The Coronavirus, not the beer

Runnin said:
The "even if he had tried it would still be bad" defense. Quite lame and unconvincing. Public trust comes from good faith effort, too, which I think is as important in carrying out govt duties as actual, end of the day results.

There's a huge difference between the purposeful chaos and incompetence of this administration and normal, responsible leadership.

This article separates the president's blame from the general vulnerability of an anemic health care industry.


Why the Pandemic is So Bad in America by Ed Yong
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Citing The Atlantic is like citing The Blaze. I've long since decided not to waste time reading those sites. I loathe being told how to think about news.

Again, I think Trump handled it extremely poorly. I just don't see his handling having a huge effect one way or the other. Mostly because responses are handled on the state level.

Intangibles like "responsible leadership" are nothing compared to the public health powers of the States.
 
He turned down tests from WHO and we lagged behind other countries in testing early.



He spent the early weeks of the virus trying to convince people the virus threat was a hoax.




He trusted Xi to handle the virus and was publicly praising Chinas handling of the virus. Shockingly it turned kit China wasnt being honest. Who could have known.



He has encouraged all the conspiracy theory nutjobs.




He has feuded with the experts and states in a time of crisis because they dont praise him enough. Seriously.





We dont know how this goes under anyone else but what we do know is what Trump would say if he was not President.




It comes down to basic competence and credibility. He has neither. I know the Trump Rapid Response team will be butt hurt about that but no objective person can think Trump is competent or credible.
 
striker42 said:
I'll be the first to admit Trump hasn't handled things well. However, I struggle to think of what any president could have done that would significantly change the results.

First, our system leaves much of the decision making up to the States. A president has little power to force States to implement policy.

Next, Americans are different. More independent and individualistic. You tell many Americans they have to do A, by God they aren't going to do A. It makes it difficult to implement policy in the levels necessary.

Next, this disease seems to laugh in the face of government policy. The asymptomatic spreaders and pre-symptomatic spreaders make containment in the modern world extremely difficult.

Finally, we're learning more about this thing all the time. The CDC was adamant masks weren't good until we learned they helped. We're a long way from where we were in March.

So while Trump did a poor job, saying he bears much of the blame for the loss of life is silly. The difference between perfect handling by a President and terrible handling isn't that much.
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The deaths would had been far worse under Obama. Can’t even argue against that.
 
Krgrecw said:
The deaths would had been far worse under Obama. Can’t even argue against that.
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It would have never been released under Obama. But thats one conspiracy that will almost never see the light of day. But who knows what will happen in trumps second term.
 
The states that had the most aggressive lockdown responses, had the worst outcomes... both in death and economic.

This is inarguable
 
striker42 said:
Citing The Atlantic is like citing The Blaze. I've long since decided not to waste time reading those sites. I loathe being told how to think about news.

Again, I think Trump handled it extremely poorly. I just don't see his handling having a huge effect one way or the other. Mostly because responses are handled on the state level.

Intangibles like "responsible leadership" are nothing compared to the public health powers of the States.
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The Atlantic might as well be the CCP.
 
thethe said:
It would have never been released under Obama. But thats one conspiracy that will almost never see the light of day. But who knows what will happen in trumps second term.
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Far less people would be wearing masks if the idea came from a Democrat instead of a republican.
 
Krgrecw said:
Far less people would be wearing masks if the idea came from a Democrat instead of a republican.
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Its just very convenient that large gatherings are not possible now and trumps ralleys are one of the biggest reasons he was propelled into the presidency in 2016.

Makes you think...
 
Krgrecw said:
Far less people would be wearing masks if the idea came from a Democrat instead of a republican.
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I think we'd probably be in a similar situation under Obama. Maybe slightly worse because, as you pointed out, of the pushback with the messages coming from a Democrat. Not just individuals refusing to wear masks but also State and local governments being more combative and making stupider choices based on politics.

