What are your thoughts on how government is handling COVID-19

[House Cat]

But that doesn't mean that preparations and plans for states reopening shouldn't be made however slow they might be. It has to be discussed and preparations made at all levels because it won't be like flipping a switch. Your memes are hyperbolic IMO.

Trump said widespread testing would not take place. That would be one safeguard that should take place for any state to remove its shelter in place orders.

I’m thinking along the lines with what I know about how this virus spreads. I think I read that one person in public means four people potentially infected. This virus infects before people are symptomatic, that was the problem in the first place. It spreads like wildfire before anyone knows there is a real issue. Opening a state gradually will not stop this process. It will not calm the nature of this virus. While I understand that people are concerned about the economy, isn’t there another answer other than lifting shelter in place too soon. Why aren’t we requiring our law makers to find creative ways to keep our businesses alive? Why aren’t there incentives to help? Our lawmakers are being narrow minded at a time when we need extreme creativity to keep our economy alive. A $1200 check isn’t sustainable.

We all need to be kept safe. I don’t need your state to open so that it can infect mine.

 

[redwood66]

Trump said widespread testing would not take place. That would be one safeguard that should take place for any state to remove its shelter in place orders.

I’m thinking along the lines with what I know about how this virus spreads. I think I read that one person in public means four people potentially infected. This virus infects before people are symptomatic, that was the problem in the first place. It spreads like wildfire before anyone knows there is a real issue. Opening a state gradually will not stop this process. It will not calm the nature of this virus. While I understand that people are concerned about the economy, isn’t there another answer other than lifting shelter in place too soon. Why aren’t we requiring our law makers to find creative ways to keep our businesses alive? Why aren’t there incentives to help? Our lawmakers are being narrow minded at a time when we need extreme creativity to keep our economy alive. A $1200 check isn’t sustainable.

We all need to be kept safe. I don’t need your state to open so that it can infect mine.

I understand your frustration and I am only presenting another POV to this whole dire mess we find ourselves in. Government cannot be the only answer to it. DH's employer is paying $2 an hour more for the month of April to assist those who have to come to work. They are also paying every employee who is 65+ to stay home for 4 weeks to keep them safe from all the idiots who insist on shopping. There are plenty of other employers doing similar things. But smaller businesses will have to rely on the Covid Relief plans to stay afloat and pay their employees. None of it is ideal and all of it will be expensive.

 

[House Cat]

I am thinking about the casualties, all of the casualties. Child abuse, domestic abuse, suicides rates...these things will spike and in some areas already are. Suicides among farmers have been on the rise for years....and this is likely to cause another increase. Don’t be surprised if suicides in the elderly population spike as well. Theres a lot of talk about the mental health impact of continued fear, isolation and economic hardship at the same time. We don’t have to do it all at once but IMO we have to talk about an end to this. We have to talk about recovery. We have to talk about what comes next so that people don‘t lose hope and become a different kind of casualty.

So this virus’ ability to potentially wipe out 2 million people by fall is irrelevant?

no one is committing suicide at this rate.

one thing I know as a person with mental illness is keep me safe and my anxiety and feelings of helplessness are lessened.

wanna help the suicidal? Keep them safe from harm.

 

[Matata]

I agree there has to be a reopening plan. However, using the potential for spikes in child abuse, domestic abuse, suicide rate increases as rationale for premature reopening of the country is not the right thing to do. All of those things are finite and will have a substantial but not catastrophic effect on a society. The potential of the virus to cause more deaths than all those aforementioned things combined is reason enough to make sure whatever actions are taken are prudent ones.

The choice to be made is akin to the choices doctors are forced to make about who gets treatment and who doesn't. This is the wake up call from mother nature that I've been warning about for almost 50 years. There is no perfect solution just painful choices.

 

[1ofakind]

So this virus’ ability to potentially wipe out 2 million people by fall is irrelevant?

no one is committing suicide at this rate.

one thing I know as a person with mental illness is keep me safe and my anxiety and feelings of helplessness are lessened.

wanna help the suicidal? Keep them safe from harm.

I'd thank you not to put words in my mouth.

 

[Dancing Fire]

It doesn't matter which date Trump decides to reopen businesses the left will say "it is too early".

 

[Dancing Fire]

Why aren’t we requiring our law makers to find creative ways to keep our businesses alive? Why aren’t there incentives to help? Our lawmakers are being narrow minded at a time when we need extreme creativity to keep our economy alive. A $1200 check isn’t sustainable.

