"You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine."

[George K]

@89th said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

And this shows the root of the problem. He would say one thing, then say the opposite later. Over and over. From "This will never be a pandemic" to "I always knew this would be a pandemic". From "people should stay home" to "fight stay at home orders". From "this will be over soon" to "this could last years". Having a coherent message erring on the side of caution, instead of contradictory one, would've helped lower the death count.

You keep repeating the same thing over. Repeating it doesn't make it relevant.

As the old saw goes, "Never pay attention to what a politician says; pay attention to what he does."

Or, in this case, what you claim he didn't do.

What specific action should Trump have taken?

[xenon]

I'll chime in here with the preface that my key criticism of Trump is that he's just not intellectually up to the job of governing. I also often argue that the role of the President in governing the U.S. is much more limited than people act like it is.

It's interesting that the argument now is - "well, the President actually can't do much here." Convenient - but I don't disagree that much. Powers to carry out specific actions are limited, but there is massive opportunity and responsibility to rally the country.

Now, on what he could do. It's a litany of tactical things that point to the fact that the white house didn't take this serious enough until pretty late. Example - PPE:
https://apnews.com/090600c299a8cf07f5b44d92534856bc

After the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment.

A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers.

You can argue whose fault it was that the stockpile was low (a good case to be made for Trump, a reasonable one for Obama). But why wait until, I think it was March-21 to place orders for N-95 masks?

[George K]

And how did that demand for ventilators work out? Was there a shortage?

[xenon]

@George-K said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

And how did that demand for ventilators work out? Was there a shortage?

George - is your implicit argument here that we didn't need as many ventilators as we thought - so what a waste of time and effort? Similarly PPE isn't that important, it was/is going to be a waste of time anyways?

I don't want to put words in your mouth, so help me unpack that.

[89th]

@George-K
Many times what the President says will have a greater impact than what he does. Words are actions, in that sense.

Like it or not, he sets the tone for how many citizens will treat the seriousness of a potential pandemic threat as well as for how many state and local officials might respond with local orders.

So whether it be through a signed action (e.g., executive order) or through a coherent message of caution and communication of the short term pain but long term benefits of shutting things down sooner rather than later, there are many things Trump could've done (and said) that would've enabled citizens and local governments to take action sooner than they did...which would've helped prevent some of the deaths we have now seen.

[Improviso]

@xenon said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

I'll chime in here with the preface that my key criticism of Trump is that he's just not intellectually up to the job of governing.

Well... up to the point where China and WHO fucked us in the ass, he was doing a pretty damn good job in my book.

[xenon]

@Improviso said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

@xenon said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

I'll chime in here with the preface that my key criticism of Trump is that he's just not intellectually up to the job of governing.

Well... up to the point where China and WHO fucked us in the ass, he was doing a pretty damn good job in my book.

It's curious - he was praising Xi pretty hard until the end of Feb. On transparency - lol. Raise your hands if you believed China was being transparent at any point.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/trump-china-coronavirus-188736

[jon-nyc]

George - your premise that the things he says don’t have real world effects and can therefore be swept aside seems pretty obviously wrong.

As for actions, the administration fucked up testing, was late in treating equipment procurement as the emergency it was (and is) and remains insufficiently prepared for reopening. He lives too much by the news cycle to ever get ahead of this.

Let me turn the question around - what part of our covid response did we really get right?

[Doctor Phibes]

My main problem isn't with what Trump's administration has done, it's been his appalling communication.

He's contradicted himself, Tweeted really stupid things that undermine his own government's policies, and during some of the briefings has gone on truly bizarre flights of fantasy. This stuff has encouraged people who think this is all some deep-state conspiracy to do Christ-alone-knows-what. The single most important job you have in a briefing is to be clear. This isn't an election rally, he's supposed to be addressing a national crisis.

And no, I don't think he's done a fantastic job with his actions either, but to be fair to him, most countries have fucked this up.

Yes, I think Biden's shit as well, so don't bother.

[George K]

@xenon said in :

George - is your implicit argument here that we didn't need as many ventilators as we thought - so what a waste of time and effort? Similarly PPE isn't that important, it was/is going to be a waste of time anyways?

I don't want to put words in your mouth, so help me unpack that.

I didn't say anything about PPE, to be sure. Perhaps someone who has a better understanding of how these contracts work can tell me if this was truly negligence on the part of the Obama/Trump administrations in not securing them vs them not being available (see Improv's comments above).

As to ventilators, Cuomo claimed that NY would need, iirc, 40,000 ventilators (the number might be wrong, but it's the correct order of magnitude). And yet, lo and behold, at the beginning of May, New York was shipping them elsewhere. They came nowhere close to needing 40K. The peak need in early April was ... 5,000.

