[mrdrozdov]

I don’t believe most people are jerks. They are just in disbelief that such a dire situation is possible.

Yes, it’s important to ask and with a high level of seriousness. If the internet has taught me anything, it’s that people need to read something 8 or more times before fully internalizing it.

[oefrha]

I didn’t say most people, I said “abound”. Even 5% of people ignoring “asking nicely” could deal critical damage containment efforts, and I suspect the number is more than 5%.

[smichel17]

The Imperial College report[1] found suppression to be effective even with much less compliance. Here are the different measures they modeled and the assumed compliance, taken from the table on page 6 of the report and edited out the info about assumed impact on transmission, for brevity.

> Case isolation in the home — Assume 70% compliance — Symptomatic cases stay at home for 7 days. Household contacts remain unchanged.

> Voluntary home quarantine — Assume 50% compliance — Following identification of a symptomaticcase in the household, all household members remain at home for 14 days.

> Social distancing of those over 70 years of age — Assume 75% compliance

> Social distancing of entire population — Assume 75% reduced contact outside household, school or workplace (the wording here is different, does not mention "compliance")

> Closure of schools and universities — 100% of schools, 75% of universities

I would recommend reading the report. Unlike certain summaries, the report itself is very clear about all the assumptions baked in, and so you won't get a false sense of "This is 100% how it will be". (That said, I'm not questioning their numbers since I think they're likely more accurate than any I could come up with myself).

[1]: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/s...

[mrdrozdov]

I meant that most of the people who are not self-isolating are not jerks.

To convince them to participate in containment, their more responsible friends, family, and colleagues need to reach out, and more importantly we need to have consistent messaging from the government.

[nkrisc]

It's the same reason people climb over fences and past signs at the Grand Canyon for a photo and end up falling: they've never experienced mortal danger and and have been so coddled by modern society that they don't even know what it looks like.

[DyslexicAtheist]

as much as I agree on the importance of flatting the curve, I also share this sentiment. there are people who have been living in a precarious state for far too long and for who flatting the curve seems a hypocrit luxury invented by those who have ignored them for far too long. the list would include anyone incarcerated, undocumented workers, addicts on hard drugs now unable to get their fix[1], migrants stuck between borders or in a refugee camp, ... the list is long and incomplete.

then there are those who have fallen prey to politicans telling them it's a hoax and who have made up their mind long ago (once the mind is made up it's impossible to walk them back to another reasoning), and now see it as just another attack by cancel culture on their values.

then there are the politicans who use a blunt tool like closing borders and export stops: notable example any EU country (Germany, France etc) who watched Italy's numbers explode and refused to supply PPE under the justification that it's soon needed by themselves (ignoring that early containment would be a common goal). Especially in Europe the lack of a common coherent response is a disappointment - and instead every country is on its own.

then there is cancel culture itself who like to throw these camps under the bus and use overly simplistic reasoning and resort to name-calling which hardens their opponents views even further.

maybe this is cynical but I doubt we'll win this, instead we'll just muddle through as always and either blame each other or congratulate how well we did depending on the individual outcome.

[1] methadone is only an option if you're already a registered user, and I doubt priority of doctors today is to give appointments to addicts who suddenly see themselves facing a supply problem