Posted on 04/24/2020 4:21:39 AM PDT by Bruiser 10
If the data models were completely wrong creating a hysteria that the President supported with daily briefs, should we hold the President responsible for destroying the US Economy?
Is the President an epidemiologist?
Does the President have health advisors and “experts” to advise him?
Did we not all hear what they were saying every day in the briefings and in the countless appearances they made in our media?
Given what THEY were saying, what was the President supposed to do?
We knew very little about this virus at the outset. We still do not know much about it. They act like they do, but they don’t. We are still trying to understand the physiological behavior and establish effective treatments.
The models are always a “worst case” scenario and given that we did not have widespread testing the only patients we knew about at the outset were those being treated so the KNOWN mortality rate was far higher.
“Conventional wisdom” is often wrong. In hindsight, we will likely wish we had made some different choices, but those are always easy to see with hindsight.
We will never know how much worse it might have been had we not adopted this course. I have been somewhat skeptical since the beginning that it was as severe as advertised, but I was not the one gambling with potentially millions of lives nor were you.
The politics of this will be ugly, but I sincerely hope I don’t have to read endless threads about “Orange Man Bad” here on FR from folks that think the President should have ignored this or shrugged it off. He would have been blamed for every death and while it was nowhere near as bad as what we feared initially, it would have been worse.
Blame China. Had China done for the world what they did for their own country we would likely not be having this conversation!
Trump is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. The media will damn him no matter what and I guess many here on FR will also. I understand it, but you have to analyze the decisions based on the moment in which the decision was made.
Did the experts get it wrong? Yes, there is clear evidence emerging that the mortality rate of this disease is closer to the rate we see with a bad influenza season, but we did not know that nor did they when this started. They have been very slow to embrace this because they rely on long-term studies and peer reviewed testing before they accept data.
Did the President get it wrong as you ask? Maybe. Every person will have their own opinion of that, but for the sake of honesty put yourself in his shoes with the same information we had from the experts on the day the decision was made.
Solid list although I would definitely add our media to the list at #3. They are a dishonest and hysterical bunch. I watch my neighbors cows from my deck sometimes and there are always a few that bolt and panic at nothing and cause the rest of the herd to panic and run to the other corner of the pasture. I call them “the journalist”.
My main point was to show that all of these decisions by Trump (and others to be fair) were made in the fog of war.
People I would blame for our current situation:
1) The Chinese Communist Party
2) The WHO
3) The bumbling, fumbling, couldn’t find their ass if they were alone in a sauna CDC.
4) Dr. Christopher Murray (i.e. Bozo the Modeler)
5) Dr. Tony Fauci(Dr. Doom)
6) Blue state governors who are exploiting a public health crisis to extract bailout money.
And don’t forget the snowflakes that want to cringe over everything. Frightened children that keep looking for someone to protect them from the big bad world.
“most difficult task we have ever given ourselves,”
They dreamed up a fake disaster and expect the world to let them take over.
Nope, not going to happen.
.
And as top Democrats are in collusion with China, did the Democrats orchestrate the Corona pandemic to destroy the economy?
Anti-Globalists want to know...
***..we all need to start driving a Prius right now.***
Actually we need to start driving the biggest gas guzzler we can get our hands on! We must deplete the surplus gas out there before “they” decide to open the spigot and run it out on the ground!
Twenty years ago California was having an electric shortage. We on the other hand had so much excess electricity we were opening outlets and letting it run out on the ground!(at least that is what I told our California friends)
The entire aim of practical politics (AND THE OVER-ARCHING STRATEGY OF THOSE SEEKING TO SIEZE POWER ) is to keep the populace alarmed and, hence, clamorous to be led, by an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Very fair response and good questions.
Is the President an epidemiologist?
No but he lets the epidemiologist give briefings daily after everybody pointed out the models are bad.
Does the President have health advisors and “experts” to advise him?
Yes. You can delegate authority, but you do not delegate responsibility. The President is still responsible for decisions made. They advise him wrong; they are still working for him. I can only assume he thinks they did not advise him wrong. They might be right.
Did we not all hear what they were saying every day in the briefings and in the countless appearances they made in our media?
I do not understand the reference in this question, is that in reference to worst case model. I do remember them saying the model changes according to how we respond to the threat. Maybe we responded better then they predicted. There was also bad data input because there is more then one strain of the virus (not so bad on west coast, very bad one in NY).
“Did the experts get it wrong? Yes, there is clear evidence emerging that the mortality rate of this disease is closer to the rate we see with a bad influenza season, but we did not know that nor did they when this started.”
Why are they still hired if they got it wrong, and not fired?
Given what THEY were saying, what was the President supposed to do?
If the advisor is wrong, he should replace them. If they are not wrong, he should keep them.
“The models are always a “worst case” scenario and given that we did not have widespread testing the only patients we knew about at the outset were those being treated so the KNOWN mortality rate was far higher.”
Absolutely true this what the President and State governors reacted on, should we hold the President Trump accountable for making a decision on the data presented. If not, should members of the Free Republic be hating on those who believe the data.
Still to many unknowns, I am sure this debate will not go away until all the data is validated and verified.
GIGO. Garbage In Garbage Out. Bureaucrat job security.
I am sure this debate will not go away until all the data is validated and verified.
This is the rub for the “experts” the President was surrounded with at the outset of this. They got it wrong, but the key is “data is validated and verified.” I am in a technical/scientific occupation with a few science degrees. These people (especially in the medical field) deal in absolutes and never rely on anecdotal information about anything. Until something is fully studied, tested, peer reviewed, published, and tested by others it is not accepted within that community.
It is not the ideal framework for a fast developing crisis and I think we have seen that they always hedge and are very reluctant to put faith into anything the rest of us get excited about. It is culturally ingrained in the doom doctors.
My point that was not clear was that each and every American, if they so chose, could hear the “experts” around the President at the daily pressers. These briefings were beneficial to distribute information every day, hopefully inspire some optimism, and in a political sense they protect the President because none of these “revered experts” can come back months from now and claim the President did not do X,Y, or Z, or we (the experts) did not tell him that.
The American people heard the same dire warnings the President reacted to..... there are many (including more than a few here on FR) who now claim he should have fired them on the spot because they were wrong. Did they really know they were wrong? I don’t know. As I said, I think many of us began questioning what we were hearing in comparison to what we were seeing, but part of that goes back to what I wrote above. The “experts” only accept things that are well-studied, peer reviewed, and tested.
What if they had been right and the President had refused to shut things down? The media was hysterical and panic ruled the day as it was, now multiply the doom many times and just imagine what it would look like.
I am beyond ready to open things back up where we are able and I think the President is ready to do this also. I share the frustration that this is not occurring as fast as it could, but at least he is moving us in that direction. The damage has been severe to our economy and lives. I don’t think we realize how severe it has been. It’s a crap sandwich any way you slice it and there will be plenty of recrimination, finger-pointing, and anger about it all in a highly charged political season.
My main point is that Trump faced all of this in a fog of war with a media that hates him in an election year. He had to rely on experts for advice and data on which to base his decisions.
Those of us who support the man would do well to remember all of this when we each give him our own grade for performance.
Oh yeah, and I almost forgot.
Blame China. They hosed us. Can you imagine what our media and airwaves would sound like right now had Trump made the decisions the CCP did, tried to hide it, disappeared doctors and journalists, and pushed the virus out to the same world even as he locked down a single state to protect our own country?
Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
Three times is enemy action.
— Ian Fleming.
Yes, he’s the one.
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