[lex24]

The odds a vaccine will work are extremely low, IMO. First, it has to work over an extended period of time. Given we see strong evidence antibodies don’t last long, this is my number one reason for skepticism. But let’s assume a vaccine works for one year before needing another dose. Then, you need it produced at scale. Then you need people willing to get it. Then you need to pay for it. Look how many people won’t wear a damn mask, and I’m suppose to believe enough will take a vaccine to get herd immunity from something they don’t see as a big deal?

The only way out of this disaster is federal intervention. Mass testing on a scale we haven’t seen. Federal mask requirement. Setting up quarantine centers to isolate all infections. A National app for people to check in to any place they go, so contact tracing and effective quarantining can be done. The dirty little secret is if you do these things, only probably bars need to remain closed until infection rates drop and everything can re-open much sooner than if these steps aren’t taken.

OF, I agree that we should be able to beat this without a vaccine and should do more to do that, though, I would certainly be happy if a safe, effective vaccine emerged soon.

I recently read the article about Iceland that I believe has been mentioned before, and one remarkable, and kind of depressing, thing that emerges is that there are multiple ways to beat Covid.

All of them seem to include contact tracing, but many of the other details vary. In South Korea,they're cited most for testing and contact tracing, and they were able to tamp down a widespread breakout in Daegu. But in Japan, they never had much of a strict shutdown -- coupled with contact tracing and masks, they were able to keep counts down with social compliance with distancing. No authoritarian government required, and they haven't even tested that widely. Taiwan has been cited for a whole list of steps. Iceland accomplished a lot with its early actions and small size, but reading the article, it's also impressive to see how their involved government can play such a powerful role -- people cooperate with their contact tracers and are grateful because they feel like the contact tracers' primary role is making sure the *infected* are OK, and they've kept mortality rates low by checking up on people and getting all people -- rich and poor -- to hospitals promptly. Do Americans feel that way about the government when a contact tracer calls them?

Every approach -- including vaccines -- will require a competent government but also I'd say at this point -- more significantly -- a cooperative population -- whether agreeing to wear masks, or working with contact tracers, or following distancing guidelines (and not going to bars), or being community minded and not going to a family reunion when you're symptomatic, or taking a vaccine that helps your whole country achieve "herd immunity", or not taking up your assault rifles to protest masks or a Shelter-In-Place. Earlier on, I felt like the greatest failure in America was the government response, but now, it is more and more the lack of the ability of the people to cooperate for the better interest of the entire community and country. And if we don't fix that problem, even a vaccine won't magically solve it, because come on, we already know a lot of people at this time won't take it -- even when it's proven safe and effective. Fauci has warned "the fact that many Americans say they won't get a coronavirus vaccine, makes it "unlikely" that the US will achieve sufficient levels of immunity to quell the outbreak."

To OF's point -- if Americans were cooperative enough to take a safe, effective vaccine if and when it becomes available, we could beat Covid now even without a vaccine. But if America is dysfunctional and Americans refuse to work together even when proven solutions are available, even a vaccine will not solve things.

America is not dysfunctional.   We have a different cultural mindset towards government than Iceland, South Korea, Japan etc. A very different view towards “authority”. It has served us well for most of our history. But there are consequences and this is one of them. Over and over again I see people talking about Iceland, South Korea, pick your small country of choice and I come back to the same thought:  their stories simply aren’t applicable. I’m not suggesting that there are things to learn from these countries from what their governments did are doing etc. But I’m sorry,  you are not going to change a country‘s culture overnight no matter what’s happening. It simply doesn’t work that way. And with the US - given its regional differences it’s ideological differences etc. etc. etc. makes it that much more difficult.

 None of this is to suggest the administration gets a pass. Far from it. That’s not my point. And I’m not inclined to give the administration a pass anyway. But I also think it’s erroneous to suggest that a simple change of administration would’ve made everything different. It certainly could have and should have been handled better and perhaps we would’ve had a significantly better result. Of course we will never actually know that. But saying that Iceland did that or South Korea did this and we didn’t to me is a nonstarter. We simply are very different animals in the way we relate to our government, our heterogeneity and geography.

Edit: I wanted to add a “non-Trump related example”. In NY with it’s near 20,000,000 people, Gov Cuomo was criticized for waiting too long to invoke SIP. His response was along the lines of - at the time you were suggesting I should have ordered a shut down there were something like five reported cases in New York the people would have thought I was nuts and not supported it. He’s right.

