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I dont think its a coincidence that the two countries that have had the most explosive case growth have leaders that are identical to one another: USA and Brazil.
Saying, "Well what about Italy and Spain. Their death rates were much worse." is a ridiculous argument. They got hit earlier in the pandemic when we barely knew what we were up against. We dont have alot, but we have many more tools in the toolbox now than we did 3-4 months ago. They revised their positions and took new positions to mitigate things. Now they are fine. The death rate is a ridiculous metric to follow because it lags behind case load. What we should be looking at are new cases and we are objectively the worst in the world (along with Brazil) by those numbers.
I dont see how it isnt ridiculously obvious that Trump made this situation much, MUCH worse than it had to be. However, it isnt his fault alone. Americas culture is the most self indulgent in the world. There are no rights of the community, its all about ME ME ME! "If someone else dies because I dont want to be inconvenienced to wear a mask, I dont care." is pretty well the attitude of too many people in this country. Trump pandered to that mentality and fed that mentality. The fact that he is now calling people to wear masks is way too little, way too late. That would have been nice to have in late April when the CDC and WHO finally came around on masks. Lives could have been saved.
This isnt an anti-Republican rant. For example, I think people are way too hard on Abbott. I think the Gov made the best decisions he could with the info he had at the time. He had the balls to admit he was wrong and mandated masks to show for it. But it should be clear that Trump is thinking about one thing: his re-election chances. The sooner this goes away, the better his chances are and he knows that. Thats why he has been trying to minimize this. Thats why Fox has constantly had the narrative its had on this.
People who approve of his job handling this virus...man, I dont know what to say to such obvious delusion.
I find it funny that the same people who are really quick to blame government for virtually everything else, and are doubly quick to say that government is useless and ineffective at everything are also very quick to protect the leader of that government when he proves their (false) notions correct- at least as pertains to his office.
A LEADER is held to task for the failure of his organization. We fire coaches for losing teams, even when it’s really the players on the field. We fire CEO’s for so much, as a tick in the wrong direction of profit, culture, or scandal. For other leaders, the slightest whiff of ineffective leadership leads to an equally quick forced exit on the simple basis of accountability. The leader is accountable for the decisions and failures of his organization. Whatever the organization. That is the American way.
Of course until it comes to THIS leader. (At least in the eyes of those that voted for him)
That would not be me.
In my military experience, when the ship runs aground, the captain gets fired, whether he was on the bridge at the time or not. The commander is held responsible. That's why he gets the salutes.
In my military experience, when the ship runs aground, the captain gets fired, whether he was on the bridge at the time or not. The commander is held responsible. That's why he gets the salutes.
O Captain My Captain... wish you had wore a mask from day 1....... whether freedom was lost or not , I am not sure but real lives were lost
For all of you bashing TC80 as an anti-Trumper, can any of you actually defend Trump's actions listed in her post? All I see is a bunch of misdirection and deflection. Yes, we have a bunch of people in this country who defend individual freedom at the cost of the greater good, but when that sentiment is literally modeled and encouraged by the leader of our country, it gives fuel to the fire.
Obviously Trump is not solely responsible for the virus - no one person can be responsible - especially when there is so much that we don't know. But flagrantly touting anti-science theories, refusing to wear a mask himself, silencing experts whose research he doesn't like, and regularly repeating misinformation and flat out lies...how can any rational person not admit this behavior has had a negative impact on the course of the virus in this country?
There's a vast gulf between pointing out the myriad mistakes Trump has made and blaming him, republicans and evangelical Christians for the virus.
Good grief, I'm an atheist and didn't vote for Trump and almost certainly won't in Nov. Much of the finger pointing by the other poster is absurd emotionalism.
So do you blame leaders in France, Sweden, Italy, Spain and The UK with the same fury? All of these countries have worse to far worse death rates than The US.
To partially answer your first question there is precisely zero chance early lockdowns, house arrests, punitive contact tracing as practiced in the countries you mentioned could be employed here.