How??? by printing $1 trillion per month?

 

[Lula]

The United States is in this dire economic situation because the opportunity to contain the virus through testing, isolation, and contact tracing was missed. That was the cheap fix. We could have managed the outbreak. We chose not too, and instead allowed the outbreak to progress to community spread. Our choices now are to close schools and all non-essential businesses to save lives and manage the strain on the health care system, or to let the virus spread to save our economy. Without economic safety nets, there are not a lot of choices in the middle. Even pre-COVID-19, we had a very low tolerance for the kinds of economic safety nets that would prevent deaths from domestic violence, substance abuse, and economic ruin. I expect the arguments to sacrifice lives for the good of the economy will become louder. The virus has a disproportionate effect on the old, the sick, and the disabled. An economic recovery plan guided by eugenics. Alas, it wouldn’t be the first time.

 

[missy]

Perfect example of de Blasio's behavior. He said NYC schools are closed for the rest of the school year (as I believe they should be but that has no bearing here) and Governor Cuomo was like whoa, wait a minute. We didn't decide that yet. I mean cmon de Blasio. Think before you speak and make sure you have the power and facts to make certain decisions. SMH. Once again. At DeBlasio.

Cuomo says de Blasio doesn’t have authority to keep NYC schools closed

Even the coronavirus pandemic couldn’t stop Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio from squaring off in a petty — and very public — schoolyard brawl on Saturday, with Hizzoner announcing city s…

nypost.com

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

Perfect example of de Blasio's behavior. He said NYC schools are closed for the rest of the school year (as I believe they should be but that has no bearing here) and Governor Cuomo was like whoa, wait a minute. We didn't decide that yet. I mean cmon de Blasio. Think before you speak and make sure you have the power and facts to make certain decisions. SMH. Once again. At DeBlasio.

Cuomo says de Blasio doesn’t have authority to keep NYC schools closed

Even the coronavirus pandemic couldn’t stop Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio from squaring off in a petty — and very public — schoolyard brawl on Saturday, with Hizzoner announcing city s…

nypost.com

This is an embarrassing mess. The pissing match between the two of them continues.

 

[Tekate]

I know, this jerk of moron, idiot - votes by mail, wants to get rid of it.. it's just so damn scary with him in the oval office. I'm sure the pubs would find something wrong with online voting, like their crazy voter fraud thing that was a nothing burger.

One thing we need to do is vote McConnell OUT.

Apparently White House is unwilling to bail out USPS. Not like that’s a crucial service or anything for things like say...mail in voting or tax returns or....

 

[Tekate]

Then be able to accept more elderly deaths rather than elderly suicides (as an elderly person I really don't know why you think more oldsters will kill themselves or do you have corroborating evidence?)

Rich people aren't living in fear, isolation and economic hardship! nope they just have amazon deliver, or dash door, or grocery store delivery.

What I would like to see is an all out attack on the virus in poor city areas, people living in squalid apts, many people to an apt, these are the people who are dying..These are the people who need better food, better pay and a better life.

So you go ahead an talk about it, I'd love to know what the consequences would be if we just open it up!

Domestic violence is increasing so we need safe CV19 free places for victims to go to.

It would be GREAT if republicans would pass a tax cut for the poor and a tax hike for the rich to support programs then the next mess that comes around we might have more money to help those poor.

ETA: the working poor, the lower middle class, those who live paycheck to paycheck.

I am thinking about the casualties, all of the casualties. Child abuse, domestic abuse, suicides rates...these things will spike and in some areas already are. Suicides among farmers have been on the rise for years....and this is likely to cause another increase. Don’t be surprised if suicides in the elderly population spike as well. Theres a lot of talk about the mental health impact of continued fear, isolation and economic hardship at the same time. We don’t have to do it all at once but IMO we have to talk about an end to this. We have to talk about recovery. We have to talk about what comes next so that people don‘t lose hope and become a different kind of casualty.

 

[AGBF]

A thoughtful and eloquent response to the entire mess. Thank you fot taking the time and trouble to write it, Lula.

