5 ms·

It will be over in April! A lot of people were just wishing it away

vmception 5y ago
I've run into a variety of people that made savings, travel and career choices based on that idea, and it wasn't good for them. Of course they were from the midwest and so likely all of their influences would have been reinforcing the words of the President, but I also don't understand how that would be convincing, given how viruses work. Given how this virus works and spreads.
- caseysoftware 5y ago
  We were also told "two weeks to stop the spread!" by the CDC and most major news sources. "two weeks" from mid-March would be April "stop the spread" could reasonably interpreted as "we won, all is well" Therefore, it's easy to see why people - including Trump - would be convinced this would all be done in April 2020.
  - vxNsr 5y ago
    Not to mention China seemed to have mostly eradicated it by mid-March by simply shutting down for a few weeks. They still seem to have very few cases, many ppl don’t believe their reporting anymore, but at the time it really did look like a quick shutdown would end it.
  - Izkata 5y ago
    It was "slow the spread" or "flatten the curve", not "stop the spread". The goal was to prevent the hospitals from being overrun while we built extra capacity, after which that extra capacity would allow us to go back to normal. Instead, the extra capacity barely got used and was dismantled a month or two later.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Its equally easy to see how this was to keep compliance with the orders for as long as possible, then, and in hindsight. Even the most heavily locked places with an overly compliant population couldnt have gotten that result by saying it was going to last for 9 months+ Senators on the intelligence committee dumping shares and buying remote work stocks for … a two week disruption? I said the same things in March 2020 I just still don't understand how other people process things.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- mwint 5y ago
  I was once of the “this’ll be over by the end of April” people, but I didn’t mean the virus would be gone. Only that the initial response would be over (“flatten the curve”) and we’d go back to normal, accepting the deaths. I didn’t think the new goal would become “no one can ever die of this”. Had I known that, I wouldn’t have said this would be over soon.
  - zrail 5y ago
    As far as I can tell, most public health decisions made up until this summer have been about preventing collapse of hospital systems. Individual health is of secondary importance to the system being able to handle ordinary levels of non-covid events. Something changed a few months ago and now some states in the US are making decisions seemingly designed to collapse their health systems. It's tragically short sighted.
    - Izkata 5y ago
      > As far as I can tell, most public health decisions made up until this summer have been about preventing collapse of hospital systems. If that were true, they wouldn't have gotten rid of the pop-up hospitals over a year ago.
      - majormajor 5y ago
        They weren't needed at the time, though. Why maintain them popped up in any one location when the biggest spikes have been moving around?
  - simiones 5y ago
    > I didn’t think the new goal would become “no one can ever die of this”. Had I known that, I wouldn’t have said this would be over soon. Which place, specifically, do you think has gone with this kind of thinking? Because in all countries I know of outside of East Asia, this virus has been allowed to kill many more people than virtually any other infectious disease in the last 10 years.
  - vmception 5y ago

I've run into a variety of people that made savings, travel and career choices based on that idea, and it wasn't good for them. Of course they were from the midwest and so likely all of their influences would have been reinforcing the words of the President, but I also don't understand how that would be convincing, given how viruses work. Given how this virus works and spreads.

caseysoftware 5y ago
We were also told "two weeks to stop the spread!" by the CDC and most major news sources. "two weeks" from mid-March would be April "stop the spread" could reasonably interpreted as "we won, all is well" Therefore, it's easy to see why people - including Trump - would be convinced this would all be done in April 2020.
- vxNsr 5y ago
  Not to mention China seemed to have mostly eradicated it by mid-March by simply shutting down for a few weeks. They still seem to have very few cases, many ppl don’t believe their reporting anymore, but at the time it really did look like a quick shutdown would end it.
- Izkata 5y ago
  It was "slow the spread" or "flatten the curve", not "stop the spread". The goal was to prevent the hospitals from being overrun while we built extra capacity, after which that extra capacity would allow us to go back to normal. Instead, the extra capacity barely got used and was dismantled a month or two later.
- vmception 5y ago
  Its equally easy to see how this was to keep compliance with the orders for as long as possible, then, and in hindsight. Even the most heavily locked places with an overly compliant population couldnt have gotten that result by saying it was going to last for 9 months+ Senators on the intelligence committee dumping shares and buying remote work stocks for … a two week disruption? I said the same things in March 2020 I just still don't understand how other people process things.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
mwint 5y ago
I was once of the “this’ll be over by the end of April” people, but I didn’t mean the virus would be gone. Only that the initial response would be over (“flatten the curve”) and we’d go back to normal, accepting the deaths. I didn’t think the new goal would become “no one can ever die of this”. Had I known that, I wouldn’t have said this would be over soon.
- zrail 5y ago
  As far as I can tell, most public health decisions made up until this summer have been about preventing collapse of hospital systems. Individual health is of secondary importance to the system being able to handle ordinary levels of non-covid events. Something changed a few months ago and now some states in the US are making decisions seemingly designed to collapse their health systems. It's tragically short sighted.
  - Izkata 5y ago
    > As far as I can tell, most public health decisions made up until this summer have been about preventing collapse of hospital systems. If that were true, they wouldn't have gotten rid of the pop-up hospitals over a year ago.
    - majormajor 5y ago
      They weren't needed at the time, though. Why maintain them popped up in any one location when the biggest spikes have been moving around?
- simiones 5y ago
  > I didn’t think the new goal would become “no one can ever die of this”. Had I known that, I wouldn’t have said this would be over soon. Which place, specifically, do you think has gone with this kind of thinking? Because in all countries I know of outside of East Asia, this virus has been allowed to kill many more people than virtually any other infectious disease in the last 10 years.
- vmception 5y ago