[lex24]

The odds a vaccine will work are extremely low, IMO. First, it has to work over an extended period of time. Given we see strong evidence antibodies don’t last long, this is my number one reason for skepticism. But let’s assume a vaccine works for one year before needing another dose. Then, you need it produced at scale. Then you need people willing to get it. Then you need to pay for it. Look how many people won’t wear a damn mask, and I’m suppose to believe enough will take a vaccine to get herd immunity from something they don’t see as a big deal?

The only way out of this disaster is federal intervention. Mass testing on a scale we haven’t seen. Federal mask requirement. Setting up quarantine centers to isolate all infections. A National app for people to check in to any place they go, so contact tracing and effective quarantining can be done. The dirty little secret is if you do these things, only probably bars need to remain closed until infection rates drop and everything can re-open much sooner than if these steps aren’t taken.

OF, I agree that we should be able to beat this without a vaccine and should do more to do that, though, I would certainly be happy if a safe, effective vaccine emerged soon.

I recently read the article about Iceland that I believe has been mentioned before, and one remarkable, and kind of depressing, thing that emerges is that there are multiple ways to beat Covid.

All of them seem to include contact tracing, but many of the other details vary. In South Korea,they're cited most for testing and contact tracing, and they were able to tamp down a widespread breakout in Daegu. But in Japan, they never had much of a strict shutdown -- coupled with contact tracing and masks, they were able to keep counts down with social compliance with distancing. No authoritarian government required, and they haven't even tested that widely. Taiwan has been cited for a whole list of steps. Iceland accomplished a lot with its early actions and small size, but reading the article, it's also impressive to see how their involved government can play such a powerful role -- people cooperate with their contact tracers and are grateful because they feel like the contact tracers' primary role is making sure the *infected* are OK, and they've kept mortality rates low by checking up on people and getting all people -- rich and poor -- to hospitals promptly. Do Americans feel that way about the government when a contact tracer calls them?

Every approach -- including vaccines -- will require a competent government but also I'd say at this point -- more significantly -- a cooperative population -- whether agreeing to wear masks, or working with contact tracers, or following distancing guidelines (and not going to bars), or being community minded and not going to a family reunion when you're symptomatic, or taking a vaccine that helps your whole country achieve "herd immunity", or not taking up your assault rifles to protest masks or a Shelter-In-Place. Earlier on, I felt like the greatest failure in America was the government response, but now, it is more and more the lack of the ability of the people to cooperate for the better interest of the entire community and country. And if we don't fix that problem, even a vaccine won't magically solve it, because come on, we already know a lot of people at this time won't take it -- even when it's proven safe and effective. Fauci has warned "the fact that many Americans say they won't get a coronavirus vaccine, makes it "unlikely" that the US will achieve sufficient levels of immunity to quell the outbreak."

To OF's point -- if Americans were cooperative enough to take a safe, effective vaccine if and when it becomes available, we could beat Covid now even without a vaccine. But if America is dysfunctional and Americans refuse to work together even when proven solutions are available, even a vaccine will not solve things.

America is not dysfunctional.   We have a different cultural mindset towards government than Iceland, South Korea, Japan etc. A very different view towards “authority”. It has served us well for most of our history. But there are consequences and this is one of them. Over and over again I see people talking about Iceland, South Korea, pick your small country of choice and I come back to the same thought:  their stories simply aren’t applicable. I’m not suggesting that there are things to learn from these countries from what their governments did are doing etc. But I’m sorry,  you are not going to change a country‘s culture overnight no matter what’s happening. It simply doesn’t work that way. And with the US - given its regional differences it’s ideological differences etc. etc. etc. makes it that much more difficult.

 None of this is to suggest the administration gets a pass. Far from it. That’s not my point. And I’m not inclined to give the administration a pass anyway. But I also think it’s erroneous to suggest that a simple change of administration would’ve made everything different. It certainly could have and should have been handled better and perhaps we would’ve had a significantly better result. Of course we will never actually know that. But saying that Iceland did that or South Korea did this and we didn’t to me is a nonstarter. We simply are very different animals in the way we relate to our government, our heterogeneity and geography.

Edit: I wanted to add a “non-Trump related example”. In NY with it’s near 20,000,000 people, Gov Cuomo was criticized for waiting too long to invoke SIP. His response was along the lines of - at the time you were suggesting I should have ordered a shut down there were something like five reported cases in New York the people would have thought I was nuts and not supported it. He’s right.