear, even with testing the cases would have come. Even with testing, the cases had to get to a certain level before people would take it seriously, and accept the restrictions necessary to stop it. Even with testing, how are you going to stop the stupidity of teens partying in mass groups for Spring Break, and then bringing the cases back and infecting many communities across the country?

Yes, we could have handled this much better, but in the end, sadly, the result would have been very much the same. It had to be. I think it was Italy, combined with the fact that our cases were ten days behind there that was the wake up call to all American, not just the politicians.

The key is where we go from here. Can we stop the stupidity? Can we maintain social distances and keep the economy running? Can we wash our hands often enough, and learn to not touch our mouth, nose, and eyes? Can we build additional hospitals where needed, fast enough to keep the deaths in the 1-2% range instead of 6-10%?

What we do from here out is much, much more important that what we have done to this point. We need to cut that partisan hate and bickering, and work together. We need to stop the ageist animosity, too. We CAN defeat this, but only if we work together.

I guess we will have to disagree, allen. Had the testing been better, yes, it would have spread slower. However, had it spread slower, people wouldn't agree to social distancing. Maybe there would have been few enough cases that we would have tried to have March Madness, but then we'd be right back where we are now. We would ultimately have needed to get to the same point before we got the same result, and there are a lot of possible paths we could have taken to get here.

If you question my point, think back to Feb. 1, when they cancelled the Miami-CMU game. Suppose that, instead, they had cancelled the entire rest of the basketball season at that point. Would that have been accepted? Hardly. People would have thought it was a crazy over-reaction. It took a certain number of cases, and a certain amount of time passing, and a certain amount of awareness before it became possible.

In any case, it's not clear that even now social distancing is going to be enough, since young people don't agree with it. If the young people don't comply, it can't work. The US isn't like some of the dictatorships. If people don't comply, there is not a lot we can do about it.

In my opinion, since a vaccine will not be available for 18 months, in the long run, approximately the same number of people will get this, sooner or later, regardless of what we do, and regardless of what we might have done. The only real question is whether the cases will come so fast that they overwhelm the hospital system, in which case more people will die than should have died. Since we can still prevent that, nothing we have done to this point critically changes what happens in the future.

As I posted on another thread, on a brighter note, a drug that the Chinese announced success with back in early February has been tested in France, and it worked there, too, in a small case study. The drug, chloroquine, is a 20 year old malaria drug that is now available as a generic, and which can easily and quickly manufactured in quantity. This is exciting because it could be given inexpensively to anyone that tests positive. Even better, it might turn out to also be useful to give it prophylactically to anyone with known exposure, such as the front line medical staff, or anyone with a known exposure even before they show symptoms.

You didn't answer the question I posed, allen. Suppose that instead of cancelling the CMU-Miami game, they had cancelled the entire rest of the basketball season at that point. Do you think that would have been accepted?

To be clear, allen, the only place I disagree with most people here is on the attempts to politicize this. This is NOT a political problem, it is a health problem. We are all in this together. It is simply wrong to say that "If Trump was not an idiot, things would be fine". Regardless of whether one believes that Trump is an idiot or not, and regardless of what steps were taken, ultimately we always end up in the same place, with a health crisis. COVID19 is growing in every place on earth. Some places are doing better than others, but it is not a fight that can be "won" until an effective and safe vaccine is developed, tested, distributed, and administered in large quantities, and that is going to take 18 months. Thus, this going to be a long battle, and working together will be essential.

Got to imagine this epidemiologist feels rather foolish now as we approach 150,000 before April, and our death toll will be likely ending the month at about half of what the epidemiologist thought the total cases would be come late March. Now there's some level of evidence that this is not only affecting the elderly, but rather people across the population spectrum.

Question answered... unfortunately.

You have mentioned your wife is a nurse. Here's hoping she continues to have the protective gear she needs as she treats the growing numbers in NJ. While you mentioned the virus was not an issue (earlier) at her hospital, I fear it is now.

God Bless her and all those on the front line. True heroes.