“Those who claim to be ‘pro-life’ could, based on facts and data, hold up Germany as (relatively-speaking) a shining example .”

Except that “those” whom you refer to, all believe that the US is the “beacon on the hill” and to suggest any other country is “doing anything better” than the US would be sacrilegious, unless it is an example to berate the “Liberal Left”

Of the three nation states, the FRG, the UK and the USA, the FRG has (equal with the UK) the highest life expectancy, the lowest abortion rate (and that by a long way) and the lowest level of income inequality (by the main measures used by the UN, the World Bank and the CIA!).

Capital punishment in West Germany was abolished in 1949. To reintroduce it would (unlike in the UK where it also currently proscribed) require a ‘super-majority’ in the legislature to change the Basic Law (aka. constitution).

Those who claim to be ‘pro-life’ could, based on facts and data, hold up Germany as (relatively-speaking) a shining example …

I have just spoken with a friend in Seattle (I’d not called him since the start of the crisis); his view of the current measures is more positive than yours: he believes that the determined action by the authorities there will mean that, come 8 June, the spread will be sufficiently suppressed and people sufficiently educated – though your perception that (and I quote you here) “nobody cared” is worrying, to be sure – in the ways of social distancing to enable a relatively safe return to something closer to the ‘new normal’ that we can reasonably expect over the next few months and, maybe, years.

I think it is definitively and dangerously wrong to assert that contact with an infected person must be (and I quote you here) “for an extended length of time”. I do not believe for a moment that Warren intended for you to understand this from his post. Brief encounters with people who are coughing, sneezing or spitting can lead to transmission.

‘People not caring’ is one of the biggest problems – and it is especially evident in societies where, for whatever reason, people feel less of a ‘social obligation’. Wearing a mask protect others more than it protects the wearer (note that the virus can enter the body through the mucus membranes on, for example, the back of one’s eyelids); wearing a mask is primarily about caring for others, and everyone without a medical reason for not wearing one should do so, at least in enclosed/small public spaces where social distancing is not possible!

The USA is big place, so there will surely be differences from state to state. Maybe the biggest worry now should be for those areas that were not hit hard in the first wave, but are now showing some considerable rises in numbers of cases. Did you know that, in the UK, the highest incidence is in a relatively small semi-rural town in seriously-rural Cumbria? Parts of (geographical) ‘middle America’ do need to consider carefully how they will navigate their way through the next few months …