Coronavirus (COVID-19) is too exciting for adults to discuss (CLOSED)

[BuckeyeNation27]

And again....it's back to the CNN I don't watch and a defense of Donald Trump who didn't get attacked. I sure am lacking in reading comprehension.

From your Germany article:

The new clusters have been concentrated in slaughterhouses and crowded, low-income apartment blocks, which have been quarantined, but they are generating increasing concern that the infections could break out and spread among the broader public.

This week, those concerns spurred the authorities in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia to impose lockdowns in two counties — the first since the country’s broader reopening in May — after hundreds of workers at the Tönnies meatpacking plant in Gütersloh county tested positive for the virus. Neighboring Warendorf county, where many plant workers live, was the second county locked down.

Image that. An outbreak in a susceptible area.....and a response. Amazing. Just like what we're doing here. Oh, no wait.....we're fighting to be able to pack 400,000 people into a pool for spring break (psst.....don't take that number literally).

With the virus seemingly in check, the chancellor agreed that the country could “afford a little audacity,” by lifting restrictions. But she warned states not to move too quickly and to remain cautious, and insisted that they reimpose restrictions if more than 50 cases cropped up per 100,000 residents.

Ms. Merkel was adamant that the reproduction rate of the virus, known as the R number, needed to remain below 1 — meaning that each infected person infected only one other — to ensure public safety. Last weekend the rate countrywide hit a high of more than 2, before rolling back to 1.11 this week.

That number will be closely watched in the coming days, even as states have moved to reopen cafes, restaurants, hotels and cultural institutions in time for Germans to take their summer holidays, with an eye to getting people back to work and increasing spending.

Imagine something like this coming from the US. You have to, because it sure as shit isn't coming from the guy whose fault this isn't.

Let's look at some data that didn't come from CNN that I don't watch.

That's per million. Gee.....seems like 9677 is a little bigger than 2425. I didn't pass any voter tests recently, but my gut is saying 413 > 111. Numbers are hard though. I bet there are graphs that show that Germany's "spike" from way back on June 25th is equal to ours.

Yeah...I see your point. Those graphs look amazingly similar. Actually...if you zoom in, ours is going down while Germany's is kinda up if not flat. USA! USA! USA!

Here's Japan

Wait. That's not Japan. That's us again. Or....is it? I'm confused because they look so similar. Do your IQ tests include country flags? Maybe I could cram before I take it so I'm deemed as smart as you are so I can vote the way CNN that I don't watch tells me to.


Anyway. You've convinced me. We're doing as well as every other country out there.

 

[Jagdaddy]

What I'm seeing a lot of is people ascribing too much power to specific COVID-19 public policy throughout this pandemic. For example, I'm obviously (from past posts) not a Trump fan, but in the American federal system, the states, and even local governments, bear a lot of responsibility for the responses and that means that we're inherently going to have a more fragmented approach to dealing with it. As Taos recently pointed out, "too soon" reopenings are contrary to federal guidelines. Now it surely doesn't help that Trump is only about himself and undermines the messaging and directives of his own administration's professionals, but I don't believe that there's any scenario where he could have acted in a way that would have stopped this dead in its tracks a la New Zealand.

Similarly, some seem to believe that government shutdowns have caused all of our economic pain and "deaths of despair" (data's not really out yet on the latter: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/06/covid-suicide), but people assessing their own health and financial risks and deciding how to change their activities and spending habits accordingly is happening and will continue to happen regardless of what the government does. That Sweden, Norway, and Denmark experienced similar levels of economic impact despite Sweden keeping things open and the other two shutting down more is evidence for this view, as is, anecdotally, the different degrees of self-limiting behavior by my wife and I and others we know personally.

