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Would the Democrats have let him do anything in January and February? Remember, the Left was falling all over themselves insisting that any fear of the Coronavirus was just explicit anti-Chinese racism manifesting itself. They were far more dismissive than the GOP. And they were in full-on impeachment mode, so any action he'd have taken would have had them shrieking, "You're just trying to distract the American people from your impeachment!!" When Trump made the fairly minimalist step of stopping travel from China, they cried "Racist!! Bigot!!" long and loud.
The reason everyone got COVID-19 completely wrong is mostly because China spent most of January insisting it didn't even exist. When it started to spread a little, the world at large gave a collective yawn, with memories of SARS, MERS, Zika, Ebola, etc. on their mind. March 10th is a decent cutoff where every government on earth was fully onboard acknowledging that this was the real deal.
What steps do you believe Trump actually could have taken in January/February, that would not have been angrily shouted down by the Democrats and Republicans alike? They'd have called him crazy and we all know it.
Excellent post. I remember people even saying in January that they remember the sky is falling rhetoric when SARS and MERS came on the scene, and wake them up if it actually comes to anything. I don’t care who is president, when you’re dealing with a highly contagious novel virus with a two-week incubation period, it was always going to be the nightmare scenario they always talked about and people were going to underestimate it.
Last edited by katygirl68; 04-01-2020 at 02:12 PM..
I'm not sure that the deaths would have ever been in the millions in the US. Italy is a good example of what doing nothing for a long time does. They had this virus circulating for a while and took no warnings seriously until the total lockdown. The Imperial College papers are now estimating about 8 million are actually infected there.
Some experts now think death rate is .6% on the conservative end, but based on recent Imperial College estimates it's more like .1%.
Since 100% of the population can't be infected due to herd immunity, at that death rate we were probably looking at 150k-250k deaths on high end. Even if you multiply that by 2-3x to adjust for overwhelmed healthcare you still don't get millions. And that's not even adjusted for unknowns, like does warm weather slow spread, and are there tons of unknown immune cases already (which we will know from antibody test studies).
I'm not saying slowing the spread wasn't the right move, it absolutely was to help healthcare catch up and cope, but the "millions dead" narrative by government is just information control so people don't let their guard down. While it works, it will also erode trust in communications.
Your guess is as good as any. We'll know more in about 6 weeks. Anything we say now is just playing with numbers. Let's start a pool. I'll put a buck on 1 million deaths by September 1.
For the love of all that is holy, STOP COMPARING COVID-19 TO THE FLU! It is not the flu, and just because more people died from the flu doesn't make it acceptable for even 1 person to die from coronavirus, much less 200,000. Is COVID-19 the same as AIDS, Ebola, or Marburg? They are all fatal viral diseases, so they can all be compared to one another. No, they can't. They have different mechanisms of action, different signs and symptoms, incubation periods, treatments, means of transmission, etc. . .
It acts like the flu, that's why the comparison.
FURTHER, the flu kills more people every single year, and affects more people every single year, and yet, NO PANIC! No shutdowns! No "social distancing"! No businesses closed!
Of course certain people don't want it compared - it's not nearly as "scary!" when you put it into perspective.
The government has the entire population under control, and they have learned they can tighten the control to any degree and the people will always do as they are told.
Whether or not the virus is as bad as we are being told, the government now knows they can turn off the economy, and put the population under full control with ease as long as they can persuade people they are in danger and that the government is there to protect them. Its actually quite worrysome.
I love being in the company of those with critical thinking skills and who use those skills. 97% of Americans are either mentally lazy or just dim and aren't able to look around and see what is really happening.
The vast majority of humans believe anything on the evening news without questioning it.
Of course it's easy to use fear and the news to control people who are sleep walking through their short lives while those of us with critical thinking skills are labeled "conspiracy theorists" or "tin foil hat brigade" or some other label.
It's like the bullies on the playground making fun of the kids who choose to get good grades.
Well.. FL governor is making one foolish decision after another and the people of FL will pay the price. In the mean time, Trump is telling everyone what a great job the governor is doing. No telling how many people have died as a result of the spring break beach debacle. At least Disney had enough sense to shut down.
Yep and Arizona has a meaningless "Stay at home, stay healthy, stay connected" order where Ducey thinks hair dressers are "essential"...
Seriously?
Even so people shouldn't have to be told it is stupid to do right now, and impossible to practice distancing with a hairstylist.
In my area hair salons are closed down, but someone on our community facebook page tried to ask for one (black market hairdresser I guess), and got warned anyone seeking shut- down services would be banned.
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No, they can't. They have different mechanisms of action, different signs and symptoms, incubation periods, treatments, means of transmission, etc. . .