As huge parts of the country are under orders to either shelter in place or close their businesses, one serious question has to be considered and that’s how long Americans will tolerate this.
First off, Americans are very determined and everyone wants to work together to get through this pandemic as fast and as safely as possible. However, Americans are also being tasked with sacrificing a lot in the hopes that the officials are 100% correct on all of this.
Americans agreeing to the lockdowns represents a tacit faith in the experts and what they have told us about the coronovirus and the risks. However, that faith has limits, and if the scenarios don’t come true, Americans will have the right to feel as though they were led astray.
For example, in Illinois the entire state has been ordered to stay at home. At the moment there are 585 total cases in Illinois. The state has a population of 12.7 million. So as of now, 585 cases out of 12 million people is a very small number. This means that the people of Illinois are not responding to a direct threat, instead they are agreeing to be locked down ahead of a threat and to hopefully stop it from happening.
That’s a perfectly fine situation and the people are Illinois are justified in taking these measures. However, at what point will they continue if the cases stay extremely low?
Many states have called for these lockdown orders to last 30 days, and rumors are that those will actually be extended to several months. Surely Americans will have a breaking point, and if they don’t see cases rising, will they still feel as threatened as they are now?
I see a situation where if cases stay low, the lockdowns will only be effective for 10 to 15 more days. After that, citizens will demand the orders be lifted and they be allowed to get back to work. You can’t keep asking people to sacrifice their lives and their financial future for years to come when only a few hundred people have a virus out of millions.
Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that Americans break their lockdown orders. I think for the time being they are a needed approach. But the truth is, they are 100% based on what experts believe might happen, so they could turn out to be wrong. If that’s the case, at what point do Americans demand the lockdowns be lifted?
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