I fear our election system has been irreparably damaged and what we are experiencing is the inevitable resul; The electoral college is severely misused, state senators no longer elect US senators (this was supposed to guard against power concentrating in large cities), the judiciary is no longer independent, constitutional limitations are routinely ignored and everyone is allowed to vote without restriction or condition.
We are no longer a constitutional republic as the founding fathers intended. We are now an open, inclusive mob-rule democracy, with virtually no citizenship and voting restrictions, much like the one that caused the fall of Rome.
Don't question them. They obviously were experts who knew what they were doing. Nobody could have seen that coming....except, of course for the millions of people without political, financial or bureaucratic interests at stake.
I will not say you are stupid, because even highly intelligent people make frequent mistakes. You have, however profoundly misunderstood the situation.
I think he's being rhetorical.
COVID19 is not a problem if there is enough space and equipment to handle it. Much like the Times article suggested, the default amount of PPE needs to increase uniformly. Like Rip, I think this burden should be shouldered by the hospital system, not the rest of the economy. Unlike Rip, I think it will take a month for production and distribution of the equipment necessary to avoid a collapse of the hospital system.
I think, at this point, perhaps only South Korea and parts of mainland China have the necessary amount of equipment. And their threshold for lockdown is much lower than ours.
Ralph Northam just single handedly destroyed small business in Virginia. All nonessential businesses must CLOSE for at least 30 days. The “bluer” the state the more draconian the measures
Rip is correct that my discussion is “about the virus” rather than long-term political and legal consequences. Ruminating about those is even more data-free and fruitless than guessing the true number of cases. It is possible to oppose government intervention in April/May, while taking any measures necessary to ensure the safety and efficacy of HCWs in March.I will not say you are stupid, because even highly intelligent people make frequent mistakes. You have, however profoundly misunderstood the situation.
Did it occur to anyone to simply isolate and quarantine the vulnerable population?
This is akin to strip searching blue haired old ladies at the airport, because an accusation of racial profiling is far worse than a bomb on a plane.
This is all based on "confirmed cases".
That number depends on testing: frequency, who gets tested, how accurate the tests are, who shows symptoms, etc.
IIRC, even those who are tested, the tests are only has 90% accurate rate for positive, and 35% for negative...or something like that.
Deaths from COVID19 are published at ...
.... a whole FOUR people. (~8M pop.)
I would posit that number of deaths is much more accurate, but still not even close to perfect.
Also, weird that mainland China, with its 1.5B population has move toward more normal conditions .... and has minute new "cases" the last week or so.
You know, they did not lock the whole entire country down.
There's not a couple of dozen of small cities where it when unchecked in that vast country?
And those places aren't completely decimated now because they didn't go on lockdown?