I'm curious as to what metrics you are using to state the US has the worst response in the industrialized world. Places like Spain, Italy, France and the UK have had much more stress on their infrastructure, lacked hospital beds and supplies and therefore a much higher mortality rate. China covered it up for months and allowed this to begin - so I'd be hard-pressed to put our response below theirs as well.

If you look at a much of the US, we had a much better infrastructure for this than Europe. Now, I'm not giving Trump credit for that - but it is true. In a vast majority of states (including Texas, California, much of the west and midwest), we have had plenty of hospital beds and ventilators. The mortality rate is extremely low and these areas aren't near what much of Europe is. The only really "hard hit" areas have been the high population density spots like NY/NJ, Michigan, Boston and New Orleans (because of Mardi Gras). I think it's clear the US could have done better in many areas - but saying we had the worst response doesn't seem born out by the numbers to this point.

If I am going to criticize the US for this, initial response wouldn't be my choice. It would be some the states ensuring they had proper equipment for a bad situation prior. It would be streamlining government entities for mass testing and working with private organizations to begin testing as we get closer to getting out of quarantine. But I think most of the states did a good job early on with shelter in place and social distancing measures. The fact that we have between 4 and 7-times the number of total cases as places like Spain, Italy, France and the UK, but only 2x the total deaths showed the US was in a better position to react than much of Europe. Did we still need to get better? Certainly. But I just don't see how a country with 800K cases and only 44K deaths did a much worse job than places with 150-200K cases and 22-25K deaths.

Trump (the Company) Asks Trump (the Administration) for Rent Relief

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/b...ronavirus.html

I fail to see the conflict of interest :D Yikes on this one.

There's no profit in it. This country has gone away from any sort of expenditure that doesn't involve a profit or a short term upside. It's an unfortunate side effect of capitalism.

I would agree with Feb but think unfair to say in Jan we knew it was going to be this bad.

I created the coronavirus thread only after seeing NYT and WP saying it was going to be a pandemic on Feb 3. Back then the WHO had not declared it. Look at the early posts, no one was declarative that it was going to be real bad in early Feb.

There was enough lack of transparency, misinformation, lack of cooperation to let our CDC teams on the ground in China etc. It hadn't been established it was asymptomatic.

That's definitely not what it does. In essence I don't see any knocking of Trump for not helping Canada, rather simply reporting the news, that Canada and 3M objected and Trump relented. And in February ignores his own national security people by not having a plan for PPE, rather than encouraging them to be sent to China.

And Navarro is quoted all of the piece, which you kind of ignored when I pointed it out. WaPo talks about how he was well ahead of most people about the pandemic, quotes him talking about how China is hording info, etc.


You mean after national security agencies and pandemic experts reported to the White House the pandemic was coming here? Where there was no plan on how to keep PPE stocks in the US. Where 3M says there was nothing from the White House except encouraging exports of PPE? Seriously?

Hi, this is what is called an Op-ed. You can literally tell by the headline.

Trump the tower just asked Trump the administration for a loan.

Trump the person just asked terminally ill patients to hang out til Nov 8 to vote for him before they pass

I don't care what reporters or the average person was saying back then. The people who study this stuff for a living were warning people about this. They are they people leaders should have listened to.

As for not having a team on the ground in China, Trump removed them when he took office. He cut funding to that. We used to have a member of the CDC directly inside the Chinese CDC. He didn't feel it was needed.

If you think there was misinformation and lack of transparency, it was the opposite of what the President said in January. He was either to stupid to realize it or lying.

China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2020

I hope we’re planning on running overdrive hoarding stuff for a fall resurgence. Also perhaps mandating that facilities maintain their own reasonable stockpile going forward might be a good thing. No more just in time inventory to pad profits.

It seems like there's going to be an endless tug-of-war over who said what at what time about how serious the CV crisis was going to be. Ok, so that's going to happen. At some point, by design, it will be impossible for an average person to reach a clear unmitigated conclusion that A was correct, B was incorrect... so they will resort back to team blue, team red.

For me, absolute specifics aside, I think the pattern is perfectly clear. Most right-thinking actors - political leaders, journalists, and so forth - took this issue in good faith. It's hard to know what is signal and what is noise, so they relied on the best information available - admittedly weakened by China's deliberate opacity. But they did their best, even if at various points they can be caught saying or doing something that now looks unwise, from our current vantage point. Nearly everyone deserves some latitude for figuring it out on due course, if not on the precisely identical timetable.