The entity that deserves the most blame is The CDC for botching the first round of testing. Pretending Trump has actually made things particularly worse is silly.
Why not mention spring breakers, bar goers, rioters, legitimate protesters etc? It's just too easy to blame one guy and a religious group.
Trump had been briefed on the dangers of Covid-19 before he went on stage and said this;
Quote:
On February 26, President Trump boasted that the coronavirus was about to disappear altogether from the United States. “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero,” he insisted.
That was reckless and irresponsible and cost us lives.
If anything it can help you retain it; which is more "free", being required to wear masks and maintain distance when in public places (to which you still have access), or having hundreds of thousands of cases and thousands of deaths leading to a complete lockdown, no one allowed to leave their house except for emergency medical treatment (this has been put in place in several places around the world)? I know which alternative I'd rather experience.
Agreed that TC80's post is a reality check for the President's words and his individual actions. However, I do not believe all of it and do not believe that it has affected our response. The post makes perfect sense if we are an autocratic society. But we are not. We are a democracy. The State and local government and leaders have enough powers to plan and execute on their own response. So it is not as black and white, as TC80 makes it out to be. As others have posted, there are multiple factors at play here. I, for one, strongly believe that our scientific community including Dr. Fauci fumbled on our preparation and the response real badly. Dr. Fauci has been expressing his opinion independently right from the start and even until today. What is the President to do, when your top epidemiologist until February end, believed that the "risk of coronavirus in US is miniscule (tiny, very small)". Also, Dr. Fauci had initially claimed that masks do not help, even when other countries had implemented masks universally. It has been interesting to see how the mask recommendations have evolved over the months, creating all this confusion. The President did execute each and every recommendation that was advised by the health officials. I give him and the task force credit for how the crisis in NY/NJ was handled. If you are blaming the President for not having the testing infrastructure in place for the pandemic, I believe that blame should go to Dr. Fauci equally and even to the President's predecessors. The preparation for the pandemic was not this President's sole responsibility. To put that in perspective, god forbid, if we have to deal with another pandemic in 10 years, I am sure that we will be much better prepared, given what we have learnt in this cycle and the infrastructure we will put in place to deal with it.
Lastly, if we really believe that the spread of the virus started in US in March, we are naïve. US, being the most traveled country in the world, be it personal, business and tourism (Chinese nationals, Chinese Americans, Americans, Europeans), I am willing to bet that the spread started in US in December, maybe earlier. So, comparing our response to other smaller and lesser traveled countries is like comparing a melon to a grape. The scientific community and WHO were either asleep, hid it or downplayed it at the start. It is interesting to see that there is no media attention or blame form the posters here on the Chinese government actions or lack of it in controlling the spread right at the onset. So, there is not even a discussion on what needs to happen to avoid such a pandemic from happening in the future.
I just wanted to lay out my thoughts and will move on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Waterdragon8212
For all of you bashing TC80 as an anti-Trumper, can any of you actually defend Trump's actions listed in her post? All I see is a bunch of misdirection and deflection. Yes, we have a bunch of people in this country who defend individual freedom at the cost of the greater good, but when that sentiment is literally modeled and encouraged by the leader of our country, it gives fuel to the fire.
Obviously Trump is not solely responsible for the virus - no one person can be responsible - especially when there is so much that we don't know. But flagrantly touting anti-science theories, refusing to wear a mask himself, silencing experts whose research he doesn't like, and regularly repeating misinformation and flat out lies...how can any rational person not admit this behavior has had a negative impact on the course of the virus in this country?
Last edited by CDContribuitor; 07-23-2020 at 09:59 AM..
I dont think its a coincidence that the two countries that have had the most explosive case growth have leaders that are identical to one another: USA and Brazil.
