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Yes, exactly like the man in the article. People are trying to make this into some political, partisan fight, which causes people’s trust in experts to be erod

by blhack 7y ago

Yes, exactly like the man in the article. People are trying to make this into some political, partisan fight, which causes people’s trust in experts to be eroded. There’s a whole story about this called the boy who cried wolf.

anigbrowl 7y ago
The President's whole brand is that he knows more than the experts. I'm listening to him right now, live, saying 'the doctors re telling us we have to shut down the whole world, they want to shut it down for years, but you can't let the cure be worse than the problem.' He's talking complete nonsense about quarantine and how bad it is to close the stock exchange while saying the quarantine is a bigger problem than the virus because he's created so many jobs and that it'll cause 'tremendous death.' ¯\(°_o)/¯
- gwright 7y ago
  Hard to understand your point. It seems quite obvious to me that you can't shut down the world economy for any length of time without introducing enormous amounts of collateral damage (i.e. deaths). What is nonsense about that?
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    I think you understand my point just fine.
  - HarryHirsch 7y ago
    The experts in China, South Korea and Taiwan have proven that you can get the disease under control with testing, contract tracing and serious quarantine methods. The alternative is collapsing the healthcare system because available hospital beds are full of coronavirus patients - coronavirus isn't the flu, 20 % of patients are hospitalized for three weeks. We are observing that in Italy and New York State. The President needs to stop talking generalities.
    - gwright 7y ago
      They also haven't shut down their economies, which was the point I was making. The actions you describe are not mutually exclusive to a more nuanced approach to reduced economic activity. That is, something other than economic suicide.
      - enraged_camel 7y ago
        They were able to take a more nuanced and targeted approach because they got their testing infrastructure in place very quickly and made tests widely available. That way, they were able to quickly figure out who had the virus and needed to be quarantined. The USA, in stark contrast, had a gutted CDC (thanks to the hard work of the GOP to shrink the government), an abolished White House Pandemic Response office (used to be part of the national security group), and a President who first ignored and then downplayed repeated warnings from his own country's Intelligence Community because he thought it was a "hoax". That is why the time for "nuanced" approaches is past, and drastic actions are needed. You can check this website for some sobering charts: https://covidactnow.org/ https://covidactnow.org/ Regarding the economy, tell me this: do you seriously think our economy can handle millions of deaths within the span of several months?
        gwright 7y ago
        > The USA, in stark contrast, had a gutted CDC (thanks to the hard work of the GOP to shrink the government), an abolished White House Pandemic Response office (used to be part of the national security group), and a President who first ignored and then downplayed repeated warnings from his own country's Intelligence Community because he thought it was a "hoax". The CDC budget has not been gutted (https://mises.org/wire/cdcs-budget-larger-now-under-obama https://mises.org/wire/cdcs-budget-larger-now-under-obama). Perhaps you meant that he proposed reductions. Sure, but that didn't happen so you can't use a reduced budget as the cause for anything. The Pandemic Response Office was consolidated as part of the restructuring of the NSC. The office might have been eliminated but the function was not. (https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/465320-reducing-nsc-staff-places-trump-on-right-side-of https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/465320-reducin...) And as for your "hoax" comment. You are just parroting false accounts of what the President said. His reference to a "hoax" was to the particular types of criticisms being made by the Democrats not to the virus. It is obvious on its face that he hasn't thought it was a hoax since he has continued to make executive decisions that would make no sense if he thought it was a hoax (e.g. banning travel from China in mid January) Unfortunately, you have been suckered into believing lots of things that just aren't true. The press continues to embarrass itself during this crisis. > Regarding the economy, tell me this: do you seriously think our economy can handle millions of deaths within the span of several months? Well it is a bit of a false choice you are forcing on me, but it is quite possible that a destroyed world economy could lead to more deaths than could be caused by the virus alone. As bad as things are, they could get a whole lot worse.
- irq11 7y ago
  I’m a died-in-the-wool liberal, and I think he’s right about that. We aren’t rationally weighing costs and benefits right now. We really should be talking more about what we’re doing to the economy, and if there are better ways to move forward.
rbanffy 7y ago
The only trust that should be eroded is the one on Trump who, despite his beliefs, is not an expert in anything I can imagine.

