heartbreaking humanity...much needed in these days.

Really?

We just moved through Thanksgiving, which I understand for many of my friends living in the US was under lock-down. I heard on several occasions politicians stating, "let's hunker down through this holiday, so we can be together next year."

Statistically, more than 2.7 million people will die before the next Thanksgiving comes around. I wonder how many of those dead are now looking at their last Thanksgiving in the rear-view mirror.

I don't think the last chapter on the COVID saga will be written for years. But when it is, I have no doubts that people will be asking what in the actual ---- happened in 2020.

"People decided their rights to personal freedom meant more than acting responsibly to protect society."

"Acting responsibly?"

As of the end of May, 25% of the population had lost their jobs as a result of government-imposed restrictions. There were 100,000 businesses that had shuttered their doors by May of 2020. Experts predicted in May that more than one million very small businesses could fail by the end of the year.

And the effects are not uniform. For workers earning more than $100k per year, 60% of their work can be done from anywhere. About 10% of those making $40k per year are able to work from home.

But many larger companies have gone under as well. Aircraft are sitting mothballed in the desert. Cruise ships are being scrapped by the droves, more valuable as scrap than as luxury cruisers.

I doubt that we have any idea what the impacts resulting from personal isolation or mental health will be. It's probably something that will never be possible to quantify.

We can't say how the future will judge how the decision makers in the COVID. That will be for our children to determine. Maybe even their children. And maybe all of the collateral damage will be deemed worth whatever number of lives may have been saved.

"So what? You always tell us anyone without a job can just go live in the woods."

And living in the woods is an even easier way to avoid COVID.

So maybe the people who wanted employment and the employers should have been allowed to do their thing, and the people who wanted to avoid COVID could go live in the woods?

"This has got to be some of the most desperately stupid reasoning I've seen."

How so?

Do you think it's stupid to those old people who won't be spending time with their families this holiday season because they've been told not to? Because they've been told to hunker down until the 2021 Christmas season?

"Today might be the last time I ever drive a car. Might as well drive recklessly and without a seat belt, right?"

Not sure your age, but it's entirely likely you're at greater risk on your morning commute than you are from COVID.

"Maybe they should have run their businesses better so they could be more adaptable and able to take some economic woes into stride."

It's this sort of "---- em" attitude, which seems to be common in some circles, that will factor in to future judgement. I don't think you really mean that, BTW, I just don't think you find yourself in a somewhat indefensible position. Like telling people they aren't allowed to drive because there is a very slight possibility they may kill themselves or someone else.

"BTW there's no right to make a living."

You mean except at the pleasure of the government?

I'm not sure what you mean. Because of COVID?

It's like saying there's no right to vote.

"You're arguing one should ignore a known high current risk for an abstract, always present low risk."

Not really. But any COVID Task Force should have been staffed with a multi-disciplined team that included experts from numerous fields. So far it's been doctors. Their focus, maybe as directed, has been on figuring out how minimize the number of COVID deaths. The collateral damage from that policy has been left to play out unmitigated. I think that the last chapter written will bear this out, that the government should have found a way to minimize the overall damage to everyone, rather than limit the concern to those who tend to be vulnerable.

In other words, a whole of government approach, rather than just focusing on what the experts in communicable diseases were saying.

"But I suspect it's more because you have to cling to whatever argument you can, no matter how lame, to justify your immovable opinion on the matter."

The mortality rate drops with each passing day. If the CDC is correct and there are 6-24 unreported COVID cases for each that was reported, then the mortality rate would be even lower.

So what would be the metric you would be looking for as a trigger? Lower cases? lower deaths? Lower overall deaths?

Is it that keep the world in lock-down until the last COVID virion has been removed from the planet?

"What does, say, a meat processing plant expert have to do with the COVID-19 Task Force mission?"

Are you serious?

Some of the most notable outbreaks worldwide occurred in meat processing plants?

It's been suggested that this whole thing began with meat processing. That's where a lot of these things seem to have started.

"For the umpteenth time, there's more to it than death."

Yeah. Just like with cars. Death is a possibility, but injuries can range from something that you forget about in minutes to something that ruins your life. And you can take precautions yourself, but you'll never be able to stop someone from driving after drinking, or playing on their phone while driving. The only way you can maximize protection against injury in a car accident is to avoid being close to a road.

"Wait... are you saying the plants would have been shut down sooner, and the outbreaks lessened, if executives from Perdue and Tyson had a voice in the Task Force which shut them down?"