Saying, "Well what about Italy and Spain. Their death rates were much worse." is a ridiculous argument. They got hit earlier in the pandemic when we barely knew what we were up against. We dont have alot, but we have many more tools in the toolbox now than we did 3-4 months ago. They revised their positions and took new positions to mitigate things. Now they are fine. The death rate is a ridiculous metric to follow because it lags behind case load. What we should be looking at are new cases and we are objectively the worst in the world (along with Brazil) by those numbers.
I dont see how it isnt ridiculously obvious that Trump made this situation much, MUCH worse than it had to be. However, it isnt his fault alone. Americas culture is the most self indulgent in the world. There are no rights of the community, its all about ME ME ME! "If someone else dies because I dont want to be inconvenienced to wear a mask, I dont care." is pretty well the attitude of too many people in this country. Trump pandered to that mentality and fed that mentality. The fact that he is now calling people to wear masks is way too little, way too late. That would have been nice to have in late April when the CDC and WHO finally came around on masks. Lives could have been saved.
This isnt an anti-Republican rant. For example, I think people are way too hard on Abbott. I think the Gov made the best decisions he could with the info he had at the time. He had the balls to admit he was wrong and mandated masks to show for it. But it should be clear that Trump is thinking about one thing: his re-election chances. The sooner this goes away, the better his chances are and he knows that. Thats why he has been trying to minimize this. Thats why Fox has constantly had the narrative its had on this.
People who approve of his job handling this virus...man, I dont know what to say to such obvious delusion.
This is hysterical. It's OK to compare The US to countries hit later on the CV-19 time horizon but not those hit earlier? Come on.
Further, let's give Italy and Spain a pass as they have very uneven HC and are short many of the things we take for granted. What about The UK, Belgium*, France and Sweden? Belgium gets an * because they are likely overcounting CV-19 deaths. In terms of time horizon we are only slightly behind those places.
I'm a lot things but delusional isn't one of them. I've been paid by academic and private concerns for decades to dispassionately examine information pulled from large number sets.
Let's be brutally clear. These things matter FAR MORE than Trump's fumbling relative to masks and other things.
1. The Chinese sat on CV-19 for several weeks and downplayed it for months.
2. The CDC via astonishing missteps delayed widespread testing by about 6 weeks......a 6 week period that would have made a huge difference.
3. The intransigence of some young people, some cultural momentum, and having what is probably the most unhealthy large population on Earth have been big players in all this as well.
Bonus point while people yell and scream about masks......next time you are out note the proportion of people wearing masks incorrectly.
People should wear masks and were them correctly. But the notion that mask wearing provides ubiquitous protection is folly.
100% agree with this post and articulates very well what I have been trying to convey. As far as Sweden is concerned, going by their numbers, they have done relatively well, given that they did not adopt stringent shutdowns. You may be looking at other factors, that I am not aware of.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EDS_
This is hysterical. It's OK to compare The US to countries hit later on the CV-19 time horizon but not those hit earlier? Come on.
Further, let's give Italy and Spain a pass as they have very uneven HC and are short many of the things we take for granted. What about The UK, Belgium*, France and Sweden? Belgium gets an * because they are likely overcounting CV-19 deaths. In terms of time horizon we are only slightly behind those places.
I'm a lot things but delusional isn't one of them. I've been paid by academic and private concerns for decades to dispassionately examine information pulled from large number sets.
Let's be brutally clear. These things matter FAR MORE than Trump's fumbling relative to masks and other things.
1. The Chinese sat on CV-19 for several weeks and downplayed it for months.
2. The CDC via astonishing missteps delayed widespread testing by about 6 weeks......a 6 week period that would have made a huge difference.
3. The intransigence of some young people, some cultural momentum, and having what is probably the most unhealthy large population on Earth have been big players in all this as well.
Bonus point while people yell and scream about masks......next time you are out note the proportion of people wearing masks incorrectly.
People should wear masks and were them correctly. But the notion that mask wearing provides ubiquitous protection is folly.
Last edited by CDContribuitor; 07-23-2020 at 10:12 AM..
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