Quote:
I'm puzzled by some things being said here. The federal government doesn't "make" anything. They can use the law to force manufacturers to produce things, which has been done. GM and Ford are producing ventilators, not cars. 3M ramped up mask production very early on. Offshoring of our industries had a benefit, but now we're seeing the pronounced downside of that. The feds can't solve that in weeks or months. China's hoarding of PPE and selling it to us at high prices doesn't help either.
The federal government hasn't forced anything. It is funny that you claim 3M ramped up production when the President specifically criticized them by name for not cooperating. No the government doesn't make anything. In times of crisis they can coordinate and require the production of necessary items. They have not done that to any extent acceptable. They have spent a lot more effort diverting shipments that states secured to a federal source which helps no one.
Quote:
Sweden is no longer the favored child of the MSM. They've gone their own way on this and they've now become the redheaded stepchild.
Sweden is no longer the satan of the right wing media. They've gone their own way on this and now they are the poster child.
See what I did there?
Quote:
Their health score, according to covidly.com is a "7." The US just went from a "6" to a "7" this morning.
Covidly is not a medical or health or in any way scientific site. Covidly is literally a dude named Alexey who had time on his hands. His "health score" is a simple formula he threw together. It has proven very unreliable as any kind of useful metric once the numbers get to a certain point. Further, anything based on number of cases is problematic because that number is highly influenced by testing. 50% of his number is based on new cases. 20% is based on recoveries. Both of those numbers are highly questionable. Sweden has a very low test rate. less than 2/3 of the US. So their case numbers are low. Look at their death numbers. Covidly has great stats otherwise. He's done an amazing job. And if you looked at the actual numbers, your portrayal of Sweden as a success is laughable.
Quote:
The notable difference? No lockdown in Sweden. Their ability to live while we hunker down really bothers some people. No one wants to give them any credit for attaining the same results without the economic damage the locked down nations are experiencing. We should wonder why
Sweden's death's per capita is at 228 and skyrocketing. Ours is 175 even though our first death was weeks before theirs. Denmark is 75. Norway is 38. Finland is 36. What we should wonder is why you are taking a lame, subjective measurement like health score, when deaths per capita is staring you in the face. They did not attain the same results. They are not as far along their curve as we are AND their numbers are already significantly worse than ours and tragically worse than demographically similar neighbors
As for the economic damage, there is a big misconception on both sides about what is going on in Sweden. Lack of mandatory measures is not the whole story. They are advising social distancing measures. They think most people will do it voluntarily. Mobile phone data shows significantly decreased movement. Economically, their government economic agency is predicting the same level of economic contraction that ours is. They said:
Quote:
Concern about infection and official advice on limiting social contact are putting a major damper on household demand
Sweden does not have a flourishing economy. So I would put this back on you. Sweden has not issued mandatory lockdowns, has experienced a significantly higher rate of death, and has the same economic damage that we have. We should wonder why.
Quote:
Does keeping apart really work that well? Go into any Home Depot, Costco, or grocery store and they are crowded all day long. Sure, there are some measures like most people wearing masks, the urging of people to stay 6 feet apart, etc. But it's not really happening. Is there any data to show weather Costco, Home Depot, and grocery store workers are getting the disease at higher rates than the population in general? If they were, you certainly would have heard it by now. That would be headline news.
You really think that in the 6 weeks since our numbers took off, with all the important studies and research that they are trying to do, when they are just now getting antibody studies in the field that ANYBODY has had the ability to do an extremely parsed study on grocery store workers? I'll flip it back on you. If there was a study demonstrating that they have no higher rate of infection, you would have heard about it. And you'd be posting it. That would be headline news for all those trying to open up the economy. Fact is there is no study either way.
Not to mention, Instacart is slammed. Do you deny that? That is because people are not going to the store. The number of individuals going to the store is way down.
Quote:
Remember just a few weeks ago how officials were urging retired health care workers to come back and work? Remember how they were allowing people who had not yet received their medical licenses to work in the hospitals? Well, now hospitals and clinics are laying off health care workers and putting entire floors in moth balls. What politician is going to get up there and say, "Well, we overstated the need a little, thank you for your selfless service, but please go back to what you were doing because we need to keep our licensed health care workers employed." Haven't heard Cuomo say that, right?
So, unlike the federal government, some state governments prepare for multiple contingencies in case social distancing doesn't work as well as hoped, since they didn't know how well those policies worked. You think that is a problem? I always like my government preparing for best case scenario and then getting caught with its pants down.
Quote:
From my perspective, the great majority are hoping that Texas, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and others fail miserably with their reopening plans. Have we examined why people feel this way? It's as if you get only one shot at locking down and if you guess wrong you're hosed for life. BS.
Stop. Just stop. Criticizing policy doesn't equal hoping people fail. This is a lame argument. Have we examined why some conservative media jumped all over a false story that the Bay Area is doing well because it developed herd immunity while not knowing it and not because the damned liberal local governments got it right.
This is the equivalent to Pollyanna's arguing that anyone criticizing the current coach wants Cal to lose. Just stop.
Quote:
Waiting for a vaccine? Do we have an effective vaccine for any coronavirus? We haven't even licked the common cold, also a coronavirus. What are the odds of success?
Yeah, love this bit of ignorance circulating right wing media.
The common cold is not a coronavirus. Coronaviruses are a few among the many, many types of virus, many that haven't been identified, that cause a group of symptoms colloquially called the common cold. The common cold is not a specific virus. We do not have a vaccine for any coronavirus that causes the common cold because there would be no point. There would still be a ton more viruses causing colds and as soon as you made a vaccine for one, you'd have to swat down new ones like we do with the flu and the common cold isn't that bad to justify it. We won't have a cure for the common cold until we could somehow create a universal antivirus vaccine and that would run into the difficulty of having to distinguish between bad viruses and beneficial viruses that we actually need, so, probably impossible. Getting a vaccine for this coronavirus may or may not happen, but not having a vaccine for the common cold has absolutely nothing to do with it.