No, but they would have been able to inform any sort of task force in the event of a COVID breakout in a meat packing facility, particularly if it were going to result in recalls or the culling of animals.

Like I said, most lethal viruses have emerged as a result of human interaction with livestock.

"Yet you keep advising people to go live in the woods."

Not if you're scared of a tree you don't.

"Thanks to Trump and the Republican controlled Senate."

100%. They were in charge. They ------ it away.

I'm just curious what a president Clownshack would have done differently?

"Of course you approve. You're a fkkking rhetard."

Does anything I've posted make it sound like I approve?

That's kind of been the point of everything I've posted here.

"Throwing out more absurdities doesn't make your last statements less absurd."

It's not absurd.

If you were given absolutely authority, what would your objective be? Minimize COVID cases? Minimize hospitalizations? Minimize COVID deaths? Minimize economic impact? Minimize social impact?

When you focus your efforts on one aspect, you do so at the expense of the others. From my vantage point, the focus has been on minimizing COVID cases, which I think is the absolute worst are you could focus on. The vast majority of people who get COVID will cough it out and move on.

And if you're serious about controlling it writ large...China did that. You turn the operation over to the military, set up camps, and shut down the country.

If your intent is to control the virus, China might be the world's one success story. They appear to be doing it.

"I wouldn't have defunded the CDC. Would have listen to intelligence reports, scientists, WHO. Wouldn't have downplayed the seriousness of the virus to the public. Wouldn't have given away our PPE. Would have used the power of the federal government to increase production of PPE. Wouldn't have put Kushner or Pence in charge of the Covid task force. Etc etc etc..."

You would have "listened?"

And then what?

I'm sorry. I feel like I asked you a question you're not cognitively capable of actually answering.

That was rude of me.

"All of the above, dummy."

Admirable.

You would have been the only person on the planet to have done so.

"Everything else falls into place if you succeed in limiting cases."

Let's pull this thread.

The best way to minimize COVID cases that we've seen is the Chinese model. And really, they could have done a better job. The North Koreans also appear to have been successful in containing the virus.

But we're back to where we started. A model where any and all collateral damage is acceptable, provided you get as close to zero new cases as possible. Over an infinite timeline, the collateral damage becomes immeasurable. It may already be. It would be impossible to quantify how many lives you could save with a lock-down. It would also be somewhat difficult to quantify how many of those who "died" of COVID would have been shortly dead of a co-morbidity even if the virus hadn't emerged.

"Why did you choose those? Why not New Zealand, South Korea or Taiwan?"

New Zealand and Taiwan have no borders. They're protected by Ocean. They're naturally isolated. In general, islands have had it pretty easy. South Korea did better initially, but they've recently seen significant upticks in the number of new cases. Probably for the same reason as much of Europe.

"And BTW if you have to sink so low as to ask "how many would have died anyway?" in order to float your opinions...well...you need to really think long and hard about your attitude towards other people."

This is why you'd need multiple views in any sort of effective COVID task force. Your position would that any amount of economic destruction, any amount of despair or trauma, even loss of life, would be justified if it meant preventing one more COVID death.

"Why is that?"

Australia. Another island that has effectively tackled the COVID challenge.

"How many deaths should we subtract from 9/11, since a percentage of those who died had co-morbidities?"

If those Co-morbidities contributed to an airplane flying into the side of a building, then by all means, remove them as a casualty of 9/11.

"Yeah, and we all know that in this disconnected world where islands can only be reached by boats this is a legit point... *eye roll*"

Eye roll?

Really?

When you can explicitly control all entry points, you can explicitly control who enters and what they do once they are there.

"When you're done throwing straw can we have a real discussion?"

Do we need to? I feel like you provided your position in #56.

What we can do is discuss what happens next:

"Governors To Decide On Who Gets Vaccine First"

"We don't control our ports of entry?"

Yes, but I don't know if there has been any attempt to manage entry into the US or conduct COVID testing on new arrivals. Especially at the Federal level, where the US is more like the EU than it is like Taiwan.

"He could have, but he didn't. And here we are."

Could he have?

I don't know the answer. Do the states determine the public health entry requirements, or does that happen at the Federal level. And if it did happen at one level, could it be overturned at another?

The other thing about the US is the sheer size and population. In that way it more like China, and would have likely required not only locking down national borders, but state borders as well. I don't know if that's something that even be done constitutionally.