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BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic


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Reflecting once again, on the malignant, metastasizing, tumor that is the Republican Party, in this epidemic.  

 

It's a thought I've had before.  I look at the actions of the Republican Party, and all of it's tentacles, to this crisis, and I try to come up with an explanation.  

 

I do this a lot.  I look at somebody's actions.  And I try not to just jump tp the conclusion that said person/people are simply cardboard villains.  That they have some kind of thought process that causes them to think of themselves as doing the right thing.  And I try to find it.  

 

I did it with W, when it became glaringly obvious that the administration was under orders to try to manufacture support for invading Iraq.  To try to come up with some form of "OK, it's obvious they're trying to start a war.  But maybe there's a good reason for it."  

 

It's clear that they don't have a problem with 1,000 Americans dying a day.  (Well, other than the colossal unfairness that it might cost them power for a year or to.  In some places.)  

 

And, even if I jump to the conclusion that they are solely motivated by a desire for power, (which might be true for the actual politicians, but not for the masses voting for them), surely they don't think that more dead Americans equals more votes for the Party in power.  

 

So I start looking for some kind of offsetting motive.  

 

Analogy:  If we knew for a fact that, say, opposing Hitler would lead to a million dead Americans, I could see someone looking at that tradeoff and concluding that that's a price they're willing to pay for that result.  And to commit to that plan, not because you approve of dead Americans, but because you approve of opposing Hitler enough to outweigh the cost.  

 

But, what's the overriding good, that makes 1,000 dead Americans a day an acceptable price to pay?  How do the Republicans complete the sentence "They didn't die in vain.  They died for . . . "?  

 

But I can't come up with an "offsetting good" that isn't flat out evil, either.  I can come up with possible motivators.  But they're all evil.  

 

"Well, if a million Americans die, but they're almost all on Social Security, then we can save money on Medicare and SS without actually having to vote to cut it."  

"Better 1,000 dead Americans a day than me changing my position and therefore looking like I was wrong."  

 

I mean, those aren't quite as bad as "Putin is paying us a bounty an every dead American". But they're still pretty close on the "evil meter".  

 

 

 

 

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@LarryNot that I have any clue, really....

Frankly, the major motivation I see goes back to the reported planning meeting with Kushner.  “Blue” areas were the most affected, and then, as now, the death rate for minorities is far higher.  I believe that herd immunity, by their calculus, likely removes far more minorities/lean D voters than their own supporters.  Of course, they have the added advantage of (in effect) controlling much of the media in the redder areas.

 

So, I think some are looking at this from a political/partisan lens, some from the lens of racial animus, and some a combination of both.  Of course, there is probably a subset that just honestly buys into the talking points and believes they’ve done an adequate (or even superb) job of handling the virus.

 

I suppose it’s only fair to guess that some simply believe the dichotomy that the economics trump health, refusing to see that addressing the health/virus first likely lessens the impact on the economy.

 

Short answer, power and money, with a (heavy?) tinge of racism.

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More good news for VA. Still. Below R0 of 1 and all health districts are NOT in surge for the first time ever.

 

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A little bit more on the demographics. It appears that Hispanic and black peoples are more affected by Covid. Not really more hospitalized though. It’s interesting. I don’t know if it’s economic or physiological but would be interested in a study.

 

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My Uncle and his wife, ages 74 and 63 respectively, tested positive Thursday evening and are under house lockdown out in Goochland.  Both experiencing headache and fatigue with light fever.  
 

Prognosis is considered good for both and they’re in fine health for their ages, but we’re all pretty worried about em.
 

And yes, they are/were full Trump, anti-maskers.  Sigh...

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I don’t think they are doing so there are less people in Medicare and social security. 
 

It could be just as simple as they don’t believe the virus can be controlled.

 

What do you say for the people who delayed a planned a wedding but their parent died in a car crash or of age or anything not covid?

Or the family reunion, graduation, vacation?

 

Time doesn’t stop and life is short.  

What is two years of life worth? And whose life? 
 

OTH, republicans got into bed with a psychopath so it’s real easy to assume evil motives for everything they do. 
 

 

Edited by CousinsCowgirl84
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@skinny21, I could see that motive applying, back in January.  Back when there were like 30 cases, and they're all in Seattle and NYC.  I mean, it's yet another flat out evil motivation, and all.  But not one I'm going to day is completely unbelievable.  

 

I remember the Reagan administration's response to AIDS.  

 

But they're still opposing doing anything whatsoever to even slow down this disease.  In fact, actively, openly, encouraging people to spread it.  And it's obvious even to them that it doesn't just kill or cripple liberals.  

