Nearly uniform testing levels among the states sufficient to indicate that we're getting a real sample of the population, and not the biased sick sample we're getting with PCR testing, would be a start. If you want to be angry about something, be angry that we can't get our act together to get this data collected.

It's going to be a lot easier to win arguments about lockdown when we're confident in our testing data. Right now, nobody is.

You start doing it when you can gather enough information, fast enough to prevent new spikes from happening. The number of "known cases" becomes very low, and then ideally one can react fast enough when new clusters start forming.

When someone comes up with a sane, sensible and actionable plan.

Waiting it out for a vaccine. Even/odd days. Provisioning of masks for everybody. Enough toilet paper to ensure basic sanitation. Enough COVID tests to effectively gauge progress or regress. Rationing. Put all unemployed Americans on the military payroll and make them take turns delivering supplies.

We could look at what any other country who has made even nominal progress with this epidemic have done, pick any single step at random and it would be one made in the right direction.

Instead we've all been told to stay home just long enough to lose our jobs, file some papers and (maybe) receive a paltry stipend, we don't even have the testing infrastructure to know how bad this really is (confirmed cases aren't increasing if the supply of tests isn't keeping up with demand!), and that isn't stopping our syphilitic warlock from telling everybody to take anti-parasitics, drink Lysol and get back out there before it affects his re-election campaign.

There is no leadership. There is no plan. There's a reason this isn't getting better, but letting nature take its course is not the solution.

I've heard some mention of "two weeks of decline in the number of new cases." That sounds reasonable to me.

The only people losing civil liberties are the people that die after contracting the virus because we failed to social distance for the necessary amount of time.

The "performance metric" you're looking for is the number of tests we conduct. Unless we're testing hundreds of thousands every day, we have no choice but to continue to shelter in place or stay at home. We are not even close to the amount of testing we need to know who does and doesn't have the virus.

I think you're right, we do need a plan, but we need trained epidemiologists and other public health figures to define that plan. Many features of disease spread are counterintuitive and we need people with training to help us, the public, understand the problem and reasonable solutions. When people like Michael Osterholm tell me that it is possible one or two million people will die in the United States, I believe him and I'm willing to go along with the plan. That said, I would like to see more clear definition of where the risk lies, how we can take small chances that have a low chance of going catastrophically wrong, and how we can responsibly try to revert to some kind of normality.

I understand you feel my characterization is unfair. But the focus on our own personal interaction with the virus without acknowledging how ignoring shelter at home orders can spread the virus to others, is selfish and egocentric.

I do not believe there is room for an alternative viewpoint to that.

"forget it Jake, it's Chinatown"