We have lots of data on the effectiveness of the current measures, we locked down sporadically initially, it slowed things down, the fucking stupid goddamn republicunts and president-reject made masks a political issue because muh stoxxxx and we're probably going to pop over 200k cases and 3k deaths when the weekend lag plays out next week.
Having OVER a quarter of a million dead at bare minimum, right now with our current trajectory (in the last few days I watched 20k added to the tally way quicker than I have all year checking this shit, the early 2.7k peak wasn't this prolonged) we're on track to hit half a million early next year.
The ~2k deaths a day we're seeing now were infected in the days before the election mostly, and we were still under 100k new cases a day as I recall.
Having a half a million deaths, the massive wave of lost economic activity due to unemployment, lower quality educational experiences, the ripple effect of business closures... we won't have to wait 10 years to see how fucked this is going to leave us.
As for business as usual, I'd call that the scenario where the orange dumbfuck said literally nothing, but the federal government gave no direction or coordination.
Better would have been him shutting the fuck up and NOT removing the pandemic preparedness systems the Obama administration left in place, and then having the federal government direct states and assist with general overview/assistance of the state efforts.
As it is we didn't get business as usual, we got a big orange bitchbaby throwing hissyfits, undermining everyone including himself, active efforts to prevent state and local governments from receiving federal aid (I would love to watch Kushner dangle on a good sturdy piece of hemp for this, fucking worthless pile of vomited up dogshit) plus the efforts of all the MURICANS to turn masks and saving lives into an attack on freedoms, stoked by the piece of shit loser we're kicking the fuck out on 1/20/2021.
As for comparing it to driving... fuck off with that bullshit ass comparison, ok? It's not merely driving, though yes, NONE of us are qualified to operate these things around other people as much as we do. I drove a cab, I drove a forklift(not one of the little warehouse ones, big 20+ ft boom fucker used to move sawdust and ash barrels around at a lumber yard), I've done autocross shit, and just for fun my hobby for years was shit like gran turismo and enthusia with my wheel and pedals setup. I'm pretty good at driving and I'm not good enough to feel comfortable if EVERYONE was as skilled as I am or better, neither are you.
No, running around ignoring masks and other restrictions right now? That's driving drunk and that is shit where you don't need to kill someone to justify getting punished for it because it's irresponsible enough to indicate that you are clearly not qualified to exercise that freedom any longer.
You're a dumb motherfucker insisting on cramming into stupid shit like bars, church, theaters, parties, and so forth right now despite how much it not only endangers you but everyone around you? You're obviously not qualified to make that decision for yourself right now.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, if you're that much of a stupid motherfucker to do shit that thoughtless and risky to yourself, why the absolute fuck should you be allowed to make decisions about the safety of others?