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It‘s so sad to watch, but compared to any other developed and affluent nation (and with equal time to prepare), the US is a complete shitshow at this point. Th

It‘s so sad to watch, but compared to any other developed and affluent nation (and with equal time to prepare), the US is a complete shitshow at this point. The complete lack of leadership and resulting power vacuum resulted in valuable time lost bickering, blaming and thumb twiddling that could have gone towards preventing the second wave. This is a community spread at this stage and another hundred thousand people are all but guaranteed to die. It‘s mindblowing. Here in Germany, I‘m getting my test results within 3 days via SMS (usually same-day for positive results) and can enter it into an app to warn others. Everybody wears a mask indoors and nobody but a very small minority complains. Social distancing is enforced by usually friendly police which the people mostly trusts to do its job. It‘s just so sad to see how personal „freedom to choose“ turned into the achilles heel of one of the formerly greatest nations on Earth.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cnzxbT 6y ago
> Everybody wears a mask indoors and nobody but a very small minority complains. This is true in supermarkets at least. > Social distancing is enforced by usually friendly police which the people mostly trusts to do its job. Sorry, hardly anyone still practices distancing outside. At a lake people were on a crowded beach 20cm apart.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  > Sorry, hardly anyone still practices distancing outside. At a lake people were on a crowded beach 20cm apart. And the risks at these places are apparently pretty low, even with more lax physical distancing; 20cm does seem a bit close though.
oezi 6y ago
I am not so sure if Europe in general and Germany specifically could not be hit with similar situations again. - After the April lock down it is clear, that we cannot repeat this economically again. - Population becomes tired of maintaining the hygiene regiment. Improperly worn masks are on the rise. Dining out is increasing / bars/gyms/pools are reopening and are starting to get crowded. - Decision making is pushed down from Federal to State and local levels (at least in Germany) causing a lack of cohesion of plans and making it impossible for the public to understand what policy is enforced where and why. One good example of this is that the general mask wearing mandate is still in place but many states have allowed for employees (e.g. in stores) to forego masks. - Schools closed for summer have paused a likely source of many transmission routes. After going below 2000 infection per week, we are set to hit 4000 per week after the weekend in Germany.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  > After the April lock down it is clear, that we cannot repeat this economically again It may not be a choice. Then what?
  - oezi 6y ago
    I hope with mandated masks (properly worn, no valves) and targetted lockdowns, the general lockdown can be prevented. Restaurants, schools/kindergardens and any public venue will likely be closed first.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Then nothing. People get over it and ignore it. Excess deaths in Germany didn't move: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Cross-Section/Corona/Society/population_death.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Cross-Section/Corona/Socie... That's not a dangerous virus. At least not in Germany. And it's the same virus everywhere, so questions must be asked about why so many countries have seen no real change in excess deaths and others did (but even when they did, it's not high relative to the reaction).
- usaar333 6y ago
  It's definitely true anyone can be hit again. Hong Kong, Israel, parts of Australia all are examples.
  - zebnyc 6y ago
    Taiwan has eliminated community spread. The only new cases are folks who are entering the country (who must undergo the 14 day mandatory quarantine).
    - refurb 6y ago
      Vietnam went 100 days without a case and are now dealing with an outbreak in Da Nang. You still can’t get in as a foreigner, so it’s not like they aren’t locked down.
    - 6y ago
microcolonel 6y ago
> It‘s so sad to watch, but compared to any other developed and affluent nation, the US is a complete shitshow at this point Idunno man, here in Canada the testing woes are about the middle of the pack, when compared with each of the states, the case fatality rates are higher than in Texas. The overall death rates are still much higher in the UK than either the U.S. or Canada. I think you're being extremely lopsided in your analysis of this, which I don't blame you entirely for, given how much American-made anti-American propaganda there is out there. > It‘s just so sad to see how personal „freedom to choose“ turned into the achilles heel of one of the formerly greatest nations on Earth. It didn't, it's a spectacular country and will continue to be for a long time still. The places in the U.S. where there was more choice and personal freedom did better on almost every metric so far, and we haven't even tallied the totals yet (we'll know for real in a couple years, when we correct our death records, and look at real overall mortality over the whole event, rather than rates on a given date). You can not simultaneously warn about a second wave and dismiss the Swedish model out of hand. In reality, we won't know who was right until much later.
- perardi 6y ago
  Let's have some data on US-UK-Canada CFR: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/canada?country=CAN~GBR~USA#the-case-fatality-rate https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/canada?countr... Which, yup, Canada and the US aren't that far apart, and the UK has a higher CFR. And Canada…it's worth noting that Canada is a bunch of city-states bound loosely together by Tim Horton's, and the responses varied quite a bit by province. British Columbia bent their curve early, and made some really key decisions in regards to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities that made a big difference versus Ontario and Quebec. (Last I checked 81% of COVID deaths here were in such facilities. If we'd managed to secure nursing homes and figure out protections for farm workers, there'd be far fewer deaths. ICUs never, ever hit anywhere near capacity, at least in Toronto.) And pure off-topic anecdote: testing has gone very well for me. My local hospital here on the east side of Toronto was on top of this early, and my tests have all come back in less than 24 hours. (Though I live with a front-line healthcare worker, which makes me think they're giving me just a little extra speed.)
