[oldalum]

These authors offer a different analysis:
article

"More than 120,000 Americans have now perished from Covid-19, surpassing the total number of U.S. dead during World War I. Had American leaders taken the decisive, early measures that several other nations took when they had exactly the same information the U.S. did, at exactly the same time in their experience of the novel coronavirus, how many of these Covid-19 deaths could have been prevented?

That isn’t a hypothetical question. And the answer that emerges from a direct comparison of the fatalities in and policies of the U.S. and other countries — South Korea, Australia, Germany, and Singapore — indicates that between 70% and 99% of the Americans who died from this pandemic might have been saved by measures demonstrated by others to have been feasible."

[oldalum]

These authors offer a different analysis:
article

"More than 120,000 Americans have now perished from Covid-19, surpassing the total number of U.S. dead during World War I. Had American leaders taken the decisive, early measures that several other nations took when they had exactly the same information the U.S. did, at exactly the same time in their experience of the novel coronavirus, how many of these Covid-19 deaths could have been prevented?

That isn’t a hypothetical question. And the answer that emerges from a direct comparison of the fatalities in and policies of the U.S. and other countries — South Korea, Australia, Germany, and Singapore — indicates that between 70% and 99% of the Americans who died from this pandemic might have been saved by measures demonstrated by others to have been feasible."

[Goose]

These authors take issue with Genuine Realist's position:
article

"More than 120,000 Americans have now perished from Covid-19, surpassing the total number of U.S. dead during World War I. Had American leaders taken the decisive, early measures that several other nations took when they had exactly the same information the U.S. did, at exactly the same time in their experience of the novel coronavirus, how many of these Covid-19 deaths could have been prevented?

That isn’t a hypothetical question. And the answer that emerges from a direct comparison of the fatalities in and policies of the U.S. and other countries — South Korea, Australia, Germany, and Singapore — indicates that between 70% and 99% of the Americans who died from this pandemic might have been saved by measures demonstrated by others to have been feasible."

Feasible for them. Not necessarily feasible for the USA. South Korea, Australia, and Singapore for certain had much larger and more capable epidemic response staff (per capita for sure and in absolute numbers in South Korea) in place and ready to go than did the US. You cannot deploy what you do not have. This is simple, and IMHO, obvious. Why was Taiwan omitted from this list of "usual suspects"? Germany was greatly blessed by the extremely professional and timely response of the Bavarian public health service to the initial outbreak. That gave them a big head start. It also wiped out the initial outbreak (in Germany. Apparently somebody went to Italy), which gave them even a larger buffer to deploy their epidemic response, which, again, was much better resourced than the ones in the US. Washington State couldn't do what Bavaria did. Neither could California. In both cases, they knew what they wanted to do, but they also knew they were not prepared to do it and didn't have the people in place to do it.

[Goose]

These authors take issue with Genuine Realist's position:
article

"More than 120,000 Americans have now perished from Covid-19, surpassing the total number of U.S. dead during World War I. Had American leaders taken the decisive, early measures that several other nations took when they had exactly the same information the U.S. did, at exactly the same time in their experience of the novel coronavirus, how many of these Covid-19 deaths could have been prevented?

That isn’t a hypothetical question. And the answer that emerges from a direct comparison of the fatalities in and policies of the U.S. and other countries — South Korea, Australia, Germany, and Singapore — indicates that between 70% and 99% of the Americans who died from this pandemic might have been saved by measures demonstrated by others to have been feasible."

Feasible for them. Not necessarily feasible for the USA. South Korea, Australia, and Singapore for certain had much larger and more capable epidemic response staff (per capita for sure and in absolute numbers in South Korea) in place and ready to go than did the US. You cannot deploy what you do not have. This is simple, and IMHO, obvious. Why was Taiwan omitted from this list of "usual suspects"? Germany was greatly blessed by the extremely professional and timely response of the Bavarian public health service to the initial outbreak. That gave them a big head start. It also wiped out the initial outbreak (in Germany. Apparently somebody went to Italy), which gave them even a larger buffer to deploy their epidemic response, which, again, was much better resourced than the ones in the US. Washington State couldn't do what Bavaria did. Neither could California. In both cases, they knew what they wanted to do, but they also knew they were not prepared to do it and didn't have the people in place to do it.

[dabigv13]

How are Italy and Spain and Greece keeping the lid on this while the US isn't? None of those countries have public health care systems better than the US, let alone anything close to the CDC. They aren't exactly cultures famed for compliance with authority. They don't have anything close to our financial might. 

They, along with the rest of Europe, had the determination from their government to attack this thing and defeat it. We had a populist anti-science moron, like Bolsonaro, running our response, dividing his nation and actively making things worse by discouraging masks and seemingly trying to slow testing roll out.

[dabigv13]

How are Italy and Spain and Greece keeping the lid on this while the US isn't? None of those countries have public health care systems better than the US, let alone anything close to the CDC. They aren't exactly cultures famed for compliance with authority. They don't have anything close to our financial might. 

They, along with the rest of Europe, had the determination from their government to attack this thing and defeat it. We had a populist anti-science moron, like Bolsonaro, running our response, dividing his nation and actively making things worse by discouraging masks and seemingly trying to slow testing roll out.

[lex24]

How are Italy and Spain and Greece keeping the lid on this while the US isn't? None of those countries have public health care systems better than the US, let alone anything close to the CDC. They aren't exactly cultures famed for compliance with authority. They don't have anything close to our financial might. 

They, along with the rest of Europe, had the determination from their government to attack this thing and defeat it. We had a populist anti-science moron, like Bolsonaro, running our response, dividing his nation and actively making things worse by discouraging masks and seemingly trying to slow testing roll out.

We are a Republic.  Federal and State issues.  We also dwarf Italy, Greece and Spain in size.  NY is not led by a “populist anti-scientific moron”. Yet they had big problems. It’s easy to just blame Trump. And sure give him some blame. He deserves it. In point of fact, however, it’s a tad more complex.

[lex24]

How are Italy and Spain and Greece keeping the lid on this while the US isn't? None of those countries have public health care systems better than the US, let alone anything close to the CDC. They aren't exactly cultures famed for compliance with authority. They don't have anything close to our financial might. 

They, along with the rest of Europe, had the determination from their government to attack this thing and defeat it. We had a populist anti-science moron, like Bolsonaro, running our response, dividing his nation and actively making things worse by discouraging masks and seemingly trying to slow testing roll out.

We are a Republic.  Federal and State issues.  We also dwarf Italy, Greece and Spain in size.  NY is not led by a “populist anti-scientific moron”. Yet they had big problems. It’s easy to just blame Trump. And sure give him some blame. He deserves it. In point of fact, however, it’s a tad more complex.

[2006alum]

Germany is also a Republic, indeed, its official name is "Federal Republic of Germany." And it is 83 million strong. Unlike us, it is also far more density and reliance on public transportation, so it should have been geographically/infrastructurally worse off. And also unlike us, it was sandwiched between Italy and France, both of which were among the earliest to have horrific outbreaks, so that should have made things worse still.

And yet...

I agree that Trump does not bear all the blame. But we are a rudderless, demoralized ship, led by a morally diminished reality show host who is palpably uninterested in anything but appearances. Hard to quantify the share of blame for the policies on the ground, but it seems unquestionable to me that he bears the brunt of the responsibility for our scarred national psyche.

