If folks wear masks, keep up social distancing, keep up testing, and we do quarantining and contact tracing of sick people, we can do way better. Take a look at Europe. They’re doing the right things, it’s not magic.
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The problem in the US is that a pandemic is something far beyond what mere "folks" can realistically deal with without real, serious, government intervention. Yes, strictly speaking, if every individual person followed your guidelines, the US would look like the EU. Except that a vast number of people would be homeless and starving — and that's only where the problems begin.
Making this out to simply be an issue of wearing masks, social distancing, and getting ourselves tested is an oversimplification and misses the real issue. How long can you realistically expect people to do that when, first, their politicians are repeatedly telling them that everything is fine and, second, even if they do everything right, they'll receive little to no help from their government in implementing these measures and will still be at great risk due to the rest of the population? (Why would I want to get myself tested, for instance, if a positive result means I can't work, shouldn't go out to buy food, and have to essentially disengage from the world without any assistance?)
What we need is, first, a government willing to admit there's a problem. (Yes, some state and local governments are doing better, but the scale of the pandemic is far beyond anything states, counties, and municipalities have the tools or resources to deal with on their own.) Then, we need a real response at the federal level, to make financial and logistical tools available that states simply don't have at their disposal.
The only ray of sunlight at the moment is that we're only stuck with the current response through, at most, January. The US currently accounts for somewhere around
25% of COVID-19 deaths worldwide, and that number is only rising. If you don't like it, make your voice heard (now, as loudly as possible)
and vote!
A couple last points. If you believe the increased case counts now are really due only to increased testing, look at hospitalization rates and look up what a positivity rate is. With increased, broader testing, you expect to see a lower proportion of positive results vs. negative. Many places are seeing the reverse,
despite increased testing
Finally, the focus in the media has somehow shifted from keeping case counts down to simply not overwhelming hospitals. Hospital capacity is the absolute last line we should be looking at. When you begin running out of capacity to even support COVID-19 patients (because support is all we can do), you have
failed in every sense of the word.
Far too many people who become infected will die even with the best support we can offer today. Yes, we need to focus on the economy
and social support, but medically, the goal needs to be to reduce infections, full stop. Every time someone even ends up in the hospital, suffers life-altering respiratory and/or vascular damage, or is otherwise significantly affected by COVID-19, we, as a society, have already failed them. Death (and worse, death in a crowded hospital with overextended resources) is only the absolute worst form of failure possible.
