[Genuine Realist]

I'm going to start with something that sounds political, but isn't. The state of national dialog has become so unpleasantly binary that if you post anything even the least bit incidentally supportive of Trump, or critical of his opponents, you're taken for a supporter. I'm not. He didn't have my vote in 2016, he's not going to do this year, for reasons that have nothing to do with C-19.

I am, however, interested in getting this right, so we can get beyond demonization, to some semblance of institutional trust - pretty important. There's an utter chaos of facts running around, as to who did what when, who reacted correctly, who not, what information was known, and so on. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the timeline of events in various countries, as to what happened when. The following is from the Wikipedia articles, linked in the title.

(a) Germany. On January 22nd, Germany authorities first id'd C-19 as a 'low health risk . . .   far less dangerous than SARS. Not a good start.

Germany then was in the fortunate position of being able to trace an index patient, a Chinese worker whose parents had visited from Shanghai, evidently infected by them, who passed a salt shaker to a colleague on January 27th - an interesting date. (That a worker who had had such a contact on that date was able to join the general population without testing or quarantine speaks volumes of the irresponsibility of the CCP.

That said, one day later, on the 28th, Jens Spahn, the Federal Minister of Health, targeted conspiracy theories as the big issue and vowed to fight them with transparency. However, on the same day, Lufthansa identified a passenger with the virus and promptly suspended all flights to China. Despite that, on February 1st, Spahn asserted that the big worry was that Germans returning from China would be unfairly stigmatized, and socially excluded. The dangers of the virus were secondary.

On February 13th, at a meeting of EU health ministers, Spahn rejected the notion of travel bans among single countries. He also rejected the notion of testing inbound travelers from China.

Thereafter, events grew apace. Cancellation of individual events by particular promoters began in late February. But there was even in early March no massive government action. As late as March 6th, Spahn ruled out restrictions on travel. 

However, the first deaths were reported on March 8th. Events of all kinds began to be canceled. Merkel devoted her entire press conference on March 11th.

Three days later, on March 14th, various German states began to forbid gatherings and close places of socialization. The closings grew in number and severity throughout Germany during the rest of March.

(b) Italy. The first confirmed cases of the virus in Italy occurred on January 31st - a Chinese couple who had arrived from Wuhan on January 23rd as tourists, and toured Verona, Parma, and Rome, before falling ill. [Once again, words fail me as to the irresponsibility of the CCP.] Italy promptly suspended all flights to China, and declared a six-month state of emergency. This was described as a precautionary measure. No action followed.

However, throughout February, clusters developed in Northern Italy and elsewhere, leading to greater and greater pressure on the health care system. Partial quarantines and cancellation of specific events began on February 22nd. Foreign countries began to cancel travel from Italy. In one of the most depressing factoids that a Western country can experience, Somalia (!!) sent twenty doctors to Italy to assist with the overwhelmed system.

I'm going to link a Guardian article that describes the equally astonishing resistance of Italian city officials to the ongoing storm. Throughout February, they minimized the threat and continued to promote tourism and socialisation.

However, the full fledged lockdown did not occur until March 9th, when the Prime Minister (Conte) nearly all commercial activity, except for supermarkets and pharmacies. On March 21st, he prohibited all non-essential activity. 

© Great Britain. On January 22nd, after a confirmed US case, British health authorities raised the risk level of C-19 from 'very low' to 'low'. They implemented some precautionary measures at Heathrow, but did nothing else. The authorities tried to trace 2,000 people who had flown from Wuhan to Great Britain in the proceeding two weeks, apparently with no luck.

The first confirmed cases in Great Britain itself were on January 31st, a pair of Chinese nationals studying at York University. Thereafter, the pace of contagion seems (to me, anyway) to have been relatively slow - there were only 23 cases by the end of February, and the first domestic case did not occur until the end of February.

March exploded. On March 15th, those over 70 were urged to self-isolate. On March 17th, the NHS postponed all non-urgent surgeries to free up 30,000 hospital beds. 

On the 20th of March, Boris Johnson announced a number of restrictions, which he tightened on March 23rd. They are going to remain in place for the foreseeable future.
[I had to delete South Korea. Thread was too long.]

Summary. I'm not going to go on with this, as it's too hard to write. But the pattern must be as clear to whomever is reading this as it is to me.

No matter who the national leader is - Trump, Merkel, johnson, or Conte - or how the national  health service is constituted - every one of these nations went through the exact same process.

In early January, they were relatively insouciant, believing that the virus was was easily manageable/

They all got religion around January 30th. I'd bet money that coincided with confirmation from the CCP - at long last - that the virus was communicable between human beings. But I'm not an MD. You guys tell me. All I know is that they all started moving from Defcon 1 up the ladder.

There was rising awareness throughout February, with the cancellation of events beginning like an avalanche does, with the movement of a few pebbles, followed by greater and greater movement.

Wholesale lockdowns began in the second week in March, in regions, States, and nations, depending on the particular configuration of the government.

It's the same throughout. You can examine other nations, but I'll bet you you don't find any material difference. In particular, Germany followed nearly exactly the same pattern as the US, down to a senior health official dismissing the threat well into February. Merkel may be better spoken than Trump, but she got religion on almost exactly the same date.

So you find me the nation that got ahead of the curve. I don't think any did.To my way of thinking, all this tracks almost to the day to the quantum of information being passed on by the CCP and WHO. To my way of thinking, they have the responsibility for the crisis that has engulfed the entire world.

I just don't think it's useful to seek out domestic villains.

[Genuine Realist]

I'm going to start with something that sounds political, but isn't. The state of national dialog has become so unpleasantly binary that if you post anything even the least bit incidentally supportive of Trump, or critical of his opponents, you're taken for a supporter. I'm not. He didn't have my vote in 2016, he's not going to do this year, for reasons that have nothing to do with C-19.

I am, however, interested in getting this right, so we can get beyond demonization, to some semblance of institutional trust - pretty important. There's an utter chaos of facts running around, as to who did what when, who reacted correctly, who not, what information was known, and so on. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the timeline of events in various countries, as to what happened when. The following is from the Wikipedia articles, linked in the title.

(a) Germany. On January 22nd, Germany authorities first id'd C-19 as a 'low health risk . . .   far less dangerous than SARS. Not a good start.

Germany then was in the fortunate position of being able to trace an index patient, a Chinese worker whose parents had visited from Shanghai, evidently infected by them, who passed a salt shaker to a colleague on January 27th - an interesting date. (That a worker who had had such a contact on that date was able to join the general population without testing or quarantine speaks volumes of the irresponsibility of the CCP.

That said, one day later, on the 28th, Jens Spahn, the Federal Minister of Health, targeted conspiracy theories as the big issue and vowed to fight them with transparency. However, on the same day, Lufthansa identified a passenger with the virus and promptly suspended all flights to China. Despite that, on February 1st, Spahn asserted that the big worry was that Germans returning from China would be unfairly stigmatized, and socially excluded. The dangers of the virus were secondary.

On February 13th, at a meeting of EU health ministers, Spahn rejected the notion of travel bans among single countries. He also rejected the notion of testing inbound travelers from China.

Thereafter, events grew apace. Cancellation of individual events by particular promoters began in late February. But there was even in early March no massive government action. As late as March 6th, Spahn ruled out restrictions on travel. 

However, the first deaths were reported on March 8th. Events of all kinds began to be canceled. Merkel devoted her entire press conference on March 11th.

Three days later, on March 14th, various German states began to forbid gatherings and close places of socialization. The closings grew in number and severity throughout Germany during the rest of March.

(b) Italy. The first confirmed cases of the virus in Italy occurred on January 31st - a Chinese couple who had arrived from Wuhan on January 23rd as tourists, and toured Verona, Parma, and Rome, before falling ill. [Once again, words fail me as to the irresponsibility of the CCP.] Italy promptly suspended all flights to China, and declared a six-month state of emergency. This was described as a precautionary measure. No action followed.

