saxpower said: "A few thoughts....
I certainly do not agree with the "rescuing the economy" is more important than health and safety argument we are hearing from some people in the news. That said, remember that as people lose jobs (Broadway and otherwise), they also tend to lose their health insurance. If the economy gets bad enough, and there are enough people without jobs/insurance the whole health care system could end up even more overloaded. People without insurance end up having to use ER's/clinics as their primary doctors- so we have more people in ERs/clinics with things that are not really "emergencies" but which need treatment before they BECOME an emergency- ending up potentially exposing more people to the virus/creating a vicuous cycle.
Obviously, we are not at that point yet, and again, I'm not saying to put the economy first. We just need to look at the whole picture-we can't necessarily, for example, wait for there to be no cases for a month or two before reopening things. The BEST scenario is to get some kind of non-political panel with economists, health care experts, etc to come up with what makes the sense in the long term. Of course, the likelihood of that happening in today's environment is low.
I think the "things will be different forever" idea is unrealistic. First, the public has a short attention span. Once things are more under control, folks won't be thinking primarily of this. Second, unless we want to change very part of society, we'll need to get back to sitting next to each other, allowing more people into stores, etc. Yes, even if we eradicate this virus, others might come around- but there are plenty of risks we take every day. At some point, we will sit in theaters/concert halls again. If we can't do that, we'll need to build many more schools (so the kids can be far enough apart), have more school buses and public transportation (so riders can be far enough away from each other), stop having orchestras (no way to make it work sitting at such a distance apart), not allow proms/dances again, etc.
Anyway...now waiting to be to get roasted....."
Agreed with everything, especially the third paragraph. Fauci himself has said in a couple years that COVID will just be part of our public health awareness each season like the flu is. Once there is a vaccine and/or effective treatment, life will get back to normal and people will start doing almost everything if not everything they did before. I realize for some it may take longer due to economic realities, but it will get there.