Freedom or Covid: You pick, North/South Dakota

yes, for the USA, not for the ROW

 

OK, and?

people catch the virus and then get better.

 

looks like Russia tried to play down the virus like Trump did, not looking good there and not looking good here

 

Famous last words...

 

That's what they get for listening to Trump instead of the medical experts. Fauci is shaking his head looking at the stupidity.

 

Walk by the mobile morgues in a few weeks. That's the smell of freedom!

 

It's the anti vaxers trying to kill people.

 

I know a lot of people in the red states that are going through what some blue states are now and what many blue states did earlier this year. Not one single person I know has based their decisions about Covid on anything Trump has said. I’m really not sure where that narrative comes from.

Maybe Fauci is shaking his head. But I’m shaking my head at Fauci’s stupidity. If what ya’ll say is true and Biden will listen to experts and science, the first thing he will do is take advice from someone besides Fauci. Trump is ignorant of things like immunology and microbiology. That’s no excuse for him saying dumb things because he should just not say anything if he has nothing correct to say. But Fauci has no excuse for his lies and blunders either. He’s supposedly an expert. It’s his job to make good decisions on epidemiology and he’s blown it over and over. If Democrats and progressives want to take up the mantle of science and honesty, it’s time to show they are serious. I’m willing to give them a chance, but I see no evidence so far that it’s going to happen. If anything, the misinformation from progressives and Democrats seems to be increasing with the apparent Biden victory.

Sorry to rant on your post QN, but I truly value your opinions so would like your input. Do you really think Biden will actually make an effort to deliver accurate information and not just information that puts his administration in a good light or Trump’s in a bad light? Will he be honest with the public about limitations of testing methods? Will he hold his expert counselors on science to higher standard that Trump did Fauci? Do you think he even understands the mistakes Fauci made? Is there any evidence he will do or consider any of the above?

 

With a 60% positivity rate, if that is indeed true, and assuming individuals cannot get reinfected after they have had it, then the pandemic in that state should be over shortly.

That means that the vast majority of the population there will soon have nothing to worry about and cannot get infected.

 

Right. Except for the ones who die. Oh wait, they won’t have anything to worry about either. My bad.

Of course, anyone who visits will have a much higher chance of catching COVID and passing it on to someone else, and on and on........ you know, a pandemic.

 

Well, since 60% are already infected, allegedly, then we should take a look at any overall increase in mortality rate in that state, yes?

 

Okay, but to be fair, not that many visit South Dakota.

I think the only attraction is Mount Rushmore. Which is either a bunch of old people in a big bus (something that has pretty much stopped), or families in a car on a roadtrip. So not that much chance of infection.

 

Plenty of stats out there could make almost any state not named Maine look bad or good. Especially difficult with low populations.

Unless you live on 20 acres, wear boots every day and have churned butter at least once then who cares what your zip code is we are all at risk at some level.

 

I hear you and some of what you say makes sense, but we COULD have done it better.

The things that don't work, don't because they are done very wrongly and without an educational campaign to match (so that people would learn how to do it properly). It's an uphill battle. Nobody knows what kind of masks they should be wearing; the right ones aren't widely available (for lack of domestic means of production); people don't know how they should be wearing them, and with what seal enhancements. So people wear fairly useless cloth masks, they let them hang under their noses, they get over-confident and get too close to other people, they touch and readjust their masks all the time, and they remove them to talk. No wonder they don't work.

The right kind of masks, consistently worn the right way, would have allowed us to keep the economy going with no lockdowns, while keeping the virus relatively under control until the vaccines kicked in.

But no government, federal, state, or local, has ever tried to do it the right way. Thus, we're in trouble: both with an economic hit, and an out-of-control pandemic. The worst of two worlds.

And it's everybody's fault. The feds, the state officials, the local officials, both major parties, the confusing health agencies, the experts, and... it's also the fault of... we, the people. We've all been stupid.

Four cheap little devices:

One ASTM level 3 facemask and 3 rubber bands #34... made in America, distributed to the population, and NOT mandatory but coupled with a strong educational campaign... and we'd be in much less trouble.

ASTM level 3 facemasks cost about $40, a box of 50. The rubber bands cost $5, a box of 75. Then you do this, and tests done at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine (our 3rd highest ranked medical school) have shown that this simple solution delivers filtration of particulates measuring 0.1 micron (that's the size of the coronavirus) of about 98%... just as good as an N95 respirator, but much cheaper, much more available (ASTM level 3 masks are now back in the market), and much more comfortable for longer use and community use. So, the solutions exist... but nobody is interested in doing it right. Thus, the impression that things don't work.



By the way, the above is only true of ASTM level 3 masks. Flimsy paper facemasks you find in your local stores won't protect you. But ASTM level 3 masks will, as long as the facial seal is enhanced.

But, oh no. We had to make of masks or lack thereof, a political statement. How stupid.

Masks are just a useful tool to deal with an airborne infectious disease. They aren't perfect and they don't avoid all cases, but the right kinds and worn the right way do significantly help.

If both parties had supported this from the beginning, we wouldn't have had this situation of masks being a political statement instead of a public health tool.

I think with a few exceptions, we must be one of the stupidest countries in the world, that botched it by politicizing the situation.

 

Hold my beer gets runner up.

 

PE Biden didn't get elected on the progressive vote alone. It took a number of groups throwing their support behind him including Independents, first time voters, and prior GOP/Trump voters, all of which have been disgusted with the very type of attitude you and of course others on the right are displaying. Talking about patriotism is great but when it came time for every citizen to put talk into action do you know who failed to keep America safe and strong? Anti-masker, science-denying, 'COVID is a myth' right-wingers - that's who. Turns out, generally speaking, that the people who profess to love America so much that they'd 'die' for it wouldn't even do so much as to place a few layers of cotton over their mouths and stand 8 feet away from the next person at the check out line. That's why we now have President-Elect Biden, because America got angry.

