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COVID gratuitous dumpster fire thread

FINALLY!!!!

Looks like you are lost again.

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I stopped reading here. Yes, by all means lets have states compete against each other for scarce resources, to fight a virus that doesn't recognize state boundaries. Let's not use the vast resources of the Federal government to mobilize industries to provide those resources. Let's not use the Federal government to organize the use of those resources when and where they are most needed.

You Trump apologists are nuts.
As are you
 
Yeah! Politicians could never create a Department of Defense to save us from Nazis. They could never create fire departments to save us from fire. They could never create court systems to save us from contract breakers. Politicians could never devise plans to save us from uniquely high [rather, remarkably high] per-capita COVID deaths. Only the non-politician fairy godmothers of S. Korea and Taiwan and Germany and most other non-U.S. countries could keep per-capita deaths down.


Yes. That’s why the U.S. has *never, ever* had an FDA, USDA, CDC, HHS, EPA, ...


Yeah. Funny! :rolleyes:

How dare you bring facts and logic to a Dumpster fire. It is almost like bringing water :)
 
European countries should have a plan, too. They topped out around 40,000 cases per day during the first wave. Now, they're hitting 100,000 per day.


Europe is made up of 44 different countries with a population of just under 750 Million. Comparing our per capita numbers to theirs just makes the US look even worse.. That doesn't even consider the fact that our Wealth, Resources and Health Care should result in a far better comparison to the average European Country. I gather that is what you were trying to prove with your post..........:)
 
Europe is made up of 44 different countries with a population of just under 750 Million. Comparing our per capita numbers to theirs just makes the US look even worse.. That doesn't even consider the fact that our Wealth, Resources and Health Care should result in a far better comparison to the average European Country. I gather that is what you were trying to prove with your post..........:)

Sometime read Ira Sharkansky's work "The United States: A Study of a Developing Country" (1975). He makes a pretty strong case that, when measured by a broad range of metrics, the USA looks more like a third world country than a developed country. That was before Reagan started the slide towards poorer distribution of wealth and resources. In other words, not wanting to compare the USA to developed nations on the handling of this pandemic is self-preservational behavior. Better to compare to more backward countries.
 
Europe is made up of 44 different countries with a population of just under 750 Million. Comparing our per capita numbers to theirs just makes the US look even worse.. That doesn't even consider the fact that our Wealth, Resources and Health Care should result in a far better comparison to the average European Country. I gather that is what you were trying to prove with your post..........:)
1. So, what did they do, en mass, that made their outcome better? Did they act as one cohesive unit, everyone doing the same thing, which improved their outcome?

2. The 750MM includes Russia, whose numbers I trust as far as I can throw a UWW ref. And, remember, I'm laid up with a broken pelvis.

3. Is reporting in those 44 countries even close to ours? The medical infrastructure in some of those countries is suspect, at best.
 
1. So, what did they do, en mass, that made their outcome better? Did they act as one cohesive unit, everyone doing the same thing, which improved their outcome?

2. The 750MM includes Russia, whose numbers I trust as far as I can throw a UWW ref. And, remember, I'm laid up with a broken pelvis.

3. Is reporting in those 44 countries even close to ours? The medical infrastructure in some of those countries is suspect, at best.

1. They are taking Covid-19 seriously ....the governments and more importantly....the people.
2. Don't throw any Russians until you are fully healed
3. Many of those countries don't have politicians denigrating Health Experts and encouraging people to ignore guidelines, health declarations and Government guidelines. Nor do they encourage people to attack political leaders.
4. Today according to USA Today.....the White house is endorsing the idea of Herd Immunity as their plan to deal with Covid-19. Just Process that......... Infect people with a deadly virus that we don't yet understand fully. It is both Asinine and Barbaric
 
1. They are taking Covid-19 seriously ....the governments and more importantly....the people.
2. Don't throw any Russians until you are fully healed
3. Many of those countries don't have politicians denigrating Health Experts and encouraging people to ignore guidelines, health declarations and Government guidelines. Nor do they encourage people to attack political leaders.
4. Today according to USA Today.....the White house is endorsing the idea of Herd Immunity as their plan to deal with Covid-19. Just Process that......... Infect people with a deadly virus that we don't yet understand fully. It is both Asinine and Barbaric
Re 1: 44 governments and their people are taking it seriously? In other words you don't really have any idea if or what the 44 countries of Europe did en mass, and that's okay, because not many others do, either. Government and citizen actions regarding covid varied dramatically across Europe. I'm not so sure that if you lumped Government actions together, that similar actions had similar outcomes.

