4 ms·

This is an awful and irresponsible article. This is not a war, nurses are not soldiers and shouldn't have been put at such risk. The fact that they were was the

by neaden 6y ago

This is an awful and irresponsible article. This is not a war, nurses are not soldiers and shouldn't have been put at such risk. The fact that they were was the result of a complete abdication of duty of our nations leadership. In regards to schools, based on recent outbreaks at schools that have reopened and summer camps it seems pretty clear that with the US's current level of transmission, trying to open schools is incredibly irresponsible. If we really wanted to have schools open as a priority we should have gotten our transmission down in the summer. We failed, and this is the result.

gameswithgo 6y ago
>This is not a war, Feeling like this is not a war is a big reason we have all had to endure so much risk. We have been unwilling to make the tough decisions, unwilling to move ahead with imperfect information, unwilling to sacrifice trivial liberty to do what is clearly safer for our fellow humans.
- neaden 6y ago
  That is seriously wrongheaded thinking. This is just plain not a war, it is a plague. We do need to make sacrifices, but the ideals expoused in this article, needlessly throwing people into danger out of some misguided ideal of lionizing sacrifice is just going to get more people sick.
dariusj18 6y ago
The number one thing that could have been done was the easiest, government sponsored ramp up of PPE at the first signs of an epidemic. It took nearly half a year for the Federal government to get their head in the game, and even then they've been flubbing it. I think the war analogy is useful, in that the Federal government should be able to have access to higher authority to execute on strategies quickly. I mean, we use the "War on ____" analogy enough, this pandemic is certainly more fitting than most of those issues.
- neaden 6y ago
  "I think the war analogy is useful, in that the Federal government should be able to have access to higher authority to execute on strategies quickly." Serious question, why? We come up with checks and balances for a reason. We have existing laws on how to handle pandemics, and states have existing laws for isolation and quarantine. We have the CDC, the Public Health Service, the NIH all as existing agencies with duties and plans that were supposed to be used for this. And those plans were ignored. We had months to prepare before the first cases appeared in the US. Our current federal leaders have proposed multiple strategies that would harm people without helping, such as promoting unproven therapies. What part of any of the federal response to this makes you think they should have had more authority?
  - dariusj18 6y ago
    Just because this administration has done such a poor job of it doesn't mean a competent one wouldn't have been able to use the authority given during a crisis to do something effective. I also don't think there is any new law that would need to be enacted to grant additional authority to the executive branch. I agree, they had all the tools in the toolbox before and after the pandemic hit us. I didn't mean to seem to advocate that the executive needed more authority than they already posses, just that the authority they already posses is higher than we would normally be comfortable with without a crisis. I mostly meant that the war analogy is useful from a public perspective, because there are a lot of people who don't think in shades of grey, it's either war or peace, and to get them to do or accept what needs to be done, they need to be motivated.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
A pandemic is a war of sort. A war in which medical staff are front line troops that will be put through a lot. Getting transmission rates and new cases right down quickly requires sweeping, war-like measures and mindset. This failed because no-one has been willing to take them, and a significant portion of the public thinks that individual freedoms trump everything else.
- neaden 6y ago
  There are a lot of issues with using war as a mindset. There is no enemy here, it is a natural disaster. There may not be an end, even with a vaccine this may never go away. I've seen how the War on Drugs, War on Poverty, and War on Terror have been absolute failures in my lifetime and promoted incorrect thinking on how to handle these issues, I do not want to see the same thing happen here.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    Using war as a mindset is very apt: It means discipline, effort, thinking as a group, individual sacrifice. All positive and useful things when fighting a pandemic. I don't see a problem with the term. Edit: I'm puzzled by some of the replies and ideas on what being at war means. It does mean solidarity, collaboration, cooperation, including extensive international collaboration. A prime example is WWII. It think it is not unreasonable to call covid-19 an enemy that must be defeated if that focuses minds. It is in fact very common to use war-like analogies in campaigns against diseases. That includes smallpox and polio.
    - neaden 6y ago
      War means enemy, killing, strict hierarchy, dehumanizing the enemy, us vs. them mindset. We need a collaborative, cooperative, understanding approach for dealing with this. In your response to your edit I think you have a very rosy view of war. WW2 involved setting cities on fire, locking up ethnic minorities because of their ancestry, and forcing removal of people from one country on the other based on their ethnicity and language. And all of that was on the part of the U.S.
kergonath 6y ago
Indeed, this is a terrible point of view. Sending kids back to school before the epidemic is under control just makes it worse for everyone, including the nurses on the front lines. I understand her frustration but it still is stupid. I wonder how acceptable it would be to swap nurse/pandemic/get sick with soldier/war/get shot, or with fireman/forest fire/get burned. Some professions have different risk profiles than others. The right thing to do is obviously to reopen the schools, but the virus has to be under control first.
tmarman 6y ago
I also despise the appeal to some false authority. The entire premise for the argument seems to be, "well, I was a nurse and had to go in even when I was at risk, so they should do the same". The fact that she was a nurse or felt a duty to work has absolutely no weight in the argument.

