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It's funny I keep hearing this (often from my right-wing associates) but every expert I've read and every well-informed discussion I've had would fit the "logical middlemen" category, although these same people would be seen as left-wing or Democrats.
One thing was clear early on, which was that asking people to be more mindful (wash hands, cough into your sleeve) was not going to be very effective. Once it started getting out of control, it was already too late to get away with half-assed measures.
As for the future, most people seem to agree that for the next year or so we cannot open up back to normal. We have to do it carefully. Nobody from the "left" disagrees on this. Nobody thinks we should stay locked down indefinitely. The goal, actually, is that by being more careful now (and perhaps "overreacting", as some would mistakenly call it) we make it easier to open the economy up sooner.
People keep complaining that certain services and industries are losing jobs and we need to open things back up now, but the truth is that we're not suddenly going to go back to 100% on tourism, eating out, bars, clubs, etc., etc. No matter what we do, these industries are going to take a hit over the next 1-2 years, and whether we relax restrictions today or in June is not going to make a drastic difference.
edit: there is a discussion to be had about the optimal balance of things. if, hypothetically, summer heat drastically reduces transmission rates, then we could get away with opening things up more in the summer months. these top-level decisions are limited a bit by the dynamics of the virus and the need to have a unified message, so we can't do the optimal day-to-day adjustment of policies on a local level. hopefully we get smarter over time though and with better surveillance we can open certain things back up while minimally adding to the transmission of the virus.
Actually very well thought out and fairly level minded. As one of those Right Wing Conservatives, will cosign these points. There has be a more optimal balance of things. Some of these top down directives are over reach and have unintentional consequences without oversight. Have to allow a civil discussion.
Ultimately it's going to become the lesser of two evils.
People stay home, the economy suffers and they become dependant on the government or people go back to work and who ever catches the virus and dies, dies