[BostonCard]

Yes, but wouldn't we all agree that our problem with the pandemic in the US isn't that we didn't hear about it until January? Would our national response have been significantly more effective if we'd known in late November? Would that have meant testing and masks and such or an organized managed national effort?

Even the Chinese didn’t know anything was amiss in November.  While there were undoubtably cases of undiagnosed viral pneumonia going around late in 2019, they didn’t represent an unusual pattern.  Most were probably dismissed as influenza, but even if they were tested and came back for all pathogens, that wouldn’t have been that surprising.

It wasn’t until December 2019 (and really the last couple of weeks in December), that the Chinese started to see enough cases coming through the hospital as to raise questions of whether these were a cluster.

BC

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Yes, but wouldn't we all agree that our problem with the pandemic in the US isn't that we didn't hear about it until January? Would our national response have been significantly more effective if we'd known in late November? Would that have meant testing and masks and such or an organized managed national effort?

Maybe so... if the media and the Democrats hadn’t screamed non-stop that this was all just a hoax concocted by the Administration to divert attention from the Ukraine investigation and impeachment, which they indisputably would have done.

And if that had been the case, I would gladly join you and others in chastising Democrats for not taking the pandemic seriously enough.  But instead of your hypothetical counterfactual, I am going to deal with the situation as it actually occurred, with the President not taking it seriously enough despite warnings not just from Democrats, but from experts in public health.  We also have 130,000 Americans dead, so forgive me for wondering whether a different approach by the President might have resulted in that number being smaller.

BC

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Yes, but wouldn't we all agree that our problem with the pandemic in the US isn't that we didn't hear about it until January? Would our national response have been significantly more effective if we'd known in late November? Would that have meant testing and masks and such or an organized managed national effort?

Maybe so... if the media and the Democrats hadn’t screamed non-stop that this was all just a hoax concocted by the Administration to divert attention from the Ukraine investigation and impeachment, which they indisputably would have done.

And if that had been the case, I would gladly join you and others in chastising Democrats for not taking the pandemic seriously enough.  But instead of your hypothetical counterfactual, I am going to deal with the situation as it actually occurred, with the President not taking it seriously enough despite warnings not just from Democrats, but from experts in public health.  We also have 130,000 Americans dead, so forgive me for wondering whether a different approach by the President might have resulted in that number being smaller.

BC

[BostonCard]

Yes, but wouldn't we all agree that our problem with the pandemic in the US isn't that we didn't hear about it until January? Would our national response have been significantly more effective if we'd known in late November? Would that have meant testing and masks and such or an organized managed national effort?

Even the Chinese didn’t know anything was amiss in November.  While there were undoubtably cases of undiagnosed viral pneumonia going around late in 2019, they didn’t represent an unusual pattern.  Most were probably dismissed as influenza, but even if they were tested and came back for all pathogens, that wouldn’t have been that surprising.

It wasn’t until December 2019 (and really the last couple of weeks in December), that the Chinese started to see enough cases coming through the hospital as to raise questions of whether these were a cluster.

BC

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Yes, but wouldn't we all agree that our problem with the pandemic in the US isn't that we didn't hear about it until January? Would our national response have been significantly more effective if we'd known in late November? Would that have meant testing and masks and such or an organized managed national effort?

Maybe so... if the media and the Democrats hadn’t screamed non-stop that this was all just a hoax concocted by the Administration to divert attention from the Ukraine investigation and impeachment, which they indisputably would have done.

And if that had been the case, I would gladly join you and others in chastising Democrats for not taking the pandemic seriously enough.  But instead of your hypothetical counterfactual, I am going to deal with the situation as it actually occurred, with the President not taking it seriously enough despite warnings not just from Democrats, but from experts in public health.  We also have 130,000 Americans dead, so forgive me for wondering whether a different approach by the President might have resulted in that number being smaller.

BC

---

Yes, but wouldn't we all agree that our problem with the pandemic in the US isn't that we didn't hear about it until January? Would our national response have been significantly more effective if we'd known in late November? Would that have meant testing and masks and such or an organized managed national effort?

Maybe so... if the media and the Democrats hadn’t screamed non-stop that this was all just a hoax concocted by the Administration to divert attention from the Ukraine investigation and impeachment, which they indisputably would have done.

And if that had been the case, I would gladly join you and others in chastising Democrats for not taking the pandemic seriously enough.  But instead of your hypothetical counterfactual, I am going to deal with the situation as it actually occurred, with the President not taking it seriously enough despite warnings not just from Democrats, but from experts in public health.  We also have 130,000 Americans dead, so forgive me for wondering whether a different approach by the President might have resulted in that number being smaller.

BC