Trying to tell them this is a catastrophe based on the numbers isn't going to work.
Besides, the authority and responsibility to respond to a pandemic (issue health orders, closings, quarantines, and lock downs) rests with the states and not the president or congress.
EDIT: removed a remark about Fauci and herd immunity, I thought I read this but couldn't find a reference. My apologies.
He has made comments that we can likely get there sometime this year if we have widespread administration of vaccines.
Which widespread vaccination is a lot cheaper than other measures, but it's not doing nothing either.
He didn't say that.
Not sure it matters when he recently admitted he was lying in stages about the percentages to encourage people to get vaccinated.
After that and his self-admitted lying in the masking debacle, I'm not sure why anyone still listens to him. Credibility is one of the most precious resources in public health, and our public health authorities including him have burned through a great deal of it.
I don't understand why Fauci has made those choices and still find him plenty credible.
And then, his credibility isn't really an issue when the supposed statement is a complete misunderstanding of the actual situation (we are nowhere near herd immunity via infection or vaccination).
So you don't understand why Fauci has chosen to lie twice about very important COVID-19 issues, later admitted to these lies, and still find him "plenty credible." How do you know if the next thing you hear out of his mouth is true or a conscious lie???
Besides, the authority and responsibility to respond to a pandemic (issue health orders, closings, quarantines, and lock downs) rests with the states and not the president or congress.
This is the comment you've rewritten 1/2 hour after I replied.
Anyway, the federal government has lots of powers that apply, they even have a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, intended to apply federal resources to controlling and preventing diseases.
The feds have things they can do. I guess a lot of that is splashing money around. But it seems that the states have more directly and immediately applicable legal powers.
Here's the text you inserted after reply 2:
EDIT: removed a remark about Fauci and herd immunity, I thought I read this but couldn't find a reference. My apologies.
It's fine to edit comments. It's ridiculous to substantially edit them in an attempt to rehabilitate them or re-contextualize replies.
It’s been 12 months now since the US banned flights from China. A lot has happened since then. People can differ on whether the federal plan was a good one (I happen to believe it wasn’t very good), but to believe there was no plan at all is just mental self-harm.
But we are far behind schedule and projections. 20m people were supposed be vaccinated in December. Only 1m were actually vaccinated.[1] 5% is a failing grade.
> That’s one example that a federal plan existed
Even the federal vaccination plan under Trump was essentially "leave it to the states". Now I accept that in these circumstances state governments are better equipped to understand the needs of their people. But if the communication about shipments - size and dates - is bad, states can't plan efficiently. And that's what happened.[2]
1. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/23/covid-vaccine-us-has-vaccina...
2. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/27/ron-klain/...
You’re making a different (and better) argument here, which I have no problem with at all. Although if you look at the situation in Europe right now, you’d probably have to admit the US did a better job on vaccines. In my country the Moderna vaccine looks like it will save the day for us. We didn’t make that happen so fast and so effectively - the US government did.