This seems to be a reaction to people not doing it on their own sufficiently enough, like what happened in Italy. Perhaps Washingtonians are taking the recommendations more seriously, so they don't require an official mandate. That decision can't be a light one, and I don't envy those that have to make it.
> Perhaps Washingtonians are taking the recommendations more seriously
I doubt that. I'm in a mid sized city in WA and I've seen a notable increase in traffic in the last week. People are leaving their homes more now. Most of the offices are empty so I'm not entirely sure where they're going, but they're going somewhere.
Can confirm. I'm in central Washington, and while restaurants and bars are closed, people are _definitely_ not respecting social distancing guidelines. I've even had people tell me to move closer to other people when standing in line at grocery stores.
Seattle area is much sparser than NYC or SF. I still go out for walks and stuff and don't really see very many people and I'm only 20 minutes north of downtown. Keeping a 20ft distance is very easy.
There's nowhere to go, unless you got to a cabin for a year. Every state has double digits which is where WA was just a few weeks ago. I guess being with family might be nicer but also a larger cluster of people to infect in your household.
I've seen videos of NYPD going in and telling people in restaurants to clear out (from days ago). I wouldn't be surprised to see NYPD telling people to clear out for this too.
More broadly, if you live in NYC and know the NYPD, then of course they're going to respond in this manner when such orders come out. When they have authority, they use it.
If someone wants to exercise their freedoms and accept responsibility for harm they cause to themselves, I don't have a problem with that. I do however have a problem with someone's exercise of their freedoms causing physical harm to me without my consent. In the same way that it's not acceptable to get lit and then drive a car because it creates a risk to other people, people should shut up and stay inside when told to do so in this context as they risk getting sick or being sick and spreading the disease to others, potentially killing them.
That's how it should work. Excellent example. Automobile deaths account for over 3000 deaths per day, far in excess of what covid19 has or will do.
Given that information, it seems that you would recommend people "shut up and stay inside" due to the "risk to other people". This is not rational.
Giving up everyone's freedom and accepting simple authoritarian solutions a few vocal people want is not a good approach. Punishing perfectly healthy people by threat of imprisonment as a result of the absence of planning by the nation's healthcare and government is not a reasonable response.
That 3000+ per day is for the entire globe. And horrifyingly, there’s a chance the US alone will surpass that for some period in the coming weeks. Italy recorded 600+ today, and we’re much bigger. Plus we are way behind on locking down.
