Latest Coronavirus - Yikes

I think that number will increase when the people see that folks aren't peeling over after getting it. But as a society we can't let the anti-vaxxers keep us from getting back to normal life such as going to Neyland Stadium. Once it's out and available to everyone, we ought to open everything back up. If the anti-vaxxers get sick, screw em.
The anti-vaxxers (or the at least the people that are hesitent about this particular rush to get a covid vaccine) are not the ones that are going to keep people from getting vaccines if you want to. Most people on the other side of the fence are very concerned that the pro-vaxxers are going to mandate the vaccine.
 
So they’re marginally outperforming Europe as a whole.

Their deaths per million exceed ours by 90. That’s a difference of roughly 30,000 dead people.

And, afaik, there isn’t any indication that we’d be doing even as well as they are. They didn’t/don’t have a figurehead and propaganda arm of one of only two major political cults telling people not to take it seriously. I’d be surprised if people there are having fist/gun fights over wearing masks. I doubt that the leaders of their most densely populated city stuffed infected people into buildings with the most vulnerable populations.

I would assume that their economic woes are comparable to the rest of Europe because their people listened to Samuel L. Jackson and stayed the **** at home.

Ours still won’t. Which is why even most pro-capitalism governors had to escalate to stay-at-home orders in April and May.

Seems like those for whom capitalism is such a first principle that the source of the loss matters more than deaths would be among the most outspoken critics of the reckless behaviors that justify the government intervention in the first place. It’s actively screwing up your ideals as much as it is anybody else’s.

I had trouble following your train of thought.
 
No.

To what degree a government chooses to adhere to free market capitalism (by regulating commerce) is a political question.


The reality is that the US government and state governments have a varying degree of authority to regulate commerce. You’ve been on notice that your government has this authority for your entire life. You’ve been on notice that it has this authority under the current precise circumstances since, iirc, 1954 (or your whole life, whichever is shorter).

It is your ideal that the government should regulate the market very little or not at all.

The reality is that the degree to which regulation will occur is significantly based upon the choices of citizens that negatively and unreasonably affect their neighbors.

Therefore, people making ****** choices are at least partially responsible for the current shifting of governments away from your ideal.

Advocating for them to make better choices has nothing do with forcing the choice on them, unless “you” are the government and “advocating” means coercion by threat of force. I don’t think that’s the case.
Its not only considerations about the economy/capitalism (pursuit of prosperity/happiness). It is also a question of individual freedom (liberty). And I'm afraid if more people like you get their way, it will be a matter of life if they mandate a vaccine (life).
 
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I had trouble following your train of thought.

The government has the power to regulate commerce.
People behaving irresponsibly in a pandemic is a known justification for more regulation.
If your ideal is less regulation,
then your beef is with people behaving irresponsibly.

...Or you can form a coalition to amend the constitution. (But it doesn’t appear to have super-majority support).
 
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Its not only considerations about the economy/capitalism (pursuit of prosperity/happiness). It is also a question of individual freedom (liberty). And I'm afraid if more people like you get their way, it will be a matter of life if they mandate a vaccine (life).

I said advocating for people to behave more responsibly. This is not government intervention. I’m not advocating for restricting your individual liberty.

How much more clear can I really make it?

Also, who are “people like me?”
 
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Just an update from my post last week. We now have 5 on vents and 12 not on vents in our small rural hospital here in Tennessee. Hospitalizations from COVID have been up 200% in the last 2 weeks compared to the March-July census.
 
What about Sweden is a success story, to you guys? They’re doing even worse than we are by any measure of the virus. What economic indicators are you looking at to say it’s been worth it for them?
How about the shape of their curve, daily deaths, etc? Before you count your chickens, remember that the US is catching up quickly and will almost certainly surpass their deaths per million, despite the terrible handling of the elderly/nursing home population there. If they had been more diligent with/given priority to that subset, we would already have a much higher deaths/million rate.
 
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How about the shape of their curve, daily deaths, etc? Before you count your chickens, remember that the US is catching up quickly and will almost certainly surpass their deaths per million, despite the terrible handling of the elderly/nursing home population there. If they had been more diligent with/given priority to that subset, we would already have a much higher deaths/million rate.
There you go trying too hard again.
 