[2006alum]

Germany is also a Republic, indeed, its official name is "Federal Republic of Germany." And it is 83 million strong. Unlike us, it is also far more density and reliance on public transportation, so it should have been geographically/infrastructurally worse off. And also unlike us, it was sandwiched between Italy and France, both of which were among the earliest to have horrific outbreaks, so that should have made things worse still.

And yet...

I agree that Trump does not bear all the blame. But we are a rudderless, demoralized ship, led by a morally diminished reality show host who is palpably uninterested in anything but appearances. Hard to quantify the share of blame for the policies on the ground, but it seems unquestionable to me that he bears the brunt of the responsibility for our scarred national psyche.

[Genuine Realist]

How are Italy and Spain and Greece keeping the lid on this while the US isn't? None of those countries have public health care systems better than the US, let alone anything close to the CDC. They aren't exactly cultures famed for compliance with authority. They don't have anything close to our financial might. 

They, along with the rest of Europe, had the determination from their government to attack this thing and defeat it. We had a populist anti-science moron, like Bolsonaro, running our response, dividing his nation and actively making things worse by discouraging masks and seemingly trying to slow testing roll out.

My position had to do with responses during the January-March time frame, and I'll stick with that. This was during the time period when clinical information was developing. I think the gating factor was knowledge, not politics. I invite anyone to check the timelines for themselves. No one did.

HOWEVER, by mid-March, the pattern was known, the need for social distancing,  and lately, masking. Trump has been a disaster.

[Genuine Realist]

How are Italy and Spain and Greece keeping the lid on this while the US isn't? None of those countries have public health care systems better than the US, let alone anything close to the CDC. They aren't exactly cultures famed for compliance with authority. They don't have anything close to our financial might. 

They, along with the rest of Europe, had the determination from their government to attack this thing and defeat it. We had a populist anti-science moron, like Bolsonaro, running our response, dividing his nation and actively making things worse by discouraging masks and seemingly trying to slow testing roll out.

My position had to do with responses during the January-March time frame, and I'll stick with that. This was during the time period when clinical information was developing. I think the gating factor was knowledge, not politics. I invite anyone to check the timelines for themselves. No one did.

HOWEVER, by mid-March, the pattern was known, the need for social distancing,  and lately, masking. Trump has been a disaster.

[Goose]

Germany is also a Republic, indeed, its official name is "Federal Republic of Germany." And it is 83 million strong. Unlike us, it is also far more density and reliance on public transportation, so it should have been geographically/infrastructurally worse off. And also unlike us, it was sandwiched between Italy and France, both of which were among the earliest to have horrific outbreaks, so that should have made things worse still.

Actually, as it turns out the outbreak in Northern Italy originated in Germany, as I understand it. For a long time everybody was saying it was the close association with Chinese clothing manufactures that fed the outbreak, but "after further review" the strain came from the Bavarian outbreak.

Bavaria has a very good public health service. The also got lucky that the woman who started the outbreak informed her company that she was ill. As I recall, she infected 9 people in the three days she was there, that they know of. Apparently they missed some who returned to Italy. Germany almost contained the virus. It was close. They finally lost control in Berlin and had to do SIP. We were in no way in their class. They had the horses, almost enough to actually contain it. Now however they have a big jump in Rt, so things are getting a bit dicey for them again.

And yet...

I agree that Trump does not bear all the blame. But we are a rudderless, demoralized ship, led by a morally diminished reality show host who is palpably uninterested in anything but appearances. Hard to quantify the share of blame for the policies on the ground, but it seems unquestionable to me that he bears the brunt of the responsibility for our scarred national psyche.

No, we bear all the responsibility for our "scarred national psyche". We elected him. It would be really great if we had a leader that gave us good explanations of the policy he was following and could convince us it was a good one, or at least an "OK" one. However, in this case, the decision to honor the SIP guidelines, wear a mask, do what is needed lies with we the people. If we are demoralized, it is our fault for staking our hopes on the "all hat, no cattle" fluff that is politics today. Cases in California should be going down like they did in New York (where things were really bad for a while). They are not. Why? To me, that matters a lot more than the POTUS right now.

[Goose]

Germany is also a Republic, indeed, its official name is "Federal Republic of Germany." And it is 83 million strong. Unlike us, it is also far more density and reliance on public transportation, so it should have been geographically/infrastructurally worse off. And also unlike us, it was sandwiched between Italy and France, both of which were among the earliest to have horrific outbreaks, so that should have made things worse still.

Actually, as it turns out the outbreak in Northern Italy originated in Germany, as I understand it. For a long time everybody was saying it was the close association with Chinese clothing manufactures that fed the outbreak, but "after further review" the strain came from the Bavarian outbreak.

Bavaria has a very good public health service. The also got lucky that the woman who started the outbreak informed her company that she was ill. As I recall, she infected 9 people in the three days she was there, that they know of. Apparently they missed some who returned to Italy. Germany almost contained the virus. It was close. They finally lost control in Berlin and had to do SIP. We were in no way in their class. They had the horses, almost enough to actually contain it. Now however they have a big jump in Rt, so things are getting a bit dicey for them again.

And yet...

I agree that Trump does not bear all the blame. But we are a rudderless, demoralized ship, led by a morally diminished reality show host who is palpably uninterested in anything but appearances. Hard to quantify the share of blame for the policies on the ground, but it seems unquestionable to me that he bears the brunt of the responsibility for our scarred national psyche.

No, we bear all the responsibility for our "scarred national psyche". We elected him. It would be really great if we had a leader that gave us good explanations of the policy he was following and could convince us it was a good one, or at least an "OK" one. However, in this case, the decision to honor the SIP guidelines, wear a mask, do what is needed lies with we the people. If we are demoralized, it is our fault for staking our hopes on the "all hat, no cattle" fluff that is politics today. Cases in California should be going down like they did in New York (where things were really bad for a while). They are not. Why? To me, that matters a lot more than the POTUS right now.

[chrisk]

Germany is also a more disciplined culture than the US, which has helped them. That has also helped some of the Asian countries, some voluntarily and some by authoritarian action.

The US potentially could end up with lower death rates than Italy, France, Spain, and the UK, but it would take the US to get religion quidkly.

[chrisk]

Germany is also a more disciplined culture than the US, which has helped them. That has also helped some of the Asian countries, some voluntarily and some by authoritarian action.

The US potentially could end up with lower death rates than Italy, France, Spain, and the UK, but it would take the US to get religion quidkly.

[Farm93]

How are Italy and Spain and Greece keeping the lid on this while the US isn't? None of those countries have public health care systems better than the US, let alone anything close to the CDC. They aren't exactly cultures famed for compliance with authority. They don't have anything close to our financial might. 

They, along with the rest of Europe, had the determination from their government to attack this thing and defeat it. We had a populist anti-science moron, like Bolsonaro, running our response, dividing his nation and actively making things worse by discouraging masks and seemingly trying to slow testing roll out.

My position had to do with responses during the January-March time frame, and I'll stick with that. This was during the time period when clinical information was developing. I think the gating factor was knowledge, not politics. I invite anyone to check the timelines for themselves. No one did.

HOWEVER, by mid-March, the pattern was known, the need for social distancing,  and lately, masking. Trump has been a disaster.

