Welcome to the World's largest sociological experiment

    People who have the job of planning for disasters on the scale we are experiencing have usually only had computer simulations to try and determine how people will respond on a world wide scale.  We now have real data to show how different countries respond in very different patterns.  It is probably true that a tightly controlled country like China can more quickly respond with more restrictive measures than democracies.  While most Americans wouldn't trade our personal freedoms in normal times for being in a tightly controlled central government, we see how our personal freedoms and loosely organized federal system can be devastating in a pandemic.  It certainly has been shown dramatically when our President says that states and localities need to step up to the crisis because "the federal government isn't a supply clerk."
    If we needed any evidence of how Americans don't like to be controlled we only have to look at the crowded beaches in Florida and our crowded local playgrounds.  The Howard County Parks Department had to close the gates to our parks after seeing over 200 parents and children at the playground at Centennial Lake this week.  After doing that people started parking along Route 108 to enter the park.  Below you can see that the Columbia Association is taping off our tot lots to hopefully give people the message that it is not a good idea to use the area.  Maybe that is because of the 5 year old child in Elkridge that tested positive for the virus.

    If there is a silver lining in this crisis it is for all of us to examine what is necessary and what is excess.  With our uncertainty of what we need for the future maybe we will decide to use less of everything.  Maybe we don't need to wear different clothes everyday.  Maybe we go back to hand washing dishes instead of running the dishwasher.  Maybe we read more books.  Maybe we even spend more time with the people we share a home with.  Maybe we sleep more.
      Sociologists and social psychologists are going to be very busy after this virus crisis passes.