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How about the shape of their curve, daily deaths, etc? Before you count your chickens, remember that the US is catching up quickly and will almost certainly surpass their deaths per million, despite the terrible handling of the elderly/nursing home population there. If they had been more diligent with/given priority to that subset, we would already have a much higher deaths/million rate.

I’m not sure “we’re about to be doing worse than the country that did absolutely nothing” makes the point that you seem to think it does.

Consider:
A. You’ve identified explanations for these numbers that are not intrinsic to an economic shutdown; and
B. Countries that adhered to the measures we initially attempted to emulate have fared better than Sweden; and
C. Their economy doesn’t appear to be thriving, either.

Which is why I said we should all be accosting people who say unsupported **** about how it’s not a big deal. And why all the people saying that stupid **** are pitching a nonsensical hissy about me being in favor of government intervention.
 
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^^Guy loves him some government intervention. Nobody should ever question whether that guy is a lawyer or not.

edit: reference post 71,299
I saw a guy the other day advocating for shutting down for 6 months. What the hell is wrong with these people?
 
Thought y’all might like this...

The left: “Trump didn’t do enough. He’s handled this pandemic poorly.”

Also the left: “Trump is racist and there isn’t a need to panic”

More from the left: “It’s (Covid) destructive power lies not not in the actual risk, but in the perception of the risk”.
 

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I’m not sure “we’re about to be doing worse than the country that did absolutely nothing” makes the point that you seem to think it does.

Consider:
A. You’ve identified explanations for these numbers that are not intrinsic to an economic shutdown; and
B. Countries that adhered to the measures we initially attempted to emulate have fared better than Sweden; and
C. Their economy doesn’t appear to be thriving, either.

Which is why I said we should all be accosting people who say unsupported **** about how it’s not a big deal. And why all the people saying that stupid **** are pitching a nonsensical hissy about me being in favor of government intervention.
The point is that we aren't going to fare any better in terms of disease burden, and the impact on education, mental health, delayed procedures, missed diagnostic screening, business closures, and other collateral damage will be far, far worse here.
 
How about the shape of their curve, daily deaths, etc? Before you count your chickens, remember that the US is catching up quickly and will almost certainly surpass their deaths per million, despite the terrible handling of the elderly/nursing home population there. If they had been more diligent with/given priority to that subset, we would already have a much higher deaths/million rate.


Agree. When Trump talks about a low death "rate" he is intentionally misleading people.

A rate requires a comparison between x and y. His x is number who died, his y is the number of cases. The comparison he is making would be accurate if the question was "how is our health care system doing with positive cases?"

But that is not the question. The question is how are we doing in rates of infection and deaths compared to population.

He does not like that comoarison as we are doing poorly on that rate. So, he substitutes a more narrowly defined y and claims we are doing well.

Its truly laughable. Sadly, many in the GOP don't want to look past the rhetoric and look at what is being compared, x to y.
 
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The point is that we aren't going to fare any better in terms of disease burden, and the impact on education, mental health, delayed procedures, missed diagnostic screening, business closures, and other collateral damage will be far, far worse here.
I disagree that those conclusions are supported by the evidence.

Again, as you noted, there are societal and governmental factors that are unrelated to an economic shutdown that have contributed to our disease burden being worse than in other countries. So, no, the evidence doesn’t rule out that, had we done nothing, we would be in an even worse position than Sweden.

I haven’t looked for or seen any evidence regarding the mental health impact of closing the economy and whether it’s worse in countries with a prolonged shutdown. I assume it’s worse in America at baseline, so I’ll take your word for it that economic stress has had significant negative mental health consequences.
 
Agree. When Trump talks about a low death "rate" he is intentionally misleading people.

A rate requires a comparison between x and y. His x is number who died, his y is the number of cases. The comparison he is making would be accurate if the question was "how is our health care system doing with positive cases?"

But that is not the question. The question is how are we doing in rates of infection and deaths compared to population.

He does not like that comoarison as we are doing poorly on that rate. So, he substitutes a more narrowly defined y and claims we are doing well.

Its truly laughable. Sadly, many in the GOP don't want to look past the rhetoric and look at what is being compared, x to y.
So tell us oh wise one, what exactly would the democratic party have done that would have saved lives? We've already heard from uncle Joe that he wouldn't shut down travel to China when Trump did, how many lives would that have saved?
 