I challenged your timelines.   I didn't know I changed my user name to no one, but I guess I did.   

I recall mentioning the cruise ship news was all over the place by late February President Trump even was stating publicly that he didn't want those cruise ship passengers to count against our (HIS) numbers, so by mid-February POTUS was aware enough IMHO.

Generally move mid-March to mid-February and I think you are OK.  I even noted that in So Cal I had people dropping out of youth sports in February for fear of Coronavirus and asking for refunds.   I kind of hope your average soccer mom does not have better info than our Federal government.  Though I will concede that your average SoCal soccer mom may have read more about coronavirus in February than POTUS.   ;)

It doesn't matter really.  Best in class took control early with testing and tracing (Thailand, Singapore, S. Korea), but even those that waited have pushed their rate of new infections close to zero in ~90 days even after they had scary outbreaks.   Even mid-March was 90 days ago now, and the USA is certainly not just a few days away from just a few deaths per day.

Italy did very little for the first several weeks of their outbreak.   Italy has awful health care.   Modern Italy has been a unified country for less time than the USA.   I think many of us can agree there are loads of other reasons why the USA should outperform Italy, but the USA lacked at least two things.

1) We lacked a federal government committed to the tough tasks needed to beating the virus down once the citizens started dying.
2) We also lacked those awesome town and city mayors roaming the streets telling people that they were selfish and/or idiots if they felt inconvenienced by the stay-at-home orders. 

The USA does have at least ONE Italian-American leader, but he was only responsible for NY.   NYers actually did drop their curve to near zero like Europe.   Maybe getting control after COVID kills thousands is an Italian thing or a Southern European thing.   Can we get Melania to take it on?

[Farm93]

How are Italy and Spain and Greece keeping the lid on this while the US isn't? None of those countries have public health care systems better than the US, let alone anything close to the CDC. They aren't exactly cultures famed for compliance with authority. They don't have anything close to our financial might. 

They, along with the rest of Europe, had the determination from their government to attack this thing and defeat it. We had a populist anti-science moron, like Bolsonaro, running our response, dividing his nation and actively making things worse by discouraging masks and seemingly trying to slow testing roll out.

My position had to do with responses during the January-March time frame, and I'll stick with that. This was during the time period when clinical information was developing. I think the gating factor was knowledge, not politics. I invite anyone to check the timelines for themselves. No one did.

HOWEVER, by mid-March, the pattern was known, the need for social distancing,  and lately, masking. Trump has been a disaster.

I challenged your timelines.   I didn't know I changed my user name to no one, but I guess I did.   

I recall mentioning the cruise ship news was all over the place by late February President Trump even was stating publicly that he didn't want those cruise ship passengers to count against our (HIS) numbers, so by mid-February POTUS was aware enough IMHO.

Generally move mid-March to mid-February and I think you are OK.  I even noted that in So Cal I had people dropping out of youth sports in February for fear of Coronavirus and asking for refunds.   I kind of hope your average soccer mom does not have better info than our Federal government.  Though I will concede that your average SoCal soccer mom may have read more about coronavirus in February than POTUS.   ;)

It doesn't matter really.  Best in class took control early with testing and tracing (Thailand, Singapore, S. Korea), but even those that waited have pushed their rate of new infections close to zero in ~90 days even after they had scary outbreaks.   Even mid-March was 90 days ago now, and the USA is certainly not just a few days away from just a few deaths per day.

Italy did very little for the first several weeks of their outbreak.   Italy has awful health care.   Modern Italy has been a unified country for less time than the USA.   I think many of us can agree there are loads of other reasons why the USA should outperform Italy, but the USA lacked at least two things.

1) We lacked a federal government committed to the tough tasks needed to beating the virus down once the citizens started dying.
2) We also lacked those awesome town and city mayors roaming the streets telling people that they were selfish and/or idiots if they felt inconvenienced by the stay-at-home orders. 

The USA does have at least ONE Italian-American leader, but he was only responsible for NY.   NYers actually did drop their curve to near zero like Europe.   Maybe getting control after COVID kills thousands is an Italian thing or a Southern European thing.   Can we get Melania to take it on?

[terry]

There were warning signs during January and February that should have caused the administration to take more aggressive action to prepare for the coronavirus. There has been plenty of news coverage of this issue. Here are some of the facts that have been reported, quoted from the articles linked below:

- It was early January, and the call with a Hong Kong epidemiologist left Matthew Pottinger rattled. Mr. Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser and a hawk on China, took a blunt warning away from the call with the doctor, a longtime friend: A ferocious, new outbreak that on the surface appeared similar to the SARS epidemic of 2003 had emerged in China. It had spread far more quickly than the government was admitting to, and it wouldn’t be long before it reached other parts of the world. . . . [H]is friend had a blunt message: You need to be ready. The virus, he warned, which originated in the city of Wuhan, was being transmitted by people who were showing no symptoms — an insight that American health officials had not yet accepted.

- In a report to the director of national intelligence, the State Department’s epidemiologist wrote in early January that the virus was likely to spread across the globe, and warned that the coronavirus could develop into a pandemic. Working independently, a small outpost of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Center for Medical Intelligence, came to the same conclusion. Within weeks after getting initial information about the virus early in the year, biodefense experts inside the National Security Council, looking at what was happening in Wuhan, started urging officials to think about what would be needed to quarantine a city the size of Chicago.

- Intelligence agencies “have been warning on this since January,” said a U.S. official who had access to intelligence reporting that was disseminated to members of Congress and their staffs as well as to officials in the Trump administration. . . . “Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it,” this official said. “The system was blinking red.”

- Jan. 23: Chinese officials take the drastic step of shutting down Wuhan. “That was like, whoa,” a senior U.S. official involved in White House meetings later told The Post. “That was when the Richter scale hit 8.”

- “Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,” a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”

- A top White House adviser [Peter Navarro] starkly warned Trump administration officials in late January [Jan. 29] that the coronavirus crisis could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death. . . . “The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil,” Mr. Navarro’s memo said. “This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”

- The health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, directly warned Mr. Trump of the possibility of a pandemic during a call on Jan. 30, the second warning he delivered to the president about the virus in two weeks. The president, who was on Air Force One while traveling for appearances in the Midwest, responded that Mr. Azar was being alarmist.

- The warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies increased in volume toward the end of January and into early February, said officials familiar with the reports. By then, a majority of the intelligence reporting included in daily briefing papers and digests from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA was about covid-19, said officials who have read the reports.

- Feb. 14: A memo is drafted by health officials and the National Security Council about the potential need for “quarantine and isolation measures to combat the virus,” per the Times, but a scheduled meeting to brief Trump on the plan is later canceled.

- When Dr. Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at the Health and Human Services Department, convened the White House coronavirus task force on Feb. 21, his agenda was urgent. There were deep cracks in the administration’s strategy for keeping the virus out of the United States. They were going to have to lock down the country to prevent it from spreading. The question was: When?

- A second memo that Mr. Navarro wrote, dated Feb. 23, warned of an “increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1-2 million souls.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/po...ponse.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/po...virus.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/...y-damning/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-...story.html

The administration had more than enough information to understand the imminent risk. But the administration failed to adequately prepare. Boston Card has posted several times about the actions the administration could have taken during January and February. But the President spent those months denying the risk and claiming that the virus would go away. The time was largely wasted.

