EPTCoronavirus and You - Page 239
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Any and all updates regarding the COVID-19 will need a source provided. Please do your part in helping us to keep this thread maintainable and under control. It is YOUR responsibility to fully read through the sources that you link, and you MUST provide a brief summary explaining what the source is about. Do not expect other people to do the work for you. Conspiracy theories and fear mongering will absolutely not be tolerated in this thread. Expect harsh mod actions if you try to incite fear needlessly. This is not a politics thread! You are allowed to post information regarding politics if it's related to the coronavirus, but do NOT discuss politics in here. Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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StalkerTL
212 Posts
It’s a uniquely American problem because no other country, except maybe Brazil, had the largest cable news network and leader constantly shift the goal posts because they refused to admit they were wrong about their initial assessment of coronavirus. Most Western countries got the initial assessment of coronavirus wrong but most, like the UK, seemed to turn the boat around when it the writing was on the wall. You can not seperate politics from this because this country has turned a health crisis into a purely political problem. Instead we’re still not doing enough as a collective population and had Florida, Texas, Arizona, who had already seen New York’s failure to handle the initial first wave outbreak in the US, make similar mistakes until ICU places were at dangerous risk of being overrun. The problem is that you cannot truly salvage the economy without suppressing coronavirus enough that the public isn’t at serious risk of mass infection. The hospitality industry is toast until the virus is gone, you can’t do anything about this mass change to our lives and economies. They have to adjust to the times, hibernate with government assistance until a solution is found, or die. We’re trying to put the cart in front of the horse. Yes the numbers in the US are theoretically trending downwards but they’re still appalling compared to everywhere else that isn’t either full of informal practices (South Africa, Brazil, India) or hopelessly corrupt and suffering with leadership problems (Russia, Brazil). None of these numbers are “good” or even “positive”, it shouldn’t even be a problem for the strongest and wealthiest country in the world. It’s a purely leadership problem end of story. If Trump wanted to lead, he could have had the CDC lead the charge under the claim that he isn’t a qualified professional (which is what most competent leaders who are dealing with small numbers of coronavirus cases did). Instead he (and Kushner if the reports and both Republican and Democratic governors are to be trusted) tried to extort specific states, spent half the time taking pot shots at political opponents and his own CDC and talking about how hot weather was going to kill the virus or he had some miracle drug that would save all of us overnight. If he had punted leadership to the CDC, Fox News would have stepped in line and repeated the CDC’s suggestions verbatim instead of repeating Trump’s own suggestions verbatim. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
The biggest question right now is the extent to which states that have seen a major first wave can fight the possibility of a second wave. The NYT had an article on it already linked in the thread. The mathematical models for herd immunity may overshoot an effective recovered-person-wall. I don't think the "coronavirus suppression or bust" crew is the last story on economic recovery. It certainly ignores the states that never shut down, and puts aside states that suffered huge waves and recovered. The worst demographics for getting and spreading it likely were included in the first wave, after all. | ||
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mahrgell
Germany3943 Posts
On August 20 2020 09:01 Danglars wrote: I haven't seen evidence or articles showing that the German chancellor is restricted from applying things like mask mandates, school and business closures, health orders, and the like (I should include, chancellor with the support of the bundestag). Also, I never saw a German making the pitch that some rebellious or libertarian state can resist such orders if given, and decide unilaterally to adopt Sweden's example for their state. As with other German laws, I also saw EU supremacy in the past, as citizens protected by German laws were defeated in appeal to European Court of Justice. I don't want to get too far afield on this, but no Acrofales, I've seen nothing close to American-style restrictions on federal acts in Germany or elsewhere. Okay, so you have no clue about German politics, but just claim BS. In short: No, Merkel and the Bundestag don't have those powers, the German Covid response was state-based. But while there have been individual ego trips occasionally, still the prime ministers of the states sat together every Wednesday with Merkel and in the end usually agreed on a common course with only slight deviations for single states because political responsibility is a thing here. Also the media and the public had a rather clear expectation on what to come from this (a strong answer to Corona, including lockdowns), and punished those deviating PMs hard, so this kept everyone in line. That's the advantage of not making it a political blame game where you take the opposite stance of the other party just for the sake of it. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18291 Posts
