I'm amazed that it's spreading so fast in US.
US is a huge place. Okay NY has a high population density so that makes sense, but outbreaks in Seattle et al. is surprising me and I can't figure out why it's faster than other countries.
US is a huge place. Okay NY has a high population density so that makes sense, but outbreaks in Seattle et al. is surprising me and I can't figure out why it's faster than other countries.
It is amazing (and absolutely terrifying) as to how belligerent Americans are to any sense of being told what to do. A good % of them will purposely do the opposite just to exercise their freedoms.
So in a situation of lock-downs, shelter in places, and generally strong advice to socially distance you have:
- Neighbor's continually inviting us to BBQ's and dinner parties
- Bars are closed so people are having tailgate parties outside of the local liquor stores with friends
- Nobody respecting 2m distancing at groceries, even with tape lines to indicate safe spacing
- Assholes purposely coughing and as they do so muttering "corona" in public places treating it like a joke
- Young people on tiktok and other social media doing things like spitting, licking, or coughing on others/foods.
Unfortunately this is not selective in that those acting like idiots are not the only impacting themselves, but they are helping the spread and impacting others.
"Small government" is part of many TV stations indoctrination. The idea that any government initiative, except for war, should not be taken seriously and should be defunded is hammered on the American public.
So, there is no balance between what should be run for the good of the community and personal freedoms.
> To be very honest it fully deserves what occurs as so many are poking this in the eye asking for her vengeance.
Sadly many people are as much victims as executors. Many American citizens have learned to hate the common good and bring people to power with the same mindset. For me it is hard to think that people that never got a chance, that never got proper education, that is only following what other taught them is deserving of such suffering.
I hope that the reality of this situation may help to break that cycle. I do not expect this overnight, but, it may come as a change in the long run.
But: in the states for a looong time it's seemed to me there's been a cultural spread of a privilege that could be roughly paraphrased as "my opinion & rights are as good as anyone's arguments or expert direction."
I don't think this is just a cultural accident. There's some indication that phrases like "coastal elite" are deliberate fronts in a war to Other expertise, and reason to believe there are people who decided decades ago that affirming and spreading this stance was likely to increase their chances of having political power wielded towards their goals.
Many Americans have long had the privilege of thinking this way if they want to, without many noticeably singular consequences to have to face. Some are going to try to hold on to this. Maybe some minority will even come through this without having been directly impacted and will continue to live comfortably inside that privilege.
The difficult part is that there are many people who don't think this way who don't deserve the poke in the eye, but the behavior of others can bring it anyway.
"It" is not one person, "it" is a country of 330 million people. Many of them are not behaving in the ways you describe. I personally have not observed any such behaviors in my neighborhood or on the (rare) occasions over the past few weeks when I've had to go to the store (we stocked up early on to minimize the need to shop).
Also, while we Americans do tend to distrust authorities and we like to exercise our freedoms, we also have (or at least some segment of us have) a strong sense of personal responsibility. That means, first, that you are perfectly justified in not going to neighborhood BBQs or tailgate parties and explaining that you don't think it's safe, telling people sharply in stores (after you've backed away to a safe distance) that you are keeping your distance for your and their safety, publicly telling assholes who treat it like a joke in public that it isn't a joke, publicly criticizing people who post obviously stupid things on social media, etc. You are responsible for your own safety and you don't have to accept what others are doing as normal or right.
Second, personal responsibility means that all those people who are doing stupid things should suffer the consequences of their actions. If they feel bad because you spoke sharply to them to protect your own safety or to call out obviously stupid behaviors, tough. And if they get sick because they didn't take proper precautions, you don't owe them sympathy.
Unfortunately, many Americans do seem to have lost sight of the whole personal responsibility thing in recent times. Perhaps this is an opportunity to re-emphasize it.
But I also do not agree fully. I have seen altercations in supermarket lines where someone oversteps the "tape separation" line and has been asked nicely "please step back" to get told off, or better yet spit on.
Things are not right. This is not how civilized people interact with one another.
