Enforcement

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER on Unsplash

Lots of states today are announcing new closures and restrictions to try to stop the virus from spreading out of control (it's already out of control, but ok...). My own state now mandates masks when you are outside your own home, and requests that people entering from certain other states quarantine for 14 days. Here's the problem with all these "rules" everyone keeps putting in place:

1. A lot of people probably aren't aware of them. If I hadn't seen a couple Facebook posts about the places you're supposed to quarantine from in my state, how would I have known? I don't really watch the local news. I don't get newspapers. Maybe I would have heard on the radio?
2. There is no mechanism to enforce any of these rules or guidelines. You can tell people they are supposed to wear masks, but nobody is actually going to force anyone to wear a mask. You can tell people that they are supposed to quarantine for 14 days after returning from certain states, but nobody is actually checking to see where people came from, or that they are quarantining like they're supposed to. In fact, the type of person who is traveling to different states right now is probably not the type of person who would conscientiously self quarantine when they get back home.

There was nothing stopping people from mingling when everything was more fully shut down (except the inconvenience of not having a public space to do it in), and now I'm seeing tons of pictures of people getting together with family, or just a couple friends. Businesses can take precautions, enforce mask wearing, etc. within their own site, but there's nothing stopping people from getting together outside of those workplaces. There have been models that show that even if people in a community each just associate with a couple other people, disease still spreads just like it would if everyone were interacting with everyone. So places can make all the rules and restrictions they want, but without enforcing them, it's pretty much pointless.

In other countries, when they were in "lockdown," they were actually locked down. If you left your house, you'd better have documentation of a good reason; if you were ordered to quarantine for 14 days and were found out in public, you could be arrested and fined; if you were out without a mask you could be fined, etc. That is why those countries have now moved from the lockdown period to the cautious reopening period, and why people from the US are not allowed to travel there.