However, throughout February, clusters developed in Northern Italy and elsewhere, leading to greater and greater pressure on the health care system. Partial quarantines and cancellation of specific events began on February 22nd. Foreign countries began to cancel travel from Italy. In one of the most depressing factoids that a Western country can experience, Somalia (!!) sent twenty doctors to Italy to assist with the overwhelmed system.

I'm going to link a Guardian article that describes the equally astonishing resistance of Italian city officials to the ongoing storm. Throughout February, they minimized the threat and continued to promote tourism and socialisation.

However, the full fledged lockdown did not occur until March 9th, when the Prime Minister (Conte) nearly all commercial activity, except for supermarkets and pharmacies. On March 21st, he prohibited all non-essential activity. 

© Great Britain. On January 22nd, after a confirmed US case, British health authorities raised the risk level of C-19 from 'very low' to 'low'. They implemented some precautionary measures at Heathrow, but did nothing else. The authorities tried to trace 2,000 people who had flown from Wuhan to Great Britain in the proceeding two weeks, apparently with no luck.

The first confirmed cases in Great Britain itself were on January 31st, a pair of Chinese nationals studying at York University. Thereafter, the pace of contagion seems (to me, anyway) to have been relatively slow - there were only 23 cases by the end of February, and the first domestic case did not occur until the end of February.

March exploded. On March 15th, those over 70 were urged to self-isolate. On March 17th, the NHS postponed all non-urgent surgeries to free up 30,000 hospital beds. 

On the 20th of March, Boris Johnson announced a number of restrictions, which he tightened on March 23rd. They are going to remain in place for the foreseeable future.
[I had to delete South Korea. Thread was too long.]

Summary. I'm not going to go on with this, as it's too hard to write. But the pattern must be as clear to whomever is reading this as it is to me.

No matter who the national leader is - Trump, Merkel, johnson, or Conte - or how the national  health service is constituted - every one of these nations went through the exact same process.

In early January, they were relatively insouciant, believing that the virus was was easily manageable/

They all got religion around January 30th. I'd bet money that coincided with confirmation from the CCP - at long last - that the virus was communicable between human beings. But I'm not an MD. You guys tell me. All I know is that they all started moving from Defcon 1 up the ladder.

There was rising awareness throughout February, with the cancellation of events beginning like an avalanche does, with the movement of a few pebbles, followed by greater and greater movement.

Wholesale lockdowns began in the second week in March, in regions, States, and nations, depending on the particular configuration of the government.

It's the same throughout. You can examine other nations, but I'll bet you you don't find any material difference. In particular, Germany followed nearly exactly the same pattern as the US, down to a senior health official dismissing the threat well into February. Merkel may be better spoken than Trump, but she got religion on almost exactly the same date.

So you find me the nation that got ahead of the curve. I don't think any did.To my way of thinking, all this tracks almost to the day to the quantum of information being passed on by the CCP and WHO. To my way of thinking, they have the responsibility for the crisis that has engulfed the entire world.

I just don't think it's useful to seek out domestic villains.

[Snorlax94]

You’re scouring the world to find governments that may have reacted slower than the US.

That’s like searching through all the college records to find a coach who had a worse win-loss record than Buddy Teevens, trying to claim he did as well as anyone could have done.

Why is it that I can watch videos of people in Korea and Taiwan going to shops, eating out, going to work, having their kids go to school. How is a developing country like Vietnam doing well? Why does the US have more cases and more deaths than any other nation in the world? Why aren’t any countries that were on the ball in the comparisons? As an American, I’m most concerned about what is being done for me, my community, my family and friends. So many of our fellow Americans in NY died — many many times the number who died on 9/11. I demand a lot more than what has been done, and I will continue demanding competence, leadership, honesty, and results. It’s not “okay” and I will not by and accept the death of tens of thousands of Americans, the greatest collapse of the American economy ever, as “on par.” America used to be the leader of the free world, Americans never used to point at other failed leaders in the world and say, see, we are failing but I am able to find a few other countries like Iran that are failing even worse than us.

[Snorlax94]

You’re scouring the world to find governments that may have reacted slower than the US.

That’s like searching through all the college records to find a coach who had a worse win-loss record than Buddy Teevens, trying to claim he did as well as anyone could have done.

Why is it that I can watch videos of people in Korea and Taiwan going to shops, eating out, going to work, having their kids go to school. How is a developing country like Vietnam doing well? Why does the US have more cases and more deaths than any other nation in the world? Why aren’t any countries that were on the ball in the comparisons? As an American, I’m most concerned about what is being done for me, my community, my family and friends. So many of our fellow Americans in NY died — many many times the number who died on 9/11. I demand a lot more than what has been done, and I will continue demanding competence, leadership, honesty, and results. It’s not “okay” and I will not by and accept the death of tens of thousands of Americans, the greatest collapse of the American economy ever, as “on par.” America used to be the leader of the free world, Americans never used to point at other failed leaders in the world and say, see, we are failing but I am able to find a few other countries like Iran that are failing even worse than us.

[Mick]

All I know is that they all started moving from Defcon 1 up the ladder.

One tiny nit...they would have started at Defcon 5 (normal peacetime status), then moved up the ladder to Defcon 1.

Otherwise, 100% accurate.  I noticed you selected four of the most critical G-7 countries outside China.  Very good comparison.

[Mick]

All I know is that they all started moving from Defcon 1 up the ladder.

One tiny nit...they would have started at Defcon 5 (normal peacetime status), then moved up the ladder to Defcon 1.

Otherwise, 100% accurate.  I noticed you selected four of the most critical G-7 countries outside China.  Very good comparison.

[Genuine Realist]

You’re scouring the world to find governments that may have reacted slower than the US.

That’s like searching through all the college records to find a coach who had a worse win-loss record than Buddy Teevens, trying to claim he did as well as anyone could have done.

Why is it that I can watch videos of people in Korea and Taiwan going to shops, eating out, going to work, having their kids go to school. How is a developing country like Vietnam doing well? Why does the US have more cases and more deaths than any other nation in the world? Why aren’t any countries that were on the ball in the comparisons? As an American, I’m most concerned about what is being done for me, my community, my family and friends. So many of our fellow Americans in NY died — many many times the number who died on 9/11. Shouldn’t I demand more? I demand a lot more than what has been done, and I will continue demanding competence, leadership, honesty, and results. It’s not “okay” and I will not by and accept the death of tens of thousands of Americans, the greatest collapse of the American economy ever, as “on par” with anything else.

I'm not scouring the world looking for outliers. I chose mainstream Western countries, in particular, Germany, since it has been held ut as a counter-example to United States experience. As you now know, it isn't. 

These aren't exceptional nations. For a variety of reasons, South Korea and Vietnam are the outliers.

You scour the Western world, the ones that didn't have unusual access to Chinese data., to find a single nation that got on top of this. 
I don't think you'll find any.

[Genuine Realist]

You’re scouring the world to find governments that may have reacted slower than the US.

That’s like searching through all the college records to find a coach who had a worse win-loss record than Buddy Teevens, trying to claim he did as well as anyone could have done.

Why is it that I can watch videos of people in Korea and Taiwan going to shops, eating out, going to work, having their kids go to school. How is a developing country like Vietnam doing well? Why does the US have more cases and more deaths than any other nation in the world? Why aren’t any countries that were on the ball in the comparisons? As an American, I’m most concerned about what is being done for me, my community, my family and friends. So many of our fellow Americans in NY died — many many times the number who died on 9/11. Shouldn’t I demand more? I demand a lot more than what has been done, and I will continue demanding competence, leadership, honesty, and results. It’s not “okay” and I will not by and accept the death of tens of thousands of Americans, the greatest collapse of the American economy ever, as “on par” with anything else.

I'm not scouring the world looking for outliers. I chose mainstream Western countries, in particular, Germany, since it has been held ut as a counter-example to United States experience. As you now know, it isn't. 

These aren't exceptional nations. For a variety of reasons, South Korea and Vietnam are the outliers.

