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I don’t think anyone thinks American handled this pandemic well. We royally screwed it up no matter what your political opinion. IMO our biggest error was conf

I don’t think anyone thinks American handled this pandemic well. We royally screwed it up no matter what your political opinion. IMO our biggest error was conflicting information and guidance. Had everyone, from Trump down, set out clear, consistent, and simple guidelines for people to follow, we could have avoided lockdowns and had fewer deaths, not to mention far less political and personal contention.

swiley 5y ago
I'd disagree. I think most of the states have handled it better than say Canada or Australia.
- thefz 5y ago
  Let's take deaths as an indicator of "pandemic handling". Australia had sub-1K total confirmed deaths which is a very very low value for a nation that large. Canada had 26,635; USA had 615,326. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat... Even single state figures are quite high: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103688/coronavirus-covid19-deaths-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103688/coronavirus-covi...
- dazsnow 5y ago
  Depends what your definition of "better" is. If better = "killed more people", then sure... The US state with the lowest death rate is Hawaii with 38 deaths / 100,000 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi...). Compare that with Australia - 3.7 (https://covidlive.com.au/report/deaths-per-population https://covidlive.com.au/report/deaths-per-population) - Canada - 0.27 (https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-s...) - and countries with even stricter and longer-lasting lockdowns like Singapore - 0.00042 (https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/singapore/ https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...).
  - swiley 5y ago
    Does that include suicides and drug related deaths? At least in the US those went up by an order of magnitude last year and I would be shocked if those countries did better.
    - dazsnow 5y ago
      Be shocked then.
listless 5y ago
That doesn't seem objectively true. It seems like the only working alternative to what we did was far stricter lockdowns (See AU). But even those places are still dealing with the pandemic. In fact, it looks to me like we have two choices - get in lockdown, close all borders and remain that way indefinitely, or open up and move on with our lives. We can say this much - whatever we've been doing so far has not worked. We should try something else.

swiley 5y ago

I'd disagree. I think most of the states have handled it better than say Canada or Australia.

thefz 5y ago
Let's take deaths as an indicator of "pandemic handling". Australia had sub-1K total confirmed deaths which is a very very low value for a nation that large. Canada had 26,635; USA had 615,326. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat... Even single state figures are quite high: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103688/coronavirus-covid19-deaths-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103688/coronavirus-covi...
dazsnow 5y ago
Depends what your definition of "better" is. If better = "killed more people", then sure... The US state with the lowest death rate is Hawaii with 38 deaths / 100,000 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi...). Compare that with Australia - 3.7 (https://covidlive.com.au/report/deaths-per-population https://covidlive.com.au/report/deaths-per-population) - Canada - 0.27 (https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-s...) - and countries with even stricter and longer-lasting lockdowns like Singapore - 0.00042 (https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/singapore/ https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...).
- swiley 5y ago
  Does that include suicides and drug related deaths? At least in the US those went up by an order of magnitude last year and I would be shocked if those countries did better.
  - dazsnow 5y ago
    Be shocked then.

listless 5y ago

That doesn't seem objectively true. It seems like the only working alternative to what we did was far stricter lockdowns (See AU). But even those places are still dealing with the pandemic. In fact, it looks to me like we have two choices - get in lockdown, close all borders and remain that way indefinitely, or open up and move on with our lives. We can say this much - whatever we've been doing so far has not worked. We should try something else.