Webberweather53
Meteorologist
The government is just slow in general, doesn’t just apply to disasters
-
Hello, please take a minute to check out our awesome content, contributed by the wonderful members of our community. We hope you'll add your own thoughts and opinions by making a free account!
Coronavirus (Stay on Topic)
- Thread starter GaWx
- Start date
- Status
Yellow Snow
Member
The average person just can't wrap their minds around the logistical challenges that disasters present. An emergency airlift operation was set up at Dobbins ARB after Hurricane Katrina made landfall and part of the time I was at DARB was spent working communications at their Joint Operations Center; it was incredibly eye-opening. The coordination of thousands of civilian & military personnel from multiple local, state, and federal agencies alone was daunting, and the massive movement of supplies and equipment via air and ground transport was incredible (the GA Air National Guard actually flew a fire truck from Savannah to New Orleans). And this was a disaster confined to a limited geographical area, with 95% of the rest of the country unaffected.
I remember at one point the the GA Army National Guard had to start sending armed MP escorts with the relief supply convoys going from Georgia to the Louisiana coast, because local law enforcement in Alabama and Mississippi were commandeering the supplies for their own storm-ravaged towns. Just total craziness.
Yellow Snow
Member
The WHO didn't declare a global emergency until Jan. 30th; they denied widespread H2H transmission almost right up until then. There was only one day left in January at that point.
Steven_1974
Member
The man was briefed on this back in December. The only thing he's cared about is how it affects his election chances which is why early on he wanted to ignore the problem and downplay any numbers. That's why he made the claims back in February it was only 15 people and it would soon be to 0.
NCSNOW
Member
The ventilator issue was resolved before it ever became an issue. They figured out a way to convert the equiptment used by anesthesiologist and trained all anesthesiologist to execute. It takes time to mass produce ventilators, but that is being done as well thanks to private business partnering with wh corono team. Beds, Army Core engineers,Samaritans Purse, 2 ships, doing all they can. You only have 1 mill hospital beds in the whole country of 300 mill plus to start with. Of which 60 percent are full year round. They"ve postponed elective surgeries. PPE needs are being met and again private sector has answered the challenge of meeting the demand.
The biggest posotive thing Trump and the WH team has done is get private sector involved and supply the astronomical demand. This has been huge. Not just PPE, but pharma distributing millions of Malaria pills,inventing more efficient test kits.
The leadership and vision to reach out and connect private sector to meet our needs in warp speed has been as big a lifesaver as shutting down inbound travel from China,then Europe despite unwarrented critiscisim.
The immediate call to rally America to stop everything dead in its tracks, self isolate and get a stimulus package to aid those citizens,small business ,and large to get across the economic bridge for April. Despite the polotics and idealogical pork attempts.
Trump, WH team are doing a great job.
Sidenote: Congrees won getting 25 million dollars aid, free money sent to the Kennedy Center. Who by the way sits on a100 million dollar endowement. So critical .
Guess what the Kennedy center did. Laid everyone off and cancelled their Health Insurance.
Steven_1974
Member
Let me guess, you get your news from Fox, Breitbart, etc though?
Sandbar
Member
SMH......I don't know how to help you to understand. You can't be prepared for something OF THIS MAGINITUDE you have never gone through. You can't do it PERIOD. I guess I could tell you 100 more times and you still wont understand. There is nobody that can mobilize for a crisis better than the united states military and I can tell from going through it first hand multiple times in my life that our COUNTRY has done a phenomenal job with this from the top to the bottom.
Webberweather53
Meteorologist
The vast majority here besides the most ardent, hard right Trump sympathizers, will agree that the response from not just the Trump administration, but the federal government, it’s associated entities as well as many local/state governments, while now rather prudent, was too slow from the beginning on the coronavirus for a multitude of reasons. Large sects of both parties did not take this crisis as seriously as they should have, but more centrists and those in the left took it more seriously and did so comparatively sooner than Republicans, that fact is still evident even when you look at the comments in this very thread & their concomitant political beliefs, there’s very little, if any room for debate there.
As I’ve stated previously numerous times here, it’s amazing how much we could have accomplished and been more well equipped if we would have focused on our response to the virus weeks ago rather than being worried about how it was being overblown or politicized in the media. Other countries, especially China, should foot a lot of the blame for this initially slow response in covering up evidence of the true extent of the virus, etc, but the responsibility of our actions ultimately falls on our shoulders and we definitely deserve a significant portion of it.