You scour the Western world, the ones that didn't have unusual access to Chinese data., to find a single nation that got on top of this. 
I don't think you'll find any.

[Snorlax94]

Using a similar approach of carefully selected comps, Buddy Teevens won as many, if not more*, college football national championships as any other Pac-10 coach during his tenure at Stanford. That guy was a genius! Totally fair comparable schools — same conference, same years.

* unvacated

[Snorlax94]

Using a similar approach of carefully selected comps, Buddy Teevens won as many, if not more*, college football national championships as any other Pac-10 coach during his tenure at Stanford. That guy was a genius! Totally fair comparable schools — same conference, same years.

* unvacated

[magnus]

I can see where snorlax is coming from in questioning the comparison choices.  I thought the same thing when the US/media kept pointing out we were doing better than Italy in the early going.   Why would you ever want to compare yourself to the worst performer?   That said, I'll play (though not thoroughly researched).  Looking at just the charts and not the news headlines,  how about Norway?   Australia?

[magnus]

I can see where snorlax is coming from in questioning the comparison choices.  I thought the same thing when the US/media kept pointing out we were doing better than Italy in the early going.   Why would you ever want to compare yourself to the worst performer?   That said, I'll play (though not thoroughly researched).  Looking at just the charts and not the news headlines,  how about Norway?   Australia?

[Farm93]

So we are on pace to almost be as good as G7 country Italy?
I love Italy and Spain (not in G7). I have been to both a number of times, but when we are comparing our results in anything to the results from Italy & Spain we have a problem. 

Canada and Japan are in the G7, and it looks like Canada has the best response in North America and Japan has the best G7 response.
Looks like Germany will take the bronze in the G7 for COVID response excellence.

If we even begin to account for per capita health care expenditures the USA outcomes are really depressing, and these G7 countries noted in your effort were not exactly the best in class on this pandemic.   

Hunting for comparably bad results just shows how awful the USA response has been.   And that's all before factoring in that the USA is #1 in health care expenditures.  

Today's POTUS suggestion to swallow disinfectant or blast bodies with UV light just seals the deal.   We are pathetic.  The world would be laughing at us if they didn't feel so sorry for our health care workers forced to wear plastic bags and ski masks in a sorry attempt to protect themselves from sick patients that die before they can get their COVID19 test results back.

Sigh...

Just hope we do a better job preparing for and tackling the second wave.  Maybe we can move into the top tier for that portion of the pandemic.   We should have an advantage as no country will have a greater percentage of citizens carrying the antibodies going into wave 2.

[Farm93]

So we are on pace to almost be as good as G7 country Italy?
I love Italy and Spain (not in G7). I have been to both a number of times, but when we are comparing our results in anything to the results from Italy & Spain we have a problem. 

Canada and Japan are in the G7, and it looks like Canada has the best response in North America and Japan has the best G7 response.
Looks like Germany will take the bronze in the G7 for COVID response excellence.

If we even begin to account for per capita health care expenditures the USA outcomes are really depressing, and these G7 countries noted in your effort were not exactly the best in class on this pandemic.   

Hunting for comparably bad results just shows how awful the USA response has been.   And that's all before factoring in that the USA is #1 in health care expenditures.  

Today's POTUS suggestion to swallow disinfectant or blast bodies with UV light just seals the deal.   We are pathetic.  The world would be laughing at us if they didn't feel so sorry for our health care workers forced to wear plastic bags and ski masks in a sorry attempt to protect themselves from sick patients that die before they can get their COVID19 test results back.

Sigh...

Just hope we do a better job preparing for and tackling the second wave.  Maybe we can move into the top tier for that portion of the pandemic.   We should have an advantage as no country will have a greater percentage of citizens carrying the antibodies going into wave 2.

[Genuine Realist]

So we are on pace to almost be as good as G7 country Italy?
I love Italy and Spain (not in G7). I have been to both a number of times, but when we are comparing our results in anything to the results from Italy & Spain we have a problem. 

Canada and Japan are in the G7, and it looks like Canada has the best response in North America and Japan has the best G7 response.
Looks like Germany will take the bronze in the G7 for COVID response excellence.

If we even begin to account for per capita health care expenditures the USA outcomes are really depressing, and these G7 countries noted in your effort were not exactly the best in class on this pandemic.   

Hunting for comparably bad results just shows how awful the USA response has been.   And that's all before factoring in that the USA is #1 in health care expenditures.  

Today's POTUS suggestion to swallow disinfectant or blast bodies with UV light just seals the deal.   We are pathetic.  The world would be laughing at us if they didn't feel so sorry for our health care workers forced to wear plastic bags and ski masks in a sorry attempt to protect themselves from sick patients that die before they can get their COVID19 test results back.

Sigh...

Just hope we do a better job preparing for and tackling the second wave.  Maybe we can move into the top tier for that portion of the pandemic.   We should have an advantage as no country will have a greater percentage of citizens carrying the antibodies going into wave 2.

K
I hate to break the bad news, but the prime object of comparison is Germany - which is supposed to have done all the right things. In fact, it did all the same things.

And I repeat the somewhat embittering challenge - find a Western nation that did any better -or even any different.

Methinks you are going to find the same pattern over and over and over  - confidence in early to mid January, a sudden change in attitude at the end of January, eroding confidence and rising panic in February, lockdown in mid-March.

I realize giving up the politicization may be difficult, but I'd go with the reality.

[Genuine Realist]

So we are on pace to almost be as good as G7 country Italy?
I love Italy and Spain (not in G7). I have been to both a number of times, but when we are comparing our results in anything to the results from Italy & Spain we have a problem. 

Canada and Japan are in the G7, and it looks like Canada has the best response in North America and Japan has the best G7 response.
Looks like Germany will take the bronze in the G7 for COVID response excellence.

If we even begin to account for per capita health care expenditures the USA outcomes are really depressing, and these G7 countries noted in your effort were not exactly the best in class on this pandemic.   

Hunting for comparably bad results just shows how awful the USA response has been.   And that's all before factoring in that the USA is #1 in health care expenditures.  

Today's POTUS suggestion to swallow disinfectant or blast bodies with UV light just seals the deal.   We are pathetic.  The world would be laughing at us if they didn't feel so sorry for our health care workers forced to wear plastic bags and ski masks in a sorry attempt to protect themselves from sick patients that die before they can get their COVID19 test results back.

Sigh...

Just hope we do a better job preparing for and tackling the second wave.  Maybe we can move into the top tier for that portion of the pandemic.   We should have an advantage as no country will have a greater percentage of citizens carrying the antibodies going into wave 2.

K
I hate to break the bad news, but the prime object of comparison is Germany - which is supposed to have done all the right things. In fact, it did all the same things.

And I repeat the somewhat embittering challenge - find a Western nation that did any better -or even any different.

Methinks you are going to find the same pattern over and over and over  - confidence in early to mid January, a sudden change in attitude at the end of January, eroding confidence and rising panic in February, lockdown in mid-March.

I realize giving up the politicization may be difficult, but I'd go with the reality.

[magnus]

Canada and Japan are in the G7, and it looks like Canada has the best response in North America and Japan has the best G7 response.

Why does Japan keep getting praised for a good response?  Their numbers have been climbing exponentially over the last month and their citizens are in an uproar over their PM's handling of things.  (Some say low testing resulted on early depressed numbers)

Maybe they'll figure it out faster than us,  but
just as we shouldn't compare to Italy.  Others shouldn't compare to us.

---

I hate to break the bad news, but the prime object of comparison is Germany - which is supposed to have done all the right things. In fact, it did all the same things.

And I repeat the somewhat embittering challenge - find a Western nation that did any better -or even any different.

I wouldn't have put Germany on a pedestal.  They were acclaimed for their early low death rate, but one theory behind their early depressed numbers was that their early testing heavily skewed towards the younger demographic.  Which meant lower deaths per cases found.  Soon after their death numbers climbed and caught up with other countries.  