Did Italy just not take it as seriously as Germany?
 
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I expanded om that in #3. But why are you diverting from the comparison of the US to Europe? Italy had a massive spread very early......long before the US had a major surge. But apparently the US didn't learn anything from that. Germany did. So did Australia, South Korea and Canada. All of them put Science and Health experts as the leaders guiding their Covid-19 response. All of them did far better than the US. We lead the world in cases and deaths. It is Indefensible given our wealth and resources. Now......they are pushing herd Immunity?? What is lacking is any cohesive leadership from the top.
 
1. So, what did they do, en mass, that made their outcome better? Did they act as one cohesive unit, everyone doing the same thing, which improved their outcome?

2. The 750MM includes Russia, whose numbers I trust as far as I can throw a UWW ref. And, remember, I'm laid up with a broken pelvis.

3. Is reporting in those 44 countries even close to ours? The medical infrastructure in some of those countries is suspect, at best.
Is that since the White House took over control of the CDC reports?
 
I expanded om that in #3. But why are you diverting from the comparison of the US to Europe? Italy had a massive spread very early......long before the US had a major surge. But apparently the US didn't learn anything from that. Germany did. So did Australia, South Korea and Canada. All of them put Science and Health experts as the leaders guiding their Covid-19 response. All of them did far better than the US. We lead the world in cases and deaths. It is Indefensible given our wealth and resources. Now......they are pushing herd Immunity?? What is lacking is any cohesive leadership from the top.
I'm sorry, but these are such non-answers. Was there commonality in the specific actions taken by these countries? (More specific than "They listened to their health experts.") If there were commonalities, what were they? When were they taken? Could those commonalities have been adequately utilized here?

One thing Germany did was to protect their vulnerable. Can you imagine the holy hell that would have been raised if the federal government tried to dictate to governors how they were going to manage their nursing and assisted living homes?
 
I agreee that the points you list are correct, but I think your phrasing is too vague in the critical place to be helpful. In particular, how much better do you mean by “better”?

I think the goalpost is that the US (i.e., Federal) government should have kept our deaths very significantly better than ninth worst.

I think Ski seems to be saying that the richest country in the world, the US, is a sad victim of circumstances and could not have done much better than 9th worst.

I apologize for not being helpful.
 
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I apologize for not being helpful.
Ha ha. BTW, I wasn’t complaining or busting your balls. I was just sincerely considering and answering your question of “Can't both you and ski be correct at the same time?” And the answer was: yes, but we would have to more clearly define a certain word in order to be worthwhile. :)

(Edit: But once we define the word properly, we probably won’t both agree anymore. So maybe the answer should be phrased: no; but if we define the certain word usefully and we somehow still agree, then yes. :) )
 
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I'm sorry, but these are such non-answers. Was there commonality in the specific actions taken by these countries? (More specific than "They listened to their health experts.") If there were commonalities, what were they? When were they taken? Could those commonalities have been adequately utilized here?

One thing Germany did was to protect their vulnerable. Can you imagine the holy hell that would have been raised if the federal government tried to dictate to governors how they were going to manage their nursing and assisted living homes?
I am sorry......but......the fact that you are too lazy to research the differences in countries specific ...individual decisions is not my fault. The numbers themselves speak quite clearly to the failures of the US in comparison to Germany, Canada, South Korea. Australia and numerous other countries. To try to negate those facts by asking ME to explain them.....when you are obviously clueless/ or not the least bit interested in what they did is just simply juvenile. Do some research. Read Their countries' news. Do SOMETHING.......instead of trying to say that if I don't provide enough detailed specifics to your satisfaction......that the obvious numbers aren't true.....is such a faulty argument that it should be embarrassing.
 
