>>Right now, I tend to believe the strong consensus of what's being said in the field, and let's leave it at that for now.

Even if you believe that science is a popularity contest, you need to choose your consensus. After all, Nate and the entire political science spectrum was certain HRC had it sewn up and the overwhelming corporate media consensus was that the Weissman report would produce the RussiaRussiaRussia goods on Trump.

There's multiple consensuses out there on this new SARS virus including infectious diseases consensuses reporting 0.05% mortality if you're healthy and under 80y. If closing down schools and businesses will save the susceptible elderly, of course society may well be willing to make such sacrifice to save grandma- but that needs to be a decision based on fact, not doomsday worst case reporting that makes people fight over a roll of toilet paper.

Meanwhile over in Italy, current plans are that intensive care beds may not be available for the elderly or already sick when hospitals are swamped. That's not the sort of decision I'd wish on anybody.

>>As for your question, I had hopes that Pence would be a good leader (if Trump stayed out of his way), but when you as, "Is the Pence taskforce wrong", I'd say at this point they are compromised by the "happy talk" messaging that Trump has been pushing. Or put another way, I think they are mistaken.

About what?

Just a general comment: Fauci and others are career managers who will not allow themselves to be criticized for being overly optimistic, but are rewarded for being pessimistic when things go better than expected. Fauci said it himself: he likes it when people think the response is going overboard because that means it's about right. Judge for yourself whether partisan "1.6 million will die!" renditions are accurate when obligatory pessimist Fauci isn't saying it.