Federal Government's Response to the Coronavirus

Since we're on a COVID tangent here ...

Given a vaccine is less burdensome (on a daily basis) than mask-wearing and also offers more of a clear path to a disease-free state, I would wager adoption will be widespread across the country, and the self-righteous pooh-poohing from Northeasterners* will be proven unfounded.

I'd also wager that this will happen with no subsequent mea culpas from those alleging that our less-enlightened countrymen are anti-vaxx - something alleged even though the anti-vaxx movement (with nodes in Washington State and New York) doesn't appear to track with the blue vs. red state trends that Northeasterners like to impute to most other things they don't like.

* Said as someone who has only ever lived in the Northeast US and Europe, and whose family has been in New England since the Puritans. I just think we've become pretty intolerable as a group.
 
It's too bad the US can't be like Australia or New Zealand that can balance both when necessary.
 
The US is more than an order of magnitude bigger. Australia has 25m people and Massachusetts has more than New Zealand.
 
When Harris and Cuomo say they won’t get any vaccine if Trump is involved it’s an issue on both sides. Science is politicized.
 
TallIsGood said:
The US is more than an order of magnitude bigger. Australia has 25m people and Massachusetts has more than New Zealand.
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Yeah that can be a convenient excuse OR we can look at Alaska which is sparsely populated and isolated and yet is seeing nearly 10x the number of new cases right now than New Zealand at its peak and see that really, it's not the magnitude, it's the mentality, the government, and the citizens that are at fault.

And honestly when you look at it from that perspective, it's exasperating. And I don't want to come off as someone that's just criticizing the gov't. I'm saying this from the perspective of knowing someone close to me who's family member have been affected by the pandemic and knowing that it didn't have to be this way and knowing that despite the 250k and counting tragedies, half the country just doesn't care. To me, for the US to be dipping its toes into conspiracies, is incomprehensible to me for a nation that is supposed to be a shining example to the rest of the world.
 
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TallIsGood said:
When Harris and Cuomo say they won’t get any vaccine if Trump is involved it’s an issue on both sides. Science is politicized.
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I believe this has been egregiously misconstrued. Both were not saying if Trump is just involved (he clearly is and will absolutely push it if it's out before Biden's inauguration).
"If public health officials, if Dr. Fauci, if doctors tell us to take it" (direct Harris quote from debate) it's fine to take. But if none of them do, and only Trump pushes it, like how Hydroxychloroquine ended up, then it would appear as an unsafe snake oil treatment. Basically: trust the experts, not a political figurehead.
 
KentXie said:
Yeah that can be a convenient excuse OR we can look at Alaska which is sparsely populated and isolated and yet is seeing nearly 10x the number of new cases right now than New Zealand at its peak and see that really, it's not the magnitude, it's the mentality, the government, and the citizens that are at fault.
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One thing that has stood out is that warmer weather definitely slows the spread, especially when juxtaposed against colder weather in the same general areas. For instance, South America had a major spike this summer (ie their winters) while the northern hemisphere countries were in somewhat of a holding pattern. Now they are back to mostly manageable levels while the northern hemisphere countries are spiking through the roof.

In New Zealand, the average lowest temperatures at the height of their Winters in July is still a relatively balmy 47 degrees, with 57 degree highs. That's basically the equivalent of May or September in Anchorage, meaning October-April in Alaska is a colder 7 month stretch than New Zealand averages on their coldest day of the year. The average high in Alaska for this time of year is already below freezing. In Australia, the only major city that appears to be slightly colder than Auckland is Melbourne, which seems to coincidentally be the epicenter of cases in that country.

So it isn't just comparing "freer" countries or even similar population countries, but we have to factor in the climates as well. If the virus really does thrive in the colder weather, that's a major advantage for more temperate countries such as Australia and New Zealand, especially comparing with the frigid temperatures in Alaska.
 
DZH22 said:
One thing that has stood out is that warmer weather definitely slows the spread, especially when juxtaposed against colder weather in the same general areas. For instance, South America had a major spike this summer (ie their winters) while the northern hemisphere countries were in somewhat of a holding pattern. Now they are back to mostly manageable levels while the northern hemisphere countries are spiking through the roof.

In New Zealand, the average lowest temperatures at the height of their Winters in July is still a relatively balmy 47 degrees, with 57 degree highs. That's basically the equivalent of May or September in Anchorage, meaning October-April in Alaska is a colder 7 month stretch than New Zealand averages on their coldest day of the year. The average high in Alaska for this time of year is already below freezing. In Australia, the only major city that appears to be slightly colder than Auckland is Melbourne, which seems to coincidentally be the epicenter of cases in that country.