As for Western nations that did better.  As mentioned above, how about Norway?  Australia?  Maybe even Austria and Denmark?  I haven't followed any of the media coverage on those countries so no idea if there's an ulterior reason behind their curves, but boy do their curves look nice! =)

[magnus]

Canada and Japan are in the G7, and it looks like Canada has the best response in North America and Japan has the best G7 response.

Why does Japan keep getting praised for a good response?  Their numbers have been climbing exponentially over the last month and their citizens are in an uproar over their PM's handling of things.  (Some say low testing resulted on early depressed numbers)

Maybe they'll figure it out faster than us,  but
just as we shouldn't compare to Italy.  Others shouldn't compare to us.

---

I hate to break the bad news, but the prime object of comparison is Germany - which is supposed to have done all the right things. In fact, it did all the same things.

And I repeat the somewhat embittering challenge - find a Western nation that did any better -or even any different.

I wouldn't have put Germany on a pedestal.  They were acclaimed for their early low death rate, but one theory behind their early depressed numbers was that their early testing heavily skewed towards the younger demographic.  Which meant lower deaths per cases found.  Soon after their death numbers climbed and caught up with other countries.  

As for Western nations that did better.  As mentioned above, how about Norway?  Australia?  Maybe even Austria and Denmark?  I haven't followed any of the media coverage on those countries so no idea if there's an ulterior reason behind their curves, but boy do their curves look nice! =)

[Genuine Realist]

Canada and Japan are in the G7, and it looks like Canada has the best response in North America and Japan has the best G7 response.

Why does Japan keep getting praised for a good response?  Their numbers have been climbing exponentially over the last month and their citizens are in an uproar over their PM's handling of things.  (Some say low testing resulted on early depressed numbers)

Maybe they'll figure it out faster than us,  but
just as we shouldn't compare to Italy.  Others shouldn't compare to us.

---

I hate to break the bad news, but the prime object of comparison is Germany - which is supposed to have done all the right things. In fact, it did all the same things.

And I repeat the somewhat embittering challenge - find a Western nation that did any better -or even any different.

I wouldn't have put Germany on a pedestal.  They were acclaimed for their early low death rate, but one theory behind their early depressed numbers was that their early testing heavily skewed towards the younger demographic.  Which meant lower deaths per cases found.  Soon after their death numbers climbed and caught up with other countries.  

As for Western nations that did better.  As mentioned above, how about Norway?  Australia?  Maybe even Austria and Denmark?  I haven't followed any of the media coverage on those countries so no idea if there's an ulterior reason behind their curves, but boy do their curves look nice! =)

You really want to go there? Australia experienced its first case on January 20th. Between the 20th and 30th, some very modest controls were in place at international airports, e.g., passengers were asked to self-identify if they felt sick or feverish and  report to a docor.

On January 31sr, the same day as Trump's travel ban, Australia began to require a two week quarantine, in which travelers fromChina had to reside in a different nation, until they would be allowed in Australia. (How that works in practice I don't know.) Two days later, in early February, a complete ban was imposed.

After the disease continued to spread throughout February, shutdowns of various events morphed into a full fledged lock down in mid-March.

Norway? Did not experience its first case until February 26th, which means it is really not a fair comparison, since the word was out by that time. Nonetheless, the health authorities took half measures, until a full lockdown was imposed on March 12th - pretty much the same time it was happening every where else.

You can search the world looking for these mythical infectious disease experts who beat the clock. Institutionally, they don't exist. You have a ffw prescient seers like akiddoc, who made personal financial decisions wisely. But no one, either singly or collectively, who could do it at the governmental level.

You guys search for an exception. You're not going to find any, except for a couple of outliers that border China.

[Genuine Realist]

Canada and Japan are in the G7, and it looks like Canada has the best response in North America and Japan has the best G7 response.

Why does Japan keep getting praised for a good response?  Their numbers have been climbing exponentially over the last month and their citizens are in an uproar over their PM's handling of things.  (Some say low testing resulted on early depressed numbers)

Maybe they'll figure it out faster than us,  but
just as we shouldn't compare to Italy.  Others shouldn't compare to us.

---

I hate to break the bad news, but the prime object of comparison is Germany - which is supposed to have done all the right things. In fact, it did all the same things.

And I repeat the somewhat embittering challenge - find a Western nation that did any better -or even any different.

I wouldn't have put Germany on a pedestal.  They were acclaimed for their early low death rate, but one theory behind their early depressed numbers was that their early testing heavily skewed towards the younger demographic.  Which meant lower deaths per cases found.  Soon after their death numbers climbed and caught up with other countries.  

As for Western nations that did better.  As mentioned above, how about Norway?  Australia?  Maybe even Austria and Denmark?  I haven't followed any of the media coverage on those countries so no idea if there's an ulterior reason behind their curves, but boy do their curves look nice! =)

You really want to go there? Australia experienced its first case on January 20th. Between the 20th and 30th, some very modest controls were in place at international airports, e.g., passengers were asked to self-identify if they felt sick or feverish and  report to a docor.

On January 31sr, the same day as Trump's travel ban, Australia began to require a two week quarantine, in which travelers fromChina had to reside in a different nation, until they would be allowed in Australia. (How that works in practice I don't know.) Two days later, in early February, a complete ban was imposed.

After the disease continued to spread throughout February, shutdowns of various events morphed into a full fledged lock down in mid-March.

Norway? Did not experience its first case until February 26th, which means it is really not a fair comparison, since the word was out by that time. Nonetheless, the health authorities took half measures, until a full lockdown was imposed on March 12th - pretty much the same time it was happening every where else.

You can search the world looking for these mythical infectious disease experts who beat the clock. Institutionally, they don't exist. You have a ffw prescient seers like akiddoc, who made personal financial decisions wisely. But no one, either singly or collectively, who could do it at the governmental level.

You guys search for an exception. You're not going to find any, except for a couple of outliers that border China.

[g1313]

GR, you make a compelling argument that no western country was really able to respond quickly and contain the virus.

However, the US government is also responsible for fighting the pandemic. The metric that seems to have the least noise is COVID deaths per million population. According to this graph: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily...RA+JPN+AUS

The US is doing better than Italy, Spain, Britain, and France, but worse than Germany and Canada, and MUCH worse than South Korea, Japan, and Australia. Do you think the US government bears some responsibility for this?

[g1313]

GR, you make a compelling argument that no western country was really able to respond quickly and contain the virus.

However, the US government is also responsible for fighting the pandemic. The metric that seems to have the least noise is COVID deaths per million population. According to this graph: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily...RA+JPN+AUS

The US is doing better than Italy, Spain, Britain, and France, but worse than Germany and Canada, and MUCH worse than South Korea, Japan, and Australia. Do you think the US government bears some responsibility for this?

[pefloresjr]

You don't think it helps to look for domestic villains but you are singularly focused on finding foreign villains, namely the CCP and WHO.  You repeatedly insist that they retarded our response by 6 weeks.  The travel restrictions were very limited, issued too late, and had inexplicable exceptions that pretty much assured they would fail.  The White House didn't issue its guidelines regarding social distancing until March 16th with the idea that they would be very temporary and only last two weeks.  Those guidelines have been repeatedly extended due to the pressure of reality.  From the time they were issued until now, the president has repeatedly minimized the seriousness of the pandemic and undermined the need for the stay at home measures.  Within the last week, he had his AG threaten to sue states that didn't open up on the president's timeline.  He also incited people to ignore the social distancing measures in political swing states.  All of this happened AFTER the 6 week delay that you assert CCP and WHO caused.  

I think CCP and WHO had some failings and some terrible bad acting that delayed the sharing of some important information.  However, a great deal of information was available by March and many people and countries acted on it.  I am not moved by the poor reaction of many Western nations, because in the USA there were many who saw the information and acted on it.  We had every opportunity to act.  The problem with your position is that the president has not acted with deliberation and strong leadership since the information became unquestionably known to all in the world.  The idea that the president would have acted any differently 6 weeks earlier if he had more information is laughable.  He didn't act after the information was known.  

