Loss of Liberty

Four days ago they went from just encouraging everyone to wash their hands, to locking down my whole county. Then it went to the whole state. Now some states are imposing evening curfews, and San Francisco is about to implement a 24 hour lockdown for "at least" three weeks. In my first post here, I said I imagined this situation would evolve similarly to European countries in WWII, where things changed little by little until one day they were being ruled by the Nazis and sending people off to death camps. I just didn't think the changes would come quite so rapidly

The 24 hour lockdown isn't actually much different than how I've been living my life for the past week anyway - only going out to work or patronize "essential businesses" (medical, grocery, gas, banks, as well as shelters and media outlets), it's just that now it's a mandate instead of a request.

How will they enforce this? If people are out and about, how will they prove they're going to one of the approved places, and who will be checking this? Also, how will they be checked without putting both the checker and traveler in close contact?

While I am not a fan of the loss of liberty and think this will be the thing that causes people to riot (it's a good thing they're testing it in liberal San Francisco, rather than somewhere more conservative, with more guns), it's basically forcing people to do what they've been asked to do for the past week. Even now I'm seeing people making plans for get-togethers and talking about living their life as usual, though fewer people than a couple days ago.

I hope doing this 1) shows other areas that this is serious and this could be them, and 2) can be enforced for the full duration so that the benefits might be evident in the data about rate of infection.

Unfortunately, after just a couple days here, I'm seeing so many people who are really struggling with mental health - upset over the loss of income and cancellation of plans they'd been looking forward to, and just dealing with anxiety in general.

Other changes I've seen: due to everyone's panic-buying of toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and canned goods last week, many stores are having trouble keeping it in stock or imposing limits. Will this become the new normal? Lining up before stores open to get access to a rationed supply of staple items? I'm hoping not. Once people realize the food will keep coming, they'll hopefully work through their stockpiles and not overbuy so much. I was talking to one of my Wuhan colleagues and she said people reacted similarly there at first, which makes me feel better, that we're not just being "typical American consumers."