Although Americans are waking up to this peril, there has been significant resistance to disruptions of normal life despite the dire warnings of health experts.

One NBC News poll conducted from March 11-13 showed that only 56 percent of Democrats and 26 percent of Republicans thought their daily lives would change significantly in the near future, and more recently a poll showed that more than three out of four Republicans believe the media has exaggerated the risk of the virus. Only 61 percent of Democrats and a paltry 30 percent of Republicans planned to stop attending large public gatherings. Business owners in Washington, D.C., Illinois, Nashville and Philadelphia have pledged to defy government orders to shut down. The Republican governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, notoriously tweeted a photo of himself and his children at a restaurant on Saturday, proclaiming "Eating with my kids and all my fellow Oklahomans . . . It's packed tonight!" These divides leave Democrats especially furious that their political opponents aren't taking the crisis seriously.