I am sure you have at least some exposure to the concept of comparative fault.  In my view, you are correct that CCP mostly (WHO to a much lesser extent) bear some responsibility for not meeting their workplace responsibilities and moral duties to share information with the world in a more timely manner.  However, even after the information was out, our President only acted on that information in the most limited way with utmost recalcitrance.  The only thing that seems to be having an impact on this president is the growing number of deaths.  (About to pass 50,000 at this moment.)  In most states, the president would be deemed to be more at fault than the CCP/WHO because he mostly failed to act once he did get the information.  As a result he would be barred from any damages due to their behavior.  

To use an analogy, it would be like a situation where a meth cooker's house caught on fire but he didn't call the fire department because he was afraid he would be exposed and arrested.  The fire then spreads to a bunch of neighborhoods including our president's house a few blocks away, but he refuses to call the fire department despite the fact that all the other people whose houses on other blocks quickly started calling.  Our president however is afraid that the fire will be bad for property values and hurt his chances to get re-elected to the HOA board because he has promised everyone that their development is exceptional and the fire would probably just go away and we were doing a great job fighting the fire without the fire department.  Then, even after calling, he kept calling back and saying the fire department wasn't really needed and the fire is really very small.  After the president's house burns to the ground, would a jury award him any damages?  I sure as heck wouldn't.  That is the reason your focus on the failures of the CCP/WHO carry very little weight with me.  

Cheers,
Pete F.

[pefloresjr]

You don't think it helps to look for domestic villains but you are singularly focused on finding foreign villains, namely the CCP and WHO.  You repeatedly insist that they retarded our response by 6 weeks.  The travel restrictions were very limited, issued too late, and had inexplicable exceptions that pretty much assured they would fail.  The White House didn't issue its guidelines regarding social distancing until March 16th with the idea that they would be very temporary and only last two weeks.  Those guidelines have been repeatedly extended due to the pressure of reality.  From the time they were issued until now, the president has repeatedly minimized the seriousness of the pandemic and undermined the need for the stay at home measures.  Within the last week, he had his AG threaten to sue states that didn't open up on the president's timeline.  He also incited people to ignore the social distancing measures in political swing states.  All of this happened AFTER the 6 week delay that you assert CCP and WHO caused.  

I think CCP and WHO had some failings and some terrible bad acting that delayed the sharing of some important information.  However, a great deal of information was available by March and many people and countries acted on it.  I am not moved by the poor reaction of many Western nations, because in the USA there were many who saw the information and acted on it.  We had every opportunity to act.  The problem with your position is that the president has not acted with deliberation and strong leadership since the information became unquestionably known to all in the world.  The idea that the president would have acted any differently 6 weeks earlier if he had more information is laughable.  He didn't act after the information was known.  

I am sure you have at least some exposure to the concept of comparative fault.  In my view, you are correct that CCP mostly (WHO to a much lesser extent) bear some responsibility for not meeting their workplace responsibilities and moral duties to share information with the world in a more timely manner.  However, even after the information was out, our President only acted on that information in the most limited way with utmost recalcitrance.  The only thing that seems to be having an impact on this president is the growing number of deaths.  (About to pass 50,000 at this moment.)  In most states, the president would be deemed to be more at fault than the CCP/WHO because he mostly failed to act once he did get the information.  As a result he would be barred from any damages due to their behavior.  

To use an analogy, it would be like a situation where a meth cooker's house caught on fire but he didn't call the fire department because he was afraid he would be exposed and arrested.  The fire then spreads to a bunch of neighborhoods including our president's house a few blocks away, but he refuses to call the fire department despite the fact that all the other people whose houses on other blocks quickly started calling.  Our president however is afraid that the fire will be bad for property values and hurt his chances to get re-elected to the HOA board because he has promised everyone that their development is exceptional and the fire would probably just go away and we were doing a great job fighting the fire without the fire department.  Then, even after calling, he kept calling back and saying the fire department wasn't really needed and the fire is really very small.  After the president's house burns to the ground, would a jury award him any damages?  I sure as heck wouldn't.  That is the reason your focus on the failures of the CCP/WHO carry very little weight with me.  

Cheers,
Pete F.

[magnus]

As for Western nations that did better.  As mentioned above, how about Norway?  Australia?  Maybe even Austria and Denmark?  I haven't followed any of the media coverage on those countries so no idea if there's an ulterior reason behind their curves, but boy do their curves look nice! =)

You really want to go there? Australia experienced its first case on January 20th. Between the 20th and 30th, some very modest controls were in place at international airports, e.g., passengers were asked to self-identify if they felt sick or feverish and  report to a docor.

On January 31sr, the same day as Trump's travel ban, Australia began to require a two week quarantine, in which travelers fromChina had to reside in a different nation, until they would be allowed in Australia. (How that works in practice I don't know.) Two days later, in early February, a complete ban was imposed.

After the disease continued to spread throughout February, shutdowns of various events morphed into a full fledged lock down in mid-March.

Norway? Did not experience its first case until February 26th, which means it is really not a fair comparison, since the word was out by that time. Nonetheless, the health authorities took half measures, until a full lockdown was imposed on March 12th - pretty much the same time it was happening every where else.

You can search the world looking for these mythical infectious disease experts who beat the clock. Institutionally, they don't exist. You have a ffw prescient seers like akiddoc, who made personal financial decisions wisely. But no one, either singly or collectively, who could do it at the governmental level.

Thanks for digging out the dates, GR.  

Looks like I didn't fully understand the ground rules.  You were talking global timeline and not individual country timelines because otherwise, one could argue that some countries took the correct action (Norway) when the virus came knocking and others didn't (Italy, Spain, US, UK, Germany).  One could argue that Norway got it later, but then again, the US and UK got it relatively later than Italy (lots of "trailing by 2 weeks" talk in the beginning), but it didn't do any good.

If we're talking global timeline, then sure, I would agree that no Western country reacted with the same speed as some of the more successful Asian countries like South Korea, Singapore or Taiwan.  But, on a global timeline, the US and UK reacted even slower than Italy (again, that comparing to Italy thing...not good).  All the more shocking because we (americans) expect to be the leaders of everything.

[magnus]

As for Western nations that did better.  As mentioned above, how about Norway?  Australia?  Maybe even Austria and Denmark?  I haven't followed any of the media coverage on those countries so no idea if there's an ulterior reason behind their curves, but boy do their curves look nice! =)

You really want to go there? Australia experienced its first case on January 20th. Between the 20th and 30th, some very modest controls were in place at international airports, e.g., passengers were asked to self-identify if they felt sick or feverish and  report to a docor.

On January 31sr, the same day as Trump's travel ban, Australia began to require a two week quarantine, in which travelers fromChina had to reside in a different nation, until they would be allowed in Australia. (How that works in practice I don't know.) Two days later, in early February, a complete ban was imposed.

After the disease continued to spread throughout February, shutdowns of various events morphed into a full fledged lock down in mid-March.

Norway? Did not experience its first case until February 26th, which means it is really not a fair comparison, since the word was out by that time. Nonetheless, the health authorities took half measures, until a full lockdown was imposed on March 12th - pretty much the same time it was happening every where else.

You can search the world looking for these mythical infectious disease experts who beat the clock. Institutionally, they don't exist. You have a ffw prescient seers like akiddoc, who made personal financial decisions wisely. But no one, either singly or collectively, who could do it at the governmental level.

Thanks for digging out the dates, GR.  

Looks like I didn't fully understand the ground rules.  You were talking global timeline and not individual country timelines because otherwise, one could argue that some countries took the correct action (Norway) when the virus came knocking and others didn't (Italy, Spain, US, UK, Germany).  One could argue that Norway got it later, but then again, the US and UK got it relatively later than Italy (lots of "trailing by 2 weeks" talk in the beginning), but it didn't do any good.