Deb

The United States is in this dire economic situation because the opportunity to contain the virus through testing, isolation, and contact tracing was missed. That was the cheap fix. We could have managed the outbreak. We chose not too, and instead allowed the outbreak to progress to community spread. Our choices now are to close schools and all non-essential businesses to save lives and manage the strain on the health care system, or to let the virus spread to save our economy. Without economic safety nets, there are not a lot of choices in the middle. Even pre-COVID-19, we had a very low tolerance for the kinds of economic safety nets that would prevent deaths from domestic violence, substance abuse, and economic ruin. I expect the arguments to sacrifice lives for the good of the economy will become louder. The virus has a disproportionate effect on the old, the sick, and the disabled. An economic recovery plan guided by eugenics. Alas, it wouldn’t be the first time.

 

[Calliecake]

This administration needs plans and processes on how they are going to reopen the economy. Trump has stated there will not be wide spread testing. This is never going to work without easily accessible wide spread testing. It’s ludicrous to think it will. This virus isn’t going to stop at state and county lines.

Dr Fauci stated this morning that if this reopening is not done properly we will see a rebound of the virus.

 

[House Cat]

I read about a month ago that if Trump opened the country too soon, the results would be disastrous for our economy. Another large outbreak would occur, everyone would have to go into shelter in place again, the hospital staff would have to go through another bought of disease. Then, even more businesses would close and more people would become unemployed. It would ensure a depression.

I don’t understand everyone who is chomping at the bit to get this country open too soon. Are they not looking at the numbers of cases cf Covid-19 in each state? Each state is primed for an outbreak at any moment. This thing has the potential to double every two to four days. People must understand that each state’s numbers do not include the many hundreds, maybe thousands of people who were not tested and diagnosed by symptoms and sent home by their doctors to go home and heal. We know of cases like that here in California because testing isn’t widely available. These are cases that aren’t contained and are a potential for outbreak as well.

The best course of action is to take a conservative approach to reopening the country. That means for Fauci and other scientists (not Trump and politicians) to set a standard of what numbers of cases are actually safe for people to be active again. What Trump and the politicians can do is put safeguards under the economy so that it doesn’t fail. This is their obligation because they failed to act in January and February when they had a chance to contain this virus but instead, pretended it was nothing.

 

[Dee*Jay]

I see that Chump retweeted a call for Fauci to be fired because he (Fauci) said that if action had been taken sooner lives would have been saved. God forgot we allow the voice(s) of reason to remain in high places. Should we start a poll on how long Fauci lasts?

 

[missy]

U.S. Is Nowhere Close to Reopening the Economy, Experts Say (Published 2020)

Here’s what economists say the United States needs to start returning to normal amid the coronavirus outbreak — and how the economy can survive in the meantime.

www.nytimes.com

This article was a week ago but it holds true but for the numbers as even more people are dead now

"
By Jim Tankersley

• April 6, 2020

WASHINGTON — How long can we keep this up?
It is still very early in the U.S. effort to snuff a lethal pandemic by shutting down much of the economy. But there is a growing question — from workers, the White House, corporate boardrooms and small businesses on the brink — that hangs over what is essentially a war effort against a virus that has already killed more than 9,000 Americans.
There is no good answer yet, in part because we don’t even have the data needed to formulate one.
Essentially, economists say, there won’t be a fully functioning economy again until people are confident that they can go about their business without a high risk of catching the virus.
“Our ability to reopen the economy ultimately depends on our ability to better understand the spread and risk of the virus,” said Betsey Stevenson, a University of Michigan economist who worked on the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama. “It’s also quite likely that we will need to figure out how to reopen the economy with the virus remaining a threat.”
Public health experts are beginning to make predictions about when coronavirus infection rates will peak. Economists are calculating when the cost of continuing to shutter restaurants, shopping malls and other businesses — a move that has already pushed some 10 million Americans into unemployment, with millions more on the way — will outweigh the savings from further efforts to slow the virus once the infection curve has flattened out.



Government officials are setting competing targets. President Trump has pushed his expected date of reopening the economy to the end of April. “We have to get back to work,” he said in a briefing on Saturday. “We have to open our country again. We don’t want to be doing this for months and months and months. We’re going to open our country again. This country wasn’t meant for this.”
Some governors have set much more conservative targets, like Ralph Northam of Virginia, who canceled the remainder of the school year and imposed a shelter-at-home order through June 10. Other states, like Florida, only recently agreed to shut activity down but have set more aggressive targets — April 30, in the case of the Sunshine State — to restart it.
See Which States and Cities Have Told Residents to Stay at Home
March 23, 2020

Those targets are at best mildly informed guesses based on models that contain variables — including how many people have the virus and how effective suppression measures will prove to be. The models cannot yet give us anything close to a precise answer on the big question looming over Americans’ lives and livelihoods.
To determine when to restart activity, said R. Glenn Hubbard, a former top economist under President George W. Bush, “we need more information.”



