America Has a Big Decision to Make - How Do We End Shelter In Place?


Because Trump failed in preventing the virus from spreading across the United States back in January, February, and March the only option we have now is to try to lessen the damage to our healthcare system by slowing the spread. But the spread of this disease is now inevitable all across the United States, so the debate is shifting to how to slowly infect pretty much everybody in the United States without creating hotspots or outbreaks that crash our hospitals. The only thing that could change this is the development of a highly effective vaccine, but that is months and maybe years away. Since younger people are less severely affected, expect that soon Trump and some states will be talking about letting young people out of quarantine. This, too, will increase the number of people who die and increase the spread to older people, although at a rate that our hospitals can handle.
Other countries that have done well with this did so through massive, widespread testing and contact tracing on an ongoing basis. The Trump administration, however, has taken both those things off the table for the United States. and because the virus does not respect state borders, this can only be done at the federal level: no governor has the ability to do this. Because Trump utterly failed in keeping the virus away from the United States and refuses to fund and implement a nationwide testing and contract tracing program, simply slowing down hundreds of thousands of coming deaths may well be all we have left.
-Thom
Comments


1) Hopefully, before coming autumn, governors of all states will be consulting Dr Anthony Fauci, CDS, NIH and the likes as to the appropriate preventive measures needed to minimize the effect of covid-19,since an affordably effective vaccine is highly unlikely by the end of this year.
2)"Di More monkey climb Di more im backside expose" (plagiarized from https://jamaicans.com/jamaican-proverbs-on-ambition/ ). The greek version replaces "backside" with "ass". Both proverbs are general enough to, presumably, include orangutans. In neither Jamaica nor Greece live any orangutans, to the best of my knowledge. Apparently, in USA there are some, even native ones.
#3. Bush had the right idea. Unfortunately he saddled the economy with huge war debts. A war that he lied us into and a war that he changed the mission.

Legend, FYI, the troll skipped his comment ahead of yours, putting it out of order.

Tin News, Episode #4: "All of this may have been avoided if we had listened to this wise man." -- AKA, "Bush the Village Idiot."
Yes, if only we had listened to the last Republican sage who lied us into our longest war in history over oil wealth, which is destroying the planet. If only we had heeded the advice of that most seasoned of statesmen who blew up the world's economy and ceded the People's constitutional power to the worst predatory billionaires of the trifecta of evil: the fossil-fuel, banking, and war monopolies -- ignoring Eisenhower's warning to future generations. If only we had learned from that last Republican traitor to our principles who wiped away the last vestiges of our democracy and paved the way for free-market fascism to flourish and a megalomaniacal clown to rule over us like the Mad King.
Is that who Trump cultists are now calling "wise"? Yup. His flying monkeys fit the profile of brain-dead zombies perfectly.
But, together, we can kill their latest incarnation of an evil clown -- metaphorically -- by making him small. Like most schoolyard bullies, Trump's inner damaged ego is nothing but a scared, sad little boy of little importance.
1) Hopefully, before coming autumn, governors of all states will be consulting Dr Anthony Fauci, CDS, NIH and the likes as to the appropriate preventive measures needed to minimize the effect of covid-19,since an affordably expensive vaccine is highly unlikely by the end of this year.
2)"Di More monkey climb Di more im backside expose" (plagiarized from https://jamaicans.com/jamaican-proverbs-on-ambition/ ). The greek version replaces "backside" with "ass". Both proverbs are general enough to, presumably, include