If we're talking global timeline, then sure, I would agree that no Western country reacted with the same speed as some of the more successful Asian countries like South Korea, Singapore or Taiwan.  But, on a global timeline, the US and UK reacted even slower than Italy (again, that comparing to Italy thing...not good).  All the more shocking because we (americans) expect to be the leaders of everything.

[stupac2]

I think there are a couple confounding factors when comparing the US to countries abroad:

1) We're on the far end of federalization, and these public health decisions lie mainly with states. Those agencies look to the feds for guidance, to be sure, but they don't have the authority to issue SiP orders or other public health measures, which lie with states, counties, cities, etc. A notable exception would be allowing travel into the country, where there was some action taken on the early side (although of questioned efficacy).

2) Given the above, their job is in some sense easier than other governments, since it's more of a coordination/advisory role, rather than leading the response. Has the federal government done that adequately? My sense is overwhelmingly "no", from the spoiled CDC test kits to the lack of coordinating supply delivery (that as far as I know is still going on), but I'm not super interested in digging through that here.

Ultimately I don't think this question even really matters. I know that in some sense it's unfair to judge a country's leaders in a vacuum and not take an international perspective, but at the same time no one does that. How many voters during the great recession were saying "well the situation sucks here but it's way worse in Europe"? My sense is "literally zero".  The response has been bad, that the rest of the world made similar mistakes doesn't mean that they weren't mistakes, it doesn't mean we can't blame those in charge for their mistakes, and it doesn't even mean (though it may be suggestive) that different US politicians would have made the same mistakes (we can never actually know). It seems like a waste of time to me.


One thing I will say, though, is that I think one of GR's points (maybe here, maybe elsewhere) is spot on in that we won't really know the full story of what happened until years have passed (when do archives get opened? will we even live to see it?). My hunch is that it will be if anything more damning than what we know now from the live reporting, but that's very heavily informed by my priors so grain of salt and all that.

[stupac2]

I think there are a couple confounding factors when comparing the US to countries abroad:

1) We're on the far end of federalization, and these public health decisions lie mainly with states. Those agencies look to the feds for guidance, to be sure, but they don't have the authority to issue SiP orders or other public health measures, which lie with states, counties, cities, etc. A notable exception would be allowing travel into the country, where there was some action taken on the early side (although of questioned efficacy).

2) Given the above, their job is in some sense easier than other governments, since it's more of a coordination/advisory role, rather than leading the response. Has the federal government done that adequately? My sense is overwhelmingly "no", from the spoiled CDC test kits to the lack of coordinating supply delivery (that as far as I know is still going on), but I'm not super interested in digging through that here.

Ultimately I don't think this question even really matters. I know that in some sense it's unfair to judge a country's leaders in a vacuum and not take an international perspective, but at the same time no one does that. How many voters during the great recession were saying "well the situation sucks here but it's way worse in Europe"? My sense is "literally zero".  The response has been bad, that the rest of the world made similar mistakes doesn't mean that they weren't mistakes, it doesn't mean we can't blame those in charge for their mistakes, and it doesn't even mean (though it may be suggestive) that different US politicians would have made the same mistakes (we can never actually know). It seems like a waste of time to me.


One thing I will say, though, is that I think one of GR's points (maybe here, maybe elsewhere) is spot on in that we won't really know the full story of what happened until years have passed (when do archives get opened? will we even live to see it?). My hunch is that it will be if anything more damning than what we know now from the live reporting, but that's very heavily informed by my priors so grain of salt and all that.

[burger]

Genuine Realist's timeline is both tendentious and useless.  Like some others on this board, I am sick of arguing over what happened 3 months ago. Even if we ignore everything up to today, the federal response continues to be inadequate and pathetic.  As of today, we still have

- wholly inadequate testing in most of the country
- no federal plan for increasing that testing
- no federal plan for contact tracing (CA and a few other places are working on that, but its effectiveness will be limited if we don't do it everywhere)
- federal agencies still intercepting and seizing PPE ordered by states and hospitals
- McConnell and Republicans in the senate are now telling us they will let states go bankrupt instead of helping them to cover expenses.  How are states going to manage a robust contact tracing operation while they can't even pay for their teachers, police officers, etc.?
- Trump encouraging people to violate stay-at-home orders.  Just like Churchill told people they should keep their lights on at night during the Blitz, right?
- Firing FDA's top vaccine development expert because he wanted evidence-based treatments instead of peddling snake oil "cures" like chorloquine.

Trump and his incompetent people are screwing this up every single f***ing day.  Forget about the past.  I care about what's happening NOW.

Genuine Realist, please stop with the tiresome defending of Trump.  He has sucked at responding to this from day 1, and there has been no improvement now in the 4th month.  If you want to blame WHO for what happened in January, have a party (note: attendance will be limited to you and maybe cardcrimson, but you two will have a great time, I'm sure).  But Trump and the republicans in charge of the government bear 100% of the blame for the ongoing failures by the federal government.

[burger]

Genuine Realist's timeline is both tendentious and useless.  Like some others on this board, I am sick of arguing over what happened 3 months ago. Even if we ignore everything up to today, the federal response continues to be inadequate and pathetic.  As of today, we still have

- wholly inadequate testing in most of the country
- no federal plan for increasing that testing
- no federal plan for contact tracing (CA and a few other places are working on that, but its effectiveness will be limited if we don't do it everywhere)
- federal agencies still intercepting and seizing PPE ordered by states and hospitals
- McConnell and Republicans in the senate are now telling us they will let states go bankrupt instead of helping them to cover expenses.  How are states going to manage a robust contact tracing operation while they can't even pay for their teachers, police officers, etc.?
- Trump encouraging people to violate stay-at-home orders.  Just like Churchill told people they should keep their lights on at night during the Blitz, right?
- Firing FDA's top vaccine development expert because he wanted evidence-based treatments instead of peddling snake oil "cures" like chorloquine.

Trump and his incompetent people are screwing this up every single f***ing day.  Forget about the past.  I care about what's happening NOW.

Genuine Realist, please stop with the tiresome defending of Trump.  He has sucked at responding to this from day 1, and there has been no improvement now in the 4th month.  If you want to blame WHO for what happened in January, have a party (note: attendance will be limited to you and maybe cardcrimson, but you two will have a great time, I'm sure).  But Trump and the republicans in charge of the government bear 100% of the blame for the ongoing failures by the federal government.

[Genuine Realist]

You don't think it helps to look for domestic villains but you are singularly focused on finding foreign villains, namely the CCP and WHO.  You repeatedly insist that they retarded our response by 6 weeks.  The travel restrictions were very limited, issued too late, and had inexplicable exceptions that pretty much assured they would fail.  The White House didn't issue its guidelines regarding social distancing until March 16th with the idea that they would be very temporary and only last two weeks.  Those guidelines have been repeatedly extended due to the pressure of reality.  From the time they were issued until now, the president has repeatedly minimized the seriousness of the pandemic and undermined the need for the stay at home measures.  Within the last week, he had his AG threaten to sue states that didn't open up on the president's timeline.  He also incited people to ignore the social distancing measures in political swing states.  All of this happened AFTER the 6 week delay that you assert CCP and WHO caused.  

I think CCP and WHO had some failings and some terrible bad acting that delayed the sharing of some important information.  However, a great deal of information was available by March and many people and countries acted on it.  I am not moved by the poor reaction of many Western nations, because in the USA there were many who saw the information and acted on it.  We had every opportunity to act.  The problem with your position is that the president has not acted with deliberation and strong leadership since the information became unquestionably known to all in the world.  The idea that the president would have acted any differently 6 weeks earlier if he had more information is laughable.  He didn't act after the information was known.  

I am sure you have at least some exposure to the concept of comparative fault.  In my view, you are correct that CCP mostly (WHO to a much lesser extent) bear some responsibility for not meeting their workplace responsibilities and moral duties to share information with the world in a more timely manner.  However, even after the information was out, our President only acted on that information in the most limited way with utmost recalcitrance.  The only thing that seems to be having an impact on this president is the growing number of deaths.  (About to pass 50,000 at this moment.)  In most states, the president would be deemed to be more at fault than the CCP/WHO because he mostly failed to act once he did get the information.  As a result he would be barred from any damages due to their behavior.  

