But... unlike the younger crowd....you won't see boomers congregating at events like say... spring break.

When trying to appeal to general public voters, Trump is between a rock and a hard place:

-If he makes economic sacrifices to slow the spread, people are going to complain how "his restrictions" are negatively impacting their lives
-If he doesn't make economic sacrifices, then the quantity of cases opens him up to criticism for failing to react strongly enough.

No matter how he tries to straddle that fence, he doesn't gain ground either way. There is no "educated voting base" who knows exactly what level of restrictions will be considered the perfect balance in the hindsight of history.

But, aside from the general public, there's another group who has Trump's ear as well: the 1%, the people with power. For those people, they know that they will get the best medical care available so they don't care about the spread rate. They want Trump to do whatever minimizes the economic impact. And since Trump relies on them for re-election just as much if not more than appealing to voters, why shouldn't he listen to them? Especially when you consider that appealing to the voters is a no-win situation anyway.

And this is exactly how the idea of "prioritizing re-election" is harmful to the country. Participating in the whole partisan narrative (debating whether Trump is doing a good job or not) actually hurts everyone. We shouldn't live in a system where we buy into the left vs right narrative.

I just had a CV 19 thought.

CDC says 56C or 132F is deadly for CV 19. Iirc those saunas that you sprinkle water on get up to approx. 180F. ^^



/e



This post was edited by Ghot on Mar 20 2020 07:21pm

Is prefer not to live in a sauna lol

They aren't that bad. When I was a kid, Greater Pittsburgh Swimclub (where I spent most of my waking hours), had a dry sauna, and we used it a lot.

Later, when I lived in Cali, the house I rented had a dry sauna. I know in Cali, whenever I felt a cold or flu coming on I would head for the sauna.
Didn't remember this till yesterday when I read about the CDC high temperature limit for CV 19.


/e The CDC didn't mention how long you had to hold those temps to kill CV 19, but I remember that 30 minutes in the sauna was no biggie.

/ee Obviously this wouldn't help if you already are into like day 5 or so of CV 19, but I could see "sauna-ing" say, after you return home. I feel sure it would kill any surface CV 19.

This post was edited by Ghot on Mar 20 2020 07:37pm

Stop breathing + perma sauna == victory over c19

they have top shelf healthcare though. that said, i don't share the opinion that the administration is intentionally letting this spread, i think it's pure incompetence and wrong priorities, but i don't think their own age would give them pause IF that was a thing.
it is really shocking that america is on the same trajectory as italy though. they had all the advantages you could wish for in such a situation: they were late to the party, had plenty of warning, much stricter border controls, lower population density and age... a perfect illustration of how impactful bad leadership can be.




inb4 "you're fired!"

While I agree with your general sentiment on this, we should be fair and admit that Trump is constantly contradicting and opposing his own coronavirus messaging. It's not like there is a strong, clear and steady government messaging, and now suddenly the nefarious Biden sows confusion and uncertainty where we previously had clarity and trust.

There's no way to know yet whether the proper decisions have been made regarding striking the right balance between slowing the curve of infection vs. minimizing the economic impact. There's no substantive grounds on which to criticize the administration one way or the other.

It's still unknown to what extent, if any, the US health care system is going to be overrun. If it is overrun, it's still possible that there wasn't any way to prevent it from being overrun. If Hilary was president, that wouldn't mean that there would be 4 times more hospitals than there are right now.

If Hilary had been president, her administration may have made decisions that had more economic consequences in exchange for slowing the spread. In hindsight, we may look back two years from now and criticize that strategy for being the wrong balance.

Right now, there is no objective framework to levy a true criticism at the response we've had.

This post was edited by Kayeto on Mar 20 2020 09:16pm

Unless they are stalling to create more ICU beds, I don't think the administration has a plan.

I think we are wasting out time with the quarantine overall. Economic stagnation has a price in lives as well.