Our Last Stand: The Case for a Nationwide Lockdown in April

5 min readMar 28, 2020

Executive Summary

There are only 2 more decisions that are needed to win the war on COVID-19 in the US. A month-long nationwide lockdown in April and masks everywhere on policy in May. If we fail to do exactly that then the loss of life will be magnitudes larger and so will the financial devastation to our economy and way of life.

Finding a Manageable R0

There are a number of measures that are only a month away from us that will make dealing with Covid-19 much more manageable. Things like giving our hospitals more time to prepare and our private sector more time to get testing and PPE up to speed. Combined they make the United State’s ability to deal with Covid-19 manageable by May. Manageable meaning our hospital system will not get overrun. Manageable meaning we can lower the r0 from an r3 to closer to an r1. This is what it means to “flatten the curve.”

In total, here is a list of all the good things we have to look forward to in May, which will likely not be ready in April:

Nationwide available testing centers
Rapid 45 testing
Anti-body blood testing to know if you’re immune
Warmer Weather
Respirator factories
PPE Equipment and enough masks for the country
Warmer weather and humidity
Expanded hospital capacity
Effective Treatments and global studies

However, if we fail to do a full nationwide shutdown for April then we can almost guarantee our healthcare system will be overrun, similar to what we’ve seen in Italy and Spain. When this happens the mortality rate increases by 300–400% and we see a level of death that no one in this country is prepared for. People dying should not be dying. Family members. Friends. People you know in your community. Pointless, traumatic deaths that will scar people for life.

And all that’s needed to avoid the brunt of this trauma is a nationwide lockdown in April.

#FightForLockdown

The time has come to band together and fight for the only cause left that matters. A nationwide lockdown is the unifying moment of our generation.

It’s our one chance to stand together to save lives and defeat our common enemy. Even more important than a national election. It’s a return to making good decisions as a country. It’s a vote for science. It’s a vote for lives. And it’s a vote for our economy.

It’s as American as it gets.

Our political system has created this amazing Stimulus Bill to give us a life raft through this hurricane of confusion. They’ve initiated UBI for all, they’ve made unlimited interest free capital for banks to give to corporations, and they’ve pushed on making all debts interest free for the next few months. They’ve given us the tools needed to shut the economy down for another 1–2 months without us having to worry about our homes, our families, or our jobs. They made this for us, and if we’re smart we will take it.

However, there is growing dissent about whether or not a lockdown is needed. It’s the same dissenting voices that said this was a hoax, who said we would have testing, who said we were prepared, who said this would go away, who said this would never happen in America.

Whether you believe it or not, Donald Trump is a conman. And he’s very good at what he does. Maybe the best in the world. And he’s run his confidence game, again and again, to try to make people believe it’s all ok, everything will be ok, that he’s got it under control. Only he doesn’t. He never had. He speaks not our of care for the people, but to sway confidence for the stock market. To him, these are his most important viewers. And to him, if he can make them happy, and the stock markets go up, then he’s doing the world a favor.

The problem with a conman is they don’t actually know what’s right and wrong. They just know how to convince people through the confidence that they’re way is the right way. Make no mistake:

THIS MAN DOES NOT KNOW WHAT HE’S DOING!

But luckily there are people that do.

Bill Gates

We’re lucky enough that one of the greatest minds of our time has been working on this problem for the past 5 years, Bill Gates. You remember Bill Gates, father of modern computing, richest man in the world, one of the best business people ever, one of the smartest, the biggest philanthropist in the history of mankind. That Bill Gates. We trust him right? He’s got a pretty good track record of serving humanity.

Bill Gates says we need to shut down for 6–10weeks. And he says this based on working on solving global pandemics for the last 5 years of his life. Preparing for this exact moment.

Along with Bill Gates calling for a national lockdown is Dr. Fauci, These are arguably the two most important in the world you should be listening to for this. No one else is more qualified.

#MasksUp

Now the good news is, I’m pretty sure we can stop a lockdown after 4 weeks if everyone starts wearing Masks. More and more research is showing us this is the #1 thing that can be done to slow the virus in a normal running economy. If you’ve read the Hammer and the Dance, the Hammer is the Shutdown, and Masks are the dance.

The problem with masks is we don’t have them yet. And we need a lot of them. Enough for hospitals. Enough for businesses. Enough for everyone. Masks are about to be Cool again. You could say the slogan for 2020 is “Making Masks Great Again.”

It’s as simple as that.

A New American Movement

Do not let this con man con you again. Don’t think he knows what he’s doing. Don’t think he cares about your lives. He only cares about the economy. And the economy will be fine for one month. ONE MONTH! That’s all that’s being asked of you in this war. Stay at home with your families and get paid for it. Be good and everything will be ok. We are not at war with the virus. We are at war with our ability to work together as a country. The time has come to work together again.

To be one nation under god. To be a community of people that look out for each other. To suffer together to avoid the unnecessary deaths of countless Americans.

To do this effectively we need a social movement. We need celebrities to promote locking the country down. We need social media influencers promoting masks. We need businesses supporting taking a month of loan payments.

FIGHT FOR LOCKDOWN. FIGHT FOR AMERICA.