The goal post moving is a real issue I've already seen. I was talking to someone from China who lives in one of the high risk areas. She mentioned she was staying inside most of the time, but then the screen protector to her phone broke. So she went out the next day to go buy one. Or another person living in Wuhan who needed to go buy gas to cook with. She went outside wearing a mask, but then bought orange juice and drank it by slipping it under the mask. (Which completely defeats the point of wearing a mask!) When you get infections going on for months, people definitely do adjust to "new normal" and start making questionable judgement calls.
Or we have this woman who turned down the state department trying to rescue her from the plague ship:
Ultimately, avoiding infection comes down to stacking months of probability in your favor. Having a 10% a day chance of infection vs. 1% a day is going to make a significant difference over the course of a month. 10% gives you only a 4% chance of staying healthy. Reducing that to 1% leaves you with 74% chance of avoiding the disease. So even if being a complete shut in isn't realistic, taking every precaution you can (wash hands, don't touch face, stay away from sick people, avoid restaurants, say no to your friends who invite you lick door knobs, etc) will add up.New York Times wrote:Some remained hesitant. Linda Tsukamoto, 63, a retired retail manager from Marina del Rey, Calif., said she had signed up for an evacuation flight, but changed her mind at the last minute.
Ms. Tsukamoto stuck a Post-it note on her door reading, “I’m staying.” Three military doctors came to her door and advised her to go. Their emphatic tone, she said, was “scary,” but she was standing her ground.
“I’d rather go home first class on United Airlines than a cold, noisy military charter when the Japanese Ministry of Health releases us,” she said. “I refuse to be fearful but respect the U.S. government to help others who feel more comfortable rushing home.”
There is probably a point where one becomes a social pariah, but resisting the goal post moving by personally avoiding the theater during the Spanish flu is the best I can do.