You want to argue that Bill Gates has never made a bad judgment call in his life? Are you kidding me? I know the guy called a future pandemic. I watched his TED talk.

Where did that come from? My comment is that he is not ignorant. You just agreed that he is not ignorant. In which case you shouldn't be calling his comments ignorant.

Full stop.

Doesn't change the fact that he's wrong on this call. I am saying with caveats: 1) leave the country open 2) require masks in public 3) test for fevers 4) expand and continue drive thru testing

You are convinced that he is wrong and you are right. And expect me to agree simply because you assert it.

However, as is widely reported, we do not have sufficient masks, and we do not have sufficient testing. Perhaps you shouldn't be telling everyone what should be done when you are unaware of these basic and widely reported facts.

It's not hard to grasp that rural areas are going to have a slower rate of transmission as a matter of course because social distancing is built into those communities. For one, there's less public transportation. Two, all major gatherings have already been cancelled. Three, people are already voluntarily limiting social contact

What you are saying makes sense, but I am not convinced.

In rural communities, people are spread out but have ways to get around. They often work in close proximity to each other, and whether you work in a field or paper mill, you're more likely to be working in an essential service that stays open.

Furthermore there is often a false sense of security. Major gatherings may have been officially cancelled, but the rural people that I have known are more likely to ignore such rules than city folk.

(Note, I've lived in rural areas before. I have lots of family in rural areas.)

This disease is going to fester for another year or so. It's not practical any more to try to contain the outbreak. The idea at this point is to limit the number of cases at any given time to prevent overburdening the local community's medical resources. My mother is a nurse. They've cancelled all elective surgery in preparation for a tsunami of patients in central Florida. As a result their hospital has less than 50% utilization right now. It's slower than it normally is for their hospital! All these other health problems are getting the back burner for COVID-19. How long can you carry that on for? The disease may peak in NYC in 2 weeks but peak in Montana in 2 months. New Mexico may peak in October. You've got to have a rolling adaptable policy for each region. You cannot do blanket policies.

Thinking of this disease as something that "peaks" on its own is highly misleading. It will not peak on its own without killing millions. The peaks that people are trying to project are the result of effort to reduce transmission. Nor should a peak make you too comfortable. You can ease up some, but too much and the epidemic returns.

If you put out less effort, it is longer to the peak and a more severe peak. If different areas have different policies, then you reintroduce epidemics to areas that thought they were past it. Therefore the kind of rolling policy that you are recommending is a recipe for multiple waves sweeping back and forth between regions. And for worse peaks.

Bill Gates knows this very well. It is central to his thinking. But that seems to be one of the key points about epidemics that you have not yet grasped.