ghthor 6y ago
If your not present in America and viewing things on the ground why don't you keep your opinion to yourself. I say this because whatever you've been told isn't true.
- nfoz 6y ago
  Your comment isn't helpful unless you're willing to point out what isn't true and can only be observed from within America?
- jader201 6y ago
  What is it exactly that’s not true? I’ve read the OP a couple times, and having a hard time finding anything stated that’s conclusively false.
  - jjcon 6y ago
    How about the fact that the US deaths per capita is lower than France, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, UK and plenty of other countries... I consider those to be developed nations so I’m not sure their point really holds.
    - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
      It's unlikely this is going to remain the case. The US had 3 straight days of ~1100 deaths. If that continues for 2 months (and doesn't get worse or better, more likely to get worse given the infection rates) the US will be far worse than Italy and France and gaining on the top 2 spots. If it increases as it should, it will be much, much sooner.
      - jjcon 6y ago
        There is a lot of speculation in your comment - I thought we were talking facts here.
    - hanche 6y ago
      Maybe that is because those countries were hit earlier than the US?
jquery 6y ago
No, that’s just yellow journalism. The USA is doing just fine thank you. The “second wave” is the whole point of flattening the curve, as long as hospitals aren’t overwhelmed, our response is successful. Look at our respective stock markets for a more accurate view of the situation. They’re tracking very close, even adjusting for currency float. The USA is nowhere near falling apart.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The “second wave” is the whole point of flattening the curve We didn't really flatten the curve except briefly in a few places like CA; the supposed national curve flattening is an artifact of the fact that the New York epidemic peaked a declined as the rest of the country was (and largely still is) on the upswing. This is just the first wave hitting more places with no effective mitigation, not a second wave. > as long as hospitals aren’t overwhelmed, our response is successful. Hospitals are overwhelmed in a growing number of parts of the country, out response is not successful. > Look at our respective stock markets for a more accurate view of the situation. Not really, the big firms on most stock markets are international conglomerates, and the major indexes don't really have much to do with national conditions.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Where are hospitals overwhelmed in the USA? And I mean, like, in a region. Not a single hospital - brief overloads in single hospitals happens in normal times too.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hurrdurr2 6y ago
  Ahh yes. The stock market is doing great hence we are fine. I'm sure our president and his sycophants also completely believe this.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
metalliqaz 6y ago
"freedom" isn't our Achilles heel. ignorance is our Achilles heel. it comes from awful education and leads to a culture where your own opinion is as good as some other guy's fact.
- oneplane 6y ago
  Depends on the definition of freedom. If one were to think that they are free to spread their infection then freedom would be an Achilles heel. (On top of ignorance, that is)
TheBobinator 6y ago
If you add up all of the infections in the EU, you get numbers similar to the US, and test results are very situational. If you get tested in a state that doesn't have an outbreak, it'll go faster than one that does. The US Federal government doesn't have the authority to swoop in and play hero in the same way the EU itself can't come in and dictate to Germany what they must and must not do. For the US, habeus corpus among other laws and our constitution are reasons why. What the federal government has done is print money and hand it to the states and people directly which IMO, is a solid initial move while all the other machinery is brought to bear. Never discount a European's willingness to poo-poo the united states. It's like a pass time. As for data. Peer Reviewed Antivirus\Seriological studies show a mortality rate of .9-1.1% when hospitals\ICU's are not overloaded. When they are overloaded, the observational data shows that rate jumps up to double digits. Something like 30% of patients require hospitalization. There's also a body of observational evidence this virus also reinfects people; GISAid shows 6 distict strains at this point. So your enemy looks like it can infect and reinfect and every round, if your healthcare system isn't built up, it kills double digits. India has an exponential breakout they will not be stopping any time soon, Brazil is following suite it seems as well. It doesn't require a lot of scientific infrastructure to count body bags and the fundemental reason the numbers are so f'd up is due to the fact once body bags begin piling up people freak out and try something new. If you are smart you'll take this thing seriously, wear a respirator or CBRN Gas mask, and work at getting yourself healthy.
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  Numbers for the EU do not add up to the US. They are many multiples lower. I checked for all of Europe except Russia and Turkey. So more than just the EU. Total cases are less than half. Daily new cases yesterday were 8K vs US’s 65K+. Deaths yesterday were 150 vs US’s 900+. What numbers were you referring to? Did you think the numbers are similar, but they aren’t now and haven’t been for months?
- nradov 6y ago
  Your numbers are way off. The current best estimate of infection fatality rate is 0.65%, which is significantly lower than 0.9 - 1.1%. Even when hospitals are overloaded the IFR is nowhere near double digits (10%). Nor is the hospitalization rate anywhere near 30%. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cnzxbT 6y ago

