To me it seems like a lot of people want to do the right thing but find it very difficult as this drags on longer. There's no 'feedback' so to speak that shows you that staying home is a good thing. I don't at all find it strange that people want to go out again.
Especially the more social, outgoing types. And once you're out the door and you distance, well what is all the fuss about?
Scientists and doctors are also not great at giving 'straight' answers because this is a new virus and they simply don't know how long it takes to develop a vaccine, what sort of cure will work, who is vulnerable and/or how exactly it is and isn't transmitted etc. .
In a consumer based society that is based on 'instant gratification' their methods and explanations simply don't give the answers people expect. And as they learn more about the virus at the same time their recommendations, projections and answers change. Which makes them 'unreliable'.
Most governments try to 'fix' this by doing visible things like order masks, increase the number of tests, set-up emergency hospitals etc. because those are practical things that people can see.
In a way this reminds me of McNamara reporting on the Vietnam war. He would have all these statistics and numbers to show that 'yes', the US was winning the war.
From the number of enemies KIA to the amount of sorties and bombs used etc. . And even though 'on paper' they were winning it, the sentiment was very different. Both in the US itself as well as among the Vietcong.
Trump and other heads of state are saying that they're winning. But are they though? We don't really know until we start to open up.
Some people indeed agree that we won and things should re-open (or they didn't believe the virus was a big deal anyway), others think governments the world over are just 'out of options' and simply have no choice but to open up their economies again as this will drag on for years. And finally there's a group that feels that if we open up now it will be disaster and we should at least wait another 2 - 3 months.
I'm confident that the measures like social distancing, not shaking-hands etc. on a global scale will reduce the spread.
But keeping everyone inside for much longer will likely make matters worse for the health and welfare of many people in the long run.
It's a difficult situation and I don't think you can just call people 'stupid' for wanting to go back to work or back to their lives.
