Posted on 03/22/2020 6:18:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
Great job, President Trump. You've done the impossible. You've turned perhaps the worst crisis in USA history and one of the darkest periods Americans have ever suffered into a show of leadership and a jump in approval.
The latest ABC News/IPSOS poll shows a dramatic turnaround. At 55% to 43%, Americans approve of President Donald Trump's handling of this crisis. The numbers were nearly completely reversed only a week ago. Bravo.
But I have some advice you need to hear.
Now, keep in mind, I'm not one of the people who ever said this was a hoax. It's 100% real. It's a terrible health care crisis and tragedy.
But did it have to be a terrible economic crisis and tragedy, too? And who does that help, exactly? If Grandma, Grandpa or someone you love is sick, critically ill or, God forbid, at death's door, does it help that you've also lost your job, or your small business has just closed? Does it help that you just lost your income or life savings? Do you feel better about a health tragedy if you also have a personal economic tragedy to deal with?
The common-sense answer is of course not.
That's why we should follow the South Korean model, or at least as close to it as possible. The country has had the most success in the world at fighting and surviving the coronavirus pandemic. In a nation of 51 million (about 10 million more than the population of California), South Korea has had under 9,000 cases and under 100 deaths.
So why is the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, predicting that roughly 25.5 million of his citizens will get the virus? On what is he basing that number? If he assumes a 3% mortality rate, he must expect 500,000 to 1 million deaths just in California. But based on what?
And is it irresponsible to scare his citizens half to death with over-the-top, hysterical, worst-worst-worst-case guesses modeled on computers?
Keep in mind the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention predicted over 1,000,000 cases of Ebola in Africa just a few years back. The actual number? Under 30,000. These are guesses on a computer screen -- hysterical, worst-case guesses.
These are two places similar in size, yet the governor of California is expecting a million deaths in his state versus under 100 deaths in South Korea? And Newsom is shutting down the state and California's economy based on those wild, worst-case guesses?
Even if, God willing, we beat this terrible virus, what's the point if, after it's all over, we face a ruined economy, no job, a bankrupt business, no assets, no way to pay bills? This is madness.
Or what if COVID-19 turns into COVID-20 through COVID-30 and they attack us repeatedly over the next decade? Will we close down the economy twice a year every year?
Try that a few times and we'll all be living in caves, using candles for light and newspapers for toilet paper, and carrying our supplies home on donkey carts. America will be a combination of Venezuela and "Mad Max."
My idea from day one was to put those already sick, the elderly, those with compromised immune systems and those at highest risk in quarantine for one to two months.
But ask and encourage everyone else -- the young, the healthy, business owners and their employees -- to carry on and live life. Those least at risk should be asked to keep their businesses open, keep the economy going, go out to eat, keep their communities' small businesses in business, all so the sick, elderly and at-risk population have something to come back to in one to two months.
That's a Winston Churchill-like, stiff-upper-lip response.
I dare you to ask all those who are now laid off, jobless or with shuttered businesses whether they'd be willing to risk getting sick, or even risk a small chance of dying if they could get their business or job back. I'm betting the answer from a vast majority would be an emphatic YES! Let's put the heroes of the American business world to work!
The healthy need to go on living. We need to keep commerce going. Someone has to pay the bills and taxes, or our nation will be in ruins -- even if we beat this monster.
I found out yesterday from Dr. Mehmet Oz, a brilliant, breath-of-fresh-air guest on my national radio show, that this is almost exactly the plan carried out in South Korea. The sick and at-risk were quarantined. Everyone else went to work. No businesses were closed. No economy was shut down. Now there's under 100 dead in a country of 51 million. And they still have their economy and jobs.
So, Mr. President, please study the South Korean model. Let's not ruin the greatest country and economy in world history. The business of America is business. Let's get back to it -- while we protect the most vulnerable and fight this terrible virus with everything we've got.
And you have to have a society with discipline-we do not. Korea didn’t have half its society running around at day one calling it a hoax or calling it a political hit job. They tested and immediately socially isolated instead of complaining. We aren’t Korea.
So you believe the number of new deaths every day is incomplete data? There will down the road be some revelation that they aren’t dead after all?
And it would seem they spent a lot of resources tracking cases. Sacramento admitted last week “we don’t have the resources to track cases.”