At that point I'd be calling for the store manager, and if they didn't tell that person to leave, I'd be calling the cops. Particularly if someone was spit on; under current circumstances that amounts to reckless negligence.
> This is not how civilized people interact with one another.
And letting it happen without imposing consequences is not how civilized people maintain the standards and norms of civilization. The people you describe are uncivilized barbarians and should be treated with the appropriate contempt.
Good luck getting the cops to show up, and good luck not getting ktfo while you try doing so.
If you really live in an area where you can't depend on other people to abide by and help enforce obvious rules of civilized behavior, then you do not live in a civilized area and should consider moving.
If the store manager really tried to kick me out under the circumstances described, instead of the person who spat on me, I would tell him in no uncertain terms that he would never get my business again, nor that of anyone else I could convince. I suspect that a few well-placed Internet posts, not to mention phone calls and emails to every local and national news organization, would convince a lot of people.
It is amazing as to how easy it is to tell Canadians what to do (heh joking).
You're mostly right, though I think people are starting to catch on where I live (West Coast). We don't have the same kind of, how to put this, "social unity" we had after WWII where basically every big company and most of the government was staffed by veterans of that war. So it is a little hard to get people to comply, and convince them that this kind of mobilization is necessary.
- POTUS level administration
- The congress, related staff, and all their institutional memory and connections to CDC, NIH etc.
- CDC, NIH, Pentagon -- each of them
- Major national media
- 50 state governors and related disaster teams
- Social media demonitizing and banning COVID topics/early-warning-analysis
-- Etc for real-rime and later analysis
Sadly, the same log-plot-slope might be baked in for four weeks to come -- about two weeks given incubation times, and another two weeks given the likelihood that the behaviors the immediate parent describes (along with others shopping and working) imply the doubling time will not have been increased much. At least four weeks --> at least a factor of 100 prospective increase, assuming a four-day doubling time and no saturation effects.
That speed is an attribute of exponential growth. It has happened in all countries. One day there is one death a couple of weeks latter a hundred, the lock down comes shortly after. In four months there are at least 500,000 infected from just one case. That is fast.
> why it's faster than other countries.
My guess is that it is not faster, it is just a lack of testing that was hiding the real numbers.
Deaths have a more tragic impact that infections and are easier to count. The number of deaths is an indicator of the real number of infections the country had two weeks to three weeks ago. As, the number of currently infected will result in deaths two to three weeks from now.
That is why a lock down of three weeks is the bare minimum amount to have any kind of impact, even that is not enough to really keep it under check.
Based on that, one can conclude that e.g. Italy was one of the first European countries being hit by a spreading infection and it took too long till systematic testing began. Likewise, in the US there was too much time between the first cases and testing, which basically just began.
- No public health care, people infect family caretakers. - No paid sick leave means people go to work sick and infect colleagues. - No strong government campaign to enforce working from home, washing hands etc. - No central initiative to track and isolate cases
These are just guesses but I'm far from surprised the US is seeing explosive increases. There seems to be no crisis awareness and there's no strong public welfare.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-24/coronavi...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/coronavirus-westport-c...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/26/new-orleans-...
Just based on the news reports alone this seemed inevitable with the president calling it a hoax early on.
Also, it doesn't help that our leadership has completely failed to act on this situation, and is continuing to mostly fail to do so. This virus should rightly be called the Trump virus in the US. Our president* not only failed to act, he did things that actively enabled COVID-19 to spread faster. In these kinds of circumstances it's no wonder it's spreading so fast.
If we're being honest here, we as Americans have failed to act.
The Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Koreans and Singaporeans all have no issues with all wearing facemasks in public for example. Go to any supermarket in America right now. Almost no one will be wearing masks. That's just one example of everyone doing their part. What every individual is doing in those countries contributes to their success in keeping things under control.
If anything blaming leadership instead of each and every one of us acknowledging how we could do better is part of the problem. It's always easier to blame others than to take responsibility.
All nations that have had better result of slowing covid-19 are all in places where wearing face mask in public is the norm.
Now the medical personal need a lot more masks than they would have if people had been more cautious and covered their face.