Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

So a new study, shown here in the NYTimes, explains why the coronavirus is a big deal in this thread.

At first, most diseases grow exponentially. You can cut the rate down by how quickly it leaps from host to host. See also: social distancing.

The first known federal social distancing guidelines and similar suggestions were issued March 16, roughly the middle of the DOW's multi-thousand free fall.

The study says, moving that up by a single week would have prevented sixty percent of first wave deaths. (Incidentally, NY had issued a state of emergency March 7)

Two weeks earlier, it would have stopped ninety percent. And yes, that would have been a hard sell. NY hadn't even gotten its second case yet.

The study doesn't talk about second-wave deaths, but stopping social distancing during the first wave means the second wave is largely irrelevant. There are now 40,000 deaths. Sixty percent would be 24,000. Trump, who brags about unproven hypotheticals that can see Strawmen from their bedroom windows, has been shown by this study to have cost 24,000 American lives, so far, because of his inaction.

This is about double the number who died in a year to H1N1 that he blamed Biden for.

"But Breccia! Surely you can't blame Trump for using hypotheticals, and yet use hypotheticals yourself! That'd be hypocrisy!"

Good thing I don't have to.

There is no need to rely on the hypothetical calculations that we have described. The recent divergence of epidemics in Kentucky and Tennessee shows that even a few days' difference in action can have a big effect. Kentucky's social distancing measure was issued March 26; Tennessee waited until the last minute of March 31. As Kentucky moved to full statewide measures in reducing infection growth, Tennessee was usually less than a week behind. But as of Friday, the result was stark: Kentucky had 1,693 confirmed cases (379 per million population); Tennessee had 4,862 (712 per million).

Check it out, I just cited Kentucky in a favorable light.

"But Breccia! I thought you said Trump had no authority to end states' own actions! Wouldn't it be wrong to blame him for state failures?"

I believe I said that Trump couldn't overrule a state of emergency a governor issued. And I don't believe I've seen that contradicted. But
1) Trump could have acted sooner, as head of the federal government, taking his own actions, and
2) States don't get off the hook on this one. Some acted faster and more forcefully than others. Some got better results than others. I've pointed to Florida in particular. In fact, New York wasn't late but they were proportionately late, as the outbreak started in NYC sooner than most of the country.

That said, there is a difference between expecting police to magically appear between the first and second bullet fired by the murderer -- that's asking the impossible -- to asking why the police haven't shown up hours after the shooting started.

To make it more clear, Trump was told by US intelligence memos the coronavirus was a problem Feb 14th. Dr. Messonnier told the American people that the coronavirus was a major problem Feb 26th, the same day, Trump said the number of cases was going down not up.

I think every aspect of our society should be prepared. I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings...ss-conference/ so no blaming Fake News today!

This is not a "Trump screwed up" post because we all know that, even if some of us would rather, I dunno, make ten alt accounts and spam the forums with walls of meaningless text rather than admit it. This is not "Trump and only Trump screwed up" because that's flat-out false. If there are ten people supposed to do a job, and one of them does it, great. If there are ten people supposed to do a job, and none of them do it, all of them are to blame.

24,000 preventable deaths and counting. The Shitshow continues.

[Zan15]

Round 3 of unemployment starting to hit. Furloughs are going to turn into permanent layoffs.


Neiman Marcus Group files for bankruptcy and JCPenny missed 12 million dollar interest payment and is expected to file for bankruptcy Monday.

Inc flood of bankruptcies in retail.

Its not like they were doing all that great before this.

[Breccia]

Round 3 of unemployment starting to hit. Furloughs are going to turn into permanent layoffs.

Yeah...and it's not just the big companies. We've been talking a lot about small businesses not getting that help Congress authorized, haven't we? The system was clogged and there wasn't enough to go around. I don't have anything to cite -- this kind of thing doesn't happen very often -- but from what we've seen so far, including words like "minimum", I'd suspect that smaller businesses are more likely to go out of business than their larger counterparts because of this outbreak.

Mom's Diner can't afford to keep people on payroll if they shutter for months. If they don't qualify for a loan, they're never opening back up.

[Inuyaki]

If anyone is not watching the briefing right now... it's a really good one. Good questions, hilarious rants and melt downs.

[tromage2]

24,000 preventable deaths and counting.

preventable? are we living in a universe where people know the outcomes what might have happened in the future when a different action was made? This is reality not sci fi.

[Nellise]

Check it out, I just cited Kentucky in a favorable light.

I don't know why people keep acting like Kentucky and Tennessee are comparable. Tennessee has nearly 2 million more people in about the same land area and is significantly more urban with 2 fairly large cities in Memphis and Nashville. Kentucky has no cities anywhere near their sizes (Lexington is maybe half the size of Memphis). Tennessee has also done nearly 3 times as many tests as Kentucky.

Just as a counterpoint: Illinois shut down 2 weeks before Tennessee, doesn't even have twice the population, but has more than 5 times as many cases as Tennessee. So shutting down early made it worse?

[Orbitus]

preventable? are we living in a universe where people know the outcomes what might have happened in the future when a different action was made? This is reality not sci fi.

Well, Trump overrode the CDC to bring infected people back on a full plane. Overrode the CDC on just about everything so far. So yes, most of them WERE preventable. We had 15 infected, and Trump claimed they were going to go down to zero, now 40,000 deaths later, EVERYTHING is on Trump's hands. He could have prepared, but nope, he fired the pandemic response team, didn't stock up on PPE equipment, hasn't instituted a federal stay at home order, and now he wants to send our equipment to other countries when we haven't even flattened the curve here.

