[Goose]

Goose,

I have full faith the USA will rebound.   No doubt in my mind.

However, the NCAA college football season looks lost while we wait for the rebound to start.   The 2020-2021 athletic year, and likely academic year, appear to be in the same category.

It is true Pearl Harbor, Sputnik and the financial market crash inspired the American exceptionalism examples I noted.   I would have though 120,000 deaths would be enough of a spark to get the USA to at least wear simple masks, but hopefully the mountain of daily events will shock the USA to action soon.

Waiting for the vaccine seems to be our path now, but that would mean that many things we covet will be cancelled or lost while we wait for that medical quick fix.

The problem is that a vaccine is not a certainty, and it's effectiveness also isn't a certainty. Even more importantly what happens the next time we are hit by a novel virus? What if it has a 10 day pre-symptomatic contagious period? We need to restore our ability to manage epidemics at the county, state and federal level. We used to have it. It fell into disuse because we didn't get hit by anything "really bad" in recent memory. It will happen again. In today's world, you don't have time to figure it out on the fly. Lots of people travel a lot, or at least pre-COVID they did. Yet not much, if anything is being done, or even discussed.

[Goose]

Goose,

I have full faith the USA will rebound.   No doubt in my mind.

However, the NCAA college football season looks lost while we wait for the rebound to start.   The 2020-2021 athletic year, and likely academic year, appear to be in the same category.

It is true Pearl Harbor, Sputnik and the financial market crash inspired the American exceptionalism examples I noted.   I would have though 120,000 deaths would be enough of a spark to get the USA to at least wear simple masks, but hopefully the mountain of daily events will shock the USA to action soon.

Waiting for the vaccine seems to be our path now, but that would mean that many things we covet will be cancelled or lost while we wait for that medical quick fix.

The problem is that a vaccine is not a certainty, and it's effectiveness also isn't a certainty. Even more importantly what happens the next time we are hit by a novel virus? What if it has a 10 day pre-symptomatic contagious period? We need to restore our ability to manage epidemics at the county, state and federal level. We used to have it. It fell into disuse because we didn't get hit by anything "really bad" in recent memory. It will happen again. In today's world, you don't have time to figure it out on the fly. Lots of people travel a lot, or at least pre-COVID they did. Yet not much, if anything is being done, or even discussed.