Depression, anger, bargaining, acceptance. Try to get to acceptance.
Did you know that in Italy they are counting all deaths in hospitals, regardless if Wuhan Virus was the actual cause?
Patients with multiple issues who die in Italy are counted into the daily numbers.
So your data is JUNK.
Additionally, not everyone is being tested up until now. The instant tests are just hitting the streets...which is why the number of infected is going to rise rapidly.
Add in the treatment with the anti-malarials, and your number of dead data gets skewed more.
There is a guy who has developed such a camera based technology that would identify “hot” people as they walk past the camera. He’s in Dallas and owns a basketball team...
Nobody has a clue because they are not doing mass testing yet!
You have no data on which to build a curve.
I agree with the article.
Last night on tv there was a commercial. The woman (I don’t recall her name) who stood behind Trump, and had her turn to speak at the medical news conference was the one in the ad.
She said if you don’t feel well stay home, don’t go to work. If someone in your house doesn’t feel well, don’t go to work.
I thought....who is she to tell us what to do. What are the ramifications to this. I was shocked. She didn’t say if you had flu like symptoms get checked..... no “if you felt sick.”
It didn’t sit right with me for so many reasons. But then I thought what if all the cashiers at the grocery stores stay home? What about truckers and rail workers. The supply chain would be destroyed.
No, it’s a Free Traitors thread.
They were silent, not out of the ranks of TDS, just silent, when Trump was making them a ton of money against their strong advice to sell out America.
Now, they’re back, posing as experts in epidemiology.
I am just guessing that you buy top quality equipment that is proven for the purpose, maintain or replace it when needed, take proper training from instructors who have themselves survived what they are teaching you to do, and make sure that you are fit for the purpose. As well, you probably don't do it when adverse conditions likely change the odds against success. But I'm just guessing that those "mitigating" actions are why you survive all of this.
True.
South Korea immediately began testing hundreds of thousands of asymptomatic people, including at drive-through centres.
South Korea employed a central tracking app, Corona 100m, that publicly informs citizens of known cases within 100 metres of where they are.
On 17 March, a temporary provision entailed a small subsidy of 454,900 South Korean won (£313) a month to cover basic living expenses. The same funding is available to those who are self-isolating, regardless of whether they test positive for the virus.
It’s already too late for the first step. I don’t think many Americans would like part 2. Part 3 we are working on.
As he said CDC projected a Million cases of Ebola in Africa..30,000 was the actual number....Destroying America to avoid the flu doesn’t add up...but it is an election year ....
I am not in Italy. I look forward to reading about Italy in my leisure months from now. We have nothing to learn from Italy that helps us other than they are 7-10 days ahead of us. We are on the roller coaster right now. What is coming in the next week is coming and only an act of God will change it.
Denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance. Quit bargaining. It won’t help.
Oh, yeah, 54 M is comparable to 330M.
I always said that communism might work in a nunnery where maybe 40 people live, but more than that, it sucks.
Taking advice from Erickson is like using a ouiji board that doesn’t like you. Wasn’t Erik a never-Trumper.
The US Constitution is being bashed hard by some of these politicians who are using power they simply don’t have to “order” people to do things they don’t have to do.
The current cooperation is good but at some point people who are looking at losing their business will not comply.
Ford didn’t fix the Pinto because it was cheaper to let people die or get fried than fix the thing. This form of risk management surrounds us all the time. The issue with this virus as others have pointed out is good metrics with which to make a decision of what kind of mortality rate is acceptable. That is coming......
Exactly, and what we are doing is the ONLY option we have for mitigation.
Denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance. Try to get to acceptance.
How do you know it’s a fact?
Also, it’s being said that testing is being done on people who display more severe symptoms and have higher risk factors. This will skew the percentages away from what is a more realistic case to death ratio.
We can’t test everyone, but that would be the only real way to know how fast it’s spreading among the population as a whole.
I agree with Erickson in his article above. We cannot destroy the economy over this. Learn from the countries that have been dealing with this longer than we have in the US.
Focus quarantine efforts on the people at higher risk, let everyone else continue keeping the country running, and stop spreading apocalyptic fear in the name of government control or political gain.
Absolutely. Toward the end of next week we will have all the conditions necessary for a “French Revolution” if people can’t get past “anger”.
Try to get past bargaining.
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