[oregontim]

Thanks for the poll, interesting and relevant in this strange world of today, what with conflicting experts and a wide range of state policies.

I makes me wish we were one of those other nations that have a coherent national policy based on the best guesses of a few trusted experts. It's not for nothing that we have 4% of the world's population and 27% of its covid-19 deaths. And about four times more cases than any other nation.

I liked this paragraph in the recent New Yorker article comparing Seattle response to New York's: (emphasis is mine)

During the H1N1 outbreak of 2009—which caused some twelve thousand American deaths, infections in every state, and seven hundred school closings—Besser and his successor at the C.D.C., Dr. Tom Frieden, gave more than a hundred press briefings. President Barack Obama spoke publicly about the outbreak only a few times, and generally limited himself to telling people to heed scientific experts and promising not to let politics distort the government’s response.

Nobody I've read has a good rebuttal to the problem that opening things up one state at a time is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool. Coordinated national policy — and for that matter, coordinated world policy — makes a lot of sense. This pandemic is the black swan.

[oregontim]

Thanks for the poll, interesting and relevant in this strange world of today, what with conflicting experts and a wide range of state policies.

I makes me wish we were one of those other nations that have a coherent national policy based on the best guesses of a few trusted experts. It's not for nothing that we have 4% of the world's population and 27% of its covid-19 deaths. And about four times more cases than any other nation.

I liked this paragraph in the recent New Yorker article comparing Seattle response to New York's: (emphasis is mine)

During the H1N1 outbreak of 2009—which caused some twelve thousand American deaths, infections in every state, and seven hundred school closings—Besser and his successor at the C.D.C., Dr. Tom Frieden, gave more than a hundred press briefings. President Barack Obama spoke publicly about the outbreak only a few times, and generally limited himself to telling people to heed scientific experts and promising not to let politics distort the government’s response.

Nobody I've read has a good rebuttal to the problem that opening things up one state at a time is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool. Coordinated national policy — and for that matter, coordinated world policy — makes a lot of sense. This pandemic is the black swan.