But not Trump. The Trump Administration was reliably committed to a best-for-reelection approach from the beginning. If that meant bragging for applause rather than begging for help, they simply did not care. Whether they didn't conceive that this could turn into a good deal larger than the rosy projections, or were callously willing to gamble with untold numbers of American lives, it's perfectly clear the decision was made early and often to do, act, and say only in the manner deemed best for the President's own political fortunes. And that is obscene.

So, we'll all lose sight of true north here. The right is going to find their one Vox article, or their one opinion piece from somebody, or a tweet, and claim this is a complete jump ball. They will say nobody knew. Nobody else would have done anything differently.

But that's a pure lie. His motives are transparently corrupt and inhumane. Nobody has ever come close to this position of influence with as impure a motivation and instinct as this man. Literally anyone would have done a better job. Anyone.

It's not the reason he must be defeated. But it's a strong one. A tremendous one.

I like the numbers where they are.

Agree.

The experts e.g. WHO said it didn't rise to the level of a pandemic. Feel free to provide your mountain of serious source links of let's say medical literature warning the world in Jan.


So? CDC was wanting to send a team there in early Jan and was not allowed to have them on the ground. Why are you giving China a pass here?


Probably a combination but I would add the third into the mix - China lied to him on the severity (and he was too stupid to trust but verify).

Exactly. Grab the snippet out of the news today about the CARES 3.5 deal. The GOP made a concession to Democrats to fund more tests. WTAF? That makes no sense that our country's political leader would actually be opposed to wider and more reliable testing of Americans unless literally all he cared about ... was... uh. Oh, right.

And this is just routine at this point. It's just different adjectives and fact patterns than the impeachment summation from Schiff. We know who he is, we know how he thinks, and we know he will act this way again and again. He will sell out our country's interests to advance his campaign or his hotel or his libido or his self-image at any opportunity. And, clearly, he will just as rapidly risk or endanger American lives because he. does. not. give. a. shit.

Pandemic, epidemic, endemic, and outbreak are technical terms to describe the current state of an infectious disease. It wasn't a pandemic in January, so why would they call it one?

As for who warned:

Top Economic Adviser to the President
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Epidemiologists
Health Experts

The people at STAT were on this way back in January screaming to everyone this would be a huge problem for the world.

And I'm not counting the countless warnings we've had as a nation that a pandemic was just a matter of time and that we needed to be prepared.


It was too late by January. Having an epidemiologist embedded in the Chinese CDC would have given us even more warning. It was a position that was not important apparently.

That's not giving China a pass. They did mislead early on (just like we did). But I don't pay taxes or vote in Chinese elections. I would hope my country which is deemed a "superpower" would not have its entire economy and health sector dependent on the word of the Chinese government.


This is crap. People in his administration knew the severity and were telling him back in January. He was still touting this as a hoax and "fake news" over a month later.

This is March 9th.

The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant. Surgeon General, “The risk is low to the average American.”

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2020

The immigration restriction will be a 60-day pause on people applying for permanent status.

No one was getting a green card in 60 days.

So this will have no actual effect on anything. It is a nullity.

It was solely to signal to his base that he's still racist.

That's it.

Accept it or ignore it.

You don't have to be racist to support Trump. But you have to be OK with racism.

We have the most cases and most deaths. It doesn't appear to be slowing down in the country (outside of New York) and we're about to loosen restrictions in a bunch of states. Testing per capita lags behind most of the industrialized world which likely leads to us grossly under-counting deaths.

PPE shortages continue and the economy remains in shambles for most people outside the wealthiest who reap unlimited bailouts for their failures. States can't keep up with unemployment claims, stimulus checks are still slow to process, and the small business lending program was an unmitigated disaster.

Comparing us to Spain and Italy is tough right now. They're weeks ahead of where we are. They also test far more people and likely have a better representation of deaths. Don't have bootlicking sycophants running states trying to suppress the numbers.

First 2 links aren't worth much. Your 3rd link is Feb 5. Your 4th link is from Jan 27. There's nothing in that STAT report that timelines when things were escalated prior to Jan 27.


CDC requested to send team on Jan 6 or 7. If it was too late then, how can you blame Trump for not acting in Jan? You wanted him to act in Nov or Dec?


Let's agree to disagree.

Your above post is solely to signal to all that you are an idiot.

