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I don't comment very often on political posts and this is borderline off topic but if Trump had handled the pandemic by following the science we were putting to

I don't comment very often on political posts and this is borderline off topic but if Trump had handled the pandemic by following the science we were putting to work and championed doing the best we could for saving lives he would have won his second term. Instead we have been sold to someone(s) that only want to see us divided internally and externally expanding our isolationist stances. It just feels like everything is taking polarization to the extreme. I feel really terrible imagining what my daughter will inherit from all of this.

aprilthird2021 9mo ago
Am I wrong or Trump was the one who initiated the first shutdowns. Trump was the one who said we'll have a vaccine quickly, etc. What should he have done that he didn't do, in your opinion? Fwiw, it was the economic shock from COVID that caused this situation where he's come back to ruin our lives again. Any further disruption to the economy during COVID would have exacerbated that
- LargeWu 9mo ago
  It's less what should he have done, than what shouldn't he have done. Specifically, he pushed conspiracy theories, demonized his health experts, and touted ineffective cures, and ultimately cast doubt on the safety of the vaccines. All to pander to his base. He had a remarkable chance to build trust in government via a truly extraordinary vaccine rollout, to a crowd which is historically distrustful. Instead he squandered that goodwill on petty fights and self aggrandizement.
- TimorousBestie 9mo ago
  > What should he have done that he didn't do, in your opinion? I’ll just run down the record and stop at the first obvious error. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._federal_government_response_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._federal_government_respon... > One month after [March 16, 2020, when the administration first recommended social distancing], epidemiologists Britta Jewell and Nicholas Jewell estimated that, had social distancing policies been implemented just two weeks earlier, U.S. deaths due to COVID-19 might have been reduced by 90%. So there’s a concrete thing he could have done differently. > Any further disruption to the economy during COVID would have exacerbated that More stringent restrictions done earlier may have shortened the duration of the economic impact, who knows, we can’t exactly observe those alternate timelines directly. The administration had zero discipline on messaging and so nothing was done with any consistency. As you say, he was initially positive that a vaccine would arrive quickly; when it was available, he flipped and endorsed alternative treatments of all kinds, many of them harmful. Formerly a champion of Dr. Fauci, then later his worst detractor and chief prosecutor in the court of public opinion.
  - pstuart 9mo ago
    And shut down the early warning system months before the outbreak, purely out of spite that it was supported by his predecessor: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/trump-scrapped-pandemic-early-warning-program-system-before-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/trump-scrapped...
  - ndjeosibfb 9mo ago
    so what you’re saying is we needed just 2 more weeks to flatten the curve
- FridayoLeary 9mo ago
  And it was the scientists and doctors of the WHO, who denied the existence of Covid until after every country in the world had shut down. I thought covid denial was a bad thing, but you're still getting downvoted... In response to your last question i've got no idea. I don't have any confidence the vaunted scientists got it right back then either. Just look at the disasters inflicted on countries and states that imposed heavy handed and IMO largely unnecessary covid measures.
  - TimorousBestie 9mo ago
    > And it was the scientists and doctors of the WHO, who denied the existence of Covid until after every country in the world had shut down. Doesn’t line up with WHO’s record of events. https://www.who.int/news/item/29-06-2020-covidtimeline https://www.who.int/news/item/29-06-2020-covidtimeline
  - aprilthird2021 9mo ago
    It's easy to say COVID measures were unnecessary when you live in a timeline where you were spared from the worst case scenario of an immediate global pandemic. The economic harm was huge, but we don't know what it would have been if we had not taken any protective measures and we didn't know back then either how dangerous the disease could be
golden-face 9mo ago
1000%, crazy to look back on spring and summer of 2020 and if he just played it cool and not rocked the boat so much, no doubt he would have been reelected. Not that I agree with many of his policies; if anything it speaks more to his incompetence and inability to remain calm than anything else.
lateforwork 9mo ago
Don't forget Trump had a hand in starting the pandemic. Here's what we know: In 2014, Obama administration halted the so called "gain of function" research because of risk of laboratory accidents. In 2017, the Trump administration restarted this dangerous research. See links below. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/white-house-to-cut-funding-for-risky-biological-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/white-house-to-cut-fun... Excerpt: [Obama] White House announced Friday that it would temporarily halt all new funding for experiments that seek to study certain infectious agents by making them more dangerous. The White House said the moratorium decision had been made “following recent biosafety incidents at federal research facilities.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/health/lethal-viruses-nih.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/health/lethal-viruses-nih... Excerpt: [Trump administration] on Tuesday ended a moratorium imposed three years ago on funding research that alters germs to make them more lethal. Critics say these researchers risk creating a monster germ that could escape the lab and seed a pandemic. So, Trump restarted the dangerous research that Obama had shut down. You may be thinking, what does that have to do with Covid? Covid started in Wuhan, China, right? It turns out that the Trump administration, through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provided funding to the EcoHealth Alliance, an American non-profit organization focused on studying emerging diseases. The EcoHealth Alliance, in turn, provided funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China for researching bat coronaviruses. The rest is history.
- tim333 9mo ago
  I'd forgotten about that. I think he also disbanded the pandemic preparedness team in 2018 just in time for the pandemic https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pandemic-office-trump-closed/2020/03/13/a70de09c-6491-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pandemic-office-t...
kjsingh 9mo ago
> championed doing the best we could for saving lives he would have won his second term No one appreciates the hard work when lives are saved. Let some people die and you can rile your base

aprilthird2021 9mo ago

Am I wrong or Trump was the one who initiated the first shutdowns. Trump was the one who said we'll have a vaccine quickly, etc. What should he have done that he didn't do, in your opinion? Fwiw, it was the economic shock from COVID that caused this situation where he's come back to ruin our lives again. Any further disruption to the economy during COVID would have exacerbated that

