Quote:I would call that inevitable actually Wanderer. Unless this virus was 10 times worse than what we are seeing, such second guessing was inevitable. For political and economic reasons at the very least. And before anyone decides whether it was worth it I think it would be prudent to wait and see what happens with the economy.
I agree about the inevitability - FWIW it was one of the points I made on this thread, perhaps rather irritably, quite early on - but I would argue we would still reach that stage even if the fatality rate was ten times higher. The dynamics might be a little different because direct personal loss or pain would be imposed on more people.
Quote:Assuming America falls into a serious economic downturn the world will not be immune to that pain as we are in a global economy. Historically speaking major depressions precede war, as war is one of the fastest ways to restart an economy. So before we can decide that this was all worth it for a death rate that is on par with many normal illnesses, I would caution everyone to wait and see. What’s done is done now. Right now it’s very easy to look at the potential pandemic and say of course shutting everyone down was the only sane move. But that is a position that only exists because we haven’t see the other side here. How bad an economic downturn must we have before we decide it wasn’t worth it? We don’t know yet, since we’ve only seen one side.
There is not one 'we', and the personal calculations during and after will be different for each of us. It is already clear that those calculations will be highly dependent on political stance, at least in the U.S., less so I think in most other countries. I'd be interested in how people living elsewhere think that will pan out.
That would be so even without the heavy factionalizing present in so many of the media sources.
I'd also point out that although it is clearly fair to look back on how this was handled, the '20/20 in hindsight' notion obviously applies. People can be making perfectly reasonable decisions in lack of knowledge which the crystal ball shows are not optimal. It's thoroughly unfair to castigate people for fault in those cases, although that has never stopped those kinds of 'inquests' in the past.
Quote:I realize I’m throwing out a lot of stuff here. I’m not claiming this is going to be an over night process. Far from it. I want this here for posterity sake. I’m willing to post my thoughts on this online so later on I can come back here and see how close or far away from the mark I was.
Keep throwing it out there! I appreciate your position, and believe the same. I have no intention of editing or deleting any of my posts on this thread - although there is already one (at least!) I would 'improve' if I gave myself the chance.
Quote:As far as the overall death toll and the infection rates, a study done in California has shown that almost a hundred times more people have antibodies for this virus than was previously thought. Now, as with all studies, some people question the validity, but that’s what the tests show. Which suggests this has been going around much longer than previously thought. Draw your own conclusions.
I've read about those results. Although I realize it might make me appear 'slippery', the results don't seem much of a surprise. They are consistent as far as I can see with the European studies.