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You realize they achieved this by effectively locking down their borders right? Now, imagine the response if Trump had suggested this. Actually, you don't even

You realize they achieved this by effectively locking down their borders right? Now, imagine the response if Trump had suggested this. Actually, you don't even need to imagine it: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coronavirus-borders_n_5e6a530ec5b6dda30fc4be6e https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coronavirus-borders_n_5...

rovolo 5y ago
That article is from 2020-03-12. By that day, we had a total of 40 deaths and 1.5k confirmed cases. It was pretty obviously spreading within the US at that point, and just closing the borders wasn't going to stop it. Headlines for context: > Trump Appears More Concerned With Closing Borders Than Testing For Coronavirus > The president has characterized the pandemic as a “foreign virus” and suggested that banning people from other countries is key to fixing the outbreak at home.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  Where did I say anything about "just closing the borders"? Yes multiple approaches are necessary. My point was that if Trump had tried the same tactics NZ did he would have been met with vitriol about how racist and xenophobic he was. People still won't admit that his administration was responsible for getting the vaccine out in a timely manner. NZ had the obvious benefit of being an island with a low population that was able to easily lock their borders down and keep people socially distanced. They didn't pull off some miracle that no one else can figure out.
  - rovolo 5y ago
    > if Trump had tried the same tactics NZ did he would have been met with vitriol about how racist and xenophobic he was. This point doesn't follow from the article you linked. The HuffPo article has two major complaints: 1) Trump's major focus on dealing with covid at the moment was the existing travel restrictions for China and the new restrictions for Europe. He should have pivoted to addressing the internal spread within the US. 2) Trump was trying to direct blame to specific nationalities/ethnic groups instead of saying that anyone and any travel could be spreading the virus. They were deflect blame by calling it the "Wuhan virus" and "China coronavirus". I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the manner he closed the borders was xenophobic. Furthermore, he wasn't doing the things necessary to stop the internal spread, and those were more important once the virus arrived. NZ's new cases only started falling in mid-April, a month after Trump's expanded travel restrictions. Additional travel restrictions were necessary, but not sufficient to reduce covid's impact. http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countries&highlight=New%20Zealand&show=highlight-only&y=both&scale=linear&data=cases&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right#countries http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countri...
jcranmer 5y ago
There are some mitigating factors. The primary purpose of a border closure is to prevent, or at least control, the introduction of the virus into the country, especially to let the health services prepare better. Viewed from this context, Trump's border closures look especially asinine: * The closure (at least with respect to Europe) occurred by which time it was widely known that the US had uncontrolled community spread. * The closure applied only to non-Americans, which made it a really, really porous closure. New Zealand's closure applied both to Kiwis and non-Kiwis. * The administration of the closure was also chaotic and inept. There was no real effort to screen for COVID-19 among the many people who were let in during the closure, and the fact that the arrival halls were jam-packed with people only exacerbated any potential spread that might have happened. * Similarly, there was no real effort to use the time afforded by the closure (even had it been more effective) to improve testing and tracing infrastructure. * The actual announcement of the rollout was extremely botched--the White House had to issue three separate statements afterwards correcting Trump's announcement. * Finally, it's been pretty clear in the months since then that Trump believes that being proactive in the (ineffective) closure efforts is all that he should have done in response to the coronavirus, especially given his pretty active resistance to any further measures.

rovolo 5y ago

That article is from 2020-03-12. By that day, we had a total of 40 deaths and 1.5k confirmed cases. It was pretty obviously spreading within the US at that point, and just closing the borders wasn't going to stop it. Headlines for context: > Trump Appears More Concerned With Closing Borders Than Testing For Coronavirus > The president has characterized the pandemic as a “foreign virus” and suggested that banning people from other countries is key to fixing the outbreak at home.

CountDrewku 5y ago
Where did I say anything about "just closing the borders"? Yes multiple approaches are necessary. My point was that if Trump had tried the same tactics NZ did he would have been met with vitriol about how racist and xenophobic he was. People still won't admit that his administration was responsible for getting the vaccine out in a timely manner. NZ had the obvious benefit of being an island with a low population that was able to easily lock their borders down and keep people socially distanced. They didn't pull off some miracle that no one else can figure out.
- rovolo 5y ago
  > if Trump had tried the same tactics NZ did he would have been met with vitriol about how racist and xenophobic he was. This point doesn't follow from the article you linked. The HuffPo article has two major complaints: 1) Trump's major focus on dealing with covid at the moment was the existing travel restrictions for China and the new restrictions for Europe. He should have pivoted to addressing the internal spread within the US. 2) Trump was trying to direct blame to specific nationalities/ethnic groups instead of saying that anyone and any travel could be spreading the virus. They were deflect blame by calling it the "Wuhan virus" and "China coronavirus". I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the manner he closed the borders was xenophobic. Furthermore, he wasn't doing the things necessary to stop the internal spread, and those were more important once the virus arrived. NZ's new cases only started falling in mid-April, a month after Trump's expanded travel restrictions. Additional travel restrictions were necessary, but not sufficient to reduce covid's impact. http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countries&highlight=New%20Zealand&show=highlight-only&y=both&scale=linear&data=cases&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right#countries http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countri...

jcranmer 5y ago

There are some mitigating factors. The primary purpose of a border closure is to prevent, or at least control, the introduction of the virus into the country, especially to let the health services prepare better. Viewed from this context, Trump's border closures look especially asinine: * The closure (at least with respect to Europe) occurred by which time it was widely known that the US had uncontrolled community spread. * The closure applied only to non-Americans, which made it a really, really porous closure. New Zealand's closure applied both to Kiwis and non-Kiwis. * The administration of the closure was also chaotic and inept. There was no real effort to screen for COVID-19 among the many people who were let in during the closure, and the fact that the arrival halls were jam-packed with people only exacerbated any potential spread that might have happened. * Similarly, there was no real effort to use the time afforded by the closure (even had it been more effective) to improve testing and tracing infrastructure. * The actual announcement of the rollout was extremely botched--the White House had to issue three separate statements afterwards correcting Trump's announcement. * Finally, it's been pretty clear in the months since then that Trump believes that being proactive in the (ineffective) closure efforts is all that he should have done in response to the coronavirus, especially given his pretty active resistance to any further measures.