[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.