jharris wrote:
Kay Serrar wrote:
jharris wrote:
chaparral wrote:
jharris wrote:
g_lev wrote:
jharris wrote:
I’ll give a story and then relate it to Trump. I met an old guy that owned a body shop when I wanted to paint my car. I was learning and didn’t really know what to do. He let me paint my car at his shop on weekends. I didn’t understand why he was nice to offer the shop to me because he was an asshole. He would scream and swear at me and talk shit. Some of the stuff he would say was just nuts. Others that would do business with him hated talking to him. Then, over the weeks, I got to know him. He put on a big front. He was the nicest guy ever. Especially when I took his advice on painting and when I got pretty darn good, I earned his respect.
So, then there is Trump. Point of the story is, you can’t change the guy. He speaks the way he does and often times with his back door, or frankly front door, brags. At the end of the day, it is what it is. Ignore all of that and just accept it. Then, look at everything else. I think the guy is a patriot first. Google his list of accomplishments whiled president. . It’s pretty impressive considering the guy was being impeached for 3.5 years. I’m currently looking at presidents wealth before taking office and after. So far, everyone came out wealthy. Not Trump, from what I read. I truly think the guy may be a lot of things, but I don’t think he is the political criminal many seem to be.
I have read this three times now trying to make some sense of it. I have failed all three times.
It means, forget he is a bafoon. He gets the job done.
Is his job mishandling a pandemic resulting in 160,000 dead Americans?
Please, give your insight into the proper way to handle COVID-19, starting with what information was available until now. Then, let me know who would have implemented your ideas well.
I will add that, they initially thought 10% would die, so 160,000 is a low number in my mind.
It’s been discussed here in great detail how other countries have handled Covid dramatically better. Taiwan began aggressive preparations in January. See their results.
Just read an article saying Taiwan was hit hard by SARS in 2003. They admitted to spending 17 years planning for the next pandemic. 17 years! So, this is Trump’s fault? Look- USA screwed the pooch, but everyone needs to stop pointing fingers. Luckily for us, it isn’t as bad as they claimed back in March and the numbers are not piling up as high as anticipated. Funny that Fauci claims New York “did it right” and they have led the way in USA with about 30k deaths. New Jersey right behind them. Those 2 states alone account for over 30% of USA total death count.
Apparently Taiwan has universal healthcare and easy access to people’s health information on top of using app’s on their phones for contact tracing. Do you see USA adopting this? I know the latest iPhone update included tracing and everyone I know didn’t turn it on and never wants to.
While I’m not suggesting to be a medical expert, the virus is here and doesn’t “go away” to my knowledge. So, does Taiwan plan to just keep social distancing and wearing masks forever? How do you get to heard immunity that way? Also, being on an island... doesn’t that present differing circumstances? Not to mention, they have 7% of the population as the USA
Don’t like Taiwan? Ok, how about Canada? Or New Zealand? Or Korea?
The Obama Administration actually wrote a pandemic response playbook in 2016, which Mitch McConnell lied about when he said, “ the Obama administration did not leave any kind of game plan for something like this.” We were well aware another pandemic could hit. We didn’t need to have been hit by SARS. Just look at Bill Gates’ 2012 TED Talk. Our CDC was (was) the envy of the world.
Taiwan used to import all its masks, but by the end of January (January!) they were producing 25m masks a day. Why didn’t Trump invoke the DPA to do the same? Oh yeah, sorry, we shouldn’t point fingers.
We screwed the pooch on testing early on. We keep screwing the pooch on testing. We screwed the pooch on not shutting out all foreign nationals from all nation early on when the pandemic was ravaging Italy. We kept thousands of flight arrivals in immigration halls for hours and hours. We screwed the pooch on contact tracing. We screwed the pooch on PPE distribution early on (wtf was Jared Kushner doing?!)... oh but let’s not point fingers!
And yes, for now, until there’s a vaccine, Taiwan WILL keep social distancing and wearing masks, and contact tracing. And their case numbers will remain low, and their economy relatively unscathed, and their number of deaths may even stay in SINGLE DIGITS. Yes, Taiwan has had 7 deaths total and none since May.
They have 7% of the population of the US and have 0.004% of the number of deaths of the US.
Your healthcare argument is specious. That is not the reason we have 160k deaths.
What we need is crisis leadership, bringing the country together in a fight against a common enemy. We need people to embrace wearing masks in public and to understand that doing so protects others, less so ourselves, we need to persuade people to cooperate with contact tracers and use the app. We need to tamp down hot zones with temporary lockdowns, and reopen based on data. We could have done all this already with a coherent national response and clear messaging.
The NE was indeed hit hard and mistakes were made under difficult circumstances using the best available knowledge at the time and desperate needs for hospital space. But the NE has reopened sensibly using the CDC guidelines and the results are clear.
But we can just hope it will disappear:
That seems like a good policy, amirite?
Last edited by:
Kay Serrar: Aug 9, 20 6:52