All Bizniz

I hear you. But the tone can be set from the very top.

The United States President has a bully pulpit.

​​​​I honestly believe that if the president had from right out the gate supported, and definitively asked Americans to get on board with mask wearing, it would not have become a political issue.

block30

Folks either 1. Honestly dont know or 2. Honestly dont care.

I'm not sure which is more damnable at this point in the crisis.

Phins2right

The most egregious misrepresentation of our lifetimes have been "cases". The fact a person tests positive for the virus is not a case. "COVID-19" is a clinical diagnosis. That means you have 1) Tested positive for the presence of virus and 2)you present a severe respiratory illness - fever, coughing, and shortness in breath.


When diagnosed, clinically, with COVID-19 by a medical doctor, you are now officially a case. How that got twisted around, again, will be one of the greatest lies perpetrated on us that we have seen in a century.


The consistency with these statistics is their inconsistency. Hospitalizations and deaths have been changed and modified so many times the numbers are muddled now. Between bad tests, improper test lab procedures, improper coding (the list goes on - readily available on the internet or just look at FL investigation into the numbers), the continuous moving the goal posts has not done us any favors for our public health policy.


8 months into this, certain states are going to restrictive measures (I refuse to use the "L" word prison term) - again. Nothing has changed. No more died this year than any other year. Yet here we are.


Maybe ask yourself this:

1)how many people do you know have died or have long lasting physical health effects from contracting this virus?

then ask yourself this:

2)how many people do you know have long lasting economic/health affects from the response to it?

DangaZone

Should POTUS have done this before or after Fauci and Surgeon General Adams went on TV and said healthy people shouldn’t wear masks?

block30

So do Europe and the rest of the world follow our lead or they do they not give a flip about what we say, which is it?

The *rest* of the world is having a go of covid cases, and that is not all one man's fault. I dont care who that one man is. Strongly suggesting all these problems are one man's fault- which you certainly did- is ludacris!

You said we are the laughing stock and the rest of the world is going the other way than our 'clown car.'

All Bizniz

First I applaud you for wearing your mask around others, and being practical about it in the sense that recognize that you don't need to if there is no one near you.

Second though, you totally missed the mark on the part of my post that you highlighted. The "long established practice and protocol" that I mentioned, and which you were so eager to discredit, has to do with what has historically been done to fight against past viral outbreaks.

It case you didn't know, SARS, MERs and H1n1 and now COVID-19 are all more similar than they are different.

Over 10 years ago, being based in SFO, I clearly remember being bemused, considered it bizarre even, seeing in and around the terminal literally ALL the Asian passengers in masks! And this was a thing for a long time as there were a veritable alphabet soup of successive outbreaks in that region. Have we forgotten that?

Then as it should be now, the wearing of masks, hand washing, social distancing, etc, was be a big part of the effort to control/supress the rate of infection.

https://www.vcuhealth.org/news/covid-19/comparing-covid-19-with-h1n1-and-other-viral-outbreaks

Finally, I watch all sides of the news coverage, as painful as that is. All the points I mentioned can easily be verified. Most were covered in press conferences, or are reports by a whole host of media outlets, on both sides of the divide.

All Bizniz

Have you heard POTUS, in his own words, on tape, in a candid interview acknowledging that the CORONA Virus is nasty stuff, much worse than the flu?

What did he know, and when did he know it? A lot, very early on, and he made a deliberate and conscious effort to downplay it, for HIS own political reason.

I actually think that if he had resisted his impulse, and led from the front, obviously we would still be in the struggle (after all it is a pandemic), but public opinion would have rewarded him for being a true "war time" (his words) president.

I might be wrong, but something tells me.....

DangaZone

I’d generally agree that more active leadership would have gotten better public buy-in.

HOWEVER

In Feb and March, Fauci and the SG both publicly said healthy people don’t need to wear masks. In early April, they changed their minds and guidance.

Freely acknowledging POTUS support from THAT POINT would have helped...

Don’t you think that change in position damaged the public credibility of public health officials, especially given the parallels you have made to SARS and masks as a historical mitigation tool?

This thing ain’t seasonal flu - its less severe for children (even with vaccine and Tamiflu) and MUCH worse for the 65+ demographic which makes up 78%+ of COVID deaths despite being less than 15% of confirmed positive cases.

Either way it is now late October not April, and as much as masks suck they’re a low-cost, low-risk mitigation strategy for indoor public spaces.

All Bizniz

The Presidents bully pulpit has to do with the influence it has over Americans. That's the context of what I wrote.

Of course, we used to have some international influence, and used to take the lead on issues like these. Obviously, our influence is waning, and we're definitely not leading on this occasion.

I'm not blaming the pandemic on POTUS, rather, I am criticizing his response. We could have done much better in my opinion. It is one thing if his poor response was based on ineptitude, but it's not as POTUS is no fool. It was a deliberate, political calculation.

We'll see in a few days if it pays off.

kaputt

He had the dang virus!! What more do people want?

He also ended up totally fine after having it despite not being a very healthy person. As has every single other person in his circle that also tested positive. Imagine that.