All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (2 Viewers)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[Heathen]

That can't be, I thought it was only republicans who were pushing back against the CDC.

Just gotta be fake news from Faux.

Well, it is a bit telling that their political agenda of undermining the seriousness of disease is so blatant. If nothing else with Fox, you can usually predict what "side" theyll be on. Sad that so many media outlets don't really report news objectively anymore.

 

[Eeyore]

There's a tweet for everything.

 

[V Chip]

Does it include race baiting?

You know, I gotta give Trump credit where it is due. He came up with the race baiting all by himself.

 

[Surviving Saint]

You know, I gotta give Trump credit where it is due. He came up with the race baiting all by himself.

Well it must have been in the plans Obama gave him when leaving office. Obama is still doing it.

 

[Surviving Saint]

You are part of the problem.

Since when do you quarantine healthy people? I'm not part of the problem.

The real world doesn't work according to something printed on paper. This "plan" was written by the CDC. Trump put them in charge in Jan-Feb. If it failed it was because of the CDC.

Some places have gone from flatten the curve to we have to find a cure.. It's all political crap now. Don't live in fear.

 

[samiam5211]

Since when do you quarantine healthy people? I'm not part of the problem.

The real world doesn't work according to something printed on paper. This "plan" was written by the CDC. Trump put them in charge in Jan-Feb. If it failed it was because of the CDC.

Some places have gone from flatten the curve to we have to find a cure.. It's all political crap now. Don't live in fear.

You didn’t even bother to read the plan.

That plan didn’t fail, it wasn’t followed.

You are a “low information voter”

 

[Surviving Saint]

You didn’t even bother to read the plan.

That plan didn’t fail, it wasn’t followed.

You are a “low information voter”

If this plan was out there, no other western country followed it either.

Orange man bad

 

[samiam5211]

If this plan was out there, no other western country followed it either.

Orange man bad

There you go again saying “if”.

The plan was there. You can’t even look at it to risk exposing yourself to information.

You are the definition of low information.

 

[Dragon]

If this plan was out there, no other western country followed it either.

Orange man bad

That is not correct. DK followed a very similar plan and we're having an R0 at less than 0.7 so we're opening now

Also - the prime minister just announced today that EVERY person in the country is going to be tested within the next 4 weeks and opened an online booking page where it is possible to book a time to be tested at one of the many testing sites all around the country.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

That is not correct. DK followed a very similar plan and we're having an R0 at less than 0.7 so we're opening now

Also - the prime minister just announced today that EVERY person in the country is going to be tested within the next 4 weeks and opened an online booking page where it is possible to book a time to be tested at one of the many testing sites all around the country.

Yes, a couple of countries have followed a pretty comprehensive plan from the beginning and others have not. A year from now we'll have a good idea how everyone did.

Has anyone here attempted to create a condition of success with which you can judge our outcome? It's a good way to ensure that you aren't moving the goalposts in an attempt to make whatever "side" you're affiliated with look good. The idea is you create metrics and goals by which you evaluate the success of our leaders and then evaluate them against those goals. Usually what happens is people look back and do the evaluation after the fact and that is always tinged by our own biases.

It's a bit late for it, since we're a couple of months in, but I would say we did a good job if we keep deaths under 200,000 and the economy is back under 6% unemployment within 2 years and GDP is growing at 2.5% annually within 2 years. I will caveat the number of deaths figure to add a comparison to percentage of citizens who died compared to percentage of Canadians, British, and Western Europe. That way if, let's say a million Americans die from Covid-19 (which is 0.3% of all citizens), but that percentage is either in line or better than other countries, then I would chalk it up to a nearly uncontrollable virus.

 

[Surviving Saint]

There you go again saying “if”.

The plan was there. You can’t even look at it to risk exposing yourself to information.

You are the definition of low information.

I did look at it. Key word being look because it's a wall of text.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

I did look at it. Key word being look because it's a wall of text.

So the point is, a plan existed, it was not followed. Some countries are pursuing a plan that is reasonably close - so would it be fair to do a comparison of how we're doing to countries that are doing something different than we are doing?