 

Are there that many people who think that 500 dead white people is a price they're willing to pay, if they get 500 dead black people, too?  

 

Are we seeing a race war, being fought with biological weapons?  

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1 hour ago, skinny21 said:

I suppose it’s only fair to guess that some simply believe the dichotomy that the economics trump health, refusing to see that addressing the health/virus first likely lessens the impact on the economy.

 

Short answer, power and money, with a (heavy?) tinge of racism.

That's something I read and hear often about. Should we kill the econony and have people live.  Or should we save the economy and let people die?

 

If you shut it down once again, and you kill lots of business and such. That will be tough. But living people do have hope, faith, needs, and will try to build it again, better. Will be tough for sure, but rebound will be fast.

 

Now, if you let people die, at the end, it will impact the economy, because those that are dying are your customers. If they're dead, they are not gonna go to restaurant, buy car, whatever... So that's not really a good option either.

 

But economists and politics only have short term vision nowadays. At least in Europe & America. They only see things as the next reelection.... Economists are looking at their end of the year dividend... Everything beyong is fairy tales...

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And this whole "kill the economy or kill people" is a false choice, anyway.  

 

For one thing, it's not "kill the economy".  What we went through was a temporary reduction of GDP of 10%.  (Which isn't exactly something to laugh off.  But the dead people aren't 10% dead, they're 100% dead.)

 

But "kill people or a temporary 10% reduction in GDP" doesn't sound as good.  Especially if you're trying to push people into voting for "Team Kill People".  

 

And for another, you know, many other countries managed to quarantine, with a lot less economic impact.  

 

Their government helped out their citizens.  

 

But wait.  That's against the religion of one of our major Parties.  

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@Larry

The argument I hear is the economy. "The cure is worse than the disease."  50 percent of small businesses will never re-open and people's livelyhoods are being ripped away from them.  We are traumatizing our children. Government shouldn't have the power to shut everything down. And then from there some leap that this is big government liberals intentionally killing the economy so they can have big government.  

 

Behind it I feel like there is some denial that this is a once-in-generation pandemic that constitutes a public health crises. 

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And yes, I can understand some of that.  

 

I have no doubt that this epidemic will have the effect of triggering a lot of things that have been gradually happening for decades, anyway.  

 

Insert analogy to COVID killing off people who have comorbidities.  

 

And yet, though, The impression I get is that not only is the US experiencing vastly more infections and deaths than other "first world" countries, but that we're experiencing vastly more economic impact, too.  (I confess, I haven't seen hard data to support that, though.  It's possible my impression is incorrect.)  

 

And I can't help think that it's because we are not only the only country that (outside of NYC) never really even tried to quarantine all that much, we're also the only one that didn't have massive government spending to quarantined individuals.  

 

Edit:  

 

Looks like maybe my impression is incorrect.  

 

just looking.  looks like UK GDP is dows 22% compared to 6 months ago.  

Germany fell 22% (one quarter, annualized rate).  

Italy down 17% from last year.  

 

----------

 

(Although, what this data indicates is - all those countries had better infection and death rates than we did, and similar economic impact.)  

Edited by Larry
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27 minutes ago, Long n Left said:

Also, because those countries did such a better job of controlling the virus, and keeping their population more intact, can we therefore assume that their economic rebound will occur much more quickly and thoroughly?

 

I wouldn't automatically assume that.  

 

The impression I get is that a lot of the world is interconnected now days.  Everybody's economy is affected by everybody's else's.  For example, I think the US housing crash of 08-09 affected world economies, too.  

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20 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Europe has a lot of economic problems so I wouldn’t say comparing our rebound to theirs is a fair comparison...

 

My European siblings who are solidly middle class might have a different perspective, including one who is a professional economist. I'm an optimist and hoping COVID might cause a shift in thinking about what we measure here as important.

 

For most of the last 100 years, we've thought about GDP growth as the be-all and end-all as increases can help lift populations out of poverty. But beyond a certain point of national GDP we have seen GDP growth disproportionally favoring the elites. And to continue with GDP growth we are driven to sacrifice other things that impact quality of life, such as environmental regulations. After all, the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster resulted in an increase in GDP because of all the work spent on cleanup.

 

Here's something from an old academic article, but noteworthy:

 

3-Figure1-1.png

 

 

 

 

Edited by Corcaigh
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On 10/9/2020 at 9:58 AM, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I believe that the us did all it could and I watch cnn. We are talking a politicians and people making there own decisions.  More could have been done, but a group of three year Isn’t going to have the ability to perform open heart surgery...

So telling people to not wear masks is doing all we could?

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@Springfield‘Old’ article (mid-Aug), but this seems to say minorities are roughly 5 times more hospitalized.  