[terry]

There were warning signs during January and February that should have caused the administration to take more aggressive action to prepare for the coronavirus. There has been plenty of news coverage of this issue. Here are some of the facts that have been reported, quoted from the articles linked below:

- It was early January, and the call with a Hong Kong epidemiologist left Matthew Pottinger rattled. Mr. Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser and a hawk on China, took a blunt warning away from the call with the doctor, a longtime friend: A ferocious, new outbreak that on the surface appeared similar to the SARS epidemic of 2003 had emerged in China. It had spread far more quickly than the government was admitting to, and it wouldn’t be long before it reached other parts of the world. . . . [H]is friend had a blunt message: You need to be ready. The virus, he warned, which originated in the city of Wuhan, was being transmitted by people who were showing no symptoms — an insight that American health officials had not yet accepted.

- In a report to the director of national intelligence, the State Department’s epidemiologist wrote in early January that the virus was likely to spread across the globe, and warned that the coronavirus could develop into a pandemic. Working independently, a small outpost of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Center for Medical Intelligence, came to the same conclusion. Within weeks after getting initial information about the virus early in the year, biodefense experts inside the National Security Council, looking at what was happening in Wuhan, started urging officials to think about what would be needed to quarantine a city the size of Chicago.

- Intelligence agencies “have been warning on this since January,” said a U.S. official who had access to intelligence reporting that was disseminated to members of Congress and their staffs as well as to officials in the Trump administration. . . . “Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it,” this official said. “The system was blinking red.”

- Jan. 23: Chinese officials take the drastic step of shutting down Wuhan. “That was like, whoa,” a senior U.S. official involved in White House meetings later told The Post. “That was when the Richter scale hit 8.”

- “Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,” a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”

- A top White House adviser [Peter Navarro] starkly warned Trump administration officials in late January [Jan. 29] that the coronavirus crisis could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death. . . . “The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil,” Mr. Navarro’s memo said. “This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”

- The health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, directly warned Mr. Trump of the possibility of a pandemic during a call on Jan. 30, the second warning he delivered to the president about the virus in two weeks. The president, who was on Air Force One while traveling for appearances in the Midwest, responded that Mr. Azar was being alarmist.

- The warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies increased in volume toward the end of January and into early February, said officials familiar with the reports. By then, a majority of the intelligence reporting included in daily briefing papers and digests from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA was about covid-19, said officials who have read the reports.

- Feb. 14: A memo is drafted by health officials and the National Security Council about the potential need for “quarantine and isolation measures to combat the virus,” per the Times, but a scheduled meeting to brief Trump on the plan is later canceled.

- When Dr. Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at the Health and Human Services Department, convened the White House coronavirus task force on Feb. 21, his agenda was urgent. There were deep cracks in the administration’s strategy for keeping the virus out of the United States. They were going to have to lock down the country to prevent it from spreading. The question was: When?

- A second memo that Mr. Navarro wrote, dated Feb. 23, warned of an “increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1-2 million souls.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/po...ponse.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/po...virus.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/...y-damning/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-...story.html

The administration had more than enough information to understand the imminent risk. But the administration failed to adequately prepare. Boston Card has posted several times about the actions the administration could have taken during January and February. But the President spent those months denying the risk and claiming that the virus would go away. The time was largely wasted.

[oregontim]

I pulled this table out of the article that OldAlum posted to start this thread.  The numbers speak for themselves.

[oregontim]

I pulled this table out of the article that OldAlum posted to start this thread.  The numbers speak for themselves.

[lex24]

There were warning signs during January and February that should have caused the administration to take more aggressive action to prepare for the coronavirus. There has been plenty of news coverage of this issue. Here are some of the facts that have been reported, quoted from the articles linked below:

- It was early January, and the call with a Hong Kong epidemiologist left Matthew Pottinger rattled. Mr. Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser and a hawk on China, took a blunt warning away from the call with the doctor, a longtime friend: A ferocious, new outbreak that on the surface appeared similar to the SARS epidemic of 2003 had emerged in China. It had spread far more quickly than the government was admitting to, and it wouldn’t be long before it reached other parts of the world. . . . [H]is friend had a blunt message: You need to be ready. The virus, he warned, which originated in the city of Wuhan, was being transmitted by people who were showing no symptoms — an insight that American health officials had not yet accepted.

- In a report to the director of national intelligence, the State Department’s epidemiologist wrote in early January that the virus was likely to spread across the globe, and warned that the coronavirus could develop into a pandemic. Working independently, a small outpost of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Center for Medical Intelligence, came to the same conclusion. Within weeks after getting initial information about the virus early in the year, biodefense experts inside the National Security Council, looking at what was happening in Wuhan, started urging officials to think about what would be needed to quarantine a city the size of Chicago.

- Intelligence agencies “have been warning on this since January,” said a U.S. official who had access to intelligence reporting that was disseminated to members of Congress and their staffs as well as to officials in the Trump administration. . . . “Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it,” this official said. “The system was blinking red.”

- Jan. 23: Chinese officials take the drastic step of shutting down Wuhan. “That was like, whoa,” a senior U.S. official involved in White House meetings later told The Post. “That was when the Richter scale hit 8.”

- “Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,” a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”

- A top White House adviser [Peter Navarro] starkly warned Trump administration officials in late January [Jan. 29] that the coronavirus crisis could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death. . . . “The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil,” Mr. Navarro’s memo said. “This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”

- The health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, directly warned Mr. Trump of the possibility of a pandemic during a call on Jan. 30, the second warning he delivered to the president about the virus in two weeks. The president, who was on Air Force One while traveling for appearances in the Midwest, responded that Mr. Azar was being alarmist.

- The warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies increased in volume toward the end of January and into early February, said officials familiar with the reports. By then, a majority of the intelligence reporting included in daily briefing papers and digests from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA was about covid-19, said officials who have read the reports.

- Feb. 14: A memo is drafted by health officials and the National Security Council about the potential need for “quarantine and isolation measures to combat the virus,” per the Times, but a scheduled meeting to brief Trump on the plan is later canceled.

- When Dr. Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at the Health and Human Services Department, convened the White House coronavirus task force on Feb. 21, his agenda was urgent. There were deep cracks in the administration’s strategy for keeping the virus out of the United States. They were going to have to lock down the country to prevent it from spreading. The question was: When?

- A second memo that Mr. Navarro wrote, dated Feb. 23, warned of an “increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1-2 million souls.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/po...ponse.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/po...virus.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/...y-damning/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-...story.html

The administration had more than enough information to understand the imminent risk. But the administration failed to adequately prepare. Boston Card has posted several times about the actions the administration could have taken during January and February. But the President spent those months denying the risk and claiming that the virus would go away. The time was largely wasted.

Well, what else was happening during Jan and early Feb? Where was the press on this?  Why wasnt the Dem leadership screaming about this?  Maybe a bit preoccupied?

Trump will face and get his share of the blame.  As he should.  But as with most things like this there is plenty to go around. New York didn’t handle it well to begin with either. Look at the nursing homes debacle, DiBlasio originally telling people in essence to continue partying.