To use an analogy, it would be like a situation where a meth cooker's house caught on fire but he didn't call the fire department because he was afraid he would be exposed and arrested.  The fire then spreads to a bunch of neighborhoods including our president's house a few blocks away, but he refuses to call the fire department despite the fact that all the other people whose houses on other blocks quickly started calling.  Our president however is afraid that the fire will be bad for property values and hurt his chances to get re-elected to the HOA board because he has promised everyone that their development is exceptional and the fire would probably just go away and we were doing a great job fighting the fire without the fire department.  Then, even after calling, he kept calling back and saying the fire department wasn't really needed and the fire is really very small.  After the president's house burns to the ground, would a jury award him any damages?  I sure as heck wouldn't.  That is the reason your focus on the failures of the CCP/WHO carry very little weight with me.  

Cheers,
Pete F.

I'm actually focused on eliminating domestic villains, or, more accurately, domestic demons. Whether you regard the Chinese response as good, bad, or indifferent, the information coming out through the WHO from China was the gating factor for every health service in the world. The US response was not scandalously negligent or nonchalant. With small variations for national culture and government structure, the pattern of just about every nation in the world followed the same pattern with nearly identical 

It's important because a great many of the commentators are playing a game Eric Berne, in a 1960's best seller entitled 'Games People Play' famously described as 'Now I've Got You, You Sonuvabitch'. Three years ago, the normal political opposition that Trump richly deserves morphed into a hysterical, morbid hatred all out of proportion to the actual magnitude of the cause. The apoplectic rage George Bush endured between 2003 and 2008 is tame stuff indeed. If you check out Amazon for books about Trump written in 2017, you'll find an embarrassing number of otherwise respectable intellectuals who disgraced themselves predicting or speculating on a Fascist takeover of the government in the near future. (HOW???? Trump didn't have a private army, and he was not particularly respected by the regular armed forces. But those sort of details didn't matter.)

For three years, the faction has been frustrated because the nation ran on normally, and in some ways rather well. The cause that would justify that effect never arose. Now comes Covid-19 and  . . .  'NOW we've got you, you sonuvabitch!' You disbanded the /Pandemic Task Force. (Only he didn't.) You defanged the CDC. (Nope.) You fiddled while Rome burned. (Trump's public statements were too positive, but it's the walk that matters, not the talk, and the actions taken were identical in substance with those in other countries. None of it checks out.

It's important, because the critical decisions coming up - opening up the economy, balancing the economic risk versus the health risk, etc. - are ultra important. It's impossible to make them perfectly - we can only hope they are made as well as fallible human beings can make them.

I for sure don't want to hand any one a blank check. But I also would urge trust in good faith, because that does exist. 

In any case, ending the demonization and the sonuvabitch game is the point of the exercise.

[Genuine Realist]

You don't think it helps to look for domestic villains but you are singularly focused on finding foreign villains, namely the CCP and WHO.  You repeatedly insist that they retarded our response by 6 weeks.  The travel restrictions were very limited, issued too late, and had inexplicable exceptions that pretty much assured they would fail.  The White House didn't issue its guidelines regarding social distancing until March 16th with the idea that they would be very temporary and only last two weeks.  Those guidelines have been repeatedly extended due to the pressure of reality.  From the time they were issued until now, the president has repeatedly minimized the seriousness of the pandemic and undermined the need for the stay at home measures.  Within the last week, he had his AG threaten to sue states that didn't open up on the president's timeline.  He also incited people to ignore the social distancing measures in political swing states.  All of this happened AFTER the 6 week delay that you assert CCP and WHO caused.  

I think CCP and WHO had some failings and some terrible bad acting that delayed the sharing of some important information.  However, a great deal of information was available by March and many people and countries acted on it.  I am not moved by the poor reaction of many Western nations, because in the USA there were many who saw the information and acted on it.  We had every opportunity to act.  The problem with your position is that the president has not acted with deliberation and strong leadership since the information became unquestionably known to all in the world.  The idea that the president would have acted any differently 6 weeks earlier if he had more information is laughable.  He didn't act after the information was known.  

I am sure you have at least some exposure to the concept of comparative fault.  In my view, you are correct that CCP mostly (WHO to a much lesser extent) bear some responsibility for not meeting their workplace responsibilities and moral duties to share information with the world in a more timely manner.  However, even after the information was out, our President only acted on that information in the most limited way with utmost recalcitrance.  The only thing that seems to be having an impact on this president is the growing number of deaths.  (About to pass 50,000 at this moment.)  In most states, the president would be deemed to be more at fault than the CCP/WHO because he mostly failed to act once he did get the information.  As a result he would be barred from any damages due to their behavior.  

To use an analogy, it would be like a situation where a meth cooker's house caught on fire but he didn't call the fire department because he was afraid he would be exposed and arrested.  The fire then spreads to a bunch of neighborhoods including our president's house a few blocks away, but he refuses to call the fire department despite the fact that all the other people whose houses on other blocks quickly started calling.  Our president however is afraid that the fire will be bad for property values and hurt his chances to get re-elected to the HOA board because he has promised everyone that their development is exceptional and the fire would probably just go away and we were doing a great job fighting the fire without the fire department.  Then, even after calling, he kept calling back and saying the fire department wasn't really needed and the fire is really very small.  After the president's house burns to the ground, would a jury award him any damages?  I sure as heck wouldn't.  That is the reason your focus on the failures of the CCP/WHO carry very little weight with me.  

Cheers,
Pete F.

I'm actually focused on eliminating domestic villains, or, more accurately, domestic demons. Whether you regard the Chinese response as good, bad, or indifferent, the information coming out through the WHO from China was the gating factor for every health service in the world. The US response was not scandalously negligent or nonchalant. With small variations for national culture and government structure, the pattern of just about every nation in the world followed the same pattern with nearly identical 

It's important because a great many of the commentators are playing a game Eric Berne, in a 1960's best seller entitled 'Games People Play' famously described as 'Now I've Got You, You Sonuvabitch'. Three years ago, the normal political opposition that Trump richly deserves morphed into a hysterical, morbid hatred all out of proportion to the actual magnitude of the cause. The apoplectic rage George Bush endured between 2003 and 2008 is tame stuff indeed. If you check out Amazon for books about Trump written in 2017, you'll find an embarrassing number of otherwise respectable intellectuals who disgraced themselves predicting or speculating on a Fascist takeover of the government in the near future. (HOW???? Trump didn't have a private army, and he was not particularly respected by the regular armed forces. But those sort of details didn't matter.)

For three years, the faction has been frustrated because the nation ran on normally, and in some ways rather well. The cause that would justify that effect never arose. Now comes Covid-19 and  . . .  'NOW we've got you, you sonuvabitch!' You disbanded the /Pandemic Task Force. (Only he didn't.) You defanged the CDC. (Nope.) You fiddled while Rome burned. (Trump's public statements were too positive, but it's the walk that matters, not the talk, and the actions taken were identical in substance with those in other countries. None of it checks out.

It's important, because the critical decisions coming up - opening up the economy, balancing the economic risk versus the health risk, etc. - are ultra important. It's impossible to make them perfectly - we can only hope they are made as well as fallible human beings can make them.

I for sure don't want to hand any one a blank check. But I also would urge trust in good faith, because that does exist. 

In any case, ending the demonization and the sonuvabitch game is the point of the exercise.

[2006alum]

Why isn't anyone talking about New Zealand?

[tweet]https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1251970727374467073?s=20[/tweet]

The leader of our country has now advocated for injecting or consuming toxic chemicals to kill the virus. He obviously lacks a shred of empathy for the suffering of others. He went full court press on advocating a treatment that not only doesn't work, and wasn't scientifically supported, but has now been shown to have side effects that are worse than its benefits. It's palpable that all he cares about is anything that helps him get reelected. I actually pity those who are stuck trying to defend his leadership record, and laugh at the idea that it is comparable to Merkel's, let alone just about any other western leader's.

