I suspect we are talking at cross purposes. But I believe the response was definitely behind, although every single person on this board, myself included, is talking about shit that is WAY above our pay grade on this.AbeVigodaLive wrote:vcsgrizzfan wrote:I don't think anyone with a functioning brain thinks the US could have been spared. I do think its fair to criticize his response and that the US did not take the virus seriously enough, at least initially. Kudos to the NBA in their response when Gobert got infected, because I think they were instrumental in changing the tone of the debate about COVID-19 and how society and government as a whole have responded since then. I think it's a little scary to think how much more rapidly and devastatingly the virus might have spread if professional sports had carried on uninterrupted for a few more weeks.thedangerouskitchen wrote:This virus has infected people in over 180 countries across the globe, yet the Trump Haters actually believe America would have been spared "if only" Trump would have listened to the Democrats (the same Democrats who have literally spent every waking hour of their lives the last 4 years to try and bring him down)?????
...and they wonder why they lost in 2016.
Granted, we could have prepared equipment and all the other stuff... but I think there was a different kind of danger in shutting down too soon.
Imagine we were three weeks into a shutdown in late Feb/early March... billions of dollars being lost... and no tangible, real-life evidence that Americans are in peril. How many people are saying "Fuck This!" ... this is a conspiracy... and then ignoring social distancing altogether. Then, when things did hit the proverbial fan, we'd have to put the genie back in the bottle.
BUT, the growth curves on the virus around the world are interesting. I don't want to belabor the point but if you compare the growth curve between Canada and the US, Canada has been more successful in "flattening the curve". And within Canada, provinces that took it seriously right off the bat, including Alberta and BC, have been more successful in flattening the curve than Ontario and Quebec which were more lackadaisical in their initial responses.
Hindsight is 20/20 and I initially thought the government response from my province (including quarantining me when I got home) was an overreaction. I was wrong. It seems clamping down early and testing a ton early like Korea did allowed a true flattening of the curve. Italy, Spain, the US weren't as strict and in hindsight, are paying the price.
