[Goose]

I have family in Milan and Sicily, incidentally including former carabinieri and a former mayor of his small Sicilian town. They obeyed curfews because they knew how many people this was killing. Not because they were afraid of getting arrested. The nation, opposition right wing populist parties included (though Salvini etc al have changed tune recently), unified around defeating the virus once it became clear how serious it was.

I do not disagree with the statement that the vast majority of Italians behaved responsibly. However, clearly, some did not. Otherwise it would not have been necessary to enforce the lockdown with vigor in many cases. It still is, e.g. the carabinieri surrounding an apartment building for two weeks to prevent the people from going to work. Note that I am not intending this as a criticism of the Italian people or government. There are a few idiots everywhere, but in Italy they weren't allowed to ruin it for everybody. That is a good thing, not a bad thing. You are right that the people of Italy rallied together especially after they saw what happened in Lombardy. They were plain scared, with good reason.

That never happened in the US and that's why we're fucked right now. Not because state and local govts weren't set up well to track and trace and isolate the most lethal and contagious respiratory pandemic in a century, one that spreads asymptomatically and presymptomatically, something public health departments have never seen before.



Our chance to try and contain this was by unifying against the virus as the common enemy as a nation. Most national leaders, after realizing the severity of this, pursued this approach. Trump, and Bolsonaro, did not.

I can't totally agree Dabigv13. It is certainly true that Trump has made things much worse by his constant attempts to play down the seriousness of this epidemic. However, that didn't force the Governor of Florida to be an idiot too. He did that of his own free will. Newsom opened California too soon, and he did that fully aware of what the situation was in LA County. That isn't Trumps fault. It isn't Trumps fault the Governor of Georgia tried to keep the Mayor of Atlanta from requiring masks. The Governor is just an idiot, IMHO.
The people of the USA could have united against this virus, and should have done so, despite Trump. There would have been people who would have behaved irresponsibly. Those people needed to be forced to conform. The minute it became clear that wasn't going to happen, either because the Governor of the State didn't think it necessary, or didn't think it possible, many Americans decided that it wasn't serious. Packed beaches in Southern California send a message that we don't need to be scared. Enough people quit being scared. That is why we are in deep yogurt, IMHO.

I never expected our State and County health departments to track and trace this virus out of existence when the epidemic started. They were vestigial at that point, as Fauci said. In fact, I argued long and hard that we couldn't do what Korea etc. did because we weren't ready. That was in March. However, the SIP existed to get the case counts down so that track and trace coupled with reasonable compliance would get us back up and running. Better compliance would have been nice, but if the State and County let people violate the SIP at will, reasonable compliance is the best you can hope for.
That is what we were told. I fully appreciate this virus is "difficult". However, we were supposed to be generating a track and trace capability in our State and Counties to allow us to contain the disease. If the case load was too high for them to track and trace it, the State and County public health folks should have spoken up and told Newsom (and everybody else) "Don't you dare" when he decided to start opening up. Did you hear that they did? By then, they fully knew they were expected "to track and trace and isolate the most lethal and contagious respiratory pandemic in a century, one that spreads asymptomatically and presymptomatically, something public health departments have never seen before". Over those 5 months, they had seen it plenty. Germany has managed to contain it. So have several other EU countries, at least for now. So yes, I do have a problem with our response that extends beyond Trump and beyond the idiot Governors who have failed their people.

[Goose]

I have family in Milan and Sicily, incidentally including former carabinieri and a former mayor of his small Sicilian town. They obeyed curfews because they knew how many people this was killing. Not because they were afraid of getting arrested. The nation, opposition right wing populist parties included (though Salvini etc al have changed tune recently), unified around defeating the virus once it became clear how serious it was.

I do not disagree with the statement that the vast majority of Italians behaved responsibly. However, clearly, some did not. Otherwise it would not have been necessary to enforce the lockdown with vigor in many cases. It still is, e.g. the carabinieri surrounding an apartment building for two weeks to prevent the people from going to work. Note that I am not intending this as a criticism of the Italian people or government. There are a few idiots everywhere, but in Italy they weren't allowed to ruin it for everybody. That is a good thing, not a bad thing. You are right that the people of Italy rallied together especially after they saw what happened in Lombardy. They were plain scared, with good reason.

That never happened in the US and that's why we're fucked right now. Not because state and local govts weren't set up well to track and trace and isolate the most lethal and contagious respiratory pandemic in a century, one that spreads asymptomatically and presymptomatically, something public health departments have never seen before.



Our chance to try and contain this was by unifying against the virus as the common enemy as a nation. Most national leaders, after realizing the severity of this, pursued this approach. Trump, and Bolsonaro, did not.

I can't totally agree Dabigv13. It is certainly true that Trump has made things much worse by his constant attempts to play down the seriousness of this epidemic. However, that didn't force the Governor of Florida to be an idiot too. He did that of his own free will. Newsom opened California too soon, and he did that fully aware of what the situation was in LA County. That isn't Trumps fault. It isn't Trumps fault the Governor of Georgia tried to keep the Mayor of Atlanta from requiring masks. The Governor is just an idiot, IMHO.
The people of the USA could have united against this virus, and should have done so, despite Trump. There would have been people who would have behaved irresponsibly. Those people needed to be forced to conform. The minute it became clear that wasn't going to happen, either because the Governor of the State didn't think it necessary, or didn't think it possible, many Americans decided that it wasn't serious. Packed beaches in Southern California send a message that we don't need to be scared. Enough people quit being scared. That is why we are in deep yogurt, IMHO.

I never expected our State and County health departments to track and trace this virus out of existence when the epidemic started. They were vestigial at that point, as Fauci said. In fact, I argued long and hard that we couldn't do what Korea etc. did because we weren't ready. That was in March. However, the SIP existed to get the case counts down so that track and trace coupled with reasonable compliance would get us back up and running. Better compliance would have been nice, but if the State and County let people violate the SIP at will, reasonable compliance is the best you can hope for.
That is what we were told. I fully appreciate this virus is "difficult". However, we were supposed to be generating a track and trace capability in our State and Counties to allow us to contain the disease. If the case load was too high for them to track and trace it, the State and County public health folks should have spoken up and told Newsom (and everybody else) "Don't you dare" when he decided to start opening up. Did you hear that they did? By then, they fully knew they were expected "to track and trace and isolate the most lethal and contagious respiratory pandemic in a century, one that spreads asymptomatically and presymptomatically, something public health departments have never seen before". Over those 5 months, they had seen it plenty. Germany has managed to contain it. So have several other EU countries, at least for now. So yes, I do have a problem with our response that extends beyond Trump and beyond the idiot Governors who have failed their people.