On March 14, at a presidential press conference providing a coronavirus update, Dr. Fauci stated (my paraphrase) that the most important aspect of this crisis is that the restraints on the government power have been removed. This allows the government to do what is needed to combat this. The people behind him looked like bobble-heads nodding in agreement.  I remember when they were trying to scare us with bird flu. They painted the picture of a global catastrophe if the virus spread from birds into people (which it hadn’t).  It looks like they succeeded this time. They’ve been able to shutdown large segments of worldwide human activity.  This reminded me of George Lucas’ dramatic creation in Star Wars in which Jar-Jar Binks nominates the evil emperor to be tyrant. (I can’t remember the literature/history that inspired Lucas for this scene.)