Speaking for my little slice of Upstate NY, it's because the prevailing attitude is, "Fuck Cuomo, he's a tyrant." and "It's just the flue." Oh, and "It's has a less than 1% mortality rate." Honestly, I didn't know I was surrounded by so many health care experts until this thing started.
That's why I grabbed the first six EU countries from John's Hopkins. I was trying to equal out population. It's not apples to apples because they can close borders and we cannot between states which would, to me, explain why we have more cases. The death rate wasn't really what I was comparing, simply total deaths as I think that matters more than number of cases and why I didn't throw out that we're at .016 vs their .026.
Got it. Sounds like we’re working from the source(s): https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-maps-and-cases/
Laying every death at Trumps feet is asinine. There truly is only so much we can do. The irony of California, self-proclaimed bastion of the far left, being in such dire straits, is a perfect example. But we had a playbook via the CDC that was completely ignored, and we had a President who consistently downplayed the virus. You don’t have to believe me - just go back and read his own tweets and statements. Furthermore he actually said the pandemic wasn’t his fault or responsibility. Now come on- you can’t possibly believe we wouldn’t be in better shape right now if he hadn’t taken this seriously.
I have no horse in this race - I’m not American, nor do I support either party. As an outsider, what I see right now is a schism. Both sides view the other as in error, morally corrupt and needing to change. How does this get fixed? It’s well and good to oust Trump, but that ignores the “what then” part of the equation. My personal thought is that any sensible person, looking at Trump 4.5 years ago, could have seen this coming. That dude should never have been allowed near the building, never mind be invited to run the country. And yet half the people voted for him. Half the people were openly embracing him or at least swallowing his glaring flaws because he aligned with their ideology. What is the plan, once he goes, to straighten this out? If 70M people supported him enough to vote for him, it can’t be “fuck em all.” I would be saying this if the numbers had flipped and Biden had lost. Both sides think they hold the moral high ground. Now that the witch is dead, where do all the flying monkeys go? I’m not bringing this up to suggest that the Dems should placate anyone per se, just to point out that those 70M people aren’t going to suddenly support the left. If the mindset is that they can go to hell, then enjoy your civil war, I guess. I don’t know the solution. Hopefully after inauguration things calm down. But if the Dems go on a spree passing policies that the right is ideologically opposed to without their input, man, stand back.
No one, at least not seriously, is saying that Trump handled this perfectly. He clearly didn't, then again what power does he really have other than shutting down travel as early as he did (everyone knows what the response was to that). The federal government does not have the power to force states to do much in regards to shutting down or masks, though they could threaten to withhold funding for some things but that's about it and that's pretty much by design. I think he was trying to project confidence to some degree by downplaying the virus and while we know now that was not the right thing to do, I "think" it was an attempt to keep people positive. That's what my optimistic side wants to think. My more pragmatic side knows that because it was an election year he wanted to minimize the damage to the economy and act like everything was under control. The pandemic is not his fault, as far as anyone knows right now he did not release it on the world or create it. He did/does bear some responsibility for how it played out here in the US and while shutting down travel from China/Europe was the right call what happened afterwards will be a subject that will be talked about for a long time. We don't have much of an attention span so likely many will just dump it on Trump and let it go right or wrong.
I think you have more cases because you have people who still believe it's a hoax, and are actively going against the health guidelines. Trump and his team have not properly supported the medical professionals from day one, and that started with the messaging... "it's only the flu, you'll be fine", and burying anything and everything that would make him look bad. That's why they constantly battled Fauci and the other senior people. That's why they don't wear masks. That's why they host super-spreader events, and say "go vote in person". It's leading by example, and almost half the country is following that example, which is the wrong example to follow if you want to get rid of this thing.
While you're looking at other countries, try to see where their leaders recommended injecting bleach to kill it at a national news conference... I'm going to take a wild guess that it's probably only Trump who said that. And it was bad enough that people actually died from drinking bleach... and the CDC had to put out a warning to the people to not drink/inhale/inject bleach. https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/05/cdc-misusing-bleach-try-kill-coronavirus/ "His remarks led poison control centers and manufacturers of cleaning products to reiterate that disinfectants and cleaners should not be ingested, inhaled, or injected. The president later claimed he was trying to prank reporters with his remarks." Nah, he didn't try to prank them... he's just a moron who doesn't understand science, or trust it, and hides it when it makes him look bad. I watched that presser... he genuinely believed it was a viable option... that and really strong UV lights that you could shine inside the body.
