michelangelosmonkey

I appreciate you being there at the epicenter...and we all pray for you Caulfied. I've been to China many times and I'm familiar with the totalitarian state. I'm sure they have Hubei completely locked down. But there are 65 cities in China with more than a million people. Hundreds of thousands left Wuhan on crowded planes, buses and trains to every region of China. There are 13 cities in China with more people than NYC and NYC has 25,000 dead. Something is missing.

Most Asian airports that I have gone to have always had those heat sensing stations and a lot of the populations already wearing masks. You could say we should have started this after Swine flu when Obama was president but that might seem political. Anyway I think this is an incredible lesson for us to learn for the future and I think for the remnants of us alive once this thing is gone we will rise up and rebuild a new greater nation.

What are you smoking? I have NEVER said this wasn't a big deal. This is a very big deal. Viruses are bad. I didn't CALCULATE the numbers for ten million. How about a million? It's about 100,000 in the US. They have 4 times the population, are a month ahead of us on the curve and have a population with damaged lungs. I don't believe their numbers but I'm pretty sure if the real number was half a million some dissident would have sent that information.

But half a million people left Wuhan province the weeks before the shut down. The epicenter of this and they spread to every region of the country...every city and village in China. If you do any modeling of a super infectious virus with moderate death rates China should be swimming in corpses.

January 24h we didn't know anything. The Chinese had just gone to the extraordinary measure of quarantining 40 million people and Trump was being supportive and at the same time drafting a plan a few days later to restrict travel from China.

Because I was trying to show the hypocrisy of your position? Of COURSE it's not Pelosi or Cuomo's fault. It's a new virus, it was early day's and humans try to make the most of sketchy information and balance hundreds of interests. No one knew until everyone knew.

OK that's all sounds reasonable but how...how do you have flight or airports that aren't cesspools for diseases? How do you enforce quarantine? How do you deal with damnable Americans that say "no one's going to tell ME what to do". And are we certain that this is the right path? How much economic destruction can we tolerate? And what happens after we have a 12 month shut down and some idiot comes from China with it and infects five people? We are right back here and the country falls off a cliff.

But see that's the problem with something unknown. You make firm conclusions about what would have happened and what's going to happen and we just don't know. I still can't figure out why there aren't ten million dead in China if all you say is true.

I really think it is fascinating what has happened in China. I mean there should be ten million dead there, right? Everyone has damaged lungs from the smog, everyone smokes, backwards medical care compared to US, massively crowded cities. Sure they shut down Wuhan...after a MONTH...and after letting hundreds of thousands travel all over China for the New Years...to every village...to every big city. They aren't telling us something or there is something unique about the virus. There is a missing bit of evidence. How can India have only a couple of thousand deaths? Its really weird.

I get so twisted in the arguments. He was an asshole for not doing anything about the spread of the virus from Italy and he is an asshole for doing something to stop the spread of the virus from Italy. And you are really positioning yourself as arguing in a non-partisan way?

You honestly can't believe the numbers from China??? Still India, Indonesia, Pakistan? Something weird about this virus. Oh thats right...they don't have Trump as president intentionally killing us.

And three days later he shut down travel from Europe. You pull little quotes out of the 10 million words the president has spoken in the last four months and twist them into a narrative that makes him look like he wasn't doing anything. The total deaths on February 26th from Corona virus in the US were zero. ZERO!!! Should we have shut the country down then? Hello all Americans...I know no one has this and no one has died from this and the cure will cost trillions of dollars but we are going to shut this place down February 26th. Honestly its stupid hindsight argument.

I was JOKING to my class. But yes...the president should have done something...like declare it a public health crisis and put in travel restrictions from China a few days later...which is what he did in spite the criticisms of racism that he received (and both Pelosi and Cuomo encouraging their citizens to go to Chinese New Year celebrations over the warning of the Federal government. But...you know...all Trumps fault. What would have you done?

It was completely ridiculous of me to try to come to DNC headquarters and try to argue that the virus is a virus and people are going to die almost no matter what we did and that non-stop blaming of the president is boring. But you win.

Sorry...yes I was thinking of 1918...100 million people and 675,000 dead, 1957: 172 million people 116,000 dead, 1968 200 million people 100,000 dead. Today 330 million 85,000 dead. So balancing for today's population 1918: 2.2 million 1957: 222,000 1968: 165,000 Today: 85,000 And just for fun, bubonic plague Italy 14th Century: 200,000,000 How do you figure it is 6 times more deadly or 3? Not semantics...math. Either way its a deadly virus. Viruses can be bad. China's actions were those of a totalitarian state that was purposely hiding things. I've looked at the time lines we took and the deaths and trying to be fair minded thinking how do you decide where the prudent decision is. I think the president took, and was deeply criticized for, some big decisions. He missed on some too. If you want to live in your tent and blame all unknown on him...whatever.