What is generally underestimated is the role of longstanding general U.S. public policy and political culture in leaving us more vulnerable to the pandemic. Besides our federalism impairing coordinated response (as does our political polarization: Should one's decision whether or not to mask up really be made on the basis of one's political views?), our unwillingness to invest in our people across the board as opposed to spending "the people's" money on ever larger and more consolidated corporate overlords that have incentives to make us fat and addicted (food conglomerates), lazy, confused, and fearful (social media, traditional media, entertainment, political parties/activists., security and gun companies, the prison industry) sick and addicted (drug companies and hospitals), and dependent (all of the above) has eroded social trust to the point where we're incapable of acting effectively as a united people on even the simplest things. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, but here we are.

As to whether the U.S. is responding as a government or a people better or worse than other countries, the numbers suggest to me that we're generally in a peer group with semi-first world countries like Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and India and doing worse than other other full-on first world countries. But I think a lot of that is because over the last few decades, we've become much more of a semi-first world country than we'd care to admit as opposed to our specific COVID-response being especially bad.

 

[Bucklion]

What I'm seeing a lot of is people ascribing too much power to specific COVID-19 public policy throughout this pandemic. For example, I'm obviously (from past posts) not a Trump fan, but in the American federal system, the states, and even local governments, bear a lot of responsibility for the responses and that means that we're inherently going to have a more fragmented approach to dealing with it. As Taos recently pointed out "too soon" reopenings are contrary to federal guidelines. Now it surely doesn't help that Trump is only about himself and undermines the messaging and directives of his own administration's professionals, but I don't believe that there's any scenario where he could have acted in a way that would have stopped this dead in its tracks a la New Zealand.

Similarly, some seem to believe that government shutdowns have caused all of our economic pain and "deaths of despair" (data's not really out yet on the latter: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/06/covid-suicide), but people assessing their own health and financial risks and deciding how to change their activities and spending habits accordingly is happening and will continue to happen regardless of what the government does. That Sweden, Norway, and Denmark experienced similar levels of economic impact despite Sweden keeping things open and the other two shutting down more is evidence for this view, as is, anecdotally, the different degrees of self-limiting behavior by my wife and I and others we know personally.

What is generally underestimated is the role of longstanding general U.S. public policy and political culture in leaving us more vulnerable to the pandemic. Besides our federalism impairing coordinated response (as does our political polarization: Should one's decision whether or not to mask up really be made on the basis of one's political views?), our unwillingness to invest in our people across the board as opposed to spending "the people's" money on ever larger and more consolidated corporate overlords that have incentives to make us fat and addicted (food conglomerates), lazy, confused, and fearful (social media, traditional media, entertainment, political parties/activists., security and gun companies, the prison industry) sick and addicted (drug companies and hospitals), and dependent (all of the above) has eroded social trust to the point where we're incapable of acting effectively as a united people on even the simplest things. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, but here we are.

As to whether the U.S. is responding as government or a people better or worse than other countries, the numbers suggest to me that we're generally n a peer group with semi-first world countries like Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and India and doing worse than other other full-on first world countries. But I think a lot of that is because over the last few decades, we've become much more of a semi-first world country than we'd care to admit as opposed to our specific COVID-response being especially bad.

I like this post until you get to the end. You basically have to believe that the response from all of the other previous administrations, or any of them, would not have been significantly better, and I just can’t with that. Now the choices might have been different, you might have had Obama pushing to shut shit down and Bush pushing to keep things open and take the chances (Sweden on steroids), for example. But either of those administrations would have HHS, the CDC, the DOD, the PDQ, and every other 3-letter combination trying to coordinate shit and do shit. You’d have consistent messaging between federal and state/local levels. You’d have Presidents who stood at a podium and actually talked about a pandemic, not rallies or the stock market or “law and order”. You’d have teams of experts, not political hacks. You’d have people who lasted in the government more than a year. You’d have people not undermining their own administrations botched messaging. You wouldn’t have a President making the decision to withdraw from the WHO during a fucking pandemic (that decision can be made later). And you’d have a person at the helm who may not do anything you like, but you would know they weren’t doing it for Russia or China or for their next hotel. We literally have none of that now.

