RE: [Share n burn] Today's coronavirus (COVID-19) links - April 6, 2020
I choose #10 today :)
widespread testing and case tracking, adequate supplies of protective gear for health care workers and the use of nonmedical masks by the public.
Does this not describe the South Korean response to the pandemic? And look at their numbers.
We're the best, right? The greatest, right? The most industrially advanced, right? In what way are we any of these things if we have failed to meet each of the criteria listed in the quote?
This virus was not uniquely virulent, nor uniquely deadly. It could have been worse. It could have been a virus with higher mortality. All of this was foreseeable. Pre-pandemic we were like the drunk driver who never got caught. We were lucky, but our luck was bound to run out. Every intelligent person knew it. Biosecurity experts knew it. And yet, we were grossly unprepared.
There is no excuse for the incompetence of elected leaders, those responsible for insuring public safety. This is, after all, the primary responsibility of government. People join together and elect leaders for common security. Our government has failed abysmally in this basic function.
Thanks so much for giving me a place to rant :))
Thanks for the reply. One of those points that you excerpted is rapidly turning into a pet-peeve for me.
The more I read about this, the more I have come to believe that not using masks/face-coverings in public is the single biggest thing that the US got wrong from January through a couple days ago.
And the thing that really annoys me now is that they're still running around saying that a mask protects other people, but not the person wearing it. Of course it's not perfect, but it's not even plausible to think that a mask could block particles in one direction, but not the other. It doesn't even pass the laugh test, but it's discouraging people from using them.
At any rate, I'm a little bit encouraged by the decline in the number of new cases today. Hopefully, it's not just because people were off from work or delayed medical treatment for Palm Sunday. Fingers crossed.
That's the most obvious and intuitive isn't it. And yes, we have to take heart, but still be careful