03-28-2020, 01:00 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-28-2020, 01:26 AM by Eric the Green.)
(03-27-2020, 11:29 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: President Trump's handling of the Covid-19 crisis has been highly successful so far. The US only has 1000 deaths to date, compared to 16,000 so far in Europe, largely due to Trump's prompt action in restricting travel from China, and later from Europe. Deaths are about as objective as it gets. In addition, while the US economy is now taking a severe hit, it's not nearly as bad as the EU economy, at least so far.
I was actually opposed to the China travel restrictions at the beginning, but Trump was right and I was wrong.
I expect we'll have to agree to disagree on this. From my side, it looks like Trump opponents are just refusing to see anything good about him, so I doubt there's any way to reach agreement on this.
Trump delayed the necessary actions, saying the contagion would pass and calling it another hoax to discredit his re-election campaign. He as usual is not consistent, one time responding as any other president would, and at other times saying unhelpful things like "I'll help you NY if you don't criticize me" and "I expect we can all go back to work for Easter." His previous actions of decreasing funds and personnel of the CDC and pandemics response is hampering response to COVID19, and his slowness in enacting wartime defense production acts to require industry to produce ventilators and other needed equipment has further hampered response. The result now is that the USA is the most infected nation, with the NY/NJ area as severe an epicenter as any place in Europe. USA deaths have topped 1700 and the trend lines remain straight up everywhere, except where countries have already done the things that Trump is slow to do.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
The problem is exactly the opposite. Too many Americans, 47%, refuse to see anything bad about him and are following this egotistic, narcissistic demagogue tyrant no matter what he does.
Europe's infection rate happened sooner than that in the USA. About a week ago the USA was #8 on the list and moving up fast while Europe saw several others higher on the list. Now the USA is #1 and has 3 times as many new cases as Italy. Soon it will have 2, 3 or 4 times as many cases as any other country.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
The slow to respond UK under Johnson has now replaced the USA at #8 and moving up fast, and Johnson himself is now infected. If fellow Trump clone Bolsonaro has his way, Brazil will become an epicenter too. Meanwhile so far, poor countries at war with refugees are still awaiting a possible cataclysm. They are protected now probably because no one in their right mind wants to visit those places. Ironically it might be humanitarian workers or journalists who bring the virus to those places. Italy was hit hardest because it is a tourist trap (justifiably so) with a heavy elderly population.
I agree on travel restrictions, and although I was opposed strongly to his Mexican border policy, apparently the Mexican government is even slower and more irresponsible than Trump's. So now, as in other countries, we have to close off all borders entirely for a couple of months. That is hard though for those escaping death in their home countries and seeking asylum, being left in Mexico where cartels and kidnapping gangs run rampant. I'm not exactly sure what the sane response to this double bind is now. Certainly a sane president would be jawboning Mexico to ramp up precautions and shutdowns, and then maybe asylum seekers could still go through a process which would include testing for the virus and quarantine if necessary.