Do you know how big organizations work? There is $3 billion funding within the CDC specifically for preparing "Protecting Americans from Infectious Diseases at Home & Abroad". I'm sure within that $3 billion they had a special pandemic preparation team that was set up during the Swine flu epidemic and has just lingered around. When they reallocated resources within that budget that doesn't mean they fired all those people and burned all the plans...it just means they didn't meet every Tuesday for three hours. * In late February there were 68 cases in the US. Would you have closed down the country at that point? Was it unreasonable to tell people to be calm at that point? * I'm not sure what you mean by peddling snake oil sales..hydrochloroquine in conjunction with zinc and asythromyacine still could be useful...but your omniscience seems to know a cheap, readily available solution is not even worth looking at. * Back in February the demand was to ramp up production of ventilators and he did that but now that's not the narrative because it doesn't fit into your idea. Shift the goal posts. * Really? President Trump today announces Illinois won't be getting masks because NYC needs them more...Illinois residents respond...well we're cool with that. * He got crap because he wasn't going to force the states to close...so he said he was going to and then he got crap for that. In a time when no president has ever done anything like this. But sure...you're criticism is fair and balanced. * The CDC is a hammer and they see every problem as a nail. They have one goal and that is to make every citizen 100% safe from every disease. I have friends that started businesses in the last year that are just wiped out because of the shut down...lost everything...to protect the old and inform (90% of the deaths are people that are over 65 and/or have comorbidity). We cannot afford to shut down forever even if the CDC wants to...want to see their funding levels when we have no federal taxes? So yes, as I have said, the president made mistakes, as would President Obama or Lincoln or Jefferson. It's hard dealing with the unknown and it aggravating to have the peanut gallery shouting insults at every misstep. Can't wait for President Biden to save the world.

Oh the president is incredibly arrogant and smug. I just don't want to play the way the president plays.

I told my students January 27th..."well that's it, the end of the world has arrived...don't worry about your homework now". I mean really, when China closed down all traffic in and out of a region covering 40 million people because a few thousand had a new flu? There was something terrible that we didn't know about. That they knowingly allowed hundreds of thousands to leave the area the days before the shut down and travel all over the world was negligently launching the missile? Everything that happened after that was just waiting. I was right but not proud of it (and thankfully this thing is not as deadly as initially thought).

You know "I am right and you are wrong, I'm gonna sing the 'I was right song'" is not really an argument. It is arrogant smugness. But still have a nice day.

And you realize that's how politics work...you ask for a 10% raise, I offer a 10% cut and we settle somewhere in the middle. In the end the president signs every budget and it becomes his budget. To not only not give him credit for his budget when it doesn't suit your argument but to say he was forced to swallow the bitter pill of increase CDC spending just seems silly. And even if there was a little cut...$2.5 billion of the total CDC budget is specifically for the preparation of the country for Pandemics...and that has been the amount for a decade...so how did that $25 billion in government spending pay off when the monster was out of the cage/

A few days??? They announced to the WHO on December 31st about it. On January 6th a doctor and 13 nurses working on patients came down with it. On January 20th HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of residents of Wuhan left the city for the new years festive and traveled all over the world...including one of their favorite overseas destinations...Italy. Then January 23rd they closed up Wuhan. And you say we dithered about people coming in from Italy in February? Come on Balta that is just partisan hate...and yes hindsight. On February 18th there were THREE cases in Italy. By the end of February there were only 1,000 cases in a country of 60 million people. But a week and a half later we shut down travel from Europe. That is lightening speed. Please tell me the day that you, with perfect hindsight, shuts down Europe. Because its nonsense.

Fired the pandemic team is such a lazy argument. CDC funding in the last year under Obama was $7 billion...it was higher in every year of the Trump presidency. I showed the timeline...I'm not sure a reasonable president would have acted much differently. But yeah partisanship!! Go your team!

Sure I'm happy to go with a narrative of "The CDC REALLY botched this". The smartest scientists and it's their sole job to protect us from this sort of thing and they completely let us down. That is way more interesting a narrative that the president did nothing and that's why we are where we are. I'm also happy with a discussion about the virus and why the Chinese lied and lied and lied (and continue to lie today) and that led to tens of thousands of Americans dead. Interesting. The cure that biotech company in California said they found...interesting. The possibly early introduction into the US...maybe as early as mid-December in California...interesting. But comment after comment after comment slamming the president is lazy and boring.

If your argument is...President Trump is an asshole. I'm fine with supporting that. Go start a discussion page with that as a title and let free the vitriol. But the rest is utter nonsense. China announced the Virus on December 31st...and by the 3rd of January we were offering experts to Wuhan to help combat it. By January 6th the CDC issued a travel advisory against going to Wuhan. By the 11th they issued a level 1 health advisory against going to Wuhan. By the 20th the NIH began working on a vaccine. Also on the 20th the FIRST American came down with it...an American that had come from Wuhan. The administration declared the Corona virus a national health emergency on January 31st...and started travel restrictions...at that point there were SIX cases in the US. I guess it was when we hit the 7th case that we should have shut down the country??? Study what is happen...the virus is very interesting...but please leave the idiotic hindsight someplace else.

Of course the president made missteps. I guess on a sports talk site where "I can't believe he threw the curve ball with runners on second and third and a pitch to waste" is de rigueur. I also think when the loudest and most energetic voices that come here are Democrats, non-stop criticism about the president crowds out other voices. Still this section was supposed to be about the virus and as I said...it started off interesting but the streams of hurled accusations followed by "I can't believe HE made this political" is "not compelling". As for the government scaling things up...again perfect hindsight. The government should have just taken the government factories and started producing testing immediately. In fact it's amazing that we didn't have an enormous stock pile of tests for this never-before-seen virus in government warehouses someplace. And imagine our incompetence that 60 days after this never-before-seen virus started invading our country that we were not 100% prepared. If you start with the end point..."The President is an idiot" then you fill in the evidence to make it work and throw out evidence that doesn't fit the narrative and then shout it from the rooftops and have it echoed by people that think exactly as you do it may seem as if you have the truth. It just doesn't seem convincing to me. I think the president is an egomaniac and I hate his NYC aggressive style...it offends my Midwest sensibilities. I thought President Obama was one of the most decent men to ever be president...but to say he would have done better is farcical. President Trump is not trying to kill off his voters. He and his advisors are trying to make heroes of themselves...which is exactly what I want my leader to do in a crisis.