Hopefully, many people take a good, hard look into the mirror in the aftermath of this crisis and aren’t as quick to rush judgement to the severity of the situation because of how its been historically portrayed by “x” group of people, news outlets, etc., and adhere to a “better safe than sorry” mentality. It’s no better than taking the European or GFS model for “x” weather situation because this model was the first to catch onto____ lately, or typically performs better with ______, every case is different and at some level, quasi-independent should be treated in such a manner.
As I’ve stated previously numerous times here, it’s amazing how much we could have accomplished and been more well equipped if we would have focused on our response to the virus weeks ago rather than being worried about how it was being overblown or politicized in the media. Other countries, especially China, should foot a lot of the blame for this initially slow response in covering up evidence of the true extent of the virus, etc, but the responsibility of our actions ultimately falls on our shoulders and we definitely deserve a significant portion of it.
Hopefully, many people take a good, hard look into the mirror in the aftermath of this crisis and aren’t as quick to rush judgement to the severity of the situation because of how its been historically portrayed by “x” group of people, news outlets, etc., and adhere to a “better safe than sorry” mentality. It’s no better than taking the European or GFS model for “x” weather situation because this model was the first to catch onto____ lately, or typically performs better with ______, every case is different and at some level, quasi-independent should be treated in such a manner.
Yellow Snow
Member
This is from January 14th. Now if you want to fault Trump for being gullible enough to believe WHO, then I won't argue.
They were awful from the beginning too. It's hard for me to understand two things: How awful leadership/authorities are around the globe and understanding seemingly simple things (as an aside, I believe they do and that they are operating in a way that is counter to their supposed mandate, to the benefit of themselves or someone else that is NOT regular people) and how resistant seemingly reasonable people are to hold them accountable for obvious early mistakes. It's ok to criticize the actions of even those you generally like. That is not a sin.
JJr
Member
Yes alarm bells were going off then, but the priority of our leaders at the time was impeachment.
NCSNOW
Member
I respect your opinion and others.
But its better to judge someone off the actions they take and results more so than what they say in word only. Whether its downplay,overplay, or arm chair quaterbacking. Just my opinion. If the only criticism is the potus didnt cry wolf loud enough on certain date because of not causing a panic, then thats really no concern to me personally. I guess I didnt hear the MSM and Democrats screaming this in Jan and Feb, wonder what all the news was about during that time? Outside of a couple on here RC etc, most where ridding the fence on this as we started to discuss back in Jan. I know I was and then still to this day,its a juggeling act trying to figure out how to save lives 1st, and not create more problems(dire possibly) with the cure.
I agree with the majority of this. I don't have enough data to say that Republicans were downplaying this more than Democrats on the whole. That may or may not be true, as I have seen similar reactions on both sides of the aisle. I really don't care about making it a right vs. left issue, which I know isn't the point of your post. I just wanted to give my thoughts on that. But I do think there is a lot of blame that can be spread around for the initial apparent response.
Sandbar
Member
You do understand that its the presidents job to stay calm and project calm right? I get he doesn't do a great job at those things at times but it had zip to do with our country being prepared or unprepared as you see it. Trump immediately put restrictions on travel. He was of course called a racist and xenophobe by the democrats and their media for the move. New York city brushed the warnings off. You are correct in the fact that some folks weren't prepared but Trump wasn't one of them.
I'm not a big Trump fan but did vote for him with my nose plugged. My gut is that he talked this thing down at first to keep at least some people calm. He knew people would go BS crazy eventually so him hyping that immediately would make it even worse. He could have done a much better job of conveying it but that's just the way he is. There is no way he didn't know this was going to be bad with the information he is privy to.
Sandbar
Member
I cant understand for the life of me why some of you still want to blame. There is nothing or nobody that needs to be blamed here unless you just don't have it in you to accept the fact that our country is in a much better position than most. Yes we have hot spots that will be bad. They would have been even worse had it not been for an incredible response. I know some of you don't want to hear it and/or you just wont or cant accept it for some odd reason.
Webberweather53
Meteorologist
Except it was already pretty evident well before the trump administration was willing to publicly admit and take very stout action for, that this crisis was truly like nothing else we’d ever seen before, downplaying its severity and longevity as we’ve seen him and many in his party (like yourself) do time and time again, even rather recently, and to later pivot and say they knew it was serious the whole time is a bad look on your end. There’s blame to go all around and trump, China, the WHO, & even democrats are all far from infallible.
