In the clashing commentary about whether lockdowns and stay-at-home orders should continue or whether businesses and stores should be reopened, one senses a yearning for consensus. Why can’t everybody just agree?

One reason is that we continue to be ignorant of many important points. How many people have been infected with the disease? We don’t know. Some fragmentary evidence has come in, but many infected people are asymptomatic, so no one knows the death rate per infection.