[oregontim]

... Yeah we can easily do the same types of measures China does. Our governments are so similar as are our cultures. Or Singapore. Anyone ready for a caning? Give me a break. Which is why the New England Journal of Medicine should stick to medicine and stay out of politics. They lose credibility when they do something like this.  And in so doing -  they help Trump.

China and Singapore in this context are between them a bit of a straw man. The NEJM editorial posted compares us not just to China and Singapore, but also South Korea, New Zealand, even Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, and, by implication, the rest of the world. We have 20% of the stats with 4% of the population. We're roughly 4-5 times worse than the norm.


I strongly object to excusing or normalizing the disastrous and probably criminal behavior of Trump and enablers because we, as a nation, are supposedly incapable. No, we aren't (yet) an autocratic lock-down nation like China and Singapore, and we are indeed capable of uniting around a disaster. Our "don't tread on me" streak doesn't mean we don't all stop at red lights and wear seat belts. Under any of the other 12 presidents of my lifetime, we would have had a death toll roughly equivalent to our share of the world population.


We are a nation whose president told us not to worry. Whose president took wearing a mask as an offense to him. Whose president ignored and distracted us, positioned caution itself as an evil conspiracy against his person. Remember "liberate Michigan" and "liberate Virginia?" He actively and on purpose undermined the CDC and the FDA. Earlier this week he explicitly, in writing, told an entire nation "don't be afraid of Covid."


[tweet]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1313186529058136070?s=20[/tweet]


So don't tell me we're too unruly to come together like other nations have. We are the only whose leadership openly attacked and undermined normal measures.

[oregontim]

... Yeah we can easily do the same types of measures China does. Our governments are so similar as are our cultures. Or Singapore. Anyone ready for a caning? Give me a break. Which is why the New England Journal of Medicine should stick to medicine and stay out of politics. They lose credibility when they do something like this.  And in so doing -  they help Trump.

China and Singapore in this context are between them a bit of a straw man. The NEJM editorial posted compares us not just to China and Singapore, but also South Korea, New Zealand, even Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, and, by implication, the rest of the world. We have 20% of the stats with 4% of the population. We're roughly 4-5 times worse than the norm.


I strongly object to excusing or normalizing the disastrous and probably criminal behavior of Trump and enablers because we, as a nation, are supposedly incapable. No, we aren't (yet) an autocratic lock-down nation like China and Singapore, and we are indeed capable of uniting around a disaster. Our "don't tread on me" streak doesn't mean we don't all stop at red lights and wear seat belts. Under any of the other 12 presidents of my lifetime, we would have had a death toll roughly equivalent to our share of the world population.


We are a nation whose president told us not to worry. Whose president took wearing a mask as an offense to him. Whose president ignored and distracted us, positioned caution itself as an evil conspiracy against his person. Remember "liberate Michigan" and "liberate Virginia?" He actively and on purpose undermined the CDC and the FDA. Earlier this week he explicitly, in writing, told an entire nation "don't be afraid of Covid."


[tweet]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1313186529058136070?s=20[/tweet]


So don't tell me we're too unruly to come together like other nations have. We are the only whose leadership openly attacked and undermined normal measures.