In any case, I think it’s nice to see nearly everyone (including yourself) finally pulling their heads out of the sand and beginning to grasp the gravity of the situation, whether anyone will admit that their previous dispositions and foresight on the crisis, even a few weeks ago, were wrong or a far cry from where we currently stand, is another matter entirely and I don’t expect them to rescind for it.
Don’t get me wrong though, I definitely approve of the administration’s recent actions on the virus and applaud them, including Trump for stepping up and doing so and putting us on the right course, its restored some of the dwindling faith I’ve had in this president since voting for him in the last election. The actions of some local officials oth are far more abhorrent & egregious.
ForsythSnow
Moderator
He slapped a band aid on early in the game but that wasn't enough. That maybe slowed the virus a couple weeks at best. He just went back to downplaying it until the numbers proved his wording was false. If you want people to remain calm, do two things. Remain calm yourself and be honest and prove to Americans we will get through this, not keep lying to us every day as the numbers go up.
We are not blaming people here or at least I'm not. I just want my leaders to take proper action to protect me and you as citizens of the US and stop telling us side lies. We know everything will be okay in the end, but the more they lie the more painful this is going to be since people are still "Nothingburger or apocalypse" mode. Bringing people to that level is what the leaders need to do. They were elected for a reason.
Sandbar
Member
Yes.....I wish people would understand just how damn lucky we are. I underestimated it too until I got handed some knowledge that I have no business going into detail over on an internet forum.
Sandbar
Member
There is an old saying..."You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink". That saying is spot on with some folks over this crisis. It doesn't matter what you tell them or how. Its just not going to register.....especially with people who cant stand the person that is trying to lead them. That's just 100% FACT!
Downeastnc
Member
On Feb 5, HHS Secretary Azar requested $2 billion to buy respirator masks & other supplies for the national stockpile, Trump cut that request by 75%...…
Trump spent most of Feb telling everyone it was going to not be a big deal.....15 soon to be zero he said, this country has not done a phenomenal job at all, it feels disjointed and random, there was no solid national response plan for this, ( well there was Trump admin ignored it ) and now we have probably millions currently infected and numerous cities with hospitals dangerously close to being overwhelmed...….yep we nailed it
Dewpoint Dan
Member
We will definitely learn from this. I know thats not any comfort to people who have lost family members, but im confident we won't ever see a disaster like this again anytime soon. They will make sure this doesnt happen again.On Feb 5, HHS Secretary Azar requested $2 billion to buy respirator masks & other supplies for the national stockpile, Trump cut that request by 75%...…
Trump spent most of Feb telling everyone it was going to not be a big deal.....15 soon to be zero he said, this country has not done a phenomenal job at all, it feels disjointed and random, there was no solid national response plan for this, ( well there was Trump admin ignored it ) and now we have probably millions currently infected and numerous cities with hospitals dangerously close to being overwhelmed...….yep we nailed it
Yellow Snow
Member
The WHO is a disgrace, almost rivaling the UN's carnival of corruption.
Abolish the World Health Organization - The Spectator World
Adhanom’s goal seems to be turning the World Health Organization into another UN: a body that delivers impotent lectures and avoids big decisions
spectator.us
Cant agree there. This disaster is small compared to what could and probably will happen in our lifetimes.
D
Deleted member 1449
Guest
Triad’s first coronavirus death reported in Forsyth County
FORSYTH COUNTY, N.C. — A person in Forsyth County has died of the coronavirus, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Until now, the Triad has had numerous c…
myfox8.com
Webberweather53
Meteorologist
It's not the main point of my post yes, but aside from looking from within this forum and I'm not going to point out specific names of those that have downplayed CoV's severity relative to the collective opinion of this forum, in more broad terms, the evidence is pretty overwhelmingly in support of this view and by a pretty significant margin, in that more democrats have taken this virus more seriously much sooner than Republicans, trump's actions are perhaps an over exaggeration of this underlying theme, but it's very real imo.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/21/upshot/coronavirus-public-opinion.html
Just last week, 63% of Democrats and 49% of Republicans said they considered the coronavirus to be a personal threat; now 76% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans feel the same way."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rious-threat-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKBN21C02T
https://www.people-press.org/2020/03/26/views-of-how-officials-public-have-responded-to-covid-19/#republicans-and-democrats-back-measures-aimed-at-flattening-the-curve
Even the heavily conservative fox news media outlet, continues to largely support this point.