[2006alum]

Why isn't anyone talking about New Zealand?

[tweet]https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1251970727374467073?s=20[/tweet]

The leader of our country has now advocated for injecting or consuming toxic chemicals to kill the virus. He obviously lacks a shred of empathy for the suffering of others. He went full court press on advocating a treatment that not only doesn't work, and wasn't scientifically supported, but has now been shown to have side effects that are worse than its benefits. It's palpable that all he cares about is anything that helps him get reelected. I actually pity those who are stuck trying to defend his leadership record, and laugh at the idea that it is comparable to Merkel's, let alone just about any other western leader's.

[Genuine Realist]

Why isn't anyone talking about New Zealand?

[tweet]https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1251970727374467073?s=20[/tweet]

The leader of our country has now advocated for injecting or consuming toxic chemicals to kill the virus. He obviously lacks a shred of empathy for the suffering of others. He went full court press on advocating a treatment that not only doesn't work, and wasn't scientifically supported, but has now been shown to have side effects that are worse than its benefits. It's palpable that all he cares about is anything that helps him get reelected. I actually pity those who are stuck trying to defend his leadership record, and laugh at the idea that it is comparable to Merkel's, let alone just about any other western leader's.

We're not talking about New Zealand because it's a nation of 4.5 million that did not experience its first coronavirus case until February 28th. There is no basis of comparison with the situation of large. pluralistic nations that had to develop policy months before. The phrase 'grasping at straws' comes to mind.

I would also be very, very slow to go to the bank on quotes from Trump cited in the New York Times, Washington Post, and others. It's unfortunately that kind of world.

[Genuine Realist]

Why isn't anyone talking about New Zealand?

[tweet]https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1251970727374467073?s=20[/tweet]

The leader of our country has now advocated for injecting or consuming toxic chemicals to kill the virus. He obviously lacks a shred of empathy for the suffering of others. He went full court press on advocating a treatment that not only doesn't work, and wasn't scientifically supported, but has now been shown to have side effects that are worse than its benefits. It's palpable that all he cares about is anything that helps him get reelected. I actually pity those who are stuck trying to defend his leadership record, and laugh at the idea that it is comparable to Merkel's, let alone just about any other western leader's.

We're not talking about New Zealand because it's a nation of 4.5 million that did not experience its first coronavirus case until February 28th. There is no basis of comparison with the situation of large. pluralistic nations that had to develop policy months before. The phrase 'grasping at straws' comes to mind.

I would also be very, very slow to go to the bank on quotes from Trump cited in the New York Times, Washington Post, and others. It's unfortunately that kind of world.

[Mick]

Today's POTUS suggestion to swallow disinfectant or blast bodies with UV light just seals the deal.   

Missed that. What, specifically, did Trump say?

---

The leader of our country has now advocated for injecting or consuming toxic chemicals to kill the virus. 

I missed it.  What, specifically, did he say?  Can you provide the quote?

[Mick]

Today's POTUS suggestion to swallow disinfectant or blast bodies with UV light just seals the deal.   

Missed that. What, specifically, did Trump say?

---

The leader of our country has now advocated for injecting or consuming toxic chemicals to kill the virus. 

I missed it.  What, specifically, did he say?  Can you provide the quote?

[stupac2]

I'm actually focused on eliminating domestic villains, or, more accurately, domestic demons. Whether you regard the Chinese response as good, bad, or indifferent, the information coming out through the WHO from China was the gating factor for every health service in the world. The US response was not scandalously negligent or nonchalant. With small variations for national culture and government structure, the pattern of just about every nation in the world followed the same pattern with nearly identical 



It's important because a great many of the commentators are playing a game Eric Berne, in a 1960's best seller entitled 'Games People Play' famously described as 'Now I've Got You, You Sonuvabitch'. Three years ago, the normal political opposition that Trump richly deserves morphed into a hysterical, morbid hatred all out of proportion to the actual magnitude of the cause. The apoplectic rage George Bush George Bush endured between 2003 and 2008 is tame stuff indeed. If you check out Amazon for books about Trump written in 2017, you'll find an embarrassing number of otherwise respectable intellectuals who disgraced themselves predicting or speculating on a Fascist takeover of the government in the near future. (HOW???? Trump didn't have a private army, and he was not particularly respected by the regular armed forces. But those sort of details didn't matter.)



For three years, the faction has been frustrated because the nation ran on normally, and in some ways rather well. The cause that would justify that effect never arose. Now comes Covid-19 and  . . .  'NOW we've got you, you sonuvabitch!' You disbanded the /Pandemic Task Force. (Only he didn't.) You defanged the CDC. (Nope.) You fiddled while Rome burned. (Trump's public statements were too positive, but it's the walk that matters, not the talk, and the actions taken were identical in substance with those in other countries. None of it checks out.



It's important, because the critical decisions coming up - opening up the economy, balancing the economic risk versus the health risk, etc. - are ultra important. It's impossible to make them perfectly - we can only hope they are made as well as fallible human beings can make them.



I for sure don't want to hand any one a blank check. But I also would urge trust in good faith, because that does exist. 



In any case, ending the demonization and the sonuvabitch game is the point of the exercise.

Honest question: do you think this response has been handled well? Not "about the same as comparable countries", but genuinely well?

This is close to violating terry's rule and I can remove if people want, but do you think the response to Hurricane Maria was handled well? (Because that was, in my media circles anyway, a giant red flag for how well the response to a bigger, nationwide threat would go, and I think indicative of the poor response to covid.)

[stupac2]

I'm actually focused on eliminating domestic villains, or, more accurately, domestic demons. Whether you regard the Chinese response as good, bad, or indifferent, the information coming out through the WHO from China was the gating factor for every health service in the world. The US response was not scandalously negligent or nonchalant. With small variations for national culture and government structure, the pattern of just about every nation in the world followed the same pattern with nearly identical 



It's important because a great many of the commentators are playing a game Eric Berne, in a 1960's best seller entitled 'Games People Play' famously described as 'Now I've Got You, You Sonuvabitch'. Three years ago, the normal political opposition that Trump richly deserves morphed into a hysterical, morbid hatred all out of proportion to the actual magnitude of the cause. The apoplectic rage George Bush George Bush endured between 2003 and 2008 is tame stuff indeed. If you check out Amazon for books about Trump written in 2017, you'll find an embarrassing number of otherwise respectable intellectuals who disgraced themselves predicting or speculating on a Fascist takeover of the government in the near future. (HOW???? Trump didn't have a private army, and he was not particularly respected by the regular armed forces. But those sort of details didn't matter.)



For three years, the faction has been frustrated because the nation ran on normally, and in some ways rather well. The cause that would justify that effect never arose. Now comes Covid-19 and  . . .  'NOW we've got you, you sonuvabitch!' You disbanded the /Pandemic Task Force. (Only he didn't.) You defanged the CDC. (Nope.) You fiddled while Rome burned. (Trump's public statements were too positive, but it's the walk that matters, not the talk, and the actions taken were identical in substance with those in other countries. None of it checks out.



It's important, because the critical decisions coming up - opening up the economy, balancing the economic risk versus the health risk, etc. - are ultra important. It's impossible to make them perfectly - we can only hope they are made as well as fallible human beings can make them.



I for sure don't want to hand any one a blank check. But I also would urge trust in good faith, because that does exist. 



In any case, ending the demonization and the sonuvabitch game is the point of the exercise.

Honest question: do you think this response has been handled well? Not "about the same as comparable countries", but genuinely well?

This is close to violating terry's rule and I can remove if people want, but do you think the response to Hurricane Maria was handled well? (Because that was, in my media circles anyway, a giant red flag for how well the response to a bigger, nationwide threat would go, and I think indicative of the poor response to covid.)