> Everybody wears a mask indoors and nobody but a very small minority complains. This is true in supermarkets at least. > Social distancing is enforced by usually friendly police which the people mostly trusts to do its job. Sorry, hardly anyone still practices distancing outside. At a lake people were on a crowded beach 20cm apart.

microcolonel 6y ago
> Sorry, hardly anyone still practices distancing outside. At a lake people were on a crowded beach 20cm apart. And the risks at these places are apparently pretty low, even with more lax physical distancing; 20cm does seem a bit close though.

oezi 6y ago

I am not so sure if Europe in general and Germany specifically could not be hit with similar situations again. - After the April lock down it is clear, that we cannot repeat this economically again. - Population becomes tired of maintaining the hygiene regiment. Improperly worn masks are on the rise. Dining out is increasing / bars/gyms/pools are reopening and are starting to get crowded. - Decision making is pushed down from Federal to State and local levels (at least in Germany) causing a lack of cohesion of plans and making it impossible for the public to understand what policy is enforced where and why. One good example of this is that the general mask wearing mandate is still in place but many states have allowed for employees (e.g. in stores) to forego masks. - Schools closed for summer have paused a likely source of many transmission routes. After going below 2000 infection per week, we are set to hit 4000 per week after the weekend in Germany.

jacquesm 6y ago
> After the April lock down it is clear, that we cannot repeat this economically again It may not be a choice. Then what?
- oezi 6y ago
  I hope with mandated masks (properly worn, no valves) and targetted lockdowns, the general lockdown can be prevented. Restaurants, schools/kindergardens and any public venue will likely be closed first.
- thu2111 6y ago
  Then nothing. People get over it and ignore it. Excess deaths in Germany didn't move: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Cross-Section/Corona/Society/population_death.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Cross-Section/Corona/Socie... That's not a dangerous virus. At least not in Germany. And it's the same virus everywhere, so questions must be asked about why so many countries have seen no real change in excess deaths and others did (but even when they did, it's not high relative to the reaction).
usaar333 6y ago
It's definitely true anyone can be hit again. Hong Kong, Israel, parts of Australia all are examples.
- zebnyc 6y ago
  Taiwan has eliminated community spread. The only new cases are folks who are entering the country (who must undergo the 14 day mandatory quarantine).
  - refurb 6y ago
    Vietnam went 100 days without a case and are now dealing with an outbreak in Da Nang. You still can’t get in as a foreigner, so it’s not like they aren’t locked down.
  - 6y ago

microcolonel 6y ago

> It‘s so sad to watch, but compared to any other developed and affluent nation, the US is a complete shitshow at this point Idunno man, here in Canada the testing woes are about the middle of the pack, when compared with each of the states, the case fatality rates are higher than in Texas. The overall death rates are still much higher in the UK than either the U.S. or Canada. I think you're being extremely lopsided in your analysis of this, which I don't blame you entirely for, given how much American-made anti-American propaganda there is out there. > It‘s just so sad to see how personal „freedom to choose“ turned into the achilles heel of one of the formerly greatest nations on Earth. It didn't, it's a spectacular country and will continue to be for a long time still. The places in the U.S. where there was more choice and personal freedom did better on almost every metric so far, and we haven't even tallied the totals yet (we'll know for real in a couple years, when we correct our death records, and look at real overall mortality over the whole event, rather than rates on a given date). You can not simultaneously warn about a second wave and dismiss the Swedish model out of hand. In reality, we won't know who was right until much later.

perardi 6y ago
Let's have some data on US-UK-Canada CFR: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/canada?country=CAN~GBR~USA#the-case-fatality-rate https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/canada?countr... Which, yup, Canada and the US aren't that far apart, and the UK has a higher CFR. And Canada…it's worth noting that Canada is a bunch of city-states bound loosely together by Tim Horton's, and the responses varied quite a bit by province. British Columbia bent their curve early, and made some really key decisions in regards to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities that made a big difference versus Ontario and Quebec. (Last I checked 81% of COVID deaths here were in such facilities. If we'd managed to secure nursing homes and figure out protections for farm workers, there'd be far fewer deaths. ICUs never, ever hit anywhere near capacity, at least in Toronto.) And pure off-topic anecdote: testing has gone very well for me. My local hospital here on the east side of Toronto was on top of this early, and my tests have all come back in less than 24 hours. (Though I live with a front-line healthcare worker, which makes me think they're giving me just a little extra speed.)

