All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (1 Viewer)

[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?

 

[V Chip]

What did you want Trump to say or do last night? These question are not to stir the pot, but I would like your opinion on what exactly you think needs to be done and if these are even feasible.

I'm not a "Trump hater poster" (way to generalize, but whatever), but what I wanted was a statement that actually addressed the issue and didn't have to be fact-checked and corrected multiple times by his own administration. He read a speech that actually said completely incorrect things. From a *written* speech.

Emergency sick pay would definitely be a big help for a lot of Americans, but the GOP shut that down yesterday. He could have pressured them to get something passed. Not sure an EU travel ban will help when the pandemic is already in the US and spreading here.

 

[EmBeeFiveOhFour]

But where I think it was weak:
(1) He should have talked about the effort to provide greater testing, until the US has broad scale testing, we don't know the dimensions of this problem and we can't effectively target our mitigation.
(2) He should have talked more about the technical aspects of the federal response team - and how the US has made testing, case-load management, and researching anti-virals and vaccines the top priority - full mobilization.
(3) Personally, I think he should have talked more about the need for everyone to accept and participate in mitigation because it doesn't work unless everyone is invested - and right now there is a significant negative reaction to mitigation as overkill or unnecessary.

He could have read a speech written with input from subject matter experts from federal agencies on the front lines of the crisis response like the CDC or FEMA about how everything can and will be managed. He chose instead to read a speech written by Steven Miller and Jared Kushner.

 

[SystemShock]

Let's say the death rate is .5%.

The lack of immunity is going to result in far more cases than we've ever seen during seasonal flu.

If 50% of the country gets it, and 1% require hospitalization, and .5% die, it is still the biggest health crisis of any of our lifetimes. Those are conservative estimates by pretty much any analysis i've seen.

That would still be about 1.8 million hospitalizations and 900k deaths. Just in the United States.

Even if we cut those conservative numbers in half, it is still the biggest health crisis of any of our lifetimes.

I will agree with you that many people are stupid and their actions will only make it worse, but that is just reality. You aren't going to prevent people from being stupid.

Our country has not panicked enough so far, which is only going to cause the panic to be much worse once everyone realizes it is time to panic.

There are a lot of "ifs" and projections there. As for the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes, in general, I'd say the HIV crisis in the 80's was bigger, as it basically was a death sentence.

But before we get to COVID-19 being the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes, if you still believe in the CDC, here is an excerpt from this CDC page:

CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 34 million flu illnesses, 350,000 hospitalizations and 20,000 deaths from flu.

Emphasis on "this season" mine. That was as of 2/29/2020, in the U.S. alone. We don't think about it because we have flu vaccines, and while the flu is still a serious issue, we don't go cancelling ball games and music festivals because of the flu.

And our country has panicked. Unless of course you want to see China level of panic, which police dragging out people out of their homes.

 

[SystemShock]

Yeah, I am certainly not someone who is acting as if this is the same as the flu. I am just wondering why we get the estimated 1% hospitalization rate for the entire population when the rate of confirmed infections in the city of Wuhan itself was .7% and presumably the hospitalization rate was less than that. And, of course, would be infinitesimal for the population of China as a whole.

Has it become easier to get it? Or is it what Sam was suggesting - China might be fudging numbers, they were in better position to take authoritarian measures to control the spread, our population is less healthy,, . . . .

Even if China is fudging numbers, we have our own numbers now.

 

[samiam5211]

There are a lot of "ifs" and projections there. As for the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes, in general, I'd say the HIV crisis in the 80's was bigger, as it basically was a death sentence.

But before we get to COVID-19 being the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes, if you still believe in the CDC, here is an excerpt from this CDC page:


Emphasis on "this season" mine. That was as of 2/29/2020, in the U.S. alone. We don't think about it because we have flu vaccines, and while the flu is still a serious issue, we don't go cancelling ball games and music festivals because of the flu.

And our country has panicked. Unless of course you want to see China level of panic, which police dragging out people out of their homes.

I hope you're right.

We'll see i guess.

 

[Saintamaniac]

This is for all of you Trump hater posters. I knew no matter what he said last night you would be against it.

What did you want Trump to say or do last night? These question are not to stir the pot, but I would like your opinion on what exactly you think needs to be done and if these are even feasible.