[lex24]

There were warning signs during January and February that should have caused the administration to take more aggressive action to prepare for the coronavirus. There has been plenty of news coverage of this issue. Here are some of the facts that have been reported, quoted from the articles linked below:

- It was early January, and the call with a Hong Kong epidemiologist left Matthew Pottinger rattled. Mr. Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser and a hawk on China, took a blunt warning away from the call with the doctor, a longtime friend: A ferocious, new outbreak that on the surface appeared similar to the SARS epidemic of 2003 had emerged in China. It had spread far more quickly than the government was admitting to, and it wouldn’t be long before it reached other parts of the world. . . . [H]is friend had a blunt message: You need to be ready. The virus, he warned, which originated in the city of Wuhan, was being transmitted by people who were showing no symptoms — an insight that American health officials had not yet accepted.

- In a report to the director of national intelligence, the State Department’s epidemiologist wrote in early January that the virus was likely to spread across the globe, and warned that the coronavirus could develop into a pandemic. Working independently, a small outpost of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Center for Medical Intelligence, came to the same conclusion. Within weeks after getting initial information about the virus early in the year, biodefense experts inside the National Security Council, looking at what was happening in Wuhan, started urging officials to think about what would be needed to quarantine a city the size of Chicago.

- Intelligence agencies “have been warning on this since January,” said a U.S. official who had access to intelligence reporting that was disseminated to members of Congress and their staffs as well as to officials in the Trump administration. . . . “Donald Trump may not have been expecting this, but a lot of other people in the government were — they just couldn’t get him to do anything about it,” this official said. “The system was blinking red.”

- Jan. 23: Chinese officials take the drastic step of shutting down Wuhan. “That was like, whoa,” a senior U.S. official involved in White House meetings later told The Post. “That was when the Richter scale hit 8.”

- “Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,” a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”

- A top White House adviser [Peter Navarro] starkly warned Trump administration officials in late January [Jan. 29] that the coronavirus crisis could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death. . . . “The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil,” Mr. Navarro’s memo said. “This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.”

- The health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, directly warned Mr. Trump of the possibility of a pandemic during a call on Jan. 30, the second warning he delivered to the president about the virus in two weeks. The president, who was on Air Force One while traveling for appearances in the Midwest, responded that Mr. Azar was being alarmist.

- The warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies increased in volume toward the end of January and into early February, said officials familiar with the reports. By then, a majority of the intelligence reporting included in daily briefing papers and digests from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA was about covid-19, said officials who have read the reports.

- Feb. 14: A memo is drafted by health officials and the National Security Council about the potential need for “quarantine and isolation measures to combat the virus,” per the Times, but a scheduled meeting to brief Trump on the plan is later canceled.

- When Dr. Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at the Health and Human Services Department, convened the White House coronavirus task force on Feb. 21, his agenda was urgent. There were deep cracks in the administration’s strategy for keeping the virus out of the United States. They were going to have to lock down the country to prevent it from spreading. The question was: When?

- A second memo that Mr. Navarro wrote, dated Feb. 23, warned of an “increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1-2 million souls.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/po...ponse.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/po...virus.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/...y-damning/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-...story.html

The administration had more than enough information to understand the imminent risk. But the administration failed to adequately prepare. Boston Card has posted several times about the actions the administration could have taken during January and February. But the President spent those months denying the risk and claiming that the virus would go away. The time was largely wasted.

Well, what else was happening during Jan and early Feb? Where was the press on this?  Why wasnt the Dem leadership screaming about this?  Maybe a bit preoccupied?

Trump will face and get his share of the blame.  As he should.  But as with most things like this there is plenty to go around. New York didn’t handle it well to begin with either. Look at the nursing homes debacle, DiBlasio originally telling people in essence to continue partying.

[Goose]

It might be interesting to examine the "plenty of evidence" arguments in the context of
https://www.army.mil/article/116038/thir...ember_1944

There is no question he made the prediction. There were other more junior people at SHAFE that made similar predictions, although none of them saw the light of day. Interestingly enough, the above article contains seriously inaccurate "spin" surrounding an event that happened 75 years ago. What this article demonstrates is that for every significant unexpected even, somebody predicted it and was ignored. OTOH bad predictions are routinely made every day. Go figure.

[Goose]

It might be interesting to examine the "plenty of evidence" arguments in the context of
https://www.army.mil/article/116038/thir...ember_1944

There is no question he made the prediction. There were other more junior people at SHAFE that made similar predictions, although none of them saw the light of day. Interestingly enough, the above article contains seriously inaccurate "spin" surrounding an event that happened 75 years ago. What this article demonstrates is that for every significant unexpected even, somebody predicted it and was ignored. OTOH bad predictions are routinely made every day. Go figure.

[BostonCard]

Well, what else was happening during Jan and early Feb? Where was the press on this?  Why wasnt the Dem leadership screaming about this?  Maybe a bit preoccupied?


Trump will face and get his share of the blame.  As he should.  But as with most things like this there is plenty to go around. New York didn’t handle it well to begin with either. Look at the nursing homes debacle, DiBlasio originally telling people in essence to continue partying.

They were busy selling their stocks?
And the Dem leadership was screaming about it.



By Feb 4, half(!) of all congressional Democrats had tweeted about COVID-19 at least once.  So much so that Trump accused them of making coronavirus their new hoax.

The criticism against Cuomo and especially DiBlasio is absolutely on point.  I have made that criticism myself.  Incompetence in the response is not necessarily a partisan issue.  Cuomo and DiBlasio blew it (as have Republican governors of Georgia, Florida, and Texas).  Cuomo and DeBlasio are up for re-election in 2022; I probably wouldn't vote for them if I were a NY resident.

On the flip side, Mike DeWine's response in Ohio was generally very competent, as was Inslee's and Newsome's (at least until late; I think the failure to get contact tracing up and running will be his undoing).

BC

---

https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/p...s-response

U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday along with 23 of their Democratic Senate colleagues, sent a letter to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar and Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Mick Mulvaney expressing their concern over the Trump Administration’s failure so far to outline what additional resources it needs to respond to the rapidly developing coronavirus outbreak. The letter comes after the Trump Administration released its new budget proposal, which suggested cutting public health and preparedness programs that help protect against global health threats.

This was February 19.

BC

[BostonCard]

Well, what else was happening during Jan and early Feb? Where was the press on this?  Why wasnt the Dem leadership screaming about this?  Maybe a bit preoccupied?


Trump will face and get his share of the blame.  As he should.  But as with most things like this there is plenty to go around. New York didn’t handle it well to begin with either. Look at the nursing homes debacle, DiBlasio originally telling people in essence to continue partying.

They were busy selling their stocks?
And the Dem leadership was screaming about it.



By Feb 4, half(!) of all congressional Democrats had tweeted about COVID-19 at least once.  So much so that Trump accused them of making coronavirus their new hoax.

The criticism against Cuomo and especially DiBlasio is absolutely on point.  I have made that criticism myself.  Incompetence in the response is not necessarily a partisan issue.  Cuomo and DiBlasio blew it (as have Republican governors of Georgia, Florida, and Texas).  Cuomo and DeBlasio are up for re-election in 2022; I probably wouldn't vote for them if I were a NY resident.

On the flip side, Mike DeWine's response in Ohio was generally very competent, as was Inslee's and Newsome's (at least until late; I think the failure to get contact tracing up and running will be his undoing).