 


https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/expert-answers/coronavirus-infection-by-race/faq-20488802

 

 

@Larry  To your point about 500 white people for 500 black people, I think there’s a much bigger disparity.  I’d also suggest it doesn’t take many to believe this is acceptable - just certain people with power.  Particularly when it’s viewed as the lives lost skewing liberal.  
 

As to the economy vs lives, I feel like the initial shutdown was poorly handled, disastrously so. A unified response on mask orders, contract tracing, etc could likely have meant that many of the small businesses didn’t have to be shuttered.  Ignoring the fact that the stimulus payments were helping prop up the economy was also costly.  There’s more (like mobilizing production of PPE, sending quality masks to citizens, not fighting with the states re. supplies, etc), but I have neither the time or heart to really go into it.  

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15 minutes ago, skinny21 said:

Ignoring the fact that the stimulus payments were helping prop up the economy was also costly.

 

Yeah.  I mean, who would have known that when 70% of the economy is dependent on consumer spending, stimulus payments to individuals can be a crutch?  

 

46 minutes ago, Skintime said:

So telling people to not wear masks is doing all we could?

 

7 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

there was enough information out there to make an informed decision. People who chose not to wear one weren’t going to wear them anyway.

 

So, to summarize:  

 

"Our response was the best we could have possibly done."

"The entire Republican Party actively campaigned against trying to slow the disease.  (And is continuing to do so.)"

"Well, the people could have ignored them!"

Edited by Larry
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51 minutes ago, Skintime said:

So telling people to not wear masks is doing all we could?

 

Don't forget the brilliant strategies of 

 

1) Completely ignoring the full step by step playbook established just for this sort of situation (because Obama did it and thus it was bad)

2) Downplaying the virus intentionally so as not to spook the stock market when they knew perfectly well how dangerous it was

3) Not immediately working to develop a systematic and robust national contact tracing apparatus 

4) Not immediately working to develop a systematic and robust national testing apparatus

5) Shifting responsibility and blame to the states when the federal response was shown to be a complete joke (even though said states don't have nearly the budgets for that)

6) Claiming that the federal government stockpiles weren't there for the states to use (um, who exactly is going to use them then?)

7) Not pushing nationally for mask use and social distancing, and in fact publicly speaking out AGAINST them for short term political purposes

8 ) Pushing governors of states to reopen fast in contravention of CDC guidelines, once again for short term political purposes

 

That's just off the top of my head. Our national response was a joke and a farce. Because we don't have a POTUS. We have an incompetent reality TV star playing a POTUS, while simultaneously having all of the powers of the office.

 

12 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:


 

there was enough information out there to make an informed decision. People who chose not to wear one weren’t going to wear them anyway.

 

This is ludicrous. You're basically saying that the word of the President of the United States holds no sway, which is demonstrably nonsensical. 

 

Our POTUS was actively encouraging people to not wear masks and saying they weren't necessary. Do you really think that didn't have a huge effect?

 

If Trump had come out from the get-go and said "Please everyone wear a mask. It's a patriotic thing to do and it's good for the country", the "anti-masker" bull**** probably wouldn't even be a thing. And yeah, he eventually grudgingly sorta walked it backed. But by that time the damage was done by far. Like when he semi-walks back his refusal to condemn white supremacists. They heard him loud and clear and everything else after is ignored.

Edited by mistertim
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41 minutes ago, mistertim said:

 

 

 

 

This is ludicrous. You're basically saying that the word of the President of the United States holds no sway, which is demonstrably nonsensical. 

 


 

so, you were swayed to not wear a mask? People in his administration were telling people to wear them...

 

if you are going to allow the fact that turning it into politics stopped some people on the republican side from wearing masks, then you necessarily concede it encouraged some democrats to wear them. Net zero.

Edited by CousinsCowgirl84
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58 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

"Our response was the best we could have possibly done."

"The entire Republican Party actively campaigned against trying to slow the disease.  (And is continuing to do so.)"

"Well, the people could have ignored them!"


In a word yes. People who want to be stupid are gonna be stupid. The guy on tv telling them to be stupid is just an excuse. They were racist before Trump. They were assholes before Trump. He is a bullhorn not the voice.

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49 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:


 

so, you were swayed to not wear a mask? People in his administration were telling people to wear them...

 

if you are going to allow the fact that turning it into politics stopped some people on the republican side from wearing masks, then you necessarily concede it encouraged some democrats to wear them. Net zero.

LOL. The freaking PRESIDENT was telling people not to wear a mask and you don't think that had any influence? That is basically insane. No wonder trump appeals to you so much.

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