We are running at around 100 cases a week. Positives are infectious for around 10 days from symptom onset (other than severe illness) so double the number is actually closer to 200. The question is if the events of March are replicable, or if there is enough immunity to preclude that from happening. Either way, putting elderly or immunocompromised individuals in large minyanim for hours at a time is asking for trouble for those individuals. But at this point there is no reason to assume that a hundred cases will explode into thousands as they did in March.
When trying to claim that somehow Denmark has it worse than Sweden, all you pointed to was “trend”.
When trying to claim it could never happen to Lakewood, all you said was that you need emunah to believe otherwise. Suggesting otherwise was hysterical and fear-mongering.
When trying to claim the US was overstating the infection growth, you said only percent positive matters.
When trying to claim reopening wouldn’t matter, you said it hasn’t happened yet in Florida, Israel, and Georgia.
When trying to claim Florida wasn’t so bad, you said only deaths matter.
When trying to claim deaths were misrepresented, you said only new hospitalizations matter.
Lakewood has months with 0-3 cases a week.
3 weeks ago there was suddenly a spike: 12 cases.
2 weeks ago, it doubled to 25.
Last week, it doubled to 50.
It’s Monday night, and we’ve already surpassed 35 confirmed cases. I’ll take better than even odds we’re going to break 100 this week. You just suggested as much yourself.
Now you’re claiming it’s not “community spread” (with zero evidence), and maybe there’s enough immunity to stop it from exploding like March (a straw man, as March is not the cut off of it being too bad to tolerate. March was the single worst month for the frum community in a century. Many fewer hospitalizations and deaths warrant a drastic response).
When does your circular logic finally show you that it’s time to act? Many doctors have now come out on the record, as well as Hatzalah, despite the fear of backlash. It seems some shuls have started to spread the message as well, though the silence and complete noncompliance of many is deafening.
If this is not enough, what is? Is it 1000 cases? 40 hospitalizations? 2 deaths? 20 cases of proven “community spread”?
If there’s any lesson we really *should* learn from March, it’s that the speed at which this virus doubles exponentially warrants acting *before* it seems justified, not *after*.