Masks give you a significant portion of the benefit of quarantining, with virtually none of the economic cost. And yet we have protests happening against wearing masks all across the south. That's the hill people have (literally) decided to die on.
The media and many others decided it was more important to focus on the fact that the president is choosing not to wear a mask rather than on the health benefits of wearing a mask.
It was a stupid thing to do on both sides, but now it's political and there's no going back.
>And also realise that what you're saying is that you advocate for a modeled 2 million deaths.
So far as I know, there's no evidence that now that quarantine is over the same number of people aren't going to get it anyways and the deaths will be equal.
Quarantine should have been managed at the federal level. Instead we have seen 50 states each acting like their own country despite their codependence with, a paralyzed, executive and legislative branches. Had the us acted in January this would have blown over with few deaths. These lost lives now should weigh on the minds of our elected officials who resisted quarantine, who used this crisis for personal gain, who diminished the severity, etc.
Quarantine may be over in some places but strong restrictions are still exist in many. Which is more evidence for why pandemic response should have a top down coordination team.
Deaths may equal out to worst case predictions, in which case all of America failed.
it's not "get it anyways", they're going to get it because the quarantine is over.
Early lifting of the lockdown combined with things like people unwilling to wear masks and social distance themselves is going to render the benefits of the lockdown useless. America wasted the quarantine. The last few months have been rendered meaningless. That's not the case in other first world countries.
Damaging the economy to the tune of 2 trillion in bailouts, the cost of the war in Iraq, just to have the exact same number of deaths delayed by 4 months is inexcusable.
And you should be ashamed of your self-righteous and dishonest argument style.
The delay in deaths is due to the impotent response by many elected leaders, and the propaganda they've used to support their asinine decisions.
The cost is due to officials using a crisis to benefit themselves. Only people should be bailed out. Let the free market take care of companies that have leveraged themselves off the cliff.
Except it's not the same number of deaths? And as another poster noted, immunity might be shortly conferred. In which case when will we learn that managing this virus is a good idea? The third wave? Fourth? Maybe the fifth? And it's ironic that you chastise the poster for his self-righteous argumentative style when your post history indicates you seem to do the same.
No doubt they do. But my insurance company also doesn’t want _everyone_ to die. That’d be bad for business. As would hundreds of thousands or millions of claims due to COVID. Look at all the insurance companies that are waiving costs for testing. It’s cheaper for them to eat that cost and help slow the spread via more accessible testing than to deal with the work of millions of hospitalization claims and of course paying out for even a fraction of those.
It sounds so noble to say this. Unfortunately there is also a time to pay that 2 trillion dollars. And then what if you find out you just don’t have it?
Why do you struggle with staying home so much? What exactly are you missing? You can socialise at home, and maintain distance easily. You can still do outdoor activities. It's basically concerts, sporting events, restaurants and bars? Are these really that important to you? Americans live on average in the largest homes in the world, so there should be no real problem with this.
These things are NOT the entire economy, and large parts of the economy will continue with people avoiding these types of enviornments.
Quarantine has always been a precautionary measure, applied to both sick and healthy people. The point is that you don't know who falls into which category.
The origin of the word is quarantena, Venetian for "40 days", the period of time a ship suspected of carrying disease had to wait outside the harbor.
No. Quarantine is where you restrict the movement of people who may be carriers for infectious diseases. Because spreading infectious diseases makes healthy people sick. You do realize that healthy people can get sick..right? Like...you know that some people who are sick were healthy prior to that? You realize that closing a door to a room doesn’t make the room disappear..right?
> Quarantine is where you restrict the movement of people who may be carriers for infectious diseases.
Except they didn't really restrict those kinds of people completely, right? All those exceptions to the rules of people who didn't have to quarantine, irregardless of whether they may be a carrier.
In a way, I can sympathize with this viewpoint. However, (and this may very well not apply to you) what shocks me is how often it comes packaged with a resistance to wearing masks, washing hands, social distancing or otherwise doing anything to acknowledge the dangerous situation that we're all now living in. It seems like we should be able to get a lot more mileage out of those simple behaviors that stop short of a full lockdown.
This viewpoint is rather funny, because it looks like soon countries will start barring US travelers due to our own reckless abandon.
Do you take into consideration how our reaction to the disease might affect us on a more global scale? Because I wonder if people who had the same thought about banning all travel to/from China will have the same consistent viewpoint when it becomes banning all travelers from the US.
Suppose that we quarantine people for longer while a vaccine is found, and suppose this vaccine is fairly effective. Presently there are 120,000 deaths. Who knows what this number will rise to. This number is already with some quarantine measurements in place.
If a vaccine is not found, you're bound to have a catastrophe on your hands. So let's hope that one is found so that we can resume things in some "normal" way again.
Whether or not you quarantined, the economy would collapse because you would have a massive death toll and paranoia throughout the country. People would stop going out, they would stop spending money and they would hunker down regardless. Economic turmoil is a positive feedback loop. The coronavirus or the quarantine are just the triggers for it to begin. This cannot be overstated.
At least with a vaccine, you can get out of this by the skin of your teeth and reduce the over all deaths. So no, I don't think that quarantining to save lives is the "cure is worse than the disease" scenario. The economy would have collapsed regardless.
> Whether or not you quarantined, the economy would collapse because you would have a massive death toll and paranoia throughout the country.
Citation needed. Plenty of economies have dealt with mass death and gotten along fine. This particular threat is also largely centered on the elderly who are, in coldly economic viewpoints, drains on the economy rather than contributors.
I don't particularly think the quarantine was a mistake, but you have to acknowledge that it is a gamble. Betting policy on a miracle vaccine is a bad idea. They might not work, or they might be short lived. Turning the economy on and off with lifted and then reinstated lockdowns is a bad idea.
> Betting policy on a miracle vaccine is a bad idea.
There are several promising vaccines that are already fairly far along in development. One of them (the Sinovac vaccine candidate) is going into Phase III trials as we speak.
Throwing away hundreds of thousands of lives when a vaccine might be available within months is just a terribly cold-hearted thing to do. Add to that the fact that many countries have now suppressed the epidemic and have partially reopened, and the US response to the pandemic makes even less sense.
According to that article, those vaccines are on track for next year, which I believe is a year too late.
>> Whether or not you quarantined, the economy would collapse because you would have a massive death toll and paranoia throughout the country.
Lol, what? 1/3rd of the covid deaths have been nursing-home patients. Covid basically doubles your odds of dying in a given year. So it'd be like 2 years worth of people died in 1 year (and importantly, mostly retired people), so no, not a societal collapse.