Interviews with more than a dozen economists, many of whom are veterans of past presidential administrations, reveal broad consensus on the building blocks the economy needs — but does not yet have — to begin the slow process of restoring normalcy in the American economy.

• Updated 4m ago

More live coverage: Global U.S. New York
That includes widespread agreement that the United States desperately needs more testing for the virus in order to give policymakers the first key piece of evidence they need to determine how fast the virus is spreading and when it might be safe for people to return to work.




A nurse used a nose swab at a coronavirus testing station at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle last week.Credit...Ted S. Warren/Associated Press
Without more testing, “there’s no way that you could set a time limit on when you could open up the economy,” said Simon Mongey, a University of Chicago economist who is among the authors of a new study that found that rapid deployment of randomized testing for the virus could reduce its health and economic damage.
“It’s going to have to depend on being able to identify people that have the coronavirus, understanding how readily those people can transmit the disease to others and then kind of appropriately isolating people that are contagious,” Mr. Mongey said.
Policymakers will also need better data on how strained hospitals and entire regional health care systems are likely to be if the infection rate flares up and spreads. Ideally, they would sufficiently control the rate to establish so-called contact tracing in order to track — and avoid — the spread of the virus across the country.
Once such levels of detection are established, it is possible that certain workers could begin returning to the job — for example, in areas where the chance of infection is low. Some experts have talked about quickly bringing back workers who contract the virus but recover with little effect. Testing is the best way to identify such workers, who may have had the virus with few or no symptoms and possibly not realized they were ever infected.



While they wait for the infection rate to fall, policymakers will need to provide more support to workers who have lost jobs or hours and to businesses teetering on the brink of failure. That could mean trillions more in small business loans, unemployment benefits and direct payments to individuals, and it could force the government to get creative in deploying money to avoid bottlenecks.
Lisa D. Cook, a Michigan State University economist who worked in the Obama White House, said lawmakers should consider funneling $1,500 a month to individuals through mobile apps like Zelle in order to reach more people, particularly low-income and nonwhite Americans who disproportionately lack traditional bank accounts. Mobile payments, Ms. Cook said, would also make it “easier and faster to make onward payments to family members and friends in need.”
The government’s efforts could prove crucial to maintaining public support for what amounts to a prolonged economic drought. Adam Ozimek, the chief economist at Upwork, said additional money for small business will be crucial throughout the full extent of the crisis — both to prevent a crush of business failures and to keep owners and customers from flouting the national effort to reduce infections.
“I don’t think you can force hundreds of thousands of small business owners to voluntarily shut down and let failure happen to them,” Mr. Ozimek said. “They won’t do it, the public won’t support it, and frankly I don’t think local authorities would stop them.”
Policymakers will also need to give better support and protection to Americans who are putting their own health at risk to keep the essential parts of the economy running, like doctors, nurses, grocery store clerks and package delivery drivers.
Heather Boushey, the president of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a think tank focused on inequality, said those workers needed to have paid sick leave, adequate health coverage, access to coronavirus tests and affordable care for their children while they worked in order to stay healthy and to protect consumers from further spread of the virus.
“That is the economy at this point, those workers,” Ms. Boushey said. “And their health and safety is imperative to my safety.”



Policymakers will need patience: Restarting activity too quickly could risk a second spike in infections that could deal more damage than the first because it would shake people’s faith in their ability to engage in even limited amounts of shopping, dining or other commerce.
“It’s important not to lift too early,” said Emil Verner, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who is a co-author of a new study that found that cities that took more aggressive steps to curb the 1918 flu pandemic in the United States emerged with stronger economies than cities that did less. “Because if we lift too early, the pandemic can take hold again. And that itself is very bad for the economy.”
Finally, policymakers will need to level with Americans — and themselves — and concede the possibility that the shutdown and its effects could drag well beyond the end of the month.
Aggressive suppression measures could lead to a gradual resumption of activity that begins in some places as soon as May, several experts said. But business as usual might not come back until a vaccine is developed, which could take more than a year.
“We should certainly be prepared for a meaningful level of deliberate suppression of economic activity for the rest of the year,” said Jason Furman of Harvard University, who was a top economist under Mr. Obama.
The Congressional Budget Office wrote on Thursday that it expected at least a quarter of the current suppression measures to last through year’s end, and that the unemployment rate could still be 9 percent at the end of 2021. Lawmakers need to be ready to keep filling the void, with support to businesses and workers, said Karl Smith, the vice president for federal policy at the Tax Foundation in Washington.
“The possibility of an unofficial quarantine for weeks or months after the official one is lifted is real,” Mr. Smith said. “After that, my guess is that the economy is in major trouble.”