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So tell us oh wise one, what exactly would the democratic party have done that would have saved lives? We've already heard from uncle Joe that he wouldn't shut down travel to China when Trump did, how many lives would that have saved?

Can't possibly quantify the number of lives saved by the China travel ban, any more than you can quantify the number of lives cost by Trump' ineptitude in: denying effectiveness of masks; refusal to promote more and faster testing; promoting irresponsible conduct and virus exposure.

Just saw he attended a coronavirus task force meeting today.

His first since APRIL !!!! Freaking April!! I'm sorry. That is just indefensible.
 
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There are three primary failings of Trump’s response: failure to be prepared, failure to communicate effectively, and failure to respond to facets of the problem that the federal government was best suited to handle.

Failure to be prepared

In 2014, based on its experience with pandemics and flu-like diseases, the obama administration created overlapping workgroups at DHS and NSC to monitor threats and assist in response to contagious diseases. The groups were intended to be permanent, but in 2018, Trump repositioned these groups to a posture that emphasized chemical weapons rather than contagious diseases.

He also did not seek to renew the Predict program, another public health/infectious disease research program dealing with respiratory illnesses and it was eliminated in fall 2019.

These administrative moves and the administration’s general lack of emphasis on scientific expertise in government contributed to a brain drain, leading to the departure of talent like Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb. These two in particular were some of the first experts publicly calling for many of the policies listed below as well as the policies that we ultimately adopted too late. These two were writing as early as January 28 that we should allow private test development and production to assist with contact tracing. Many other countries implemented the policies advocated by Borio and Gottlieb on a national level and did so sooner than we did, which is why they have had a more effective response.

Furthermore, the elimination of or reprioritization of these groups turned off a lot of the safeguards that might have clued us in for the need to prepare a response prior to 12.31 when China notified the WHO about the spread of a Novel Coronavirus.

These groups also could have outlined the response and begin developing decision making guidelines for governors with minimal oversight, once the need became obvious. Certainly, Gottlieb and Borio were sounding the alarm before Fauci.

The outgoing Obama Admin and DHS both war gamed pandemic responses with the Trump Admin. So, clearly, the potential threat posed by respiratory diseases in the US was known prior to 2019.

However, reports are that the administration did not take the first exercise seriously. Whether or not you believe that, the DHS exercise was memorialized in a report, which showed poor communication was a failing of the response. This compounds the magnitude of the administration’s failure to communicate during the actual Trump Virus outbreak. They had a chance to learn from their mistake and they did not.

Had the administration placed due emphasis on pandemic preparedness, we might have had a heads up before the WHO was notified on December 31. We certainly would have had a more effective task force staffed with more and better medical experts in addition to Fauci. The response would have been more timely because there would have been a collaborative team working on the response while Trump was ignoring warnings.

The untimeliness of the response is a chief complaint that we should all have. More action in January and February to implement effective border screenings, procure PPE, develop accurate tests, develop a strategy for their distribution and administration, and develop guidelines for targeted stay-at-home orders would have paid dividends down the road by slowing the spread of the virus, increasing public faith that the administration had it under control, reducing onset of panic, and facilitating a more measured and controlled response.
Instead, even as late as mid-late January, Trump was ignoring warnings from people like Peter Navarro and Tom Cotton. He finally stopped some travel from China, but still had no apparent plan for how to execute the federal response and maybe not even a plan of what that response would be.

Failure to Communicate

Trump has routinely failed to use consistent verbiage when discussing the virus with the Public. Throughout March, he compared the Trump Virus to the flu and has routinely downplayed its seriousness, likely contributing to the partisan split over whether to take it seriously.

His discussion of plans have been haphazard and unsupported by any type of science or evidence based reasoning. (See e.g. “I don’t see why we can’t be open by Easter.”)

He has undermined CDC guidance at every turn.

