Most other countries have rates roughly 2 orders of magnitude less than those of the USA.
Now
if the communities/states with high rates of infection were to
successfully put in place a 6-week shutdown, and
successfully restricted travel across community boundaries during that period, you
would see rates drop in the same way as were observed in other countries.
Saying that the USA is so special that the citizenry would simply refuse to listen is part of what Kaskari is struggling against with his op-ed: he is trying to make it easier for the populace to accept, by being an example of an economist making economic arguments.
Are those in the USA too stupid to ever be convinced? Maybe. But that's a different argument.
It assumes a 6 week shutdown would bring the numbers down to nearly non-existent.
No, it doesn't. It 'assumes' that the rates can be lowered to a point where contact tracing is possible, where providing test results can actually keep up with the tests being administered, and where the flare ups mean dozens of deaths instead of thousands.
The daily death rate in the USA is 20 times (per capita) that of Canada. The number of active cases is roughly 40 times (per capita) that of Canada. This doesn't mean that Canada's numbers are nearly non-existent - but they are
manageable. And they are such a level that front line workers don't have an existential fear of death by just showing up at work.