We have 330 million people, Spain and Italy have 50-60 million. Hey, Germany has more cases and deaths than Sweden - maybe they should be just taking the Sweden method and let everyone do what they want? Or, perhaps the fact that Germany has 80 million people, while Sweden just has 10 million, plays a part in their numbers being higher?

I think there will be many lessons to be learned from this, but I also think the US was better positioned to handle this (as a country) than much of Europe. Honestly, we should have even been better - but saying we've done this "the worst" is just trying to dig at Trump. Trump did not do a good job with this, but thankfully a vast majority of what did do well were private industries, states and local hospitals. That's why bodies haven't been piled up in churches or in the streets and why many places have under 50% occupancy on ICU beds and ventilator use.

I really don't see much of a point in pissing into the wind of this anti-Trump echo chamber. It's clear it has become a place for people to vent about their hatred of Trump. I can see why that helps the mental health for many here and don't want to detract from that. I hope he loses too, but I try to atleast have some perspective on all this. But, this doesn't appear the place for that. I'll keep that in mind moving forward.

My sports betting history is probably a better signal of my idiot-ness than my political takes.

But I do admit to being so completely and utterly flabbergasted and saddened on the days when it occurs to me to really understand what it means that his approval never dips below 40% that I probably do slip into jabbering idiotspeak when it comes to discussing the enablers of our Dear Leader.

Pretty much with you here.

Don't go ... have to keep up with the good fight offering alternate viewpoints in this thread.

WHO on January 30 - "The Committee does not recommend any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available."

Not exactly the verbiage I would use to indicate this is a world-wide pandemic. Biden, the WHO, the democrats and many media sources disagreed with Trump's travel restrictions on China on Feb 2. Yet, we are all supposed to believe Trump should have actively blocked PPE shipments to China (many already manufactured in China) in January? At the end of the day, if China didn't block the US getting their own manufactured PPE in March and April, we would have easily made up for what left in January.

A bigger question is should we rely on international manufacturing (esp China) for things like PPE, ventilators, etc? I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's a better question than acting like all this was clear in mid January.

At the end of the day, China's reaction is the biggest factor in the pandemic. They lied to the WHO (who did little to investigate) and they lied to the US and Europe (for dire consequences):


Early And Combined Interventions Crucial In Tackling Covid-19 Spread In China | University of Southampton

We really have to look at how we handle China, the information that comes from there and our use of their facilities for manufacturing items with National Security implications. That should be the first thing we check on once the autopsy begins.

Plenty to blame Trump on (and he deserves much blame on his obliviousness and slow reaction in Feb). Not acting in early-mid Jan or prior to Jan 27 is a stretch.

The Trump Presidency – 2016
 

Glad you think so, Edward because the initial WaPo article mostly dings him for his response in February, when the vast majority of PPEs were sent to China.



Then they speak to Navarro who was banging the drum in Feb and talks about the Chinese cornering the market in PPE.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The 3M shipments referenced were before the Feb 26 Flier. In early March, 3M tried to get their manufactured masks in China back but the country blocked them:

For all we know, China may have kept a bunch of masks in February as well if we didn’t sell them to them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/b...ronavirus.html

Right, as Edward said the slow reaction in February.

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No, what I want is for that flaming ass crack with an orangutang hairdo to stop destroying all the precautions that would have helped ease if not entirely avoid this pandemic to begin with.

he is not to blame for not acting because anything in this year was far too late.

its ENTIRELY his fault for tearing down the group specifically created to help avoid and manage this EXACT crisis. So YES he is to blame for that, completely, undefendably, to blame.



*everyone* Please stop using this, like ever, its a cop out when you can't find a valid argument. It undermines the entire discussion.

Feel free to supply links that supports your point that he should have known by Nov/Dec.


Hmmm. Don't know what to say on this but okay ... let's agree to disagree.

The lawsuit probably won't amount to much but good step in keeping the majority of the blame (in the early stages) where it belongs.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/22/us/mi...rus/index.html

Also, it's a good/bad thing that hydroxychloroquine was shown to be ineffective. Trump would have been insufferable if it turned out to be a good stop-gap solution to a vaccine. But I would have traded that for a good therapeutic ... there's got to be already something in the testing/trial pipeline that helps treat this Mofo.

Absolutely nothing is acceptable in the topic of allowing the states to compete with each other and the feds to get supplies. Nothing. It's inexcusable and criminal. Period. He should be held accountable for that alone in November. fuck him for that. Fuck him for the ever loving fuck for that.