So it isn't just comparing "freer" countries or even similar population countries, but we have to factor in the climates as well. If the virus really does thrive in the colder weather, that's a major advantage for more temperate countries such as Australia and New Zealand, especially comparing with the frigid temperatures in Alaska.
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Climate for sure is a factor, mainly in regards to the increased likelihood that, the colder the temperature, the more likely people will be indoors in close proximity to other people. The closest comparison we have is Hawaii, which still saw about 3x the peak of New Zealand but I would also say Hawaii was probably the state that abided by the social distancing and quarantine rules the most give it's isolation and the fact that they arresting travelers who broke the 14 day quarantine rule. So yes there are a number of factors that play a role but we can be assured that a larger population in itself cannot explain the majority of the spread.
 
KentXie said:
...I would also say Hawaii was probably the state that abided by the social distancing and quarantine rules the most give it's isolation and the fact that they arresting travelers who broke the 14 day quarantine rule....
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Do you know of any other states that actually arrested people for this? What were they charged with?
 
KentXie said:
To me, for the US to be dipping its toes into conspiracies, is incomprehensible to me for a nation that is supposed to be a shining example to the rest of the world.
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It was at one time, its clearly not anymore. Aka in decline
 
To me, the obvious trick to boost vaccine uptake is to take the “normal life” activities people want to get back and to gate them based on vaccination status.

Bring live sports back as early as possible in 2021. Require stadiums to check for proof of vaccination upon entry. Ticketmaster is working on incorporating this reporting capability within their app, but it’s incumbent upon our governments to work with stadiums, concert venues, etc. to make this happen.

I’m in Louisiana right now, where enforcement and adherence don’t exist except where people are abiding by rules set out by private entities. In the supermarket everyone is masked, everywhere else people act like the pandemic is nonexistent.

Along with people much smarter than me like Paul Romer, I’ve been screaming from the beginning of this thing that we should’ve done something similar with testing (e.g. no negative test within 72 hours? No entry into this bar), but we never achieved cheap enough testing for it to be possible.
 
DZH22 said:
Do you know of any other states that actually arrested people for this? What were they charged with?
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I do not. I assume Hawaii is in a unique situation to be able to enforce this, given the relatively small population and that the population is generally clustered close to each other. I'm not sure how many police departments Hawaii has but there are probably only a few which makes coordination a little easier.
 
George_Apley said:
Would have thought that would have been likely after all of the rounds of Quantitative Easing, but inflation barely budged. We'll see what happens this time.
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I guess real estate, healthcare, childcare, food, and education did not make the real inflation gauge. Only the most important components of living a stable and healthy life.
Low interest rates forever has worked well.

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That's a 1996 to 2016 scale. I *think* (though it's an old post) I was talking about the post-2008 stimulative efforts. Year over year inflation has been quite low for quite some time.
 
George_Apley said:
That's a 1996 to 2016 scale. I *think* (though it's an old post) I was talking about the post-2008 stimulative efforts. Year over year inflation has been quite low for quite some time.
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Assets are all in an inflationary bubble. You know what isn't in an inflationary bubble-- American wages which can't keep up with the cost of housing, healthcare, childcare, and education. Record amounts of unemployment-- I guess you can blame that on Covid-19 or you can say that the U.S. economy is built on a pile of sand which only services the rich class.
Having a family is a luxury besides that you will struggle with the everyday cost of living of 3 or 4.
 
Congressional leaders seem to have struck a bargain on a COVID relief bill. It's relatively meager compared to our peer nation's relief responses. Nothing that would actually allow and incentivise governors to go back towards shut-downs that would stifle spread until the vaccine can be rolled out in sufficient numbers.
 
Johnnyrocket891 said:
Assets are all in an inflationary bubble. You know what isn't in an inflationary bubble-- American wages which can't keep up with the cost of housing, healthcare, childcare, and education. Record amounts of unemployment-- I guess you can blame that on Covid-19 or you can say that the U.S. economy is built on a pile of sand which only services the rich class.
Having a family is a luxury besides that you will struggle with the everyday cost of living of 3 or 4.
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Especially in *this* region - not only have we been attracting a lot of young people who /should/ be getting married and having kids - but they are delaying childraising because it's so damn expensive here -- and really who wants to be having kids when you may make 6 figures as a couple and still have to share an apartment in the inner core.
 
George_Apley said:
Congressional leaders seem to have struck a bargain on a COVID relief bill. It's relatively meager compared to our peer nation's relief responses. Nothing that would actually allow and incentivise governors to go back towards shut-downs that would stifle spread until the vaccine can be rolled out in sufficient numbers.
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And yet, Drumpf is saying pay people $2k on twitter tonight, Pelosi saying she will do it, and McConnell (I assume, on the way to his home in KY).
 
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