 

1) The opinion that people are listening to Trump with regard to covid comes from reading posts on this forum, watchin interviews with Trump supporters, and my own personal experience. I don't live in a red state, but in a semi-rural area in a blue state. On my street at least half of the people are Trump supporters (I know from the flags). Two neighbors have told me that they think covid is overblown by the media, one actually said it is a Dem hoax. When my wife asked him about the cases at the university, he said "probably those foreigners". That's the mind set I am talking about. I am sure it is not all Trump voters who have that mind set, but it far from a small minority.

2) Fauci: I said before that he didn't like when he said people shouldn't wear masks at the beginning of the pandemic. I realize that he tried to save the masks for the medical people, but this statement undermined his credibility -- better to be frank with people, they can handle the truth.

However, apart from that blunder, he was pretty much spot on. He predicted months ago that we would reach 100,000 new cases a day. He was called fear monger. Where are we now? Just last week, he predicted that the Moderna vaccine would also be highly efficacious, based on it using the same mRNA technology as the Pfizer vaccine. Again, his prediction was spot on.

Fauci was, however, in a quandry that he couldn't speak out the way he wanted, because he couldn't alienate Trump. He knew that if he got fired, someone worse would take his place. Eventually, that happened (see Atlas). So, it was really politics that was his downfall, not the science, which he got right all along.

3) As to Biden: The quarter million dead were not on his watch. What will happen from here, I don't know. With the good news of the vaccines, we have bright light at the end of the tunnel. We just need to get to the end of the tunnel. Biden has to remind people every day that they just need to wear masks and behave responsibly (no parties, no bars) just for 3 more months. If we can come together and do this, we'll save 10,000s of lives.

I value your opinion too, I am glad it is still possible to have a discussion across the aisle that is respectful.

 

I acknowledge it took more than progressives. However I don't believe it has anything to do with Covid and everything to do with Trump never knowing when to stop running his damn mouth or when to stop blowing up twitter. The trolling of progressives was novel at first, but after a while he should have known it was time to stop and time to get busy pushing policy. As I also said earlier I live in a state where we did everything you were talking about. I even got laid off for 3 straight months. Almost all store were closed that entire time. It got so bad here in Michigan, Whitmer was literally telling us what we can buy at Walmart. I swallowed all of that and did everything that was mandated, mostly because I don't want confrontation every time I go to a store, and now it is getting worse and worse. I'm not denying any science. It's people who think this will ever be contained or something that is different than the flu who are denying science. There is nothing that is going to stop this until there is a vaccine which is on the horizon. Everything else is gratuitous measures to show other people "we care about you".

 

Biden's "plan" will be whatever the CDC recommends, same as Trump's plan. The public messaging from the bully pulpit will favor "lockdown" versus "economy" however. All that's going to do is make authoritarian blue state governors install harsher and longer lockdowns, while red state governors will continue to be more lenient and free. Either way governors go, infection rates appear to be fairly similar. The virus is going to do what viruses do.

Plus...

Sounds like Whitmer is going to get impeached. That should squash any dreams she has about running for POTUS some day.


https://www.newsweek.com/michigan-g...impeach-governor-whitmer-after-latest-1547761

 

Trump didn't listen to the CDC.


This picture is priceless.

 

It doesn't matter if Trump's messaging was sometimes "off" the CDC guidance. The Task Force of medical experts, including CDC, are having regular meetings with state governors, the people who determine whether to "open" or "close".

People are going to be more or less "free" depending on what our governors decide. They are all getting "advice and guidelines" from CDC and other medical experts.

Nothing is going to change significantly, except that Biden's messaging will be "fear and danger" of a virus instead of "hope and optimism" about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Trump has done a fabulous job fast-tracking treatments and vaccines, and setting up FEMA to mobilize resources if hospitals get in trouble with lack of capacity in local outbreaks. That's about all the federal government controls. Governors do the rest.

The only thing Joe will do differently is be depressing. lol

 

Really, if you leave the house for any reason, there is the possibility you could accidentally bump into someone nudging them into traffic where they will die horribly, run down by a motor vehicle. Don't get me started on if you drive a car. You could sneeze, swerve into oncoming traffic. You could wipe out an entire car full of baby nuns! Sure it's an accident. But just stay indoors and away from others unless it is a matter of life and death. Use a car for less that that? You should be shunned, fired from your job and left to die under a bridge as you do not care about anyone other than yourself.

Reviewing: in a State with about 903,027 people in it, there have been 644 deaths. I'm looking into the median age. More soon...

 

You mean the task force Trump put Dr. Death Scott Atlas on?
The one Brix won't meet with, Fauci thinks is nuts and Redfield thinks is dangerous.
That task force?
The only reason we have governors making individual decisions is because of Trump's risk aversion.

 

You are completely incorrect as to why we have governors making individual decisions. We are still, at least for now, the United States of America. That is 50 sovereign states bound together in agreement to abide by one Constitution.

Now, Biden/Harris may manage to further the Democratic Party's wet dream of dissolving state sovereignty (Federalism) in favor of usurping total authoritarian power and control at the federal level under Statism, but so far, we aren't there yet. Thank God.

 

Median Covid deaths are still around 80. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12886370/average-age-covid-death-82-4-years-shield-vulnerable/

This virus isn't a hoax. The way we have responded to it is a hoax. We're being mislead. And from what I can tell, South Dakota did nothing wrong and is doing fine.