I guess it's somewhat understandable how some people living outside the areas that have been hardest hit can be skeptical of all the COVID-19 hysteria. Maybe this animated graph below will help put things into perspective for those that can't see why this is such a big deal. Look how fast our numbers rose from the second week of March until now.
The undeniable fact is the number of cases we have now dwarfs those in other countries including China by exponentially large margins. Our new infection and death rates continue to rise daily at an unchecked rate.
And it's no longer just cities that are taking the brunt of the epidemic as our rural areas are starting to see a sharp rise in cases. Many of those smaller hospitals are not equipped to handle an outbreak like this so it's probably going to start looking real bad in some outlying areas should people keep ignoring the warnings to stay home.
Perhaps the thing to be aware of is that despite having almost half a million confirmed cases of the virus and a resultant death toll that literally doubles every day we currently still have no nationally coordinated response to the outbreak. You may not think we need one but one can argue that's part of the reason we are in the position we are right now. We are certainly capable of doing whatever would be necessary to turn things around but for whatever reason it hasn't happened. Take that for what it's worth.
The standard argument is that we are not a country like China that is 'governed' a harsh, communist regime whose leaders control the population like puppets. However, acting in a singular-minded way they were able to mitigate the spread of the virus effectively. Not so much here. We foolishly continue to doubt the severity of the pandemic, deny scientific facts and blame anyone else but ourselves.
