America grinds to a halt as Americans lock down to stop the spread of coronavirus.

Joe Biden gets political by attacking President Trump's response,

and politicians spar over the appropriate response.

I'm Ben Shapiro. This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

Today's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN. Stand up for Your Digital Rights,

take action at ExpressVPN.com slash for your digital rights. Take action at

ExpressVPN.com slash Ben. Okay, first of all, folks, we're all going to get through this. We're going to get through this together. It's going to be okay. We're going to be here with you the entire time. We're adding all sorts of new services where we can hang out together while we're at home self-quarantining. You're going to be spending a lot more time at home. in the next few weeks we're adding new services here at Daily Wire. We are ensuring that you're up to

date on all the news. Here's the truth. There is an expiration date for this thing.

This is not going to change American life forever. Three years from now, we're not still going to be locked in our homes. but it is a very good thing that Americans are taking coronavirus seriously. Over time,

it has become obvious how serious this coronavirus threat is, and it is not an unsurious threat.

And we're not going to know just how serious the threat is until a little bit of time passes. So being cautious and shutting things down, that is the smart thing to do. Now, the reason that it's the smart thing to do, the reason that we should be shutting things down and why it's a smart thing to avoid mass gatherings, why it is a smart thing to use social distancing, why it is a smart thing to stay home a little bit more than usual in Netflix and show. The reason for this is because what we're trying to do is flatten the curve. That is the goal. You've heard this phrase before, flatten the curve. Now, here's what people mean when they talk about flattening the curve. So let's assume for a second that you have a sort of bell-shaped curve

as to when most of this outbreak is going to take place.

And let's assume that that bell-shaped curve is early on,

meaning that a lot of people get it very quickly.

And let's assume, as is the truth, that we have limited resources to deal

with the number of people who are going to be input in the system. Well, if the number of infections is spread out over a broader period of time, then the bell-shaped curve is shallower. If it's spread out over time, then you get a shallower-shaped bell-shaped curve. If it is spread out very quickly, then you end up with a very narrow and tall bell-shaped curve. So I'm going to show you how

this works. So let's say that here is worst-case scenario. Okay, this is worst-case scenario. If you can't see it, I'm holding up a piece of paper, and it shows a taller bell-shaped curve. Worst case scenario, right? Early on, you get a lot of infections. And here is sort of best-case scenario. same number of infections but spread out over a broader period of time.

The reason this matters is let's assume that the number of hospital beds available is this particular line. Okay, this line is the number of hospital beds available and it's constant over time. Now, that's not really true. There's going to be an increase in hospital beds and ICU beds. There's going to be an increase in the federal government's capacity to respond, and in private industry's capacity to respond, by the way, it is imperative to note for all the talk of Medicare for all in the federal government handling all this stuff. It is mainly private labs. It is mainly hospitals that have private funding that are going to be taking care of a lot of these problems. And that's a very good thing. America does have good public health response. America does have some elasticity in its market and some flexibility in what private industry is allowed to do, the testing kits that everybody is complaining about. Most of those are not going to be coming courtesy of the federal government. Most of those are going to be coming courtesy of private labs that are being repurposed, like Quest Diagnostics. They're going to be repurposed in order to do lots of coronavirus tests. Okay, so back to this little chart. So let's say that this is best case scenario. Perfect.

Okay.

So. diagnostics. They're going to be repurposed in order to do lots of coronavirus tests. Okay, so back to

this little chart. So let's say that this is best case scenario. Perfect. Okay, so this is a better

graphic. As you can see, I'm basically drawing the same thing. Number of cases is on your vertical

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