Staten Island vs New Zealand
For better or worse (in this case worse), America has a long history of protests. Since its founding, people would protest unfair laws and restrictions, for example the Boston Tea Party in response to the Tea Act of 1773 up through Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and Black Lives Matter protests this summer. Unfortunately, one of the most recent protests is in response to mandates that are actually in for the benefit of the country’s public health, but recently some Staten Island residents thought that this was too much for them.
One main argument of people opposing shutdowns is that the US should just let the virus run its course and establish herd immunity. Herd immunity would require 60% of population to get infected, based on this calculation:
In the US, with a population of 328.2 million people, this means 196.92 million people would have to get COVID, as of December 7th, there are currently 14.8 million people who have had or do have COVID, and this includes deaths. Even if there were 1 million new cases a week, which is unlikely, there would only be about 25 million more infected people by June, which is when the vaccine is expected to be widely distributed. This falls significantly (157.12 million) short of herd immunity. So unless you could convince people to willingly get COVID, this is not a likely option. Additionally, assuming you could infect 196.92 million people, this would result in 1,969,200 total deaths in the US, which is almost seven times more than the current deaths. So even if sixty percent of the population were infected, would we really be willing to risk almost two million lives for the ability to drink beer inside? With the vaccine only five or six months away and the end of the pandemic in sight, it is in everyone’s best interest to stay at home unless absolutely necessary.
What would make people stay at home? Government assistance. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs since the start of the pandemic, and along with that their healthcare. People are now working odd jobs to make rent and mortgage, but this required putting their health at risk. This is leading to a downward spiral that is overflowing hospitals in many parts of the country. The only clear path out of this is some form of government assistance, which the average citizen has not seen since April.
One of the main complaints of people protesting shutdowns is that they do not want to give up their normal ways of life for a disease that they do not feel is very deadly. However, one country has shown that if you strictly follow the restrictions and advice from public health experts, you can beat the pandemic in a relatively short amount of time. New Zealand had just over 2000 cases from the start of the pandemic, and just twenty five deaths. They did this by having a strong, unifying message from their prime minister who framed combating the pandemic as the unified work of a team of a “team of five million.” This differs strongly from the US response, which has been pretty haphazard and uncoordinated at best since the start of the pandemic, and has resulted in mass loss of life, jobs, and ability to return to normalcy. Currently, New Zealand has been declared COVID free and life is basically normal, with people going to work, concerts and other daily life activities.
Based on the following hypothetical payoff matrix, if one person goes to the bar, or another risky public activity, and one stays in, the one who goes to bar gets +1 because they had some temporary fun, and the one who stays home is -1 because he is sad that he missed out. If they both stay in, they both have -1, and both go out they have +1. However, when you look at the second matrix, which is long term benefit, it is clear that staying in is the best option for both people because if either one of them goes out, they are interacting with other people and possibly spreading the disease, which is prolonging the shut down for everyone. The only way to get the reward of +2 is if they cooperate and both stay in, even if they are temporarily harmed by staying in for a certain amount of time. This model is trying to show that the rules will only work if everyone abides by them. So we can see that people in Staten Island, protesting the closure of a bar and coming in contact with many other people by doing so, are ending up in either the bottom right, top right, or bottom left, all of which are bad for everyone. New Zealand took the temporary -1 option of staying in, and now has the best outcome for everyone, which is +2. 
Since the US will not and probably cannot close its borders to other countries (and it is also too late for that to work), my recommendation is that the US government provide incentives for people to stay at home. This could come in the form of unemployment payments for businesses that are required to shutdown, and for the people who work at those businesses usually. This would greatly reduce the “k” of the disease, which is how many people each infected person gets sick, since there would be significantly less people out in public. There should also be mask mandates in all indoor places, which would reduce “p” which is the probability of transmission. Overall, these things will eventually reduce R0 to a point that is reasonable and not overwhelming for hospitals.
Sources:
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3259
https://www.contagionlive.com/view/how-did-new-zealand-control-covid19