2 weeks to flatten the curve. Stay home. Stay 6 feet apart. Wear a mask. Isolate.
Why? Because you could be infected and not know it, thus potentially passing it on to others. In an insidious chain of silent infection, a vulnerable person could be hospitalized and/or die, leading to overwhelmed hospitals. Or so we're told.
Follow the science
This entire story and everything surrounding it hinges upon asymptomatic spread not only being possible, but extremely widespread. However, major scientific studies actually show just the opposite.
On November 20, 2020, Nature published a massive study of nearly 10 million people, finding effectively zero asymptomatic spread:
The asymptomatic positive rates were 0.321 (95% CI 0.282–0.364)/10,000 and 0.243 (95% CI 0.183–0.315)/10,000, respectively.
On December 14, 2020, JAMA published a meta-analysis of 54 studies with 77,758 people, again finding effectively zero asymptomatic spread:
Household secondary attack rates were increased from symptomatic index cases (18.0%; 95% CI, 14.2%-22.1%) than from asymptomatic index cases (0.7%; 95% CI, 0%-4.9%)
The bottom line is that asymptomatic spread such as it has been misrepresented in order to justify unprecedented restrictions, simply does not exist.
Even Dr. Fauci, the CDC, and the WHO all affirm that asymptomatic spread never drives outbreaks, and is actually very rare.
Watch a video playlist of doctors and scientists explaining exactly why and how asymptomatic spread just isn't a thing on the uncensorable video archive.