Or, and I know this is crazy talk, we could use that same national integration to move sick people to places where they can be cared for.
If South Dakota is running out of ICU beds, and Denver isn't, get them to Denver. Yeah, that's expensive... but is it nationwide lockdown expensive? Of course not.
It's not just about ICU capacity though. If we opened everything up, then everywhere would get overwhelmed. We need to R0 down below 1 before we reopen everything.
>Or we need to set up internal borders, which is quite against the constitution.
The federal government imposing nationwide lockdowns on each and every state is a gross overreach and completely unconstitutional. It's not an easily solved problem in the US system of government. We're a free country, or at least we pretend to be.
Edit: This seems to be causing some confusion. OP is referring to the need to have "consistent policy across state borders."
I don't know if you're referring to reality or something you saw on TV, but the US federal government has taken literally no actions whatsoever to contain COVID domestically. They certainly haven't imposed a nationwide lockdown, nor are they empowered to do anything like that.
I agree with you, but this is one of those cases where the federal government would have a good reason for temporary overreach. Lots of other free countries have figured this out.
> The federal government imposing nationwide lockdowns on each and every state is a gross overreach and completely unconstitutional.
AFAIK, it did no such thing. The federal government advised certain measures, and state and local governments (inconsistently) implemented stay at home orders, etc. based on their own authority.
You cannot bring cherries into california from almost all USA states (except AZ, NV, CO, and WY). I experienced this personally. The state border crossing took cherries from us while we crossed from Oregon, less than 3 months ago, and dumped the cherries in trash.
This is not limited to businesses, and is not a pandemic measure. This has been a long standing policy, meant to protect california's agriculture. Oh, the free trade exponent country has protectionism practiced by its states.
Yes, I can google. I was hoping you would extend the courtesy of explaining what restriction you meant.
Intuitively, someone transports grapefruits across state lines. Did you mean you personally (i.e. average citizens), as opposed to a business with a permit? Or that grapefruits generally cannot legally go across state lines? I don't know of any inspections of cars for grapefruit except the well-known checks at the California border. Did you mean just CA and their ag inspections or something more general?
This link [1] (dated 2017) mentions a quarantine. Is there a citrus pandemic in effect? (The link it gives is dead.) That would be good context to have.
That link also mentions that you can do it, but need a federal certificate. Is that hurdle what you mean?
I could go on, but the point is: all of that could have been cleared up by just saying what was in your head with that remark, rather than replying only to give a Google results link.
Part of being a helpful participant on a forum is being clear on what you mean rather than expecting everyone else to read several Google results and guess.
Therefore, we must have a consistent policy within that border if we ever hope to get this under control.
Or we need to set up internal borders, which is quite against the constitution.