[3fe9a03ccd14ca5]

We’re already seeing a huge disparity between states, with strong enforcement of social distancing NOT correlating with a reduced death rate. The point is we don’t fully know yet what the best policy will be.

By leaving it up to the states, we’re creating a distributed system where there can be failure without bringing down the whole country.

[pfisch]

There are thousands of confounding variables. It seems highly unlikely that social distancing is not having a significant effect on spreading covid.

[makomk]

It's entirely possible that it doesn't have a huge effect on the death rate, though. It almost seems like there are two seperate but linked sets of outbreaks: one in the general population with a low death toll, and one in places like nursing homes and hospitals with a high death toll. Social distancing measures targeting the general population don't appear to have so much effect on the other, more deadly spread.

[nradov]

That depends on which social distancing measures you're referring to. The results of contact tracing indicate that large indoor gatherings such as concerts, nightclubs, and sporting events do cause a lot of virus transmission. But there has never been any direct evidence that closing beaches and parks has a significant effect.

[clouddrover]

> there can be failure without bringing down the whole country

Why not succeed as a country? Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan are doing much better than the US with their country-wide responses:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

[cjslep]

> social distancing NOT correlating with a reduced death rate.

The point is to reduce the infection rate so that the total number of hospitalizations (Covid19 or otherwise) does not exceed the healthcare system's capacity. I doubt your uncited claim here is comparing apples to apples.