Moving the Goalposts of COVID-19

The premise of the various State lockdowns was to reduce the potential overburdening of our hospitals. Sometime within the last couple weeks, though, the talk has shifted from "flattening the curve" to stopping the virus by remaining closed or heavily restricted until a vaccine or cure is discovered.

I understand the political incentives at play here. It's a classic "seen vs unseen." We can count the number of people who die of COVID, but what isn't easily measured is the number of people that will die or face serious negative consequences as a result of this shutdown. From an incentive position, this decision is no different than a school administrator deciding to close with a potential snow storm coming – if they close the school and it's nothing they'll face a little heat, but if they don't close the school and it's something big they'll face massive backlash.

I've yet to see any evidence that these lockdowns have actually had the effect claimed by its proponents. I suspect the risk to their political careers is reduced by keeping their respective states closed than by reopening, and if we can't show or convince them otherwise, they're going to take the self-interested approach more often than not. What I do know is we need to reopen the country. The longer this goes on, the more damage will be done.