 

[Jagdaddy]

I like this post until you get to the end. You basically have to believe that the response from all of the other previous administrations, or any of them, would not have been significantly better, and I just can’t with that. Now the choices might have been different, you might have had Obama pushing to shut shit down and Bush pushing to keep things open and take the chances (Sweden on steroids), for example. But either of those administrations would have HHS, the CDC, the DOD, the PDQ, and every other 3-letter combination trying to coordinate shit and do shit. You’d have consistent messaging between federal and state/local levels. You’d have Presidents who stood at a podium and actually talked about a pandemic, not rallies or the stock market or “law and order”. You’d have teams of experts, not political hacks. You’d have people who lasted in the government more than a year. You’d have people not undermining their own administrations botched messaging. You wouldn’t have a President making the decision to withdraw from the WHO during a fucking pandemic (that decision can be made later). And you’d have a person at the helm who may not do anything you like, but you would know they weren’t doing it for Russia or China or for their next hotel. We literally have none of that now.

I don't disagree with any of that (and we would have had less prior stripping of competence and integrity from the federal bureaucracy as well), but I'm not sure that it's a distinction that would have made much of a difference in the outcome because of our underlying unhealthiness, political culture, lack of trust in government, institutions, and each other and because, to a degree, nature's going to decide when, for how long, and to what degree it's going to kick our ass. I've said before that Trump is the cold sore, not the herpes, and I stand by that. However, I also agree with Richard Spencer (that should be the first and last time you ever see me write that) that he's also an accelerant for the underlying dumpster fire. Coach Hayes said that "nothing cleanses your soul like a good ass kicking" and maybe the USA needs this ass kicking to get our house in order.

I edited this a bit.

 

[Fungo Squiggly]

What is generally underestimated is the role of longstanding general U.S. public policy and political culture in leaving us more vulnerable to the pandemic. Besides our federalism impairing coordinated response (as does our political polarization: Should one's decision whether or not to mask up really be made on the basis of one's political views?), our unwillingness to invest in our people across the board as opposed to spending "the people's" money on ever larger and more consolidated corporate overlords that have incentives to make us fat and addicted (food conglomerates), lazy, confused, and fearful (social media, traditional media, entertainment, political parties/activists., security and gun companies, the prison industry) sick and addicted (drug companies and hospitals), and dependent (all of the above) has eroded social trust to the point where we're incapable of acting effectively as a united people on even the simplest things. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, but here we are.

I would tack on how financially fucked a large portion of the population is. Whether from depressed wages or dumbfuck spending habits, a depressingly large percentage of the population would not be able to pay for an unexpected $1000 expense without borrowing. Which means there was no option to shutdown without a massive government program to keep people off the streets and that lead to an even greater sense of urgency to get things back open because people can't afford to live and the government cannot afford to keep paying them. It's fucking depressing.

 

[sparcboxbuck]

Hey NP people ignore their doctors advice ..but I will say my doctor is more consistent then Fauci. No smoking lose weight limit alcohol. Every visit, I don’t smoke, limit my alcohol so 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. BTW he thinks Fauci likes to hear himself talk . He believes less is more.

Almost word for word my doc's statements to me yesterday during my physical.

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

and the government cannot afford to keep paying them.

Welllllllllllllll.......

 

[Jagdaddy]

I would tack on how financially fucked a large portion of the population is. Whether from depressed wages or dumbfuck spending habits, a depressingly large percentage of the population would not be able to pay for an unexpected $1000 expense without borrowing. Which means there was no option to shutdown without a massive government program to keep people off the streets and that lead to an even greater sense of urgency to get things back open because people can't afford to live and the government cannot afford to keep paying them. It's fucking depressing.

This is exactly right. It's mentioned obliquely in my first post (spending "the people's" money on insiders), but it's the root of the problem and it results in part from causes largely external to government (globalization, rapid technological advance, "efficiency" ...) but also from lousy government policies in areas like taxation, health care/financing, financial services regulation, and criminal justice, a lack of prioritization of public goods like infrastructure, and a lack of an adequate baseline of quality in educational opportunity (I don't promote "equality" because I don't want caps on what money can buy at the top end) but all schools should give kids enough of a baseline to run with.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

Just when you think people in some sort of authority couldn't get any stupider...