by blhack 7y ago

anigbrowl 7y ago

The President's whole brand is that he knows more than the experts. I'm listening to him right now, live, saying 'the doctors re telling us we have to shut down the whole world, they want to shut it down for years, but you can't let the cure be worse than the problem.' He's talking complete nonsense about quarantine and how bad it is to close the stock exchange while saying the quarantine is a bigger problem than the virus because he's created so many jobs and that it'll cause 'tremendous death.' ¯\(°_o)/¯

gwright 7y ago
Hard to understand your point. It seems quite obvious to me that you can't shut down the world economy for any length of time without introducing enormous amounts of collateral damage (i.e. deaths). What is nonsense about that?
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  I think you understand my point just fine.
- HarryHirsch 7y ago
  The experts in China, South Korea and Taiwan have proven that you can get the disease under control with testing, contract tracing and serious quarantine methods. The alternative is collapsing the healthcare system because available hospital beds are full of coronavirus patients - coronavirus isn't the flu, 20 % of patients are hospitalized for three weeks. We are observing that in Italy and New York State. The President needs to stop talking generalities.
  - gwright 7y ago
    They also haven't shut down their economies, which was the point I was making. The actions you describe are not mutually exclusive to a more nuanced approach to reduced economic activity. That is, something other than economic suicide.
    - enraged_camel 7y ago
      They were able to take a more nuanced and targeted approach because they got their testing infrastructure in place very quickly and made tests widely available. That way, they were able to quickly figure out who had the virus and needed to be quarantined. The USA, in stark contrast, had a gutted CDC (thanks to the hard work of the GOP to shrink the government), an abolished White House Pandemic Response office (used to be part of the national security group), and a President who first ignored and then downplayed repeated warnings from his own country's Intelligence Community because he thought it was a "hoax". That is why the time for "nuanced" approaches is past, and drastic actions are needed. You can check this website for some sobering charts: https://covidactnow.org/ https://covidactnow.org/ Regarding the economy, tell me this: do you seriously think our economy can handle millions of deaths within the span of several months?
      - gwright 7y ago
        > The USA, in stark contrast, had a gutted CDC (thanks to the hard work of the GOP to shrink the government), an abolished White House Pandemic Response office (used to be part of the national security group), and a President who first ignored and then downplayed repeated warnings from his own country's Intelligence Community because he thought it was a "hoax". The CDC budget has not been gutted (https://mises.org/wire/cdcs-budget-larger-now-under-obama https://mises.org/wire/cdcs-budget-larger-now-under-obama). Perhaps you meant that he proposed reductions. Sure, but that didn't happen so you can't use a reduced budget as the cause for anything. The Pandemic Response Office was consolidated as part of the restructuring of the NSC. The office might have been eliminated but the function was not. (https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/465320-reducing-nsc-staff-places-trump-on-right-side-of https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/465320-reducin...) And as for your "hoax" comment. You are just parroting false accounts of what the President said. His reference to a "hoax" was to the particular types of criticisms being made by the Democrats not to the virus. It is obvious on its face that he hasn't thought it was a hoax since he has continued to make executive decisions that would make no sense if he thought it was a hoax (e.g. banning travel from China in mid January) Unfortunately, you have been suckered into believing lots of things that just aren't true. The press continues to embarrass itself during this crisis. > Regarding the economy, tell me this: do you seriously think our economy can handle millions of deaths within the span of several months? Well it is a bit of a false choice you are forcing on me, but it is quite possible that a destroyed world economy could lead to more deaths than could be caused by the virus alone. As bad as things are, they could get a whole lot worse.
irq11 7y ago
I’m a died-in-the-wool liberal, and I think he’s right about that. We aren’t rationally weighing costs and benefits right now. We really should be talking more about what we’re doing to the economy, and if there are better ways to move forward.

rbanffy 7y ago

The only trust that should be eroded is the one on Trump who, despite his beliefs, is not an expert in anything I can imagine.