BC

---

https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/p...s-response

U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday along with 23 of their Democratic Senate colleagues, sent a letter to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar and Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Mick Mulvaney expressing their concern over the Trump Administration’s failure so far to outline what additional resources it needs to respond to the rapidly developing coronavirus outbreak. The letter comes after the Trump Administration released its new budget proposal, which suggested cutting public health and preparedness programs that help protect against global health threats.

This was February 19.

BC

[Goose]

On the flip side, Mike DeWine's response in Ohio was generally very competent, as was Inslee's and Newsome's (at least until late; I think the failure to get contact tracing up and running will be his undoing).



BC

BC, while I agree that Newsom started out pretty well, I think he has totally botched the reopening operation. The failure to get track and trace in place to the degree necessary (and promised) was a serious failing. We agree on that. I also think he basically just gave up. There was a lot of political pressure to reopen before we really had a handle on where we were and before Southern California had peaked/reached steady state. He gave in and started reopening. In so doing, he lost control of the process. If and when some form of lockdown is necessary in a few counties or the entire state, he has no credibility. Big mistake. His homily on social distancing and masks will simply be ignored. He looks weak and irrelevant IMHO.

[Goose]

On the flip side, Mike DeWine's response in Ohio was generally very competent, as was Inslee's and Newsome's (at least until late; I think the failure to get contact tracing up and running will be his undoing).



BC

BC, while I agree that Newsom started out pretty well, I think he has totally botched the reopening operation. The failure to get track and trace in place to the degree necessary (and promised) was a serious failing. We agree on that. I also think he basically just gave up. There was a lot of political pressure to reopen before we really had a handle on where we were and before Southern California had peaked/reached steady state. He gave in and started reopening. In so doing, he lost control of the process. If and when some form of lockdown is necessary in a few counties or the entire state, he has no credibility. Big mistake. His homily on social distancing and masks will simply be ignored. He looks weak and irrelevant IMHO.

[Genuine Realist]

Well, what else was happening during Jan and early Feb? Where was the press on this?  Why wasnt the Dem leadership screaming about this?  Maybe a bit preoccupied?


Trump will face and get his share of the blame.  As he should.  But as with most things like this there is plenty to go around. New York didn’t handle it well to begin with either. Look at the nursing homes debacle, DiBlasio originally telling people in essence to continue partying.

They were busy selling their stocks?
And the Dem leadership was screaming about it.



By Feb 4, half(!) of all congressional Democrats had tweeted about COVID-19 at least once.  So much so that Trump accused them of making coronavirus their new hoax.

The criticism against Cuomo and especially DiBlasio is absolutely on point.  I have made that criticism myself.  Incompetence in the response is not necessarily a partisan issue.  Cuomo and DiBlasio blew it (as have Republican governors of Georgia, Florida, and Texas).  Cuomo and DeBlasio are up for re-election in 2022; I probably wouldn't vote for them if I were a NY resident.

On the flip side, Mike DeWine's response in Ohio was generally very competent, as was Inslee's and Newsome's (at least until late; I think the failure to get contact tracing up and running will be his undoing).

BC

---

https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/p...s-response

U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday along with 23 of their Democratic Senate colleagues, sent a letter to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar and Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Mick Mulvaney expressing their concern over the Trump Administration’s failure so far to outline what additional resources it needs to respond to the rapidly developing coronavirus outbreak. The letter comes after the Trump Administration released its new budget proposal, which suggested cutting public health and preparedness programs that help protect against global health threats.

This was February 19.

BC

This gets very old. Terry misses the point. 

Whatever you think of the United States response, the German was identical. HERE is the timeline for Germany - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_p...in_Germany- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_p...in_Germany

Take a look at section 4. The basic social action in January and February is identical for all practical purposes with the US (and with nearly every other Western nation) - nonchalance in January, rising concern in February, real panic in late February, drastic shutdown about March 10th. I don't know what timeline Farm83 looked at, but it wasn't this one.

The intelligence on the disease was available to all - it's not like military intelligence. So it is no surprising that the institutional response in the fist nine weeks of 2020 was virtually identical everywhere.

I don't know how often I've written this sentence, but the gating factor appears to be the clinical disaster in Italy, that made everyone sit up and take notice.

You'd think from the tenor of these posts that there were ice warnings everywhere, that other nations took prompt and proper action, and that the US sailed blithely ahead. That is simply not true. In fact, Trump's border closings on January 30th were well ahead of the curve = and roundly criticized by the New York Times, Joe Biden, and others, as xenophobic. I don't know what the Democrats were tweeting, but few (if any) of them were introducing legislation in the House. The Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, famously urged everyone to go out and socialize on Chinese New Year in the third week of February.

Social measures introduced in March have indeed done better in other countries than the US since then. But they have in common that they are homogenous ethnically, and without anything like the pluralistic diversity of the US, which in normal times is a gigantic plus. Those of you who want to re-create the social discipline of South Korea or Taiwan are in my opinion culturally myopic. No, thank you.

And as far as the discipline of the German people? It works out wonderfully well with pandemics, but not nearly so well in other historical contexts, a proposition with which you'll agree unless you have an extremely short memory. That's a bigotry to which I'll cheerfully confess. A German Chancellor will lecture an American President on human rights and freedom maybe 500 years from now, if that soon. 

Will you guys please give it up? You are not going to find the Western nation that foresaw the looming threat and reacted ahead of the curve. None did. We're in this mess because of the dynamics of the virus, not because someone missed a chance to fire a silver bullet.

---

Well, what else was happening during Jan and early Feb? Where was the press on this?  Why wasnt the Dem leadership screaming about this?  Maybe a bit preoccupied?


Trump will face and get his share of the blame.  As he should.  But as with most things like this there is plenty to go around. New York didn’t handle it well to begin with either. Look at the nursing homes debacle, DiBlasio originally telling people in essence to continue partying.

They were busy selling their stocks?
And the Dem leadership was screaming about it.



By Feb 4, half(!) of all congressional Democrats had tweeted about COVID-19 at least once.  So much so that Trump accused them of making coronavirus their new hoax.

The criticism against Cuomo and especially DiBlasio is absolutely on point.  I have made that criticism myself.  Incompetence in the response is not necessarily a partisan issue.  Cuomo and DiBlasio blew it (as have Republican governors of Georgia, Florida, and Texas).  Cuomo and DeBlasio are up for re-election in 2022; I probably wouldn't vote for them if I were a NY resident.

On the flip side, Mike DeWine's response in Ohio was generally very competent, as was Inslee's and Newsome's (at least until late; I think the failure to get contact tracing up and running will be his undoing).

BC

---

https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/p...s-response

U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday along with 23 of their Democratic Senate colleagues, sent a letter to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar and Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Mick Mulvaney expressing their concern over the Trump Administration’s failure so far to outline what additional resources it needs to respond to the rapidly developing coronavirus outbreak. The letter comes after the Trump Administration released its new budget proposal, which suggested cutting public health and preparedness programs that help protect against global health threats.

This was February 19.

BC

The Senate letter is exactly the sort of indication of riding concern that began to appear in the second half of February. It's not an immediate call to action.

The Democrats in general were sharply critical of the measures Trump did take at the end of January. 

There are no heroes here.

[Genuine Realist]

Well, what else was happening during Jan and early Feb? Where was the press on this?  Why wasnt the Dem leadership screaming about this?  Maybe a bit preoccupied?