"By a 14-point margin, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to think Americans are overreacting, and Republicans are less likely to have changed their life “a great deal” (-13), be worried about getting infected (-14), and be concerned about the virus spreading nationally (-7)."
You also find that more democrats were more worried sooner about the state of the economy in response to this crisis relative to republicans, again fox news poll...
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/poll-recession-fears-coronavirus-us-economy
Admittedly, this political gap is closing and becoming indiscernible as the scope of the virus is blatantly obvious to nearly everyone now and both sides are taking it very seriously, but I don't think that takes away from the fact that republicans on a national level didn't take this as seriously as democrats did earlier on in the crisis, and while yes we have more pressing matters to attend to, this is a point worth revisiting in the aftermath of this virus.
If the shoe was on the other foot, and say Obama, Clinton, or Carter was in office, I think you'd find a much different tone across the board and this gap to be smaller or completely reversed out of political spite more than anything.
Dewpoint Dan
Member
I meant a disaster from a virus. Im sure there will be other disasters of different kinds.
VegasEagle
Member
Everyone is a genius in hindsight. Can we focus more on the virus and transfer the politics to the political thread.
Downeastnc
Member
Again there were plans put in place....we just didn't do it
Inside the pandemic playbook Trump ignored
Mammoth coronavirus aid package heads to the House — New York’s health crisis worsens
The Trump administration shelved a 69-page National Security Council playbook for fighting pandemics that detailed key tactics and procedures, POLITICO’s Dan Diamond and Nahal Toosi scoop.
The guide was developed after the Ebola outbreak in hopes of better handling the next public health crisis, and recommends the government quickly take a number of specific actions — a timeline that the administration has lagged well behind
***on topic****
They have confirmed 5 more cases in my county one is a friend of mine who use to work with me.....he is pretty sick but doing ok for now, he is in his mid 30's and a athlete gym bro kind a guy.
I don’t know about that either. The latest Lancet article has the mortality rate of Covid at 0.6%(and slowly trending down) with nearly all of that skewed toward the older ages. Imagine if this was SARS or MERS? Obviously this is much more infective, but is pretty much a cold compared to those viruses death rate wise. God forbid H5N1 ever became normal flu level transmissible.
GeorgiaGirl
Member
Yeah, imagine if we were to get another mutation from the SARS family 10 years from now, only this mutation is more like the first time we observed SARS in humans, is more contagious than that one, and more dangerous in younger people?
Needless to say we can't rule that out unless we see some measures taken when this is over with in the world in China. I lean towards this initially being a mutation in bats unlike others (but not that someone ate a bat, they might have inhaled bat poop), so one measure that would need to be taken is heavy regulation of wet markets, if not just ending them entirely.
Dewpoint Dan
Member
One thing i hate about the media is that they always focus on negative things. No positivity at all from the media. For instance, more people have recovered from the virus than have died, but the media doesn't talk about that much.
This is US daily new cases per day. The daily new cases are rising, but the curve isn't as pronounced the past 3 days.
One thing that could be skewing this is the number tested per day. We might find out later the curve wasn't rising as high because we didn't test as many on those days (due to less being available). Unfortunately I can't find a good up to date source giving total tests daily nationwide to compare. I think they are released by individual states.
I think the big thing to watch is hospitalization numbers, if we can find them on a neat graph that is(I can’t) If things remain constant and we assume a certain percentage will need hospital care, we can see where this is trending case wise to a certain extent.
D
Deleted member 1449
Guest
As others have noted, the number of confirmed cases has risen about 15 percent the past few days, compared to a steady rise of about 25 percent each day the previous week. Unfortunately, the number of deaths in the U.S. continue to rise at about 25 percent per day.
Yea, the covid19.healthdata.org website has interesting data on the projections per state, but I don't think they show the actual hospitalizations in real time. I know the data is likely out there, but I also don't want to go through getting figures from 50 different sources (states). Unless I'm missing something, most of these numbers are reported state by state.
Yellow Snow
Member
Deaths are always going to be the lagging indicator in this situation, given that acute C-19 cases may be hospitalized for two weeks or more.
yes testing capacity is going to artificially flatten the curve. We are also up to 23,000 cases per day. It’s harder and harder to see big percentage increases as the daily case count rises and the testing capacity is only so much. Yesterday was awful. 23,000 new cases and 669 dead in the Us.
- Status