I don't know where you would draw the line, or what would be good solutions for any of the issues you listed, but let's say you just came back from Wuhan and the government tells you to self-quarantine yourself. Would you go to work if you needed the money to pay for your mortage/rent? And let's say you have no symptoms whatsoever. Would you risk it? Can you imagine being that person who ended up spreading the virus to hundreds of people already in South Korea? I would be totally horrified
It's hard to know where to draw the line and some lines should have been drawn earlier, IMO. I can't relate to the questions you ask, so my answers wouldn't really be fair or representative of the general population at large.
I don't work. DH works. We're FI and have significant passive investment income. We could afford to self-quarantine for quite a while. Our house is paid for. We have more than a week's worth of groceries and I'm gradually stocking up more. Our 2 adult kids live with us and they both work lower-wage hourly jobs. We could cover their personal expenses if they had to self-quarantine for awhile. Hopefully, they wouldn't lose their jobs, as I'd figure most employers who aren't living under a rock would know the reason why their employees might not be able to get to work for awhile (sickness, community lock downs, etc.).
I wouldn't expect anyone who isn't similarly situated to necessarily do the same, especially if it meant they or their kids would go hungry.
The closest I've been to China was when I went into a local Chinese takeout place on New Year's Day. I don't know if any of those employees/owners had recently come from China or if they had relatives from China visiting here in the US. IIRC, China had only made public that this virus existed the day before. I don't think many knew much about it until a little later in January.
True story: DH had a physical a few days later and got an MMR booster vaccine at the doctor's recommendation. He had no reaction to the vaccine, so I got one myself at the grocery store pharmacy on January 10th. Within hours I felt like I was coming down with something. Over the course of the next few weeks, I had strange and unusual symptoms that changed every few days, unlike anything I've experienced before. Downright weird, in fact. None of them were listed symptoms of reactions to the MMR vaccine. (I can post details if anyone is that interested, nothing messy, I promise.)
In the midst of that, the news of the virus became headline news. You can imagine my thoughts, possibly. But my symptoms at that time didn't match the known symptoms of the coronavirus. No fever. No cough. No shortness of breath.
Until mid-to-late January, when I developed a cough around the same time that grocery store clerk was coughing at me. I didn't know if she'd passed on something to me or if the cough was just another development in a series of the strange and unusual symptoms I'd been experiencing for the previous weeks after the MMR vaccine. There was no break in-between. It could easily have been either.
When my cough and occasional shortness of breath persisted into a 4th week (at least all the other symptoms had gone away), I started considering other things. I told DH it felt more like an allergic reaction to something rather than a sickness. (I've had pneumonia before, caught in the early stages when I was 39, and my cough and shortness of breath wasn't even close to that.) Long story short, it appears I was having one of the known side effects (trouble breathing) of a mouthwash and toothpaste I'd switched to a couple of months earlier at my dentist's recommendation. I switched back to my former mouthwash and toothpaste. Now I only have a slight residual cough once in awhile, which should disappear completely soon.
Since my saga began with the MMR vaccine, I haven't met the criteria that would have qualified me to be tested for coronavirus as listed on the CDC website, even now with the updated guidelines. BTW, here they are:
Fever1 or signs/symptoms of lower respiratory illness (e.g. cough or shortness of breath) AND Any person, including health care workers, who has had close contact2 with a laboratory-confirmed3,4 2019-nCoV patient within 14 days of symptom onset
Fever1 and signs/symptoms of a lower respiratory illness (e.g., cough or shortness of breath) AND A history of travel from Hubei Province, China5 within 14 days of symptom onset
Fever1 and signs/symptoms of a lower respiratory illness (e.g., cough or shortness of breath) requiring hospitalization4 AND A history of travel from mainland China5 within 14 days of symptom onset
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/hcp/clinical-criteria.html
So, I didn't curtail my out-of-the-house activities in any way. I drive my daughter to and from work. I grocery shop, a little more often now, trying to stock up a bit. That's mostly it. I'm more exposed to whatever is floating around out there through the work activities of my DH, son, and daughter. Throughout all of that, the 3 of them have had no symptoms of anything at all.
I wouldn't blame anyone else for going about their normal business either. At this point, who knows if they've been exposed to someone with a connection to someone, etc., etc. All I know for sure, is that I haven't gotten Chinese take-out since. I'd like to someday, but not yet.
I don't know the current status, but wasn't it recently stated that masks weren't that easy to come by, with people hoarding them, in some cases, reselling them for massive profit? CDC is concerned about having enough for healthcare workers. I can't see the US being able to mandate masks while out in public, under the circumstances.
