Selectively quarantine at risk populations, segment the population and share non-overlapping access to public spaces and workspaces, work with large employers (esp. state run) to define new workplace procedures that limit transmission, run government programs to collect used N95 masks for sterilization and re-distribution, install checkpoints to prevent personal vehicles from traveling between cities...
There's lots of nuanced strategies we could've taken. We settled on the simplest, most hysterical, least sustainable one.
Very much agreed with your stance. As far as I understand the hysteria surrounding the covid, people seem to forget that saving people is a cost analysis. Ideally the virus could be annihilated in a authoritarian regime with very heavy lock-downs.
We should aim for a policy that fits with our society and not try to imitate regimes where other courses of actions are more viable (e.g. China has very good population control and thus can afford lock-downs, whereas Western nations have more emphasis on personal and civic responsibility and may have better ways of dealing with it).
I would love to say I trust our government and the decision they made, but I'm afraid I don't.
Imo we should prioritize helping at-risk population and allowing them to quarantine if needed, and let each person assess their own risk (with help) w/r to that virus and act accordingly, while making sure they have access to the resources they need.
As a side note, this follows a trend I notice in society to treat people as sheep that cannot think for themselves and must be protected (which is warranted for some people in view of the latest hysteria).
There's lots of nuanced strategies we could've taken. We settled on the simplest, most hysterical, least sustainable one.