He failed to use federal experts to develop and disseminate decision making metrics or guidelines. This was particularly necessary once it became clear that other nations were using stay-at-home quarantines. Trump doesn’t have the authority to order such a quarantine, but he does have the best resources to provide guidance to governors on how to do it well. As a result of his failure, Governors treated places like Anderson County the same as Davidson County, when it came to stay at home orders. We diminished rural America’s capacity to self-isolate without any meaningful impact on the virus in those locations. That’s partly a failing of the federal government and the Trump administration because that infrastructure was set up under their authority for the express purpose of avoiding the type of piecemeal response we have had.
He nationalized the issue of reopening and put political leverage on governors to reopen nonessential businesses. This was in contradiction of his own government experts and has led to the ongoing increase in cases and deaths.

He also failed communicate effectively with state leaders about the nature of the federal government’s planned response. The federal government is the largest government with the most funding and thus had the most well-developed apparatus for understanding and combatting Trump Virus. States looked to the federal government on issues like testing. Trump’s confusing, self-serving, and self-aggrandizing rhetoric left many states in the lurch.
He apparently failed to communicate the methods by which the federal government would distribute from its stockpile of resources and dispensed some of those resources based on patronage rather than need.

Failure of the Federal Response

He failed to effectively lobby China to get our researchers on the ground to get more info as early as possible.

He failed to put leverage on the WHO to do the same, before they flubbed it. He’s used them as a scapegoat, but he failed to staff American positions at the WHO, which might have maintained a greater degree of US, as opposed to Chinese influence on the organization.
He failed to remove restrictions that prevented private test development, which would have mitigated the CDC’s mistake.

Once a successful test was developed, it should have been mass produced and used it for contact tracing. This should have been done early before things got out of control. This is what Fauci, Gottlieb, and Borio were all advocating for in February and early March. This is a process for which the resources of the federal government are best suited. It was not accomplished until maybe May, when the number of cases was beyond effective contact tracing.
When the CDC test failed, he failed to effectively collaborate with friendly foreign governments to expedite development of a new test.
He did not centralize PPE procurement and competent distribution beginning in January so that the states weren’t bidding against each other and the federal government and then having their resources taken by the federal government when they did manage to procure some. Again, to avoid lack of confusion, bidding wars among states, and to take advantage of economies of scale, this is a federal issue.
He failed to implement effective border screening or quarantine travelers originating from areas with high likelihood of exposure. CBP would have been perfectly suited to this task.
______________________________

Time was of the essence in a response to a disease that spreads as rapidly as this one was known to spread. The failure to be prepared and failure to communicate delayed responses, if they ever occurred. It killed our ability to stop Trump Virus before it became too widespread, and forced us to this posture of a controlled burn. With that controlled burn comes a heightened need for everyone to row in the same direction with respect to social distancing etc. Instead, President’s rhetoric has downplayed the seriousness and has suggested that it will just magically disappear.
He’s failed relative to most other presidents’ responses to contagious diseases and he has failed compared to other world leaders’ effectiveness at combatting this virus. There is no metric that I’m aware of by which we are doing well relative to the rest of the world. The variable that best explains that failure is the anemic response from our centralized government of which Donald Trump is now almost solely in charge.

I’m sure there’s more, but typing it all out was a chore without looking for more. Happy to provide links, just please clearly identify the factual assertion you’d like to see proof of.
Bump since people keep saying nobody has articulated what Trump could have done differently.
 
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Bump since people keep saying nobody has articulated what Trump could have done differently.
What is the democratic 20/20 hindsight? I didn't hear anything proactive from the trifecta of dumbasses in the democratic party other that close the economy forever.
 
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What is the democratic 20/20 hindsight? I didn't hear anything proactive from the trifecta of dumbasses in the democratic party other that close the economy forever.

At least he tried to answer the question. Failed but tried.
 
Agree. When Trump talks about a low death "rate" he is intentionally misleading people.

A rate requires a comparison between x and y. His x is number who died, his y is the number of cases. The comparison he is making would be accurate if the question was "how is our health care system doing with positive cases?"

But that is not the question. The question is how are we doing in rates of infection and deaths compared to population.

He does not like that comoarison as we are doing poorly on that rate. So, he substitutes a more narrowly defined y and claims we are doing well.

Its truly laughable. Sadly, many in the GOP don't want to look past the rhetoric and look at what is being compared, x to y.
This is a flawed argument from both sides. We won't know any variables or data until this has run its course completely. You're no different than Trump and the GOP by making your assumptions before aforementioned data is collected.
 

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