The current political decision-makers are imposing shutdowns on industries that do not affect their own paychecks. If federal, state, and local governments furloughed all workers except for medical, military, fire, police, and those issuing checks for Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, and the entire country suffered financially in parity, the shutdown would surely end almost immediately.
Some countries have successfully fought the pandemic without shutdowns. Sweden and South Korea have already proven this model with far better results than the U.S. and have endured only minimal job or economic destruction. Both have resisted shuttering their economies, and both continue to have very low death rates, no higher than the common flu.
Hiding from viruses is not the solution. COVID-19 will not disappear because we stayed home. Many researchers have shown that the best way to defeat coronavirus is to allow all healthy people to continue working with reasonable precautions and to keep the elderly and immunocompromised people quarantined. Most healthy people who contract the virus will have minimal or no symptoms. This solution allows millions to develop herd immunity to COVID-19, eventually rendering it a non-threat.
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