What is your definition of "success"?

 

[Dragon]

I would say that "success" is difficult to define because there are so many different parameters.

My personal definition would be something like

• being on the forefront of the developement at all times
• That goverment actively work together with experts on all issues. Social, economic and medical and trying to balance it all as much as possible.
• Last but not least - LEARN from it

Our leaders shut the whole country down on march 12th. They did it because they did not have accurate enough information on the virus to make any kind of precise evaluation - what they did see was that we went from 1 case to 100 in five days mainly because it was winter vacation week and people had been skiing in northern Italy and Austria

So they shut everything down, (As the first country in the EU) and because we have a healthy economy and a rather small government debt they were able to offer massive support (salary reimbursement for employees sent home, Defered tax payments and economic aid to companies covering rent and utilities during the shutdown)

After the first 2 weeks they reevaluated with the information that had become available and kept the country shut down for another 2 week before slowly starting to reopen. We have had daily press conferences with updates by the government, police, local authorities, hospitals, Business Associations and others.

Now when they have started to open up - Restaurants, Bars and shopping malls were allowed to open this week but with restrictions (social distancing/cleaning) - they have also started to evaluate the whole thing. What worked, what didn't and what could be done better and finally how do we prepare for round 2/ the next pandemic

The last is IMHO the most important. They actually did a pretty awesome job and undoubtely saved a lot of lives by their quick action and yet there is no selfpraise or pride but mainly "we could have done better with this or with that..." That more than everything else shows me that they take this serious and that despite the relative success this time round, they still aim to do better next time.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

• Last but not least - LEARN from it

Yes, I think this is an important aspect to all of this. What can we do better? It should be a constant process of improvement.

 

[Surviving Saint]

So the point is, a plan existed, it was not followed. Some countries are pursuing a plan that is reasonably close - so would it be fair to do a comparison of how we're doing to countries that are doing something different than we are doing?

What is your definition of "success"?

Success is opening everything back up ASAP. Hospitals won't be overwhelmed. Unless we consider TikTok overwhelming.

Other countries are opening back up. We have governers saying we need to keep the lock down going until there is a cure but the truth is they want to line their pockets and gain voters by keeping them unemployed.

Its simple. Those that are scared can stay home. Or They can wear a mask, gloves, biohazard suit, whatever keeps them safe. That's how I feel about it.

 

[The moose]

Yes, I think this is an important aspect to all of this. What can we do better? It should be a constant process of improvement.

Yes that is one of the most important things of all and life in general.

We as a nation should not have had to "burn our hand on the stove" to learn anything about this virus and how to control or contain it.

Dismantled or castrated agencies and poor leadership made Americans burn their hands on the stove.

We only have a bit over 4% of the entire world's population yet we have a by far the most deaths.

That figure alone should tell everyone how horrible the response and leadership accually is in this country right now.

 

[The moose]

Success is opening everything back up ASAP. Hospitals won't be overwhelmed. Unless we consider TikTok overwhelming.

Other countries are opening back up. We have governers saying we need to keep the lock down going until there is a cure but the truth is they want to line their pockets and gain voters by keeping them unemployed.

Its simple. Those that are scared can stay home. Or They can wear a mask, gloves, biohazard suit, whatever keeps them safe. That's how I feel about it.

So have you been tested?

Do you actually know you are not a healthy carriers of the coronavirus?

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

Success is opening everything back up ASAP. Hospitals won't be overwhelmed. Unless we consider TikTok overwhelming.

Other countries are opening back up. We have governers saying we need to keep the lock down going until there is a cure but the truth is they want to line their pockets and gain voters by keeping them unemployed.

Its simple. Those that are scared can stay home. Or They can wear a mask, gloves, biohazard suit, whatever keeps them safe. That's how I feel about it.

So your definition of success is no hospitals are overwhelmed? Basically, as long as hospital beds are available for the population, the number of dead or hospitalized is acceptable (this is not a trick question, trying to figure out what metrics you are using for a definition of successful management of the virus)?

I'm going with the definition of overwhelmed to be that ICU units are not over capacity, does that seem fair?