I find a lot of people have illusions of control. Like we can legislate Nature into a box. It's easy to forget how pitiful many of our efforts to control the world around us actually are.
 
striker42 said:
I think we'd probably be in a similar situation under Obama. Maybe slightly worse because, as you pointed out, of the pushback with the messages coming from a Democrat. Not just individuals refusing to wear masks but also State and local governments being more combative and making stupider choices based on politics.

I find a lot of people have illusions of control. Like we can legislate Nature into a box. It's easy to forget how pitiful many of our efforts to control the world around us actually are.
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Good points. I also believe once Biden becomes president the media was start to say ‘the worse is behind us, the numbers are getting better, it’s not as bad as we feared’ in regards to corona.


The numbers are getting better. People won’t admit it though
 
Krgrecw said:
Good points. I also believe once Biden becomes president the media was start to say ‘the worse is behind us, the numbers are getting better, it’s not as bad as we feared’ in regards to corona.


The numbers are getting better. People won’t admit it though
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There will still be spikes. It is the nature of a virus. But yeah its not hard to see the narrative will change.
 
The number of virus tests that the US uses to fight the ongoing pandemic will be very sensitive to the cost of a test. Several bits of evidence suggest that the true cost per person tested is about $10.

Yet in the United States, the providers of the approved clinical diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2 are able to charge a significant monopoly markup over their marginal cost of doing the test. The US government pays $100 per test to labs that are using high throughput technologies.

It would not be surprising if the two dominant providers of diagnostic tests, LabCorp and Quest, oppose entry into the testing business by university labs that can offer the tests at one-tenth the price they charge. Nor would it be surprising if these powerful companies were feeding information to news organizations and to members of Congress which suggests that it would be a terrible idea to invite university labs in as new providers of test services.

https://paulromer.net/cost_of_tests/

The above is from Paul Romer's blog. I think one of the contributing factors to our current fiasco is a lack of understanding of the economics of testing and general lack of a federal plan that takes this into account. There has been no attempt to provide economic incentives for university labs to increase capacity. We are left with the current situation, where a couple labs can enjoy their monopoly power and where the wait times for test results are such as to undercut the value of aggressive testing. There are a couple universities that I am aware of who planned to open this fall and part of their plan was high frequency testing. Once they became aware of how long it would take to get test results back, they pulled back from bringing in undergrads to their campuses and are going with online classes.
 
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Tapate50 said:
There will still be spikes. It is the nature of a virus. But yeah its not hard to see the narrative will change.
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It is not physically possible to have spikes if you are wearing masks, I'm reliably told.

Except in places that do wear masks, thats different!
 
I'm reliably told it is not possible to prevent highway deaths.

Places that enforce speed limits have these spikes in accident deaths from time to time that show it is a useless exercise.

Let people be free to exercise personal responsibility as far as how they drive.
 
nsacpi said:
I'm reliably told it is not possible to prevent highway deaths.

Places that enforce speed limits have these spikes in accident deaths from time to time that show it is a useless exercise.

Let people be free to exercise personal responsibility as far as how they drive.
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Can you try another round of spin for the northeast states again??

Lol
 
striker42 said:
Citing The Atlantic is like citing The Blaze. I've long since decided not to waste time reading those sites. I loathe being told how to think about news.

Again, I think Trump handled it extremely poorly. I just don't see his handling having a huge effect one way or the other. Mostly because responses are handled on the state level.

Intangibles like "responsible leadership" are nothing compared to the public health powers of the States.
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I guess all news sort of tells you "how to think about news" but you still hold the ability to reject what you don't think is credible. If you want to reject any news in The Atlantic, that's your right.

I think his OO's handling of the virus goes far beyond an incompetent response to a health crisis. He has used the virus to further divide the country, the same way he does everything else. He jumped the gun on every important piece of public information on the virus, from its severity to hydroxichoroquine to masks to testing and he'll surely do the same with the Russian vaccine. He doesn't care about the virus per se but only how it can be used to help him.

Responsible leadership would've let the CDC take charge and followed their recommendations.
 
Michelle Obama? No idea. The joke is before the part about her. He is basically asking for what we have right now to happen. Kind of eery.
 
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