On the Other Hand

What, in a "perfect world" would the response to the SARS-2 Coronavirus outbreak look like, other than different than it does now? It's one of those questions that "everyone" seems to have an answer to, yet no-one can actually answer.

Every so often, I find myself back at this University of Minnesota page, reading it again. And every time I reach this passage:

But both Ferguson and the authors of the second [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences] paper declined to speculate on how useful [nonpharmaceutical interventions] might be in a future pandemic, saying there is no evidence they can hold off infection indefinitely.

... I have a question. What counts as "indefinitely?" When the pandemic restrictions went into effect, I suspect that they were intentionally downplayed. I don't think that there was any real reason to suspect that the outbreak would be over any more quickly than the 1918 influenza pandemic, and as much as the use of nonpharmaceutical interventions (social distancing, wearing facemasks) was played up, the 1918 pandemic didn't end until 1920. But could public health officials really have sold restrictions for the remainder of 2020 starting from late winter? It seems unlikely. Even once masks were recommended, the broad range of what counts (along with the difficulty in getting formal ones) meant that a lot of the cobbled-together coverings people used were more theatrical than anything else. And given how porous the "lockdowns" needed to be in order for people to be able to stay supplied with necessities, how much did they hold off infections?

That's the unknown, and it's likely to stay that way. Critics of one or another government's (local, state/province or national) response like to point to the places where the outbreak was the least severe and claim that with the correct nonpharmaceutical interventions, everywhere could have been like that, but that sort of assessment presumes that all other things are equal, when they often aren't. The United States is criticized for having a death toll unbecoming a "first-world" nation, but the United States has also often been criticized for having a healthcare system unbecoming a "first-world" nation, too. One wonders if the decades that we've dealt with the latter didn't, at least in part, set us up for the former. I'd be willing to lay money on the idea that the general American fear that people who take off from work are malingering plays a large part in the current situation, as does a general Fear Of Missing Out that people bring to their personal lives. It's easier to convince oneself that some cold medication and everything will be fine if the alternative is missing a paycheck or a "once in a lifetime" event.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence in a hypothetical counterfactual, because the very unreality of the situation means that one can paint the grass whatever shade one wishes. Which can be aesthetically pleasing, but poor for real-world comparisons.

It's true that despite the fact that people were writing papers about the topic in 2007, the United States was unprepared to deal with a pandemic. It's been said that the United States doesn't work to prevent disasters, preferring to clean up after them instead. Given that, maybe even if this wasn't our perfect response, like it or not, it was the best we were going to be able to do.