But that's just not an appropriate way of looking at it. Doubling the starting point only doubles the end point if no countermeasures are taken to slow down the growth. It is more realistic to assume that public life is largely shut down once a certain threshold is surpassed. Then, a lower starting point doesnt change the end result, it only delays the shutdown by a few weeks at most.

Here in Europe, we brought the cases way down during early summer. Italy and Germany, two nations of 60 and 83 miillion, respectively, both had below 200 daily cases at some point. Translated to the U.S., that would correspond to below 900 daily cases. All across Europe, we also had almost no more covid patients in our hospitals. Now, we're having to cope with massive restrictions once again anyway, and some parts of France, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic already experience overcrowded hospitals.

Despite our efforts, we're basically back to square one. Starting from a higher base only means that you will have less time to watch the exponential growth before issuing the next lockdown. The room for error in the U.S. is smaller because you didnt get your cases further down during the summer - but the end result will be largely the same as in Europe.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 28 2020 02:55pm

You can still have exponential growth even if you take countermeasures. Just depends which ones and how much they are followed. In winter it's very difficult to make appropriate counter measures because the droplets stay in the air longer and people are in closer proximity.

and having a larger window to prepare for shutdown threshhold is not a trivial matter either.

Yes, but ceteris paribus, this doesnt lead to different end results if the threshold for countermeasures is identical in both countries.




That's a better argument. A shutdown requires some reaction time. Not necessarily the logistics of it, but mustering the political will to do it. This could be a problem particularly in states like TX/FL/GA.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 28 2020 03:01pm

Zoom and Facebook messenger have been a savior with my grandparents. Not in nursing home but stuck at home

For a lot of older folks who aren't digital natives like us, this stuff is still a huge hurdle. My mother is still using Internet Explorer because the different UI in any other browser would be too much for her to handle. And she's not that old, lol.
You also have some 90 year olds in nursing homes, and their only regular family contact is their 70 year old daughter who has no clue about zoom or facebook either. Also, most residents of nursing homes dont own tablets or smartphones.

For many grannies and gramps, zoom calls are not a viable solution.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 28 2020 03:35pm

100% on both posts

If grand Parents are at home and have wiling family, these tech platforms are godsends. The following may be a generalization, especially from a personal standpoint because historically brown culture treats elders differently, but as a whole Americans are fully content with granny /grandpa depressed in a nursing homes. It is so sad how we treat our elderly in the US

imagine the outrage from the extremists here if a dem admin had boggled the corona response as bad as the trump admin has

I think this is exacerbated by America's "two adults, five jobs, barely scraping by" society. Caring for elderly family members is often times a huge burden, and too many American families dont have the breathing room to shoulder it. In most Asian or African cultures, you have at least one family member (typically the wife) who isnt working full-time and has the capacity to carry out this care work.

It is of course exacerbated by a culture which glorifies the productive and "winners" while scorning the "losers" and underperformers.

lmao what drugs are you on?

This post was edited by Budgeting on Oct 28 2020 05:57pm

in reality it was actually trumps fault