Originally posted by celee
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"I am not sure what the President could have done differently."
The high-level issue is that the spread of the virus needs to be contained until a large enough number of the population is inoculated for the spread to stop. The measures required is dictated by how many people the health care system can treat at any one time and what human cost is acceptable. In particular, he could have
- Centrally organise a testing strategy. Some states have labs, others have factories for the materials, others have the expertise, etc etc. Instead, he just said, "testing is not our/my job" (note: this hasn't stopped him from taking credit once the testing was up and running).
- If there are shortages anywhere in the chain, utilise the defence production act as opposed to just threatening its use.
- stick to a CONSISTENT message on measures against the spread of the virus such as mask wearing, closing but then supporting businesses such as pubs and nightclubs.
- Promote treatments when they are backed up by science. A doctor who talks about Alien Sperm is not a scientist (mad scientists don't count).
- Be open and frank with the american public (by comparison, have a look at how Adern or Merkel handled public comms).
- don't torpedo how each governor handles it's own covid response (i.e. "Free Michigan" tweets).
- Don;t pretend this is all a hoax to make him look bad. remember when he said that on November 4th, CNN and NYTimes will stop reporting on Covid? Well they haven't becasue it was NOT about Trump...
the travel ban on China only bought Trump some time because it was clear that by that time, the Virus was already in the country. The question is, how do you use the time that you have just bought? trump decided to use it to do nothing. Instead, he proclaimed "if you have 15 cases, and in no time, they are close to zero, we will have done a pretty good job". He is correct. He would have done a pretty good job but alas, he very obviously didn't.
"the media who were describing the virus as no more dangerous than the flu"
Fox did, yes. The real media did certainly not.I actually agree with you that it is a terrible thing that Covid is belittled and systematically compared with the common flu. Fortunately, Forbes have compiled a list of dozens of times that trump has done exactly that even after he was taped by Woodward that he knew this virus is a serious problem: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybe...h=4b9dcc3bf9d2 . THis one here is a real doosey....:
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
9 Mar 2020
So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!
Yes. I have thought about that and I have concluded that Trump's tweet is full or horse-manure.
"At the beginning of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci informed the public that using a mask was not a good idea and the virus was not air born."
Yes, and Fauci was clear at the time that the public should not start buying masks because the short supplies were needed by medics and that it was not certain at the time that the virus would spread mainly via air droplets. the medical advice will usually change when the understanding of the virus itself changes. None of this is rocket science IMHO...
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