My neighbor burned his yard signs this morning.

[Savannahmann]

169. You're confusing two different things.

Perhaps I can explain it. Travel bans seek to prevent infections. Good health systems are better at treating such infections. Now, it is not a one or the other situation. It is a both of the above situation. You seek to limit the possible infections in your own citizenry, while standing ready to treat any that somehow slip through.

A good health system means your odds are slightly improved if you do catch it. A travel ban means your odds are very much improved that you will never catch it. Why must we focus on the treatment and not the prevention?

How many times have we seen someone post statistics on people killed by gunfire? How outraged were we when the Republicans would not enact the universal background check for purchasing guns? We seek to prevent the injuries and deaths. We don't jump up and down and celebrate that we have the best treatment system in the world for those who get shot. We try to prevent them from getting shot in the first place. If they get shot, we try very hard to make sure they get the care they need to survive and recover.

Prevention takes place in every other human endeavor. Construction workers wear high visibility vests and hard hats to prevent accidents if possible. They have ambulances on speed dial if an accident does happen. They try to figure out if there is any precaution they can take to minimize the risk of accident.

People who go out and do commercial fishing have life vests and life rafts available. But they still inspect the boat to see if there is any obvious reason it might not make it back. They don't jump for joy and celebrate the EPIRB or the life rafts. They don't want to use those things, they hope to prevent the need from ever arising.

You are saying because we have a modern health system, that we need not worry about infection. OK, let's say our system is awesomely modern. Then we can hope that the median death rate from the disease will drop from 70% to 50%, or perhaps as low as 40%. I and six out of ten Democrats want the infection rate as close to zero as possible. Two thirds of our population want it too. It isn't how well we treat those who have it with our awesome medical knowledge. It's preventing them from getting it in the first place that is driving our support away.