A case fatality rate of 1 percent implied a terrifying pandemic. It also implied that, at the critical decision-making moment, only one person in the entire city of one hundred thousand people would have died. Might not even have died yet, but was merely lying in some ICU bed, about to die. It would take extraordinary leadership to look at that situation and say, “Shut it all down.” The decision would necessarily be unpopular, and difficult to explain to the public. But that’s what a leader would need to do.
