Wuhan, the Chinese city where it all started, was locked down for 79 days before the restrictions on movement were finally lifted last week. A bit overcautious, perhaps, but in China the coronavirus does really seem to be under control.
If President Donald Trump “reopens” the United States at the end of this month, then California and a few other states will have been under lockdown for only half that many days, and some states for much less time or even none. Far from being under control, the COVID-19 virus is killing huge numbers of Americans (2,405 on Tuesday), and the number is still rising.
These two giants define the extremes of the “lives versus livelihoods” debate, but almost every other country is having it too. Everybody knows that you can’t shut the economy down indefinitely, but nobody wants to risk a second wave of infections by moving too soon.