As to projecting other needs, how did that need for 140K ICU beds work out? New York needed 23,000.

[snark] Of course, those needs were mitigated by having about 5,000 die in nursing homes by being exposed. [/snark]

The future's hard to predict, isn't it?

[Copper]

There has never been any pandemic treated like this.

Never.

Nothing even close.

The preparation that people are saying should have been made would have been a foolish waste before this year.

[Larry]

@xenon said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

I'll chime in here with the preface that my key criticism of Trump is that he's just not intellectually up to the job of governing.

Theres two reasons for that... the first reason is because you formed your opinion of him from what the media tells you to think, and the second reason is because you don't know how to tell who is and who is not "intellectually up to the job".

That's laughable, anyway. That is the argument used by elitist snobs.

[Larry]

"Not intellectually up to the job"...

BAWWWWWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Said by someone not intellectually up to the job of making that judgment...

BWAAAAHAHAAAAAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!

[xenon]

@Larry Are you trying to say something about my parents or my kids?

[Doctor Phibes]

Is that what was meant by this being a family forum - we post pictures of our mentally disadvantaged relatives?

[Jolly]

@89th said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

@Jolly while that timeline has bias smeared all over it, it does include a number of actions Trump took that were good. I've never argued against that. Which leads me to...

@Larry Incorrect, indeed that is exactly what I've been saying all along. It just triggered your TDS, but my message has been the same. You can view the start of this in Post 63 of the US has Shitloads thread and follow my comments there as well as in this thread. It's been the same message all along. Don't let your TDS blind you. I've been apolitical the entire time.

The bottom line also remains the same. We now have over 90,000 american deaths, and my position is this number would be smaller had the president not taken a "not as bad as the flu" position in early/mid March and had he advocated for stricter social distancing earlier, it would've helped lower the exponential growth we have seen since. None of this is even debatable, really. But go ahead...let the TDS "most competent president of our lifetime" kick in.

I admitted bias and asked for refutation. Is the timeline factually correct?

[Jolly]

@xenon said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

@Improviso said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

@xenon said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

I'll chime in here with the preface that my key criticism of Trump is that he's just not intellectually up to the job of governing.

Well... up to the point where China and WHO fucked us in the ass, he was doing a pretty damn good job in my book.

It's curious - he was praising Xi pretty hard until the end of Feb. On transparency - lol. Raise your hands if you believed China was being transparent at any point.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/trump-china-coronavirus-188736

Skippy,

At that point, we're still wondering whether we were being lied to, or not.

Secondly, do you really want to piss on the guy who can put a stop on the PPE pipeline?

[Jolly]

@George-K said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

@xenon said in :

George - is your implicit argument here that we didn't need as many ventilators as we thought - so what a waste of time and effort? Similarly PPE isn't that important, it was/is going to be a waste of time anyways?

I don't want to put words in your mouth, so help me unpack that.

I didn't say anything about PPE, to be sure. Perhaps someone who has a better understanding of how these contracts work can tell me if this was truly negligence on the part of the Obama/Trump administrations in not securing them vs them not being available (see Improv's comments above).

As to ventilators, Cuomo claimed that NY would need, iirc, 40,000 ventilators (the number might be wrong, but it's the correct order of magnitude). And yet, lo and behold, at the beginning of May, New York was shipping them elsewhere. They came nowhere close to needing 40K. The peak need in early April was ... 5,000.

As to projecting other needs, how did that need for 140K ICU beds work out? New York needed 23,000.

[snark] Of course, those needs were mitigated by having about 5,000 die in nursing homes by being exposed. [/snark]

The future's hard to predict, isn't it?

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[xenon]

@Jolly said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

@xenon said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

@Improviso said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

@xenon said in "You're damn right I'm taking hydroxychloroquine.":

I'll chime in here with the preface that my key criticism of Trump is that he's just not intellectually up to the job of governing.

Well... up to the point where China and WHO fucked us in the ass, he was doing a pretty damn good job in my book.

It's curious - he was praising Xi pretty hard until the end of Feb. On transparency - lol. Raise your hands if you believed China was being transparent at any point.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/trump-china-coronavirus-188736

Skippy,

At that point, we're still wondering whether we were being lied to, or not.

Secondly, do you really want to piss on the guy who can put a stop on the PPE pipeline?

@Jolly What did you learn in March that you didn't know by the end of Feb? Also - why put in your first N95 order on March 21st - if this was all about managing supply from them?

I'm sure you'll crank up the degrees on the chess for yet another brilliant rationale.

[Jolly]

Second part (I'll get back to Xenon in a moment...)

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