Disbanding our Global Pandemic Team, not nominating a representative for the WHO, and leaving the FEMA Administrator position effectively vacant for the past year all played a role in our response and these were decisions made as far back as 3 years ago.

Should he have known about the severity of COVID-19 in November? Probably not, but by not having the support in place to prepare us for a global pandemic and no voice within the WHO we didn't give ourselves a chance when a pandemic hit.

You can keep defending Trump's lack of response in the early stages of this, but it misses the overall point by a wide mark. We weren't going to be prepared for any global threat to our health at any point during Trump's presidency. Nitpicking the timing of his response by a month or 2 doesn't mean a damn thing when something like this hits. If we weren't prepared before it hit then we were never going to respond quickly enough.

Trump's administration was going to fail at any major crisis because it's been gutted from top to bottom, full of temps, and led by the most incurious man to ever occupy the White House. We're lucky we got 3+ years before one came up. We're unlucky that it's going to cost us tens of thousands of lives if not more

How Popular Is Donald Trump? | FiveThirtyEight

The rally round the flag effect seems to be gone. But the crisis does not appear to have hurt his approval ratings. Indeed, they are a little higher than they were before everything started.

This is interesting, do people really think the recorded death total would be significantly less than the 45K in the US right now if Hillary was president? Of the top 10 states in terms of deaths, 9 have a democrat governor and most have democrat state legislatures. The states are in charge of supplying hospitals PPE/supplies, setting up the "shelter in place", budgeting for disaster prep in major cities and creating the infrastructure to support it. I agree the Federal government could have done much better - but even best case by the Feds wouldn't have been rolling into states in early March with magic beans to fix it. The state infrastructure, shelter in place laws and hospital preparation is not something a president can "fix" in 2-3 weeks.

And to be fair to New York/New Jersey, you could have had George Washington as president and Thomas Jefferson as governor of New York and there would be a similar number of recorded deaths right now. The situation in NY (population density, international hub, mass transit system) made it almost impossible to avoid a decent number of cases and deaths. But, NY deaths were impacted much more by decisions by Cuomo and the NY state legislature (over the past years) than by what the White House did in late February/early March.

I expect things would have been measurably better had we followed the pandemic playbook that was created rather than ignoring it.

And I expect things would have been measurably better if the administration wasn't actively focused on hiding the true number of cases.

And I expect things would have been measurably better if the agencies responsible for dealing with a pandemic were fully staffed with competent people.

And I expect things would have been measurably better if we were willing to work with international partners rather than largely insisting on going alone.

And I expect things would have been measurably better if the admin wasn't actively trying to sabotage their own guidelines.

dola

And the density issue isn't true when you look at cases in very dense cities like Seoul and Singapore.

Yes. A competent reaction (rather than one where the main concern was keeping the official count low for re-election considerations) would have saved many, many lives. A reaction that treated it as a real threat and not an overblown hoax by the liberal media would have been more effective.

tbf, this is still the main talking point among far right supporters. We've come this far, and it's STILL the main point of argument. It's the number 1 killer in the US in 90 days and it's STILL an overblown hoax by the liberal media.

Worse yet, it still works with a substantial minority of the population.

Our first response to COVID-19 when it was within our borders was to send untrained medical personnel to California to treat quarantined patients while allowing those medical personnel to freely leave military installations and interact within the general population.

The Trump administration chose two people to lead our efforts against this virus. One is a science denier and the other is a slumlord that married well. The slumlord spent the first few weeks of this pandemic telling the president how this was an overblown media hoax and should be pushed back against.

We sent 18 tons of supplies and PPE to China while downplaying the extent and danger of the virus here. The government's first bulk order of PPE wasn't placed until mid-March.

This administration has left states to fend for themselves on testing and PPE while seizing the PPE states have ordered. States are now conducting secret operations to effectively smuggle PPE in and get it out to medical personnel.

There hasn't been an official FEMA Administrator in over a year.

There was a team created specifically for something like this by the administration Hillary served within. This administration decided that team was a waste of money.

We haven't had a representative on the WHO in 3 years.

And now we have this administration ignoring the advice of medical experts and pushing states that still have hotspots to reopen to improve Trump's reelection chances.


How can anyone seriously look at the above information and come to the conclusion that someone else wouldn't have done a better job at saving lives during this?

