we thought we could control the spread of a virus. lol.
let me ask you this - might social distancing measures actually spur the evolution of the virus? if it's harder to catch, only the mutations most susceptible to contagion will...i'm trying to avoid using terms relating to procreation, or generations, as that implies the virus is alive, and that's a touchy subject, but the virus is rna, which means it exists in an evolutionary context, and it will evolve, it will adapt, to the environment.
i do believe that there is historical data to suggest that a virus is it's most reactive, it's most adaptive, and it's most virulent, immediately after taking on a new host - this is a feisty little piece of rna, it just jumped hosts and it's no doubt got a lot more adapting to do; an anthropomorphized concept of rna mutation, but we do know that mutations do tend to be more plentiful around a speciation event, and in the populations most directly ancestral to that event.
i'm going to write a bit more about this soon.
we should have spent our resources on special precautions for those that most required them.