I wanted him to tell the truth for the first time since he was elected and he couldn't even do that.

 

[B4YOU]

Joe is going to speak on Covid-19. There is the risk of appearing to politicize the events. That said, people need to see what leadership looks like.

Coronavirus poses new challenge to Trump's re-election bid

President Donald Trump faced one of the gravest threats of his political career as the coronavirus pandemic spread, leaving fellow Republicans to worry that the White House's response and the hit to the economy would harm his re-election prospects.

www.reuters.com

 

[EmBeeFiveOhFour]

In not unrelated news, I just checked the Fox News website to see what their approach to covering the growing pandemic might be and their top story is entitled "Xi's Viral PR Scheme: Inside China's high stakes campaign to smear the United States over coronavirus pandemic." So, yeah, their viewers are going to die.

 

[EmBeeFiveOhFour]

Mitch and the GOP Senate are on top of it! They'll start considering what emergency measures to take on March 23 after they take next week off.

 

[superchuck500]

Trump just said this. Again. I wonder if he's not well.

 

[Nebaghead]

Trump just said this. Again. I wonder if he's not well.

This is going as bad as it possibly can for him. It sounds like Pence is being the adult here and sounding alarms.

 

[SystemShock]

It sounds like Pence is being the adult here

We are doomed.

 

[coldseat]

There are a lot of "ifs" and projections there. As for the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes, in general, I'd say the HIV crisis in the 80's was bigger, as it basically was a death sentence.

But before we get to COVID-19 being the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes, if you still believe in the CDC, here is an excerpt from this CDC page:


Emphasis on "this season" mine. That was as of 2/29/2020, in the U.S. alone. We don't think about it because we have flu vaccines, and while the flu is still a serious issue, we don't go cancelling ball games and music festivals because of the flu.

And our country has panicked. Unless of course you want to see China level of panic, which police dragging out people out of their homes.

I've been seeing your post on Covid-19 for a while now on here and on SR. It seems like you continue to miss the point over and over with this virus. It's not just the illness itself that is the issue (well, it is for older people, but not as much for the rest of the general population). It's multiple issues around the virus that when combined create the problem we're facing. Those issues are:

1.) How easily the virus is transmitted.
2.) The incubation period of the virus and that people can spread it easily before they show symptoms.
3.) The percentage of people that develop serious respiratory illness requiring hospitalization and ventilators.
4.) The fact that we have a limited number of ICU hospital beds and ventilators (and no where close enough to provide for the estimated number of pople that will require them.
5.) The fact that there are no vaccines or viral treatments for this virus since it's new and that it will take at least a year to develop effective vaccines and treatments.
6.) The fact that we have limited testing to date on the number of people infected and clear vision on community spread and are still having problems getting test.
7.) Due to the shot lifespan, we still don't know if this is seasonal, like the flu (although indication are that it's not seasonal since it's spreading currently in warm weather climates), and what will happen long term.

If it where just any one or two of those factors, we'd probably be fine. But when you combine that with the seasonal flu and current hospital load/health care treatment, it overloads our health care system and creates a cascading list of critical problems that we'll have to face.

You're a logical person, so just on a numbers and logic basis, you should be able to make sense why we should all be taking this seriously. Yet it seems like you're very dismissive of it all. Maybe you as an individual will be fine even if you do get sick and if that's all you care about, then fine. But we all have parents, grandparents, other family, friends, co-workers, etc, that may not be in that same position due to other reasons. And even if you don't get coronovirus, you better hope you don't have some other medical emergency while the health care system is overloaded, because you'll be up shirt creek.

 

[superchuck500]

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

Trump just said this. Again. I wonder if he's not well.

Is he wearing ruby slippers?
And more importantly, is he clicking the heels together?

 

[Heathen]

Trump is an absolute goon.

A pandemic and he refuses to be an adult about it.

Those who can't admit that are being purposefully ignorant for political reasons. That includes many posters here.

That's reality.

 

[superchuck500]

Trump confuses Ireland as being in the UK. While sitting with the Irish Prime Minister.

 

[EmBeeFiveOhFour]

Trump confuses Ireland as being in the UK. While sitting with the Irish Prime Minister.

I didn't realize until I looked it up after you posted this that Ireland, like the U.K., is exempted from the European travel ban despite being a member of the E.U. But I guess it makes sense since he owns golf courses in both places.