I'm not sure Singapore has really been exposed, but cities like Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing are different cultures. Asian cultures are not like the USA and Europe in how they handle these flu pandemics. They've been burned multiple times and there were Asian cities that walked around with masks every day in 2019. They have no problem giving up their freedom to wear virus tracking apps on their phones. They have been programmed to live in a way that limits the spread of these types of illnesses (especially in areas like hugging and human contact). The hope is that the rest of the world can catch up to some of the ways that have worked - but most of this stuff won't fly in the US.

If you don't think density matters, then why is New York so much worse than places like LA and Houston? Bad local management? Trump prefers LA over NY?

Density can matter, but it doesn't guarantee widespread infection. Yes, NYC didn't do enough early enough, and that led to a massive outbreak.

But I absolutely reject the idea that nothing matters and there is no way for the U.S. to have been in any situation other than the situation we find ourselves in. We have plenty of evidence, both with COVID-19 and other outbreaks, that what leaders and populations do matters.

Right, it's not even just if Hillary Clinton was President more lives would have been saved. If this had been the last year in a second term of a Mitt Romney Presidency more lives would have been saved. If this was the last year of a first term of Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush, more lives would have been saved.

Those Republicans wouldn't have completed gutted pandemic response. Or call it a hoax to begin with, which has led to horrible consequences (like I'm 100% sure if Trump hadn't started calling it a Dem hoax back in February, my Trump-loving Father-in-law wouldn't have been at an OpenNC protest yesterday).

I think people are overvaluing the actual impact a president has in these type of situations. I don't think Obama could have done much better in how he handled the flooding in Louisiana in 2016 - yet it still was devastating and had a massive impact. Logistically, there's only so much you can do as a national president.

Look at cities like Houston and Detroit. Both have a similar density, but Houston has dealt with numerous Hurricanes, floods and tropical storms. Therefore, their hospitals have put a premium on disaster preparation and they have plenty of beds, PPE and supplies (even in 2019). They are currently at under 50% in terms of ICU, hospital beds req and have plenty of PPE. How local legislatures and governors put a premium on preparing their local hospitals and medical teams plays a big part in how ready they are for something like this.

It seems like people view the right president as a magic elixir for dealing with disasters. If that's the lesson we take from all this, we will be in the same spot the next time it happens. Local governors, legislatures and cities have to put an emphasis on disaster preparation and have plans in place if things like this (or tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc) happen. Earthquake prep is why many areas on California had enough PPE - this stuff matters much more than hoping the right president can fly into 50 states and save the day in each city.

It isn't about "the president" it is about THIS president.

In general I agree the POTUS takes to much blame and gets to much credit. In this case the POTUS is actually making things worse. We would literally be better off with no president.

Yeah that's what we're looking for. You seem to have a good handle on the arguments being made.

I can't speak to LA but Houston is significantly less dense than NYC. There's no urban core nearly as dense as, say, Manhattan, in Houston. There are a number of smaller cores (downtown, Texas Med Center, Energy Corridor, Galleria, etc) but none of them are nearly as dense as a number of parts of NYC.

Also, there's mass transit to consider. The bus system is good but it's still a bus system and limited to Harris County. The light rail is laughably bad with no range. From what I understand, LA has similar problems on this front, too. I would think San Fran or maybe Chicago would be better comps to NYC.

SI

Here's the thing, what metric are you measuring against?

Total cases? If so, there should only be two nations with more cases, China and India. There are issues with reporting in both cases, China due to propaganda, and India because some areas are so backward I question if all cases are truly being reported.

If you are talking tests, we have conducted roughly twice the number of tests that any other country has. Again, poor metric due to population and other factors, but we have tested more people than any other nation.

Death rate by population, by this measure, we are substantially better than Italy, Spain, and Belgium, of which we are roughly 1/3 of their rate. The UK, France, Netherlands, and Sweden (who some are praising about their response) have higher rates than we do.

If you are going by deaths as a % of confirmed cases, again, we are way down the list, roughly 1/3 of UK, France, Spain, Italy, etc.

Many of these countries are those we love to point to about their great health care systems. Many of these are faring significantly worse than we are. So how much better could we hope to do?

Has this been handled perfectly? No. Has Trump made mistakes? Certainly. But so much of this seems to be "My team would do it so much better!" Add to that a health dose of Trump cannot do anything right.

What would a good outcome of this be? No deaths is not realistic. No cases, again, not realistic. What is a realistic good outcome?

From my point of view, it is very hard to say. We are not exactly the healthiest society, and this still skews heavily towards the older population. From what we thought we knew at the beginning, less than 500,000 deaths is a win.