I am sorry......but......the fact that you are too lazy to research the differences in countries specific ...individual decisions is not my fault. The numbers themselves speak quite clearly to the failures of the US in comparison to Germany, Canada, South Korea. Australia and numerous other countries. To try to negate those facts by asking ME to explain them.....when you are obviously clueless/ or not the least bit interested in what they did is just simply juvenile. Do some research. Read Their countries' news. Do SOMETHING.......instead of trying to say that if I don't provide enough detailed specifics to your satisfaction......that the obvious numbers aren't true.....is such a faulty argument that it should be embarrassing.
It sounds like you are slow to cooperate with the new type of argumentation that says: “let’s assume there is a magic needle in this rotting haystack that proves my point; it’s your burden to prove me wrong by the process of elimination”. :)
 
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I am sorry......but......the fact that you are too lazy to research the differences in countries specific ...individual decisions is not my fault. The numbers themselves speak quite clearly to the failures of the US in comparison to Germany, Canada, South Korea. Australia and numerous other countries. To try to negate those facts by asking ME to explain them.....when you are obviously clueless/ or not the least bit interested in what they did is just simply juvenile. Do some research. Read Their countries' news. Do SOMETHING.......instead of trying to say that if I don't provide enough detailed specifics to your satisfaction......that the obvious numbers aren't true.....is such a faulty argument that it should be embarrassing.
Your two answers are 1) the governments and citizens cared and 2) they listened to their health experts. I apologize for assuming that you might have some knowledge on the subject matter and might be able to be a source of some of this information that you're asking me to research, as if research can't include talking to a subject matter expert, which you now obviously are not. And, that's okay. I know now that I have to go elsewhere.

If your theory is correct, then the other 200 countries, whose numbers are better than ours, also did things better than we did. Like, China, for instance. Heck, they were the epicenter, but their numbers are way lower than most of the rest of the world. I'm really going to have to do some digging to find out why their numbers are low.
 
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It sounds like you are slow to cooperate with the new type of argumentation that says: “let’s assume there is a magic needle in this rotting haystack that proves my point; it’s your burden to prove me wrong by the process of elimination”. :)
So, since there isn't a magic one, there can't be any commonalities? And, we shouldn't try to analyze, because there won't be a magic one? "They did it right," but we shouldn't try to figure out what "it" is?
 
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So, since there isn't a magic one, there can't be any commonalities? And, we shouldn't try to analyze, because there won't be a magic one? "They did it right," but we shouldn't try to figure out what "it" is?
We? :) #readingcomprehension? #sequitur?
 
Your two answers are 1) the governments and citizens cared and 2) they listened to their health experts. I apologize for assuming that you might have some knowledge on the subject matter and might be able to be a source of some of this information that you're asking me to research, as if research can't include talking to a subject matter expert, which you now obviously are not. And, that's okay. I know now that I have to go elsewhere.

If your theory is correct, then the other 200 countries, whose numbers are better than ours, also did things better than we did. Like, China, for instance. Heck, they were the epicenter, but their numbers are way lower than most of the rest of the world. I'm really going to have to do some digging to find out why their numbers are low.

Never Ending diversion away from the facts: So......lets try one simple question. Why does the United States lead the WORLD in both Infections and Deaths from Covid-19?
 
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Never Ending diversion away from the facts: So......lets try one simple question. Why does the United States lead the WORLD in both Infections and Deaths from Covid-19?
In raw number of cases? Mostly due to population. In per capita, it is 10th in deaths and 11th in cases.
 
In raw number of cases? Mostly due to population. In per capita, it is 10th in deaths and 11th in cases.
The evasion is strong in you. There are 195 Countries in the world. Why is the United States worse than 185 Countries when it comes to DEATHS per capita??
 
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The evasion is strong in you. There are 195 Countries in the world. Why is the United States worse than 185 Countries when it comes to DEATHS per capita??
Because, apparently, 185 other countries managed the virus better than we did. According to you, it was because those other countries "cared" and "listened to their medical advisers." If only they had sung Kumbaya, maybe they'd have been even better. The reality is some of those countries did absolutely nothing, yet had better numbers. How is that possible? The reality, as usual, lies somewhere in between:

Trying to compare results country by country is virtually impossible. Heck, even calling the combined NYC and upstate NY, "New York" doesn't make sense from population density standpoint. This thing was highly contagious, and tons of people arrived from Europe and elsewhere into NYC airports. Couple that with people living on top of each other, and spreading like wildfire was bound to happen.

Country by country differences that affect the comparison include: population, population density, age distribution, mobility (including freedom, ease and propensity of movement), number of cases unknowingly allowed in, mask and social distancing mandates, attitudes of self vs. community, testing protocol, contact tracing ability, honesty in reporting and more.