by neaden 6y ago

gameswithgo 6y ago

>This is not a war, Feeling like this is not a war is a big reason we have all had to endure so much risk. We have been unwilling to make the tough decisions, unwilling to move ahead with imperfect information, unwilling to sacrifice trivial liberty to do what is clearly safer for our fellow humans.

neaden 6y ago
That is seriously wrongheaded thinking. This is just plain not a war, it is a plague. We do need to make sacrifices, but the ideals expoused in this article, needlessly throwing people into danger out of some misguided ideal of lionizing sacrifice is just going to get more people sick.

dariusj18 6y ago

The number one thing that could have been done was the easiest, government sponsored ramp up of PPE at the first signs of an epidemic. It took nearly half a year for the Federal government to get their head in the game, and even then they've been flubbing it. I think the war analogy is useful, in that the Federal government should be able to have access to higher authority to execute on strategies quickly. I mean, we use the "War on ____" analogy enough, this pandemic is certainly more fitting than most of those issues.

neaden 6y ago
"I think the war analogy is useful, in that the Federal government should be able to have access to higher authority to execute on strategies quickly." Serious question, why? We come up with checks and balances for a reason. We have existing laws on how to handle pandemics, and states have existing laws for isolation and quarantine. We have the CDC, the Public Health Service, the NIH all as existing agencies with duties and plans that were supposed to be used for this. And those plans were ignored. We had months to prepare before the first cases appeared in the US. Our current federal leaders have proposed multiple strategies that would harm people without helping, such as promoting unproven therapies. What part of any of the federal response to this makes you think they should have had more authority?
- dariusj18 6y ago
  Just because this administration has done such a poor job of it doesn't mean a competent one wouldn't have been able to use the authority given during a crisis to do something effective. I also don't think there is any new law that would need to be enacted to grant additional authority to the executive branch. I agree, they had all the tools in the toolbox before and after the pandemic hit us. I didn't mean to seem to advocate that the executive needed more authority than they already posses, just that the authority they already posses is higher than we would normally be comfortable with without a crisis. I mostly meant that the war analogy is useful from a public perspective, because there are a lot of people who don't think in shades of grey, it's either war or peace, and to get them to do or accept what needs to be done, they need to be motivated.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

A pandemic is a war of sort. A war in which medical staff are front line troops that will be put through a lot. Getting transmission rates and new cases right down quickly requires sweeping, war-like measures and mindset. This failed because no-one has been willing to take them, and a significant portion of the public thinks that individual freedoms trump everything else.

neaden 6y ago
There are a lot of issues with using war as a mindset. There is no enemy here, it is a natural disaster. There may not be an end, even with a vaccine this may never go away. I've seen how the War on Drugs, War on Poverty, and War on Terror have been absolute failures in my lifetime and promoted incorrect thinking on how to handle these issues, I do not want to see the same thing happen here.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  Using war as a mindset is very apt: It means discipline, effort, thinking as a group, individual sacrifice. All positive and useful things when fighting a pandemic. I don't see a problem with the term. Edit: I'm puzzled by some of the replies and ideas on what being at war means. It does mean solidarity, collaboration, cooperation, including extensive international collaboration. A prime example is WWII. It think it is not unreasonable to call covid-19 an enemy that must be defeated if that focuses minds. It is in fact very common to use war-like analogies in campaigns against diseases. That includes smallpox and polio.
  - neaden 6y ago
    War means enemy, killing, strict hierarchy, dehumanizing the enemy, us vs. them mindset. We need a collaborative, cooperative, understanding approach for dealing with this. In your response to your edit I think you have a very rosy view of war. WW2 involved setting cities on fire, locking up ethnic minorities because of their ancestry, and forcing removal of people from one country on the other based on their ethnicity and language. And all of that was on the part of the U.S.

kergonath 6y ago

Indeed, this is a terrible point of view. Sending kids back to school before the epidemic is under control just makes it worse for everyone, including the nurses on the front lines. I understand her frustration but it still is stupid. I wonder how acceptable it would be to swap nurse/pandemic/get sick with soldier/war/get shot, or with fireman/forest fire/get burned. Some professions have different risk profiles than others. The right thing to do is obviously to reopen the schools, but the virus has to be under control first.

tmarman 6y ago

I also despise the appeal to some false authority. The entire premise for the argument seems to be, "well, I was a nurse and had to go in even when I was at risk, so they should do the same". The fact that she was a nurse or felt a duty to work has absolutely no weight in the argument.