nymets1 wrote:We should have stopped/ prevented this virus when we had the 1st reported case in the USA to immediately get that person in quarantine and immediately shut down traveling, shutting down large events, gatherings, etc. So since the USA got too long to respond, Now the USA has to learn the HARD WAY.
How do you know it's enough? How do you know that you shouldn't order a complete lockdown? The question is a bit provocative but not that much:
Italy did what you said with a complete region and it was not enough. Because a lot of people already traveled to other parts of the country where those things were not forbidden. However China effectively managed the situation w/ the same measures used for the big cities. South Korea also didn't ban travel completely.
So it is really hard to tell what the appropriate measures are. What seems to be important is to know where your infected people are so that you can track them and isolate early on (and you can let this know to other people so that they can test/isolate themselves if they were in a dangerous place). That works w/ testing only and w/ a large group of people working for institutes like CDC. I think WHO has a huge responsibility on this being exploded: Their protocol of testing was flawed and left the majority of the people untested. And that protocol was followed by most of the EU countries (and I believe US as well).