 

[Taosman]

I would tack on how financially fucked a large portion of the population is. Whether from depressed wages or dumbfuck spending habits, a depressingly large percentage of the population would not be able to pay for an unexpected $1000 expense without borrowing. Which means there was no option to shutdown without a massive government program to keep people off the streets and that lead to an even greater sense of urgency to get things back open because people can't afford to live and the government cannot afford to keep paying them. It's fucking depressing.

I agree. Most Americans don't have savings and live paycheck to paycheck. Since the pandemic began, more than 45 million Americans have lost their jobs and filed for unemployment insurance at some point. That's a catastrophic number.

https://www.nytimes.com/paidpost/fi...ft_morein&tbs_nyt=2020-March-nytnative_morein

 

[Jaxbuck]

I like this post until you get to the end. You basically have to believe that the response from all of the other previous administrations, or any of them, would not have been significantly better, and I just can’t with that. Now the choices might have been different, you might have had Obama pushing to shut shit down and Bush pushing to keep things open and take the chances (Sweden on steroids), for example. But either of those administrations would have HHS, the CDC, the DOD, the PDQ, and every other 3-letter combination trying to coordinate shit and do shit. You’d have consistent messaging between federal and state/local levels. You’d have Presidents who stood at a podium and actually talked about a pandemic, not rallies or the stock market or “law and order”. You’d have teams of experts, not political hacks. You’d have people who lasted in the government more than a year. You’d have people not undermining their own administrations botched messaging. You wouldn’t have a President making the decision to withdraw from the WHO during a fucking pandemic (that decision can be made later). And you’d have a person at the helm who may not do anything you like, but you would know they weren’t doing it for Russia or China or for their next hotel. We literally have none of that now.

Almost any random person off the street could have been more Presidential during this crisis but none of our previous POTUSs would have been any more effective imo.

W had the FEMA response to Katrina to remind us all that a well funded department of something doesn't make it an effective department of something.

Bubba was the lackey of the Chinese or anyone else that would write a check to his family for consulting services.

Obama likely would have used this to spend money on every social program imaginable and lumped it all in with a COVID relief bill.

In the end, it would still be a global pandemic that the scientists and MD's do not have a grasp of yet and therefore many people would still have died and many others damaged by mitigation efforts. People are working off of incomplete information. Fuck ups will abound.

 

[Taosman]

Almost any random person off the street could have been more Presidential during this crisis but none of our previous POTUSs would have been any more effective imo.

W had the FEMA response to Katrina to remind us all that a well funded department of something doesn't make it an effective department of something.

Bubba was the lackey of the Chinese or anyone else that would write a check to his family for consulting services.

Obama likely would have used this to spend money on every social program imaginable and lumped it all in with a COVID relief bill.

In the end, it would still be a global pandemic that the scientists and MD's do not have a grasp of yet and therefore many people would still have died and many others damaged by mitigation efforts. People are working off of incomplete information. Fuck ups will abound.

Your justifications are an oversimplfication. We know that George W. Bush and Obama both hand plans to handle a pandemic. They even handed those plans off to Trump who subsequently dumped them.

 

[Jaxbuck]

Your justifications are an oversimplfication. We know that George W. Bush and Obama both hand plans to handle a pandemic. They even handed those plans off to Trump who subsequently dumped them.

Thinking those plans would have been effective against a novel virus is an equal over simplification.

 

[Hstead]

And again....it's back to the CNN I don't watch and a defense of Donald Trump who didn't get attacked. I sure am lacking in reading comprehension.




Anyway. You've convinced me. We're doing as well as every other country out there.

I am glad you have now read some other news so you will quit making moronic comments about how every other country has "figured it out" and the US is the "only country spiking".

 

[Thump]

This thread does not deliver.