What the virus hitting NY hard first did do was to allow the rest of the country to flatten the curve, and prevent hospitals from being overrun. Even NYC hospitals didn't get hit like expected, as evidenced by The Mercy and The Javits Center hardly being utilized, but the rest of the country flattened out well.

Let's take one example that some people threw out this week: New Zealand's response was great! Look at their numbers! They are an island nation, with 1.5% of our population, and a pop. density 40% of ours (no sheep jokes), with 4.7% the number of annual inbound travelers, and 6 international airports vs. 149. The fact that NZ consists of 600 islands also limits their travel. And, if their economy shut down, would we miss their $200 billion GDP?

So, yes, congratulations New Zealand. You handled covid well. If only we could be your size, population and geography, we could then maybe compare your response to ours.

Trying to compare response and results is meaningless at this point.
 
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1. They are taking Covid-19 seriously ....the governments and more importantly....the people.
2. Don't throw any Russians until you are fully healed
3. Many of those countries don't have politicians denigrating Health Experts and encouraging people to ignore guidelines, health declarations and Government guidelines. Nor do they encourage people to attack political leaders.
4. Today according to USA Today.....the White house is endorsing the idea of Herd Immunity as their plan to deal with Covid-19. Just Process that......... Infect people with a deadly virus that we don't yet understand fully. It is both Asinine and Barbaric
W.H.O just came out strongly against lock downs - I guess they look at Herd Immunity a bit different you do.
 
Never Ending diversion away from the facts: So......lets try one simple question. Why does the United States lead the WORLD in both Infections and Deaths from Covid-19?
did they die with covid or because of it? do we have the same record keepers? Geez, just look at our political landscape today.... just depends on what half truth you want to listen to ..
 
Because, apparently, 185 other countries managed the virus better than we did. According to you, it was because those other countries "cared" and "listened to their medical advisers." If only they had sung Kumbaya, maybe they'd have been even better. The reality is some of those countries did absolutely nothing, yet had better numbers. How is that possible? The reality, as usual, lies somewhere in between:
Once again with evading the question.

Why do YOU think the richest country in the world, the US, is worst 10 (which is roughly worst 5 percent) in per capita deaths? (COVID deaths or excess deaths are in the same ballpark, so there’s no need to distract by talking about death by motorcycle.)

Do YOU think the US, if it were competently led, should be significantly better than worst 5 percent in per-capita deaths? For example, do YOU think the US should be top half best? Top quarter best? Top 10 percent best? Top 5 percent best?
 
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Once again, evading the question.

Why do YOU think the richest country in the world, the US, is bottom 10 (which is roughly bottom 5 percent) in per capita deaths?

Do YOU think the US should be significantly better than bottom 5 percent in per-capita deaths? For example, do YOU think the US should be top half? Top quarter? Top 10 percent? Top 5 percent?
good question. Another question is what role should our federal government take on such matters? We are unique from most other countries...
 
good question. Another question is what role should our federal government take on such matters? We are unique from most other countries...
Who's to say it would be a good thing to say lives if it's the dang guvment that's doing it?
 
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Once again, evading the question.

Why do YOU think the richest country in the world, the US, is bottom 10 (which is roughly bottom 5 percent) in per capita deaths?

Do YOU think the US should be significantly better than bottom 5 percent in per-capita deaths? For example, do YOU think the US should be top half? Top quarter? Top 10 percent? Top 5 percent?
In no particular order:

  • I would guess that in a significant portion of those countries the medical infrastructure (heck, even the non-medical infrastructure) is so poor, that testing, and accurate reporting is next to impossible. There are about 600,000,000 people in Africa that don't have reliable, if any, electricity. I'll bet they don't give two craps about this virus. Example? Niger. 24MM people, who are so concerned with the virus that they have run a grand total of 28,347 (1166 per million) tests, compared to us testing 122,000,000 (369,000 per million). How many of those countries are there? Lots and lots and lots. Man, what I wouldn't do to live like those Nigerians, so we could have lower covid numbers. I wonder what they did? For that matter, a more advanced country, like India, with their 1.4 billion people still lacks proper infrastructure for something like this in most of the country.
  • In addition to inability to report, there is the potential for lying about reporting. See: China, Russia. Does anyone really expect them to come clean?
  • We did not protect the vulnerable. Of the deaths in Pennsylvania 67% were in nursing homes and assisted care facilities. 5700/8500. That is criminal. Nationwide, 40% of all covid deaths were nursing home patients. That's 84,000. If just half of those were avoided, that would have moved us to 19th on the list.
  • We should have stopped international flights earlier than we did. Allow US citizens back in, then lock it down. Unfortunately, shutting flights from China down on 1/31 was seen as xenophobic, and look at the uproar from the European countries' leaders, when those flights were shut down on 3/10.
  • Our spirit, for lack of a better word, has largely been about freedom to do virtually anything we want, when we want to do it. We, for good or bad, are largely a selfish society, concerned about ourselves before being concerned about the greater common good. Because of that, plus our sheer size, making mask mandates or lockdowns or contact tracing work here, versus a country like Singapore or South Korea, is almost impossible. Who would enforce it? A new federal covid force? State police? Local police? Singapore, meanwhile, was fining people $10,000 if they broke the rules. Little easier in an island-city-country, where everyday freedom is significantly restricted.
So, you see, there are a whole host of potential reasons that these country comparisons are bad. This is just scratching the surface. It's not a simple matter of OMB, as much as you would like it to be.
 
In no particular order:

  • I would guess that in a significant portion of those countries the medical infrastructure (heck, even the non-medical infrastructure) is so poor, that testing, and accurate reporting is next to impossible. There are about 600,000,000 people in Africa that don't have reliable, if any, electricity. I'll bet they don't give two craps about this virus. Example? Niger. 24MM people, who are so concerned with the virus that they have run a grand total of 28,347 (1166 per million) tests, compared to us testing 122,000,000 (369,000 per million). How many of those countries are there? Lots and lots and lots. Man, what I wouldn't do to live like those Nigerians, so we could have lower covid numbers. I wonder what they did? For that matter, a more advanced country, like India, with their 1.4 billion people still lacks proper infrastructure for something like this in most of the country.
  • In addition to inability to report, there is the potential for lying about reporting. See: China, Russia. Does anyone really expect them to come clean?
  • We did not protect the vulnerable. Of the deaths in Pennsylvania 67% were in nursing homes and assisted care facilities. 5700/8500. That is criminal. Nationwide, 40% of all covid deaths were nursing home patients. That's 84,000. If just half of those were avoided, that would have moved us to 19th on the list.
  • We should have stopped international flights earlier than we did. Allow US citizens back in, then lock it down. Unfortunately, shutting flights from China down on 1/31 was seen as xenophobic, and look at the uproar from the European countries' leaders, when those flights were shut down on 3/10.
  • Our spirit, for lack of a better word, has largely been about freedom to do virtually anything we want, when we want to do it. We, for good or bad, are largely a selfish society, concerned about ourselves before being concerned about the greater common good. Because of that, plus our sheer size, making mask mandates or lockdowns or contact tracing work here, versus a country like Singapore or South Korea, is almost impossible. Who would enforce it? A new federal covid force? State police? Local police? Singapore, meanwhile, was fining people $10,000 if they broke the rules. Little easier in an island-city-country, where everyday freedom is significantly restricted.
So, you see, there are a whole host of potential reasons that these country comparisons are bad. This is just scratching the surface. It's not a simple matter of OMB, as much as you would like it to be.
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good question. Another question is what role should our federal government take on such matters? We are unique from most other countries...
It’s an easy question to answer. Let’s not pretend to be too feeble to make judgments.

We need the Federal government to take the lead when each state cannot do its own “share” of work by itself. Since states don’t have a realistic way to close their state borders to out-of-state travelers, no state can ensure its own safety, and so the Federal government must take the lead.
 
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It’s an easy question to answer. Let’s not pretend to be too feeble to make judgments.

We need the Federal government to take the lead when each state cannot do its own “share” of work by itself. Since states don’t have a realistic way to close their state borders to out-of-state travelers, no state can ensure its own safety, and so the Federal government must take the lead.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/28/ny-gov-cuomo-says-trump-has-no-authority-to-impose-quarantine.html
  • New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday he does not believe President Donald Trump has the authority to impose a quarantine on New York, New Jersey and parts of Connecticut to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
  • Cuomo, in an interview with CNN, said that preventing people from moving in and out of the tri-state would amount to a federally imposed lockdown, which he believes is illegal.
  • Cuomo suggested he could sue if the administration did follow through. “I’ve sued the federal government a number of times over the years. I do not believe it’s going to come to that on this,” he said.
 
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