With more tests coming back positive now than ever before — and with infections currently rising in 39 states — lockdowns in some form may be the only way to regain control over the coronavirus.
In April, the coronavirus was tearing through the Northeast and Midwest, overwhelming hospitals and filling morgues. The situation was bleak. Businesses were shuttered. Flights were canceled. Nearly everyone had been ordered to stay home. And that’s what nearly everyone did, reducing overall mobility by as much as 30 percent and reducing the number of new daily COVID-19 cases by roughly the same amount.
The conversation was telling. At the outset, Fauci warned that America was still “knee-deep in the first wave” of the contagion, describing the country’s new normal of more than 50,000 cases per day as “a serious situation that we have to address immediately.” Only systemic action by the entire society can do that. And judging by other countries’ experiences — not to mention America’s own efforts this past spring — that almost certainly means more lockdowns.
Spain, however, may be the most revealing example. As with the U.S., the country’s response to the coronavirus has hardly been flawless. Spain has recorded about a quarter of a million cases so far, and nearly 30,000 people have died from COVID-19 there, the worst per capita death rate in the world after Belgium and the U.K. Yet 49 days of near-total lockdown — the kind where residents were barely allowed to leave home — suppressed the disease to fewer than 400 new daily cases.
Same goes for A Mariña, an area in Spain’s northwest region, Galicia. There, bars are believed to have seeded 119 cases. Now all 70,000 residents are back in lockdown. Yet because of systemic action — an initial lockdown that flattened the curve to a manageable level followed by targeted lockdowns meant to nip any new outbreaks in the bud — Spain no longer must rely solely on individual behavior to keep the virus at bay.
Meanwhile, residents in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia, will no longer be allowed to leave their homes unless it’s for grocery shopping, caregiving, exercise or work. The measures are expected to remain in place for six weeks.
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