"

 

[missy]

I see that Chump retweeted a call for Fauci to be fired because he (Fauci) said that if action had been taken sooner lives would have been saved. God forgot we allow the voice(s) of reason to remain in high places. Should we start a poll on how long Fauci lasts?

I really hope this does not happen. I shudder to think of the consequences for all of us if Fauci is fired.

 

[arkieb1]

Trump did too little too late, has blood on his hands and, as usual is blaming everyone else for his incompetence. He isn't the only leader that handled this badly so did the UK and many countries in Europe, but the US has been one of the worst;

Why the US has the world's highest number of Covid-19 deaths | CNN

Jeffrey Sachs writes that thousands of Americans are dying unnecessarily because President Donald Trump ignored urgent warning signs and failed to prepare for the coronavrius pandemic even after the alarm bells went off.

edition.cnn.com

I keep hearing all these arguments that places in the US should start lifting the restrictions at x point in time or soon because the economy is suffering, yes we all understand that, but it's a disease, it doesn't care about unemployment, businesses going broke and debt, if you lift the restrictions too early more people will die. It's that black and white - economy versus people's lives. Apparently Americans lives are worth less than saving your economy to some of the people in charge.

 

[Demon]

@missy I hope not too, but I'm not the least bit optimistic. Trump doesn't like people to disagree with him.

 

[AGBF]

I am resigned. I am resigned to Trump being unfettered and doing what he thinks is in his own self-interest economically, although it may result in the loss of life of millions. He is an unchecked tyrant. Congress has shown no inclination to stop him.

@missy I hope not too, but I'm not the least bit optimistic. Trump doesn't like people to disagree with him.

 

[Calliecake]

Trump tweeted the following an hour ago:

For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect.

 

[Demon]

I think he might just be in for a surprise.

 

[Dancing Fire]

It's that black and white - economy versus people's lives. Apparently Americans lives are worth less than saving your economy to some of the people in charge.

It is a tough call either way. We can't keep on printing $1 trillion every month to support businesses. If we kept on printing money a loaf of bread will cost $50 per loaf at the supermarkets very soon.

 

[Dancing Fire]

I see that Chump retweeted a call for Fauci to be fired because he (Fauci) said that if action had been taken sooner lives would have been saved. God forgot we allow the voice(s) of reason to remain in high places. Should we start a poll on how long Fauci lasts?

My guess is before the end of April.

 

[AGBF]

We shall see. I do not like the power Trump has. He has only one goal: to shore up the economy in the short-run, no matter how great the loss of life, in the hope that it will lead to his re-election. As Joe Scarborough has always said of him, he is a day-trader. He has no strategy; his tactics change with any whim he happens to have. He is not out to protect either the health or the economy of the American people for the long haul.

As some countries have attempted to allow people to emerge from quarantine, others are locking down.

"As some countries weighed easing restrictions, President Vladimir V. Putin said Russia’s outbreak was bad and getting worse, a reversal of the Kremlin’s official tone."

...​

Britain’s lockdown, which is set to expire on Monday, will continue until the government decides on parameters for formally lengthening restrictions. That decision is expected to come later in the week.

The country’s death toll was over 11,000 as of Monday. And while officials warned that Britain was still days away from a peak of new cases, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was released from the hospital on Sunday after being treated for the virus.

President Emmanuel Macron of France is expected to announce an extension of his country’s lockdown in a televised address on Monday, as the country approaches 100,000 total cases and 15,000 deaths."

Lockdowns in France and U.K. Expected to Last Into Next Month (Published 2020)

President Vladimir V. Putin said Russia’s outbreak was bad and getting worse. In war-torn Libya, residents faced a dire choice: stay home or flee missiles.

www.nytimes.com

I think he might just be in for a surprise.

