So just to be clear, you picked that
specific window of time on purpose to exaggerate the data? come on dude, you shouldn't have to exaggerate anything in an argument if you've got a solid case. If the bigger picture shows everyone was roughly in the same boat, then we were all roughly in the same boat regardless of what it looks like zoomed way in to a small window of time. That's like zooming in to a 5 day history of the S&P 500 where the market "plummeted" 1 percent and saying we didn't manage the economy well enough.
My point is- well actually my point was stupid. I did not explain myself correctly at all. You are using the term 'too late' the same way left media and Biden are - saying spread could have been prevented if the restriction were put sooner. Of course hindsight is always 20/20 and this is not fair to use against Trump seen as little was known.
What propoganda? All you heard on the news is that deaths would break into the millions by the first six months. Did that happen? No. ...It's almost as if the travel restrictions had an effect... Even if the estimates were exaggerated it is reasonable to say the restrictions had a positive effect.
idk man, New Zealand isn't looking to good.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54186359#:~:text=New Zealand is in its,lockdown and border closures hit.
You must not know about their quarantine camp system they are using now too. I sure wouldn't want to be taken against my will by the government to wait out my 14 day sentence just for accidentally contracting a virus. That is one sure way to give up our basic freedoms. One thing people rarely mention is
our (the citizens') responsibility to mitigate spread. The government can only do so much before taking away our basic rights and freedoms. Quarantine camps might seem logical beyond the temporary emotional effects of the quarantined population especially in the grand scheme of things, but you just can't do that to people. Not everyone is ok with that kind of treatment, especially from the government. You keep mentioning New Zealand, but they are a perfect example of why we
shouldn't ever go full quarantine.
I was fine with it for the first 2 months
maybe 3, but after that I just got anxious to see another fricking person, eat out,
go to class,
see my professors, actually be
taught things instead of learning everything on my own. Being stuck at home this long without reasable justification is extremely demoralizing. I don't know which state you live in, but in California businesses keep getting shut down after a week of reopening like we are getting taunted that things might go back to normal. Finally that's over for "essential" businesses at least. Spring semester was recently announced to be
all online again. I could barely stand this semster being online let alone be up for another round of this. I could go on and on about my personal experience with the shutdowns, but I want to bring things back to the broader picture.
A similar, but not so cruel method of managing the spread would be to advise the vulnerable groups to quarantine. Boom, done. If you explore around the site I sourced last post you would see that risk is ridiculously low until around age 50-60 where it
starts to ramp up, so you'd still be safe in your 50's. There is also a charge showing other health conditions that increase your risk of death from covid, so they would know their risks too (the charts show specific % risks). Common sense stuff like this is what we need. Not blind, blanket shutdowns that effect
everyone when not everyone is at a significant risk of death. Let people have free will and stop politicizing this (not you lol, just gov and media in general). If it weren't so politicized people would have a better sense of what we are dealing with and not choose between {covid is blown out of proportion, so lemme just party every night without a mask} or {covid is the death of humanity, so lemme just hunker down in my basement stocked up on toilet paper and a years supply of food and masks}.
For starters, all around reddit people are complaining about mental health regarding online learning. It doesn't take a whole lot of looking to find that (unless nothing motivated you to look of course). I looked because I was feeling it and so were many others. A clearer and more objective source for covid's effect on general mental health is here:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm
Let me just say, I did not and do not believe him when he says he knew how dangerous it was
to that degree. There is no way to know how dangerous it was by percent of cases alone. There was not nearly enough data to evaluate the virus at all. If he had enacted anything stricter, he would been criticized by a lot more than just the Biden team, left media, and a few top democrats.
Ok, now we are getting to the root of our disagreement. If you and thought the same on
this, then we would probably agree on everything else that follows. Total number of cases is directly related to the number of people in a country. More people in a country, more chances of a citizen of that country getting the virus. This is the only fair way to compare the US to other countries. If we are on par with the rest of the world in percent population
and it is harder for us to manage (bigger population) then I'd say we are doing pretty good.
I have to disagree. By that logic, we could just split the USA into smaller little sta- wait. We are the United
States of America, not
State. Giving each state its own government was genius (whether we knew it or not way back then) because it allows for more "personalized" handling of issues per state. Each state is different and has different needs. The state governor is well informed on all the state's specific issues and needs,
not the president. <--- I know you blamed the government in general, but I am just making the distinction between the federal and state governments because it is important to know that they
both had heavy responsibilities in handling this pandemic. Also, I am trying to illustrate how cases numbers in the US,
if anything, should be looked at on a 'by state' basis and not the country as a whole because we are split up into multiple state governments that are
responsible for their own states.
I
strongly disagree that the US
as a whole has a larger responsibility because even though we are united under 1 federal government, we really are seperate states with our own governments, laws, and systems. Each
state could reasonably be compared to each other and other countries (which are states too btw) to gauge how they are doing compared to the rest of the world. Especially since some states were not hit nearly as hard while others are far worse than the world average. All fault to their respective state governments, not all of them together as a whole.
I think it goes without saying that 10 mil cases is worse than 10k no matter the population, but that is not what we use to gauge the quality of response. Totals don't matter. I don't know how else to convince you of this, but maybe you should just read this:
https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson3/section1.html
Lesson 3 specifically. I basically explains how epidemiologists (the experts) evaluate things like this.
If a country that small had even a 20% death rate, then they failed as a country. Not only did the have a small population to manage, but than means they needed that much fewer resources to manage the spread. They would deserve far more criticism than the US not for their total deaths, but for letting a fifth of their entire population die. Than again, it depends on how many of their people were high-risk groups, had health issues that make covid 5 times for fatal, etc. You can't oversimplify this issue to just case and death totals. The world is
so much more complicated than that.
Your first statement here is true, but impossible to achieve without permanently crippling an economy. Even 1 case can spread to hundreds within a few days. You would have to wait until not a single person had covid to reopen. It doesn't matter how few cases you have, the infection rate
will spike temporarily upon reopening. What matters is whether or not the spike is managable. Which it currently is if we open slowly, but some people don't want to open at all. The point of a shutdown is not to eliminate cases, never was. Look back on things and everyone was saying we need to flatten the curve, so hospitals don't get overwhelmed. Now it's, we need to eliminate the virus with shutdowns. All politics, trust me. Shutdowns are great, until they start causing long-term damage.
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Thank you too for taking so much time on this. I have never discussed this with anyone before, so it's nice. I have a ton of work to do before Sunday (week's homework due date) and I will probably be too tied up to respond if you reply before then.
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