Trump will face and get his share of the blame.  As he should.  But as with most things like this there is plenty to go around. New York didn’t handle it well to begin with either. Look at the nursing homes debacle, DiBlasio originally telling people in essence to continue partying.

They were busy selling their stocks?
And the Dem leadership was screaming about it.



By Feb 4, half(!) of all congressional Democrats had tweeted about COVID-19 at least once.  So much so that Trump accused them of making coronavirus their new hoax.

The criticism against Cuomo and especially DiBlasio is absolutely on point.  I have made that criticism myself.  Incompetence in the response is not necessarily a partisan issue.  Cuomo and DiBlasio blew it (as have Republican governors of Georgia, Florida, and Texas).  Cuomo and DeBlasio are up for re-election in 2022; I probably wouldn't vote for them if I were a NY resident.

On the flip side, Mike DeWine's response in Ohio was generally very competent, as was Inslee's and Newsome's (at least until late; I think the failure to get contact tracing up and running will be his undoing).

BC

---

https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/p...s-response

U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday along with 23 of their Democratic Senate colleagues, sent a letter to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar and Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Mick Mulvaney expressing their concern over the Trump Administration’s failure so far to outline what additional resources it needs to respond to the rapidly developing coronavirus outbreak. The letter comes after the Trump Administration released its new budget proposal, which suggested cutting public health and preparedness programs that help protect against global health threats.

This was February 19.

BC

This gets very old. Terry misses the point. 

Whatever you think of the United States response, the German was identical. HERE is the timeline for Germany - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_p...in_Germany- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_p...in_Germany

Take a look at section 4. The basic social action in January and February is identical for all practical purposes with the US (and with nearly every other Western nation) - nonchalance in January, rising concern in February, real panic in late February, drastic shutdown about March 10th. I don't know what timeline Farm83 looked at, but it wasn't this one.

The intelligence on the disease was available to all - it's not like military intelligence. So it is no surprising that the institutional response in the fist nine weeks of 2020 was virtually identical everywhere.

I don't know how often I've written this sentence, but the gating factor appears to be the clinical disaster in Italy, that made everyone sit up and take notice.

You'd think from the tenor of these posts that there were ice warnings everywhere, that other nations took prompt and proper action, and that the US sailed blithely ahead. That is simply not true. In fact, Trump's border closings on January 30th were well ahead of the curve = and roundly criticized by the New York Times, Joe Biden, and others, as xenophobic. I don't know what the Democrats were tweeting, but few (if any) of them were introducing legislation in the House. The Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, famously urged everyone to go out and socialize on Chinese New Year in the third week of February.

Social measures introduced in March have indeed done better in other countries than the US since then. But they have in common that they are homogenous ethnically, and without anything like the pluralistic diversity of the US, which in normal times is a gigantic plus. Those of you who want to re-create the social discipline of South Korea or Taiwan are in my opinion culturally myopic. No, thank you.

And as far as the discipline of the German people? It works out wonderfully well with pandemics, but not nearly so well in other historical contexts, a proposition with which you'll agree unless you have an extremely short memory. That's a bigotry to which I'll cheerfully confess. A German Chancellor will lecture an American President on human rights and freedom maybe 500 years from now, if that soon. 

Will you guys please give it up? You are not going to find the Western nation that foresaw the looming threat and reacted ahead of the curve. None did. We're in this mess because of the dynamics of the virus, not because someone missed a chance to fire a silver bullet.

---

Well, what else was happening during Jan and early Feb? Where was the press on this?  Why wasnt the Dem leadership screaming about this?  Maybe a bit preoccupied?


Trump will face and get his share of the blame.  As he should.  But as with most things like this there is plenty to go around. New York didn’t handle it well to begin with either. Look at the nursing homes debacle, DiBlasio originally telling people in essence to continue partying.

They were busy selling their stocks?
And the Dem leadership was screaming about it.



By Feb 4, half(!) of all congressional Democrats had tweeted about COVID-19 at least once.  So much so that Trump accused them of making coronavirus their new hoax.

The criticism against Cuomo and especially DiBlasio is absolutely on point.  I have made that criticism myself.  Incompetence in the response is not necessarily a partisan issue.  Cuomo and DiBlasio blew it (as have Republican governors of Georgia, Florida, and Texas).  Cuomo and DeBlasio are up for re-election in 2022; I probably wouldn't vote for them if I were a NY resident.

On the flip side, Mike DeWine's response in Ohio was generally very competent, as was Inslee's and Newsome's (at least until late; I think the failure to get contact tracing up and running will be his undoing).

BC

---

https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/p...s-response

U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday along with 23 of their Democratic Senate colleagues, sent a letter to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar and Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Mick Mulvaney expressing their concern over the Trump Administration’s failure so far to outline what additional resources it needs to respond to the rapidly developing coronavirus outbreak. The letter comes after the Trump Administration released its new budget proposal, which suggested cutting public health and preparedness programs that help protect against global health threats.

This was February 19.

BC

The Senate letter is exactly the sort of indication of riding concern that began to appear in the second half of February. It's not an immediate call to action.

The Democrats in general were sharply critical of the measures Trump did take at the end of January. 

There are no heroes here.

[BostonCard]

The Senate letter is exactly the sort of indication of riding concern that began to appear in the second half of February. It's not an immediate call to action.

The Democrats in general were sharply critical of the measures Trump did take at the end of January. 

There are no heroes here.

It indeed does get old, because Germany has had a grand total of 9,996 deaths, or just over 1 death per 10,000 of its people; the US has over three times the mortality.  Its seven day moving average of daily deaths is 11 total; we'd be thrilled to have a number 10 times as high.  Germany has reopened shops, museums, churches, hair salons, and many schools.  Very early on this board, a number of people here were wondering why the apparent case fatality rate from COVID-19 was so low in Germany.  It's because they tested a lot more than fellow European countries and a lot more than the US.  In the critical mid-March period where every day was critical, Germany had tested 30 times as many people per capita as the US.  Goose will remind us that in some ways they were a bit lucky, and that is true (as you can read in the article I link below), but they also played the hand they were dealt well.  They knew where COVID-19 was spreading and were able to act accordingly.  The US pretty much didn't, and only intervened when it was too late.

This article compares Germany's response to France's.

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/17/21223915/c...death-rate

The bottom line, "Germany followed the playbook for saving lives. France didn’t."  At least France seems to have learned its lesson; it has driven its infection rate down to about 450 new cases a day (7-day moving average) and its deaths to 22.

And for what it is worth, Angela Merkel gets the highest net approval rating in how she handled the response.

https://morningconsult.com/form/europe-p...-response/

Macron is under water, but you'll never guess which leader gets the worst marks.

BC

[BostonCard]

The Senate letter is exactly the sort of indication of riding concern that began to appear in the second half of February. It's not an immediate call to action.

The Democrats in general were sharply critical of the measures Trump did take at the end of January. 

There are no heroes here.

