I'm not buying the nation shut down too early because of New York argument. The fact is, several states closed down before New York, not in response to New York including the largest state in population. And the virus didn't gain speed in many of these states precisely because they shut down on time. New York, on the other hand, did not mainly because the governor wanted to show New York City who was in charge rather than letting them shut down like they needed to In all nearly a week was wasted. That's in addition to the two weeks the mayor and governor wasted before that. And the bad decision making didn't end there. Further, moving covid patients into long term care facilities was complete idiocy. New York wasn't just unlucky. The deaths there didn't occur just at random. The deaths there are the results of bad decisions made there that other states didn't make. Other states got themselves into stay at home on time. New York did not.
Nor am I buying that shut downs caused complacency and thus the idiotic behavior we're seeing in all too many cases. The same type of moronic behavior was present before states even shut down just as it is now. To blame early shut downs for the stupid behavior occurring now is to argue that a later shut down would fix stupid. And you can't fix stupid.
Further, many states that opened first and are opening faster are the very same states that were last to shut down, not the first. It was a political decision made by the powers that be in certain states that they were going to open up come Hades or high water and not shut down again, a decision that had absolutely nothing to do with when the state shut down. And it had nothing to do with anything happening on the ground. And they were going to accept whatever deaths resulted. Of course if the deaths start to pile up, we'll see if that come Hades or high water attitude holds or not.