Pouring fuel on flames is an understandable but not a helpful stress response. The idea here is to do better for as long as we can.
Just because one side makes claims at odds with reality doesn't mean it's partisan to point out the absurdity of those claims.
Even then, though, years of this job have taught me that everyone overestimates the overlap between their views and the pure truth, and that this effect grows, I would even say exponentially, with the intensity of one's commitment to a topic. To contribute well to a thoughtful discussion, each of us needs to take this effect into account and find some way to compensate for it.
"Unfortunately the CDC's existence, purpose, and funding is controlled by the government. Thus any discussion of their actions becomes embroiled in the political tribalism that dominates comments.
The staunch defenders of the current administration are often successful at shutting down criticism of their leader and their party's actions. Which is doing this country a huge disservice because right now we need to be fixing these issues, not continually arguing about blame."
People responding to this comment, please stop jumping to the defense of Trump. Stop whatabouting and trying to stop people from voicing their concerns. We've got a once-in-a-century problem facing the USA and the world, and we need to put aside knee-jerk circling-of-the-wagons to protect your party/team/tribe/side.
Testing was botched, a lot of his statements have been terrible, but the travel bans were in the “do something that seems premature” category and deserves recognition, since it will have saved lives.
Now is not the time to lose your mind and regress into confirmation bias. Listen to your leaders (National all the way down the line), follow the instructions, try to help everyone recover. In this way, you'll likely live to push your political views another day.
This doesn't mean the US president the way it used to mean it.
I think Merkel has a greater claim to this title than Trump.
Not everyone is "freaked the fuck out" due to what Trump says or does. Unlike many folks, I never placed faith or trust in government to handle any crisis of magnitude. I worry about what I can control: my own actions and how that will affect my family who lives with me. I'm not looking for a savior in Daddy Government.
I'm worried because most people are irrational and highly emotional, not logical. They make decisions against their best interests all the time. In a pandemic, that forces me to be overly cautious, despite that not necessarily being my normal disposition. The irrational risks are, in some sense, greater than the rational risks.
Why/how there weren’t tests for months. If only we could blame this on one person, then the solution would be easy — but this is a systemic problem.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/0...
> The top White House official responsible for leading the U.S. response in the event of a deadly pandemic has left the administration, and the global health security team he oversaw has been disbanded under a reorganization by national security adviser John Bolton.
> The abrupt departure of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer from the National Security Council means no senior administration official is now focused solely on global health security. Ziemer’s departure, along with the breakup of his team, comes at a time when many experts say the country is already underprepared for the increasing risks of a pandemic or bioterrorism attack.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pandemic-office-t...
> The U.S. government’s slow and inadequate response to the new coronavirus underscores the need for organized, accountable leadership to prepare for and respond to pandemic threats.
The administration has essentially decided to kick the driver out and steer blind since 2018.
"These smug pilots have lost touch with regular passengers like us. Who thinks I should fly this plane?"
https://ipa.org.au/ipa-review-articles/rebelling-fake-expert...
Yep.
It's not always political. However, sometimes it is.
For example, if a grocery store is normally open, and I go there to buy groceries only to found out they're closed... I still need groceries. I would just be forced to wait until they're open or go get them from somewhere else. With that reasoning, I would expect halting trades to encourage capital flight to exchanges with liquidity and predictable operation. People prefer to shop at grocery stores that have predictable hours and stocked shelves.
After 9/11 they both fell about 10%.
In 2008 the Dow dropped about 40% in a month, and about 50% in 6 months.
For example: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...
Michael Pence?
Bernie Sanders?
Joe Biden? or, dare I say it,
Hilary Clinton?
They won't get paid because they'll be home sick, or told not to come in; so they won't have "hours" on their timesheets. They don't have any safety net.
They will miss rent payments en masse. Small business property companies (landlords) will suddenly have a cash flow problem and won't be able to make their mortgage payments.
Enough little people will stop having any money and spending any money, and all that will be left is the imaginary money in the stock market and the quantitatively-eased-up banks - none of which does anything useful for the little people.