It indeed does get old, because Germany has had a grand total of 9,996 deaths, or just over 1 death per 10,000 of its people; the US has over three times the mortality.  Its seven day moving average of daily deaths is 11 total; we'd be thrilled to have a number 10 times as high.  Germany has reopened shops, museums, churches, hair salons, and many schools.  Very early on this board, a number of people here were wondering why the apparent case fatality rate from COVID-19 was so low in Germany.  It's because they tested a lot more than fellow European countries and a lot more than the US.  In the critical mid-March period where every day was critical, Germany had tested 30 times as many people per capita as the US.  Goose will remind us that in some ways they were a bit lucky, and that is true (as you can read in the article I link below), but they also played the hand they were dealt well.  They knew where COVID-19 was spreading and were able to act accordingly.  The US pretty much didn't, and only intervened when it was too late.

This article compares Germany's response to France's.

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/17/21223915/c...death-rate

The bottom line, "Germany followed the playbook for saving lives. France didn’t."  At least France seems to have learned its lesson; it has driven its infection rate down to about 450 new cases a day (7-day moving average) and its deaths to 22.

And for what it is worth, Angela Merkel gets the highest net approval rating in how she handled the response.

https://morningconsult.com/form/europe-p...-response/

Macron is under water, but you'll never guess which leader gets the worst marks.

BC

[oldalum]

Trump's border closings on January 30th were well ahead of the curve = and roundly criticized by the New York Times, Joe Biden, and others, as xenophobic.

I was surprised to read this about the NY Times, because most of the criticism I remember generally from that time was that travel bans are ineffective in combating a pandemic, which was the WHO's position (and doesn't make much sense to me early in a pandemic). So I looked through the Opinion section of the NY Times from Jan 30 to Feb 9 and found no NY Times Editorials on the travel ban at all. One columnist, Jamelle Bouie, who of course does not represent the opinion of the paper, wrote a column on February 4 about how the inclusion of Nigeria to the African nations added to the expanded travel ban shows Trump's travel ban was racist at the heart, but it is not clear whether Bouie was also faulting the original travel ban from China. I'd appreciate learning if there is something I missed--perhaps as part of an editorial primarily focused on a different topic, or was the travel ban criticized as xenophobic elsewhere in the paper? Thanks.

---

And BTW, I also looked up Biden, and it is not really clear that Biden criticized the travel ban as xenophobic. He never specifically called it that, and when he used the term xenophobic it might have been in response to Trump calling Covid-19 the Chinese virus. see Politifact article It seems to me a matter of interpretation, and at least based on this article a legitimate argument could be made for both interpretations. This is true of many of Trump's statements, which are so vague they can be interpreted in multiple ways.

[oldalum]

Trump's border closings on January 30th were well ahead of the curve = and roundly criticized by the New York Times, Joe Biden, and others, as xenophobic.

I was surprised to read this about the NY Times, because most of the criticism I remember generally from that time was that travel bans are ineffective in combating a pandemic, which was the WHO's position (and doesn't make much sense to me early in a pandemic). So I looked through the Opinion section of the NY Times from Jan 30 to Feb 9 and found no NY Times Editorials on the travel ban at all. One columnist, Jamelle Bouie, who of course does not represent the opinion of the paper, wrote a column on February 4 about how the inclusion of Nigeria to the African nations added to the expanded travel ban shows Trump's travel ban was racist at the heart, but it is not clear whether Bouie was also faulting the original travel ban from China. I'd appreciate learning if there is something I missed--perhaps as part of an editorial primarily focused on a different topic, or was the travel ban criticized as xenophobic elsewhere in the paper? Thanks.

---

And BTW, I also looked up Biden, and it is not really clear that Biden criticized the travel ban as xenophobic. He never specifically called it that, and when he used the term xenophobic it might have been in response to Trump calling Covid-19 the Chinese virus. see Politifact article It seems to me a matter of interpretation, and at least based on this article a legitimate argument could be made for both interpretations. This is true of many of Trump's statements, which are so vague they can be interpreted in multiple ways.

[Genuine Realist]

Trump's border closings on January 30th were well ahead of the curve = and roundly criticized by the New York Times, Joe Biden, and others, as xenophobic.

I was surprised to read this about the NY Times, because most of the criticism I remember generally from that time was that travel bans are ineffective in combating a pandemic, which was the WHO's position (and doesn't make much sense to me early in a pandemic). So I looked through the Opinion section of the NY Times from Jan 30 to Feb 9 and found no NY Times Editorials on the travel ban at all. One columnist, Jamelle Bouie, who of course does not represent the opinion of the paper, wrote a column on February 4 about how the inclusion of Nigeria to the African nations added to the expanded travel ban shows Trump's travel ban was racist at the heart, but it is not clear whether Bouie was also faulting the original travel ban from China. I'd appreciate learning if there is something I missed--perhaps as part of an editorial primarily focused on a different topic, or was the travel ban criticized as xenophobic elsewhere in the paper? Thanks.

---

And BTW, I also looked up Biden, and it is not really clear that Biden criticized the travel ban as xenophobic. He never specifically called it that, and when he used the term xenophobic it might have been in response to Trump calling Covid-19 the Chinese virus. see Politifact article It seems to me a matter of interpretation, and at least based on this article a legitimate argument could be made for both interpretations. This is true of many of Trump's statements, which are so vague they can be interpreted in multiple ways.

If the Board can ever get beyond the pursuit of someone to blame, you get to the far more interesting question of what in the nature of the virus caused it to catch every health service in the world - staffed with conscientious, knowledgable, committed people - flatfooted.

[Genuine Realist]

Trump's border closings on January 30th were well ahead of the curve = and roundly criticized by the New York Times, Joe Biden, and others, as xenophobic.

I was surprised to read this about the NY Times, because most of the criticism I remember generally from that time was that travel bans are ineffective in combating a pandemic, which was the WHO's position (and doesn't make much sense to me early in a pandemic). So I looked through the Opinion section of the NY Times from Jan 30 to Feb 9 and found no NY Times Editorials on the travel ban at all. One columnist, Jamelle Bouie, who of course does not represent the opinion of the paper, wrote a column on February 4 about how the inclusion of Nigeria to the African nations added to the expanded travel ban shows Trump's travel ban was racist at the heart, but it is not clear whether Bouie was also faulting the original travel ban from China. I'd appreciate learning if there is something I missed--perhaps as part of an editorial primarily focused on a different topic, or was the travel ban criticized as xenophobic elsewhere in the paper? Thanks.

---

And BTW, I also looked up Biden, and it is not really clear that Biden criticized the travel ban as xenophobic. He never specifically called it that, and when he used the term xenophobic it might have been in response to Trump calling Covid-19 the Chinese virus. see Politifact article It seems to me a matter of interpretation, and at least based on this article a legitimate argument could be made for both interpretations. This is true of many of Trump's statements, which are so vague they can be interpreted in multiple ways.

If the Board can ever get beyond the pursuit of someone to blame, you get to the far more interesting question of what in the nature of the virus caused it to catch every health service in the world - staffed with conscientious, knowledgable, committed people - flatfooted.

[oldalum]

If the Board can ever get beyond the pursuit of someone to blame, you get to the far more interesting question of what in the nature of the virus caused it to catch every health service in the world - staffed with conscientious, knowledgable, committed people - flatfooted.

I would say the extent of asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission was one important factor in this.

[oldalum]

If the Board can ever get beyond the pursuit of someone to blame, you get to the far more interesting question of what in the nature of the virus caused it to catch every health service in the world - staffed with conscientious, knowledgable, committed people - flatfooted.

I would say the extent of asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission was one important factor in this.