It didn't have to be this way. The USA has been one of the worst-hit countries:
Much of the responsibility for this butcher's bill lands on TFG and his fellow-travelers in the Toxic Freedom and Liberty Caucus. TFG, instead of leading, used the pandemic as yet another tool to divide the country. TFG and his sycophants sought to turn mitigation measures into part of their batshit-crazed culture war.
The basic mitigation measures, wearing masks, washing hands and social distancing, were too much for them. Somehow, wearing a mask to prevent the spread of the virus became equated with tyranny for the followers of TFG.
Nowhere near as many people should have died from this. And if TFG hadn't turned the pandemic into a political warfare tool, if he had chosen to have the scientists and epidemiologists run point, if he hadn't pushed quackery and attacked everyone who disagreed with him and, if above all, he had shown just even a smidgen of human decency, he'd likely still be president.
When you use "TFG", should I read it as "The Former Guy" or "That Fucking Guy"? Both work.
ReplyDeleteBoth work, but I’m thinking “former”.
ReplyDeleteNorth Dakota just banned masks ...
ReplyDeleteI can think of all kinds of G's that'd fit in there, starting with an old Yiddish curse equating someone's value to somewhere between that of pigs, goats and cattle; pigs of course the low end of the scale. Gone works, but as long as it continues to pretend ...
Yes, it.
" if he had chosen to have the scientists and epidemiologists run point"
ReplyDeleteThese would be the same folks who originally thought that non contact thermometers would be sufficient at airport to detect people with the virus....the same folks whose early predictions were for 4.2 million by July 2020, who told us that "Masks don't work"....who told us that staying home for two weeks would be sufficient, etc?
Or were there other "experts" that you were thinking about?
How many of those 500K died "with" covid vs "from" covid?
The real muber of deaths from covid is more like less than half that.
But don't let facts get in the way of your hatred.
North Dakota banned mask mandates.
ReplyDeleteThat's strange, wasn't B the moron who claimed that Covid is no worse than the seasonal flu? Now he's BSing that only a quarter million died from Covid, but I'm pretty sure hundreds of thousands of people don't die from the flu...
ReplyDeleteHere's the only graph you really need: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Normally, deaths go up and down, with a peak in January. The pattern goes back years and years. Morons like B are too stupid to accept that something different happened this past year.
Apparently, the concept that, with a virus that was unknown to science 16 months ago, that everything has to be learned on the fly and that recommendations are going to change as more is learned is just too difficult a concept for a lot of people to grasp.
ReplyDeleteB, where did you study Bacteriology and Virology? From the University of PulledOutMy Ass?
ReplyDeleteNot to get too far off-topic, but the place to start, double-aught, is put an end to these ridiculous north-south, east-west divisions of states that serve only to pad minority rule with a disproportionate number of senate and congressional representations. End the north-south, east-west divisions of the Carolinas, the Dakotas and Virginia. Make one Carolina the size of Georgia, with two senators and congressional apportionment just like the rest of us; Dakotas one state the size of Minnesota, with two senators and congressional apportionment just like the rest of us; Virginias one state the size of Pennsyltucky, with two senators and congressional apportionment just like the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteThe system was rigged to benefit the slave states ... still is. It needs to end.
If you don't like it ... leave
So basic virology is something we "have to learn on the fly"? Seriously?
ReplyDeleteBasic epidemiology models are also something we have to "learn on the fly"?
And why, if these were "experts" did all their advice change so often?
You still haven't addressed their failures.
B, those are nice strawmen you’ve built there. And you have yet to acknowledge your error in comparing it to a flu virus, as you’ve done in the past here.
ReplyDeleteI only hope you get the vaccine and don’t have to learn about COVID-19 thru the lens of experience.
I will when you start realizing you've been fed a bunch of lies, and you follow the reccomendations of folks who apprently don't know any more that we do.
ReplyDeleteIf we tested for Flu like we have tested for COvid, you'd have similar numbers. IF we didn't blame nearly all deaths on Covid, you'd see similare numbers.....
Oddly, since COvid, there are few people that die of things like flu, like heart attacks, like cancer, etc. Look up the numbers yourself (you porobably won't, cause you want to believe what you are told....) the rates of deat from nearly all other cause have dropped dramatically....THe number of people that die per capita from all causes has not greatly changed from 2018 through the altest data you can find. If Covid (and Covid alone) has killed 500K, why ahd the overall (from all causes) death rate not climbed?
You refer to lies, and you presume a level of scientific literacy that your language belies.
ReplyDeleteI love how the Trump supporters are not just stupid, they're *blind.* Anyone with a brain can see that the chart of deaths is different for the past year, but the morons are incapable of accepting facts that contradict their BS. Somehow those 3 spikes in deaths have nothing to do with Covid...
ReplyDeleteThe fact is, B, that Trump fought the scientists all the way--not because the science was iffy, but because it affected his ratings.
ReplyDeleteAs for some of the early medical reports, they were early. Were we misled about masks not helping? Probably, but the general public was already hoarding a very limited supply of masks so much that medical workers couldn't get them. And since the official stance from the Federal government was that this wasn't all that serious, and we don't need to ramp up production, we weren't going to be getting more soon.
We can go back and forth about the numbers, but they are much, much higher than they would be if DJT hadn't treated Covid is a personal affront to turn into political hay. He should have easily won a second term; his COVID response was the key to his loss.
That's exactly right: in spite of all of his other fuckups had he handled his-flu, the trump-flu, with even a modicum of competency he would have easily been re"elected".
ReplyDeleteHe let in the door, gave it time to spread: the trump-flu.
Ten Bears- not sure what you mean with the state rearrangements, but do remember why West Virginia was formed.
ReplyDelete