 

[JPie]

I wish the US would follow the European model in helping to stem layoffs. There’s a good article about it in the New York Times, and the gist of it is that the government steps in and pays people while companies can’t. The idea is that they preserve the workforce and everyone can go back to business as usual with minimal disruption. This works in the short term and enabled Germany to rebound faster than other countries in 2008. Other countries have since followed suit.

The US is already paying people unemployment benefits, but our system is so much more disruptive to all. I don’t have much faith though that we’ll move towards the European model any time soon.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/how-europe-manages-to-keep-a-lid-on-coronavirus-unemployment-while-it-spikes-in-the-us/2020/04/11/29b23c90-7b4f-11ea-a311-adb1344719a9_story.html%3foutputType=amp

 

[voce]

Trump did too little too late, has blood on his hands and, as usual is blaming everyone else for his incompetence. He isn't the only leader that handled this badly so did the UK and many countries in Europe, but the US has been one of the worst;

Why the US has the world's highest number of Covid-19 deaths | CNN

Jeffrey Sachs writes that thousands of Americans are dying unnecessarily because President Donald Trump ignored urgent warning signs and failed to prepare for the coronavrius pandemic even after the alarm bells went off.

edition.cnn.com

I keep hearing all these arguments that places in the US should start lifting the restrictions at x point in time or soon because the economy is suffering, yes we all understand that, but it's a disease, it doesn't care about unemployment, businesses going broke and debt, if you lift the restrictions too early more people will die. It's that black and white - economy versus people's lives. Apparently Americans lives are worth less than saving your economy to some of the people in charge.

I'm not going to excuse Trump for his shortsightedness and delayed response, or his unapologetic attitude. He deserves some of the heat he's taking.

However, I don't understand what you mean by black and white: economy versus people's lives. Maybe to you, the economy is an amorphous concept and abstract, therefore of lesser value, but to me, the economy is the sum total of each and every one of our lives, what we are able to do in life, our options and opportunities.

What is going to be the effect on people's lives if we extend the lockout a year, or even some intermediate and indefinite time frame?

The eradication of the American middle class, people's savings and investments, mass reduction in freedom and quality of life. Yes, the lockdown is for a good reason, to save people's lives, but it's an enormous sacrifice, not to be taken so lightly.

Without income, without sufficient government assistance, the poor will struggle to put food on the table, and the middle class will have to be living off their savings, even their retirement savings. You'll wipe out the wealth of the middle class, and at the end you'd have either poor or rich, no in-between. Goodbye, decades of social progress.

Without income, WITH sufficient government assistance, you are converting the political system en masse to a socialist one where almost everyone is dependent on food stamps and the government replacing income. Congrats, coronavirus, you just did in one fell swoop what Bernie Sanders failed to do for decades.

In my opinion--there is no obvious best right thing to do--only hard choices between a moral high ground in trying to prevent the loss of life and what is sure to be a destruction of a lot of people's way of life. When your meager life's savings gets wiped out because you've got to take money out of your investments to put food on the table, isn't that destruction of your life's goals and dreams? I think a lot of PS'ers have a high level of savings and won't have to worry about this for a while, but I personally know a lot of middle class people who are deeply affected. I think that younger people will have more years to build up a nest egg, but lots of older people nearing retirement, like my parents, find themselves in a $h!thole situation.

I just don't like it when people sit on a high horse and say, it's black and white, you're either with me, or you're an idiot (or worse). On this issue, I don't think there is an objective decided right path to take. Exactly how long to extend the lockdown, in my opinion, is a compromise, and we'll never know if what we did, do, or will do was the "better" option given that at any point in time, what we know about the virus is limited, and the economy is in many ways an unknowable beast as well.

It is a tough call either way. We can't keep on printing $1 trillion every month to support businesses. If we kept on printing money a loaf of bread will cost $50 per loaf at the supermarkets very soon.

I disagree with you on so many other things, but this is one of the things I agree with you on.

 

[missy]

@missy I hope not too, but I'm not the least bit optimistic. Trump doesn't like people to disagree with him.

I don't think Trump is going to fire Fauci. Hope I am right.

What Dr. Fauci has coming: Trump retweet could unleash simmering conservative backlash

The most prominent conservative media figures have so far mostly treated him with kid gloves.

www.axios.com

But with Trump anything can happen as we have seen time and time again. :/

 

[Dancing Fire]

This is their obligation because they failed to act in January and February when they had a chance to contain this virus but instead, pretended it was nothing.

Trump banned Chinese flights from China in late Jan. but of course the left "yell racist"!.