I don't know. Some of the revised models base on real data suggest the possiblity that covid death rate might be the same as a bad flu season. You can say favorable things about the flu versus covid but in the end if the numbers for a bad flu season are similar to covid it comes out the same for the people who are dead. Just sayin, that if mortality rates end out being similar then may there are other reasons for shutting down the economy but people will need to move over to those other reasons then. Or maybe we are just inhumanely allowing 60-80 thousand people to die in a bad flu season and we should be shutting the economy down until we dont have flu anymore. Just dicking around a little mind you, but some points embedded within nevertheless.
Oh, I have said nothing about not needing or doing mitigation. There are two different points being advanced in some of these threads. There are some arguing that we may reach a mitigated number that is not unlike annual flu numbers and we should be prepared to resume liberty and a national economy within that framework. And then there are others that are saying "no, liberty national life, and and an economy" are off the table as long as the virus exists in some form. I am for both mitigation and for acknowledging that cancelling the national economy will also have impact on the national health and mortality rate. That is not a binary decision for me.
We are watching the US break into regional confederacies because the federal government failed to develop and implement a national plan. These pacts were formed to protect citizens from the ineptitude of the Trump administration- plain and simple.
But one key point should be made about the flu. Comparing an unmitigated flu death number with a mitigated COVID-19 death number is not comparing the same thing. The constant harangue of "look the COVID-19 death number is going to be less than the flu death number -- why should we worry at all about COVID-19" is absolutely absurd.
Trump, Cuomo battle over funding to states https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/493342-trump-cuomo-batle-over-funding-to-states President Trump and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Friday sparred over additional federal assistance for states as they try to ramp up their respective COVID-19 testing in the hopes of restarting their economies. The president took to Twitter during Cuomo's press briefing, in which the governor reiterated states' need for federal aid to increase coronavirus testing capacity. "Governor Cuomo should spend more time 'doing' and less time 'complaining'. Get out there and get the job done," Trump tweeted. Trump also referred to the field hospital that was constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, saying: "We built you thousands of hospital beds that you didn’t need or use." When made aware of Trump's tweet, Cuomo sought to fact-check the president, saying that 800 of the 2,500 available beds at Javits have been used. He then accused Trump of discounting 800 people and being "disrespectful." Cuomo added that the initial projections that said anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 Americans could die from the virus came from the White House's coronavirus task force. "They were your projections, Mr. President," a perturbed Cuomo said. Cuomo also said he had repeatedly thanked the president for the aid that he already sent to New York, such as the USNS Comfort and the field hospital at Javits. "How many times do you want me to say thank you for doing your job?" Cuomo said. Cuomo reiterated that without federal help, the states would not be able to test effectively. The governor has been one of the main voices saying that widespread testing is needed for the country's economy to reopen, something that Trump has been anxious to see happen. "If we don't have federal help on testing, we have a real problem," the governor said. Trump continued to tweet as Cuomo's briefing winded down, saying that states "need to step up their TESTING!" He also noted that Cuomo "ridiculously" asked for 40,000 ventilators and asserted that states should have had their own stockpile of machines.
Okay, I see those points, but some of them are no longer of interest to me. I am interested in seeing where people stand on the issue of re-opening the economy. I personally am a moderate. I support much of the near term full shutdown while testing and equipment status improves. I do not support- after a couple more weeks of shutdown or so- keeping the economy shutdown as long as there are cases of coronavirus. Becoming Venezuela is not the way to health. And yes, there will be some deaths related to partially re-opening or gradually re-opening the economy and yes there will be deaths related to not doing it as well. Welcome to reality and the world of tough choices. 65% of the men who died in world war 1 died of the Spanish flu, but there will also risks to not having them there.
The governors should have never shut down the economy. Sweden and South Dakota have it right and will have a nice head start on herd immunity.