New Mexico tried to stop the pandemic with a near-total shutdown and it did not work. Why?

New Mexico shut down nearly everything to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed by covid. It wasn’t enough.

From the article:

The governor had been sounding the alarm for more than a month. But by mid-November, it was clear to Michelle Lujan Grisham that she would need to take extreme measures to head off the “most serious emergency that New Mexico has ever faced.” With covid-19 cases rising exponentially and hospital beds dwindling, she dragged her state back to the darkest days of spring, when restaurant dining was banned, nonessential businesses were closed and residents were ordered to stay inside unless absolutely necessary.

By doing all of that, it seems like the virus would stop propagating. But it did not work nearly as well as hoped. So what went wrong? The article has the answer:

People want to get together with friends and relatives, and they resent being told by political leaders or health experts that they can’t. “There’s a need for instant gratification,” she said. “We’re not used to delaying gratification.” But that lack of constraint is having deadly consequences: More than 1,700 New Mexicans have already succumbed to covid-19. An average of nearly 30 people are added to the tally each day.

In other words, enough people do not cooperate and the virus keeps spreading. The article puts it this way:

She pleaded for citizens to take the threat seriously – to mask up, socially distance and limit their gatherings. At a time when President Trump was sending a very different message – hosting mass, and largely maskless, rallies nationwide – not everyone listened. “We have constituents here – and I would argue in every state – that still believe that this is not a deadly, contagious virus, and you don’t have to practice any public health measures,” she said in a Thursday phone interview. “That makes it really complicated.”

In other words, the intransigence and ignorance of certain groups of people make things horrible for everyone. Once again, people who are assholes make things miserable for everyone else.

The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

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