On August 20 2020 09:01 Danglars wrote: I haven't seen evidence or articles showing that the German chancellor is restricted from applying things like mask mandates, school and business closures, health orders, and the like (I should include, chancellor with the support of the bundestag). Also, I never saw a German making the pitch that some rebellious or libertarian state can resist such orders if given, and decide unilaterally to adopt Sweden's example for their state. As with other German laws, I also saw EU supremacy in the past, as citizens protected by German laws were defeated in appeal to European Court of Justice. I don't want to get too far afield on this, but no Acrofales, I've seen nothing close to American-style restrictions on federal acts in Germany or elsewhere. Here is an English language article drawing comparisons: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/europe/merkel-trump-germany-federalism-analysis-intl/index.html Or you could just look at the Wikipedia page for the German government system, instead of declaring that because you didn't know how German politics worked, it must just work the way you imagine it to. As to your second point; there are no libertarian states in Germany... if your point is that Germany is more functional because their politicians at all levels are more functional, then that is another discussion. Your initial point was that the US' COVID response was necessarily disjointed and bad, because the federal government has no power, not that States rebelled against a coherent response and went rogue because their governor is a lunatic. There was no coherent response to rebel against, and the problem we were discussing is the first one. America is not unique in being a federal state, and it is not necessary for the COVID response to be hamstrung by this political system. | ||
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ecityworkshalad
United States1 Post
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26793 Posts
On August 20 2020 16:02 Acrofales wrote: Here is an English language article drawing comparisons: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/europe/merkel-trump-germany-federalism-analysis-intl/index.html Or you could just look at the Wikipedia page for the German government system, instead of declaring that because you didn't know how German politics worked, it must just work the way you imagine it to. As to your second point; there are no libertarian states in Germany... if your point is that Germany is more functional because their politicians at all levels are more functional, then that is another discussion. Your initial point was that the US' COVID response was necessarily disjointed and bad, because the federal government has no power, not that States rebelled against a coherent response and went rogue because their governor is a lunatic. There was no coherent response to rebel against, and the problem we were discussing is the first one. America is not unique in being a federal state, and it is not necessary for the COVID response to be hamstrung by this political system. Merkel’s response and the German response in general, pretty good man. Can’t recall quite how early it was but she gave a public address in both comprehensible but specific language about virus infection rates, what r rates meant and exponential growth and all that stuff. Going off my memory here but I think she said stuff like despite her scientific background, this wasn’t her area of expertise either and the necessity of working closely with epidemiologists and the like and in coordinating efforts between expertise, policy making and the general public. Hadn’t even realised she had a background as a research scientist before her political career. Just a public address but it is rather illustrative of approach too. Very, very much the antithesis of the stuff we saw elsewhere. Leadership, actual leadership in such a scenario very much is facilitating the creation and enacting of a coherent plan borne of expertise. Even if we do roll with the idea that a certain polity is too dysfunctional for a coordinated response from the federal level down to the state and local level to be possible, in isolation what can we say about what was done in the States? I’m not sure how it was done outside of my native land but the US stimulus was pretty damn miserly compared to what was being done here, 80% of wages covered for a period of a few months if your job couldn’t be done from home and your place of work had to close, that kind of thing. Unsure of the specifics as I had to work anyway, Sure, not living the high life by any means but it’s a safety buffer sufficient to lock down and buy time. In the US the stimulus was nowhere near sufficient for many people and the political pressure to reopen ramps up very quickly, or people will do things like come to work with symptoms because they economically can’t afford to report them. | ||
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Broetchenholer
Germany1961 Posts
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Harris1st
Germany7202 Posts
On August 20 2020 22:29 Broetchenholer wrote: I don't think germanies response deserves too much credt, it's just an example to show that federalism is not a hinderence for sane policy in itself. Having governors that don't care because their dear leader tells them to not care or because they them selves can't be bothered to do the right thing is. The blame is on them, not on Donald Trump. He certainly did not help, but the governors had to decide their policy on their own, nobody had the power to force them. I think in both cases you can also see what "leading by example" means, which changes the way the population perceives the situation quite a lot. With Germany and the US you have a pretty decent leading example and a absolutely horrendous leading example. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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zatic
Zurich15365 Posts