ghthor 6y ago

If your not present in America and viewing things on the ground why don't you keep your opinion to yourself. I say this because whatever you've been told isn't true.

nfoz 6y ago
Your comment isn't helpful unless you're willing to point out what isn't true and can only be observed from within America?
jader201 6y ago
What is it exactly that’s not true? I’ve read the OP a couple times, and having a hard time finding anything stated that’s conclusively false.
- jjcon 6y ago
  How about the fact that the US deaths per capita is lower than France, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, UK and plenty of other countries... I consider those to be developed nations so I’m not sure their point really holds.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    It's unlikely this is going to remain the case. The US had 3 straight days of ~1100 deaths. If that continues for 2 months (and doesn't get worse or better, more likely to get worse given the infection rates) the US will be far worse than Italy and France and gaining on the top 2 spots. If it increases as it should, it will be much, much sooner.
    - jjcon 6y ago
      There is a lot of speculation in your comment - I thought we were talking facts here.
  - hanche 6y ago
    Maybe that is because those countries were hit earlier than the US?

jquery 6y ago

No, that’s just yellow journalism. The USA is doing just fine thank you. The “second wave” is the whole point of flattening the curve, as long as hospitals aren’t overwhelmed, our response is successful. Look at our respective stock markets for a more accurate view of the situation. They’re tracking very close, even adjusting for currency float. The USA is nowhere near falling apart.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> The “second wave” is the whole point of flattening the curve We didn't really flatten the curve except briefly in a few places like CA; the supposed national curve flattening is an artifact of the fact that the New York epidemic peaked a declined as the rest of the country was (and largely still is) on the upswing. This is just the first wave hitting more places with no effective mitigation, not a second wave. > as long as hospitals aren’t overwhelmed, our response is successful. Hospitals are overwhelmed in a growing number of parts of the country, out response is not successful. > Look at our respective stock markets for a more accurate view of the situation. Not really, the big firms on most stock markets are international conglomerates, and the major indexes don't really have much to do with national conditions.
- thu2111 6y ago
  Where are hospitals overwhelmed in the USA? And I mean, like, in a region. Not a single hospital - brief overloads in single hospitals happens in normal times too.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hurrdurr2 6y ago
Ahh yes. The stock market is doing great hence we are fine. I'm sure our president and his sycophants also completely believe this.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

metalliqaz 6y ago

"freedom" isn't our Achilles heel. ignorance is our Achilles heel. it comes from awful education and leads to a culture where your own opinion is as good as some other guy's fact.

oneplane 6y ago
Depends on the definition of freedom. If one were to think that they are free to spread their infection then freedom would be an Achilles heel. (On top of ignorance, that is)

TheBobinator 6y ago

If you add up all of the infections in the EU, you get numbers similar to the US, and test results are very situational. If you get tested in a state that doesn't have an outbreak, it'll go faster than one that does. The US Federal government doesn't have the authority to swoop in and play hero in the same way the EU itself can't come in and dictate to Germany what they must and must not do. For the US, habeus corpus among other laws and our constitution are reasons why. What the federal government has done is print money and hand it to the states and people directly which IMO, is a solid initial move while all the other machinery is brought to bear. Never discount a European's willingness to poo-poo the united states. It's like a pass time. As for data. Peer Reviewed Antivirus\Seriological studies show a mortality rate of .9-1.1% when hospitals\ICU's are not overloaded. When they are overloaded, the observational data shows that rate jumps up to double digits. Something like 30% of patients require hospitalization. There's also a body of observational evidence this virus also reinfects people; GISAid shows 6 distict strains at this point. So your enemy looks like it can infect and reinfect and every round, if your healthcare system isn't built up, it kills double digits. India has an exponential breakout they will not be stopping any time soon, Brazil is following suite it seems as well. It doesn't require a lot of scientific infrastructure to count body bags and the fundemental reason the numbers are so f'd up is due to the fact once body bags begin piling up people freak out and try something new. If you are smart you'll take this thing seriously, wear a respirator or CBRN Gas mask, and work at getting yourself healthy.

skinnymuch 6y ago
Numbers for the EU do not add up to the US. They are many multiples lower. I checked for all of Europe except Russia and Turkey. So more than just the EU. Total cases are less than half. Daily new cases yesterday were 8K vs US’s 65K+. Deaths yesterday were 150 vs US’s 900+. What numbers were you referring to? Did you think the numbers are similar, but they aren’t now and haven’t been for months?
nradov 6y ago
Your numbers are way off. The current best estimate of infection fatality rate is 0.65%, which is significantly lower than 0.9 - 1.1%. Even when hospitals are overloaded the IFR is nowhere near double digits (10%). Nor is the hospitalization rate anywhere near 30%. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...