This will create a very interesting situation that truly will threaten the current way of things in certain skewed capitalist countries. What will come out of this will surely be a lot more socialist (or rather, gains being distributed more equally amongst the population instead of going to the top 0.1%). The top 0.1% will not suffer, because honestly what is the difference between 100M net worth and 1B net worth.
Unless we do something, we're going to see a rise in evictions, suicides, and civil unrest.
There is no leadership on this issue. Health leaders are urging isolation while at the same time elected leaders from a certain party are going on TV and twitter and urging people to go out to restaurants and bars. The president has been telling his supporters that there is no problem in the US while thousands are dying in Europe. With no captain is anyone surprised the ship appears to be drifting? Pence appears to be doing his best but he is clearly handcuffed.
As the situations at airports are proving there is literally zero true planning going on. No one figured out that if you announce a major travel ban that people will come flooding home from virus hot spots. Thousands of people jammed together before being released back into the US.
Soon companies are going to be forced to start massive layoffs just to survive, especially the travel and retail industries. We are then going to have tens of thousands of our lowest paid and least resource secure people suddenly without jobs. The bills will continue though. The government though appears to show no regard for individuals and is instead focused only on stock market numbers. Not to mention many of these same people suddenly have kids at home with the schools closed.
We need to a massive stimulus for individuals, put a moratorium on mortgage and car payments, put cash in peoples hands or this is going to get out of hand fast. Due to our so called "rugged individualism" in the US, we have lines around the corner at gun stores as people fantasize about gunning down those rendered desperate from what is going on while our European neighbors are pitching in to help each other.
There is an abundance of leadership: however, in many instances the leadership is unnecessary and/or ineffectual. One underlying problem is that those of us brought up as political science majors think they should, indeed, _must_ do something, anything! Better that they wait, watch, proceed with caution and steer within their legal limits.
wonderwonder says> "Health leaders are urging isolation while at the same time elected leaders from a certain party are going on TV and twitter and urging people to go out to restaurants and bars."
Here you paint with a broad brush, smearing all Republicans because of the statements/actions of a handful. Shame, shame. And if those few truly believe that the situation is not as bad as you believe, well then, what would you do? Incarcerate them? Is it not better to merely correct or chastise those who are wrong rather than use them as an instrument to slur millions of innocent people?
wonderwonder says> "thousands are dying in Europe".
It is about one and one half thousand dead right now. More will die of course. "Thousands"? Why exaggerate so? The situation is bad, by why alarm when alarm does no good, indeed harms?
wonderwonder says> "With no captain is anyone surprised the ship appears to be drifting? Pence appears to be doing his best but he is clearly handcuffed..
Vague, poetic, and simply wrong. All those who know what to do are doing it ASAP. Pence is handcuffed because he is the vice president and has no assigned tasks other than what the President allows. He's a backup drive for the President: if the President dies Pence will be plugged in and powered up. Until then he'd be foolish to take a pro-active role.
wonderwonder says> " there is literally zero true planning going on. ".
Everybody who _can_ plan is planning. There is likely too much planning and not enough paying attention to what is in front of us. You are not privy to the planning (probably for good reason - people will take advantage of such situations to make themselves rich or even, dare I say, gain some obscure political advantage!-). "*
I could go on but I've made my point. Better to condense your political views into a post 1/5 the length, omitting the misleading and/or false parts. Sadly, when i reread the post, I find little that does not mislead. You are clearly literate; you can pen a sentence well; you can do much better.
As of this moment, ~1,800 known deaths in Europe. My apologies for overstating by 10% and causing panic, end of day tomorrow I will be accurate.
Edit: we have now unfortunately reached over 2,000 a couple hours after this post.
I'm not really sure what you mean about the majority of your other points regarding planning, leadership and too much planning. Bad planning and poor, ill defined leadership is not exactly a major win over no leadership and no planning.
Either way, I wish you and yours the best during the weeks / months to come.