On August 20 2020 09:01 Danglars wrote: I haven't seen evidence or articles showing that the German chancellor is restricted from applying things like mask mandates, school and business closures, health orders, and the like (I should include, chancellor with the support of the bundestag). Also, I never saw a German making the pitch that some rebellious or libertarian state can resist such orders if given, and decide unilaterally to adopt Sweden's example for their state. As with other German laws, I also saw EU supremacy in the past, as citizens protected by German laws were defeated in appeal to European Court of Justice. I don't want to get too far afield on this, but no Acrofales, I've seen nothing close to American-style restrictions on federal acts in Germany or elsewhere. How about you read responses to your posts in this thread instead of repeating your ignorance? https://tl.net/forum/general/556693-coronavirus-and-you?page=224#4466 As others have pointed out, and my linked post did too, neither the chancellor nor the Bundestag (??? The Bundestag has no executive power at all) have these powers. A state absolutely could diverge from the line and adopt their own regulation. In fact, this happened and is still happening, if on minor issues. While the states agree among themselves - again, without federal policy - about the broad strokes, states have implemented individual measures in the details. Nor has this process been easy. As I wrote in the referenced post, there have been conflicts about policy between the more and the less impacted states. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On August 21 2020 00:29 zatic wrote: How about you read responses to your posts in this thread instead of repeating your ignorance? https://tl.net/forum/general/556693-coronavirus-and-you?page=224#4466 As others have pointed out, and my linked post did too, neither the chancellor nor the Bundestag (??? The Bundestag has no executive power at all) have these powers. A state absolutely could diverge from the line and adopt their own regulation. In fact, this happened and is still happening, if on minor issues. While the states agree among themselves - again, without federal policy - about the broad strokes, states have implemented individual measures in the details. Nor has this process been easy. As I wrote in the referenced post, there have been conflicts about policy between the more and the less impacted states. I am glad that the independence is proven with minor differences. Either all the states agreed with the leadership, or for other cultural and political reasons decided to go along. You said Merkel could have taken power with whatever emergency declaration it took, but did not. In any case, the conflicts in policy aren’t well reported in the foreign press, so forgive my skepticism. We’ve had states that never had a problem and never locked down. States that opened early and didn’t get a big wave after. States that opened early and got a big wave almost immediately after (sometimes seeded by fleeing New Yorkers). States here have good reason to disagree extremely on any “national” plan, to the extent that federalized states can be said to have one. | ||
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zatic
Zurich15365 Posts
On August 21 2020 02:02 Danglars wrote: I am glad that the independence is proven with minor differences. Either all the states agreed with the leadership, or for other cultural and political reasons decided to go along. You said Merkel could have taken power with whatever emergency declaration it took, but did not. In any case, the conflicts in policy aren’t well reported in the foreign press, so forgive my skepticism. We’ve had states that never had a problem and never locked down. States that opened early and didn’t get a big wave after. States that opened early and got a big wave almost immediately after (sometimes seeded by fleeing New Yorkers). States here have good reason to disagree extremely on any “national” plan, to the extent that federalized states can be said to have one. I was actually off with my statement about national emergency. It would not apply for Coronavirus, on the federal level anyway. States could declare an emergency and request federal aid. The federal government doesn't have something like a domestic emergency it could invoke, only a national emergency exclusively in the case of foreign military invasion. It should also be said that even this is highly controversial and has never been used. Of course from the outside when all you see is Merkel she appears all powerful. In reality the German chancellery is a considerably less powerful executive organ than the US presidency. | ||
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maybenexttime
Poland5811 Posts
On August 21 2020 00:09 JimmiC wrote: I thought this was cool NYT built a Vaccine Tracker Map. It is a paywall but you get a couple free and this one is worth it IMO if you want something more hopeful on Covid. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.ht You can stop the browser from loading the subscription overlay. ;p | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Mohdoo
United States15743 Posts
https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(20)31023-4/fulltext A few other things to possibly make this not bad: 1. Kids are short, breathe down mostly 2. Kids have smaller lungs and cycle less total air However, the fact that kids scream a lot makes this a lot worse. Particle speed and distance is insanely related to how loud you are speaking. So when a kid screams, they are absolutely blasting an area with particles. As I said, this isn't 100% proof kids will effectively transmit to the people they live with, but school districts should be temporarily closing after reading this. An interesting thing about this study is that it shows kids had massively high levels in the first couple days and then it dropped off. So one of the disadvantages to having kids in school is that if it turns out they have highly variable infection stages, a kid being in day 1-2 of infection at school would be really bad. A reason kids are less likely to spread the disease may be that kids are less infectious over the course of the infection, but still have very infectious periods. This is why in a previous post, I was talking about what % of kids would need to be infectious in order to shut down schools. This is a similar scenario. If it turns out kids are generally infectious in the first couple days of infection, regardless of symptoms, that would be a huge bummer. That would mean we really have no safe method of opening schools. | ||
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Dark_Chill
Canada3353 Posts
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Simberto
Germany11835 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28797 Posts
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