[Breccia]

If anyone is not watching the briefing right now... it's a really good one. Good questions, hilarious rants and melt downs.

Sorry, I was too busy watching Pelosi on FOX News.

No, really.

Nervous Nancy is an inherently “dumb” person. She wasted all of her time on the Impeachment Hoax. She will be overthrown, either by inside or out, just like her last time as “Speaker”. Wallace & FoxNews are on a bad path, watch!

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are we living in a universe where people know the outcomes what might have happened in the future when a different action was made?

No. We are living in a universe where Trump was directly told by his own staff how bad this would be, and did nothing.

We are living in a universe where Trump is telling people to get back to work, and to go to crowded Easter churches, as the body count breaks records.

We are living in a universe where "it's just one person from China, it's going to be fine" was a prediction of what might have happened in the future, except one not based on history, science, or facts. Just feelings.

And we are living in a universe where Trump said

I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic

on March 23, despite the WHO labeling it as such March 11, and the day I cited was March 9.

Trump was told and he claimed he knew it would be that bad a week before he did anything. That's not sci fi. That's So Fat.

[Thepersona]

preventable? are we living in a universe where people know the outcomes what might have happened in the future when a different action was made? This is reality not sci fi.

We're living in a reality where we can model how much some policies could impact any desired outcome, in this case is the amount of corpses that the orange cancer has on his hands.
And yeah, good policies could have saved at least 20k+ lives and counting.
All of the death and suffering is Trumps fault.

[Breccia]

All of the death and suffering is Trumps fault.

It's shared, but yes, Trump can and should have acted sooner and saved no-longer-countless lives. If a state's governor also didn't act, they're also responsible.

[Felya]

preventable? are we living in a universe where people know the outcomes what might have happened in the future when a different action was made? This is reality not sci fi.

Why do you think there is social distancing and quarantine? I think this might clear up a bit of the replies...

Funny enough, Trump is pretty much acting like every president in a sci fi movie... where everyone dies...

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All of the death and suffering is Trumps fault.

Here is something to think about... WA state was the first epicenter in US. Instead of listening to Inslee, Trump called him a snake. Florida governor claimed he waited for Trump’s word and are at more than twice as many cases as WA. That’s just the reaction to it happening, if we talk prevention and access to healthcare, Trump actively attacked both.

Beyond ‘the buck stops here’, I don’t think there is anyone that holds more responsibility. As a direct action and inaction, than Trump. Then if you consider his tweets that encourage breaking even the rules he set........

[Masark]

Inc flood of bankruptcies in retail.

So a flood on top of the existing flood.

Should we be buying stock in hip waders or snorkels?

[Rasulis]

preventable? are we living in a universe where people know the outcomes what might have happened in the future when a different action was made? This is reality not sci fi.

Of course we could. San Francisco is the second densest city in the US (New York is #1). London Breed closed the city early in late February. The results? Total of 1,157 confirmed COVID-19 case as of today, 20 deaths, 50 in acute care and 27 in intensive care.

Want to hear something even more amazing? Not a single confirmed case of COVID-19 in the 22-block San Francisco Chinatown. The most densely populated neighborhood in the US. Aaron Peskin, San Francisco supervisor that represent Chinatown, recognized what would happened if they had an outbreak in Chinatown. With full cooperation of the Chinese hospital and every single neighborhood institutions, all of whom were imprinted with memories of earlier outbreaks, the Chinatown community instituted stay-at-home policy voluntarily before San Francisco.

[Milchshake]

Contrast London Breed with Trump's latest attempt to rob states of PPE, mafia style.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025
The White House Has Erected A Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals From Getting Coronavirus PPE

The chief executive of a MA hospital, outbid for PPE by the feds multiple times, cut a deal, paid extra, hired the trucks — and then was interrogated by the FBI and had to get his Congressperson to intervene to keep DHS from heisting the shipment.

[Rasulis]

Contrast London Breed with Trump's latest attempt to rob states of PPE, mafia style.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025
The White House Has Erected A Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals From Getting Coronavirus PPE

The chief executive of a MA hospital, outbid for PPE by the feds multiple times, cut a deal, paid extra, hired the trucks — and then was interrogated by the FBI and had to get his Congressperson to intervene to keep DHS from heisting the shipment.

The US has become a failed state. While states are cooperating with each others, the Fed is putting up roadblocks at every turns.

[Zaydin]

The US has become a failed state. While states are cooperating with each others, the Fed is putting up roadblocks at every turns.

And Trump/his cronies won't explain where the stolen supplies are going. Five bucks says Trump is finding a way to profit off it.

[Rasulis]

And Trump/his cronies won't explain where the stolen supplies are going. Five bucks says Trump is finding a way to profit off it.

And people still root for him. I just don't get it. States have to sign contracts in secrecy and ship their supplies in private airplanes because they are concerned that their own government may confiscate the supplies, and his supporters don't find anything wrong with that?

[Breccia]

mafia style.

It's late and I'm tired, but...did that say that the FBI were thwarted from taking PPE from a hospital, but only because they called Congress?

[Rasulis]

It's late and I'm tired, but...did that say that the FBI were thwarted from taking PPE from a hospital, but only because they called Congress?

Congressional Representative. So his congressperson.

[Milchshake]

It's late and I'm tired, but...did that say that the FBI were thwarted from taking PPE from a hospital, but only because they called Congress?

Sadly yes. Trump and Sessions/Barr have hollowed out most of the FBI. I wonder if Comey and Mueller feel a special pain over this.

I mean what kind of FBI agent wants to steal medical supplies?

If Biden wins, he needs to torch the "tradition" of always nominating a conservative law man for the FBI.