LargeWu 9mo ago
It's less what should he have done, than what shouldn't he have done. Specifically, he pushed conspiracy theories, demonized his health experts, and touted ineffective cures, and ultimately cast doubt on the safety of the vaccines. All to pander to his base. He had a remarkable chance to build trust in government via a truly extraordinary vaccine rollout, to a crowd which is historically distrustful. Instead he squandered that goodwill on petty fights and self aggrandizement.
TimorousBestie 9mo ago
> What should he have done that he didn't do, in your opinion? I’ll just run down the record and stop at the first obvious error. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._federal_government_response_to_the_COVID-19_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._federal_government_respon... > One month after [March 16, 2020, when the administration first recommended social distancing], epidemiologists Britta Jewell and Nicholas Jewell estimated that, had social distancing policies been implemented just two weeks earlier, U.S. deaths due to COVID-19 might have been reduced by 90%. So there’s a concrete thing he could have done differently. > Any further disruption to the economy during COVID would have exacerbated that More stringent restrictions done earlier may have shortened the duration of the economic impact, who knows, we can’t exactly observe those alternate timelines directly. The administration had zero discipline on messaging and so nothing was done with any consistency. As you say, he was initially positive that a vaccine would arrive quickly; when it was available, he flipped and endorsed alternative treatments of all kinds, many of them harmful. Formerly a champion of Dr. Fauci, then later his worst detractor and chief prosecutor in the court of public opinion.
- pstuart 9mo ago
  And shut down the early warning system months before the outbreak, purely out of spite that it was supported by his predecessor: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/trump-scrapped-pandemic-early-warning-program-system-before-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/trump-scrapped...
- ndjeosibfb 9mo ago
  so what you’re saying is we needed just 2 more weeks to flatten the curve
FridayoLeary 9mo ago
And it was the scientists and doctors of the WHO, who denied the existence of Covid until after every country in the world had shut down. I thought covid denial was a bad thing, but you're still getting downvoted... In response to your last question i've got no idea. I don't have any confidence the vaunted scientists got it right back then either. Just look at the disasters inflicted on countries and states that imposed heavy handed and IMO largely unnecessary covid measures.
- TimorousBestie 9mo ago
  > And it was the scientists and doctors of the WHO, who denied the existence of Covid until after every country in the world had shut down. Doesn’t line up with WHO’s record of events. https://www.who.int/news/item/29-06-2020-covidtimeline https://www.who.int/news/item/29-06-2020-covidtimeline
- aprilthird2021 9mo ago
  It's easy to say COVID measures were unnecessary when you live in a timeline where you were spared from the worst case scenario of an immediate global pandemic. The economic harm was huge, but we don't know what it would have been if we had not taken any protective measures and we didn't know back then either how dangerous the disease could be

golden-face 9mo ago

1000%, crazy to look back on spring and summer of 2020 and if he just played it cool and not rocked the boat so much, no doubt he would have been reelected. Not that I agree with many of his policies; if anything it speaks more to his incompetence and inability to remain calm than anything else.

lateforwork 9mo ago

Don't forget Trump had a hand in starting the pandemic. Here's what we know: In 2014, Obama administration halted the so called "gain of function" research because of risk of laboratory accidents. In 2017, the Trump administration restarted this dangerous research. See links below. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/white-house-to-cut-funding-for-risky-biological-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/white-house-to-cut-fun... Excerpt: [Obama] White House announced Friday that it would temporarily halt all new funding for experiments that seek to study certain infectious agents by making them more dangerous. The White House said the moratorium decision had been made “following recent biosafety incidents at federal research facilities.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/health/lethal-viruses-nih.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/health/lethal-viruses-nih... Excerpt: [Trump administration] on Tuesday ended a moratorium imposed three years ago on funding research that alters germs to make them more lethal. Critics say these researchers risk creating a monster germ that could escape the lab and seed a pandemic. So, Trump restarted the dangerous research that Obama had shut down. You may be thinking, what does that have to do with Covid? Covid started in Wuhan, China, right? It turns out that the Trump administration, through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provided funding to the EcoHealth Alliance, an American non-profit organization focused on studying emerging diseases. The EcoHealth Alliance, in turn, provided funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China for researching bat coronaviruses. The rest is history.

tim333 9mo ago
I'd forgotten about that. I think he also disbanded the pandemic preparedness team in 2018 just in time for the pandemic https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pandemic-office-trump-closed/2020/03/13/a70de09c-6491-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pandemic-office-t...

kjsingh 9mo ago

> championed doing the best we could for saving lives he would have won his second term No one appreciates the hard work when lives are saved. Let some people die and you can rile your base