I never said he did the right things throughout, just that shutting down travel, one of the few things he can control, was the right call. He's an idiot, we have a lot of people in the US, so we have a lot of idiots. We still have a lower death rate, so I guess that means we're as well as we are despite our idiots. Que Spaceballs scene "I'm surrounded by assholes". Bleach, tide pods, we have that market cornered. I'm not defending Trump here, though I get that it sounds like I am. His demeanor and rhetoric has been a pain in the ass for anyone not on the far right, his comments about bleach were irresponsible and stupid. Those who actually ingested bleach are worse and I don't know how they survived this long if they are that dumb. As individuals we bear the responsibility of our own actions, if you ingest bleach you're going to have a bad day and probably deserve it, and he will for his.
I think you have to look at this from a perspective more removed from the virus itself. His following is cult like. People see and hear him and a lot of the supporters see themselves in some part. Blustering ignorance and unearned confidence that they know so much while actually knowing so little. There hasn’t been a leader quite as influential towards a large segment of the population like that over here. We’ve had popular presidents before sure, but none have advocated for such absolute destruction of our norms and principles quite like him. They were all conned by him. They love Trump and he would never set foot near any of them. Most people have an opinion that “they’re all full of shit up there in DC so what’s the harm in trying something new?” Leadership ain’t easy and the professional wrestling side we see on tv is probably much different than what happens behind the scenes. He preyed on their ignorance and destroyed everything. He’s convinced them they were cheated in the election and they believed it. He told them the virus was like the flu and they all believed it. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that had he taken even an ounce of this seriously, we would have a hundred thousand fewer deaths.
I don't believe this... do you have a source? Because all the numbers I've seen show that you guys are leading the pack...
According to Johns Hopkins, the US is ranked 4th in deaths per 100k population. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
Again, I was lumping a similar sized group of the EU together which I acknowledge isn't quite apples to apples (already did acknowledge that). I was just attempting to get a similar sized population because size and ease of travel make it harder to contain here, they would have better containment but still have about a full percent higher death rate (deaths/cases).
Based on what? Here in Canada we have a larger size, and are half the death rate you guys are. I think the big thing is that we actually, for the most part, accept that COVID is real, and aren't treating it like some political statement and going out of our way to make the problem worse to "fuck the Dems".
God, let this be true..... One of the people who died of “medical distress” was this guy: Spoiler ....apparently, he was trying to steal a painting of Tip O’Neil in the Capitol when the taser in his pocket electrocuted his balls and caused cardiac arrest. ....the Aristocrats!
Compared to the EU countries I used, we don't have borders we can close between "states" making it harder to contain. Canada doesn't have the population density of many other countries, and yet you are having spikes. I can only speak for those I know in saying it was never fuck the dems, it was "ok, this is real, I'll be careful but I'm not shutting down unless you're going to pay my bills". There are those who said fuck the dems, especially Pelosi but that wasn't really my point. My point was that while we have a higher number of cases we really aren't doing that much worse than the group of countries in the EU I picked because they were right there on the top of the list and I didn't have to dig very far for the data. I'm not saying I'm right and everyone else responding is wrong, I'm not defending Trump except that I'm not sure what any other president could do other than not be an asshole that downplays the virus. He cannot shut down anything other than federal buildings or require masks anywhere outside of federal buildings. The states were pretty clear from the get go that he could not tell them what to do one way or the other. I agree, he could have done a better job working with the states and we might have fared a bit better, how much better no one knows other than fuck Trump and any republicans/conservatives. For the most part I see people following the guidelines but of course there are those who are not. They had Covid and now have the antibody super man cape and don't have to worry much about getting it again. I also see a lot of businesses failing even in a state that hasn't been as tight as NY or California. There is a balance somewhere and I'm not going to act like I'm smart enough to figure out what it is, just that we haven't found it.
That's the main issue I have... there is SO much more that they could have done. They had initial intel in November, and they could have taken it seriously and started in on it then. They could have supported the medical teams properly with simple things, like messaging "take this seriously", from the start. The mere fact that he was fighting with and being petty against the specialists whose job it was to fight exactly this is more than enough. "Let's stop the testing so my numbers don't look as bad". He didn't just downplay the virus, he failed to use his authority to respond appropriately. I'm sure @downndirty has way more insight into that, seeing as he lives and works in that realm. In the end, through both his actions and inactions, Trump caused a lot of long term damage. Go watch this doc: