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by disgruntledphd2 419 days ago
> Many people disagree with the Covid response.

I think that's fair, Covid was completely insane. Personally the part of the US response I disliked the most was the closing of schools. Like, in Ireland the pubs were closed for basically 2 years, but we kept the schools open for most of it, which I think was the right call. Difficult situation though, and the vaccine mandates were crazy (particularly given how ineffective they were in preventing transmission).

> Many people look at the Bidens’ relationship with Ukraine and wonder whether the war could have been avoided,

I really don't see that. Like, Russia basically invaded as soon as (like that week) Nordstream 2 was finished (which unlike Nordstream 1 didn't pass through Ukraine). I think it's arguable that the US didn't need to be as involved (although if they hadn't been, then the EU-US break would have happened much, much sooner).

> which could have been spent here,

Like, for the avoidance of doubt, sending old weapons to Ukraine doesn't actually cost the US as much as they claimed. Ye'd have had to decommission them anyway. (This is a surprisingly large pattern in US aid to other countries).

> A big part of the problem is that many are only to see the other side’s corruption

Yeah, that's fair.

1 comments

> the vaccine mandates were crazy (particularly given how ineffective they were in preventing transmission)

The data are known to show that the primary effect was in reducing the risk of hospitalization, severe disease, and mortality. Why, then should the lack of effect on transmission be the end-point that determines the appropriateness of mass immunization?

Because ordering people to take medical treatment is a big deal. If it reduces the hospitalisation rate then it's rational to take for oneself, but requiring it for a bunch of things was overkill.

And I say this as someone who thinks Biden was a pretty good President.