[lunatic]

@Raion:
I am really only lecturing you a little bit. Reality just came around and hit you over the head. In terms of COVID19, the US has screwed up "bigly" and this is not just affecting the US. Why do you think South America is seeing this extreme rise of infections? Do you think that Chinese people now all spend their vacation there? North and South America are interconnected, let alone northern and southern Virginia.
With regard to local politics in the US, I understand your concerns. The system is difficult. I personally prefer the multiple-party systems that most European countries have over the British-style winner-takes-all systems. You are just not casting a useless vote if your choice doesn't win. You still get representation. But if you don't vote, you have basically given up on democracy. You've got to work with what you have and improve from there. We can't always expect our choices to win the elections, but however bad it is, we shouldn't give up on democracy.

Regarding your second post:
Comparing deaths to population count can be misleading. When you do that, it is hard to get better numbers than say China and India. And I wouldn't call both of their COVID responses perfect. I also recommend looking at other western countries for comparison, because of higher similarities in terms of population structure, infrastructure, socioeconomic status and so on.
Please understand that COVID19 is not a simple disease that will only increase work load for hospitals. It is very dangerous and potentially lethal. It is not a simple flu that you will naturally get over with. As I wrote, the medical view on COVID19 has changed slightly. We now better see the effects, because of newer studies. This is reflected in generally higher estimates of death rates than months ago.

Please realize the trajectories (growth curves) of infections and deaths. For example, the US has been on par with France for some time. The situation in France was even more difficult, because like most of Europe France is more densely populated overall than the US. If the US government had acted decisively and competently, you could have been at 30000 deaths now, not 100000. The 30000, that's your share of the global grief. But those 70000 extra (and still counting...): that's on you. Whether you as American citizens want to hold your government accountable for that or not is your choice, obviously.
I really don't envy Fauci. I would have quit a long time ago.

@commodorejohn:
I initially expected people to prefer conservative parties in face of such a crisis, because that's what usually happens. There is a hint of that here in Europe. In fact, I expected that the COVID pandemic would be a home run for the Trump administration, because they could make all the scandals and weird stories fade into the background. Now you have an administration that tells you to drink isopropanol and take hydroxychloroquine. I once had a patient who needed hydroxychloroquine, because of Lupus erythematosus. That meant that you couldn't give her like 2/3 of all the other commonly used meds, because of potential negative interactions with hydroxychloroquine. It was quite a nightmare.

Spain was hit very hard and announced a national time of mourning for all the COVID deaths. That was very touching. I understand different political views on the same issue and I am perfectly fine with that. But fighting over the graves of all these people and dismissing all the suffering really makes me angry. That happens here in Europe as well of course - some people just trying to score a cheap political point in a crisis. But thank god our government does not advise us to poison ourselves...

I also just read that the Space-X flight to the ISS was successful. Really, that's the kind of news from the US we want to hear.

[Raion]

Why do I think South America has seen a steep rise in COVID cases? Pardon my lack of following the situation but I'm not really sure who or what was the patient zero for South America. It could very well be travel from North America but I'm not entirely sure of that, so I think I'll have to wait for the initial dust up to settle to draw my conclusions.

As far as what you're seeing here I'm not actually in Southern Virginia, I'm in the eastern part called the Northern Neck. It's a sparsely populated area primarily dominated by agriculture and aquaculture as well as fishing and crabbing. people from Northern Virginia have come down but because our population is so sparse, and you don't get masses of people together the disease has spread very slowly. I don't want to name my county in particular but we've had less than 30 cases confirmed.

I'm aware COVID is a serious disease for people with underlying health conditions or who are elderly. That's a loud and clear statement and that's why I've been pitching in and doing errands for my grandparents. My frustrations are that I work from 6 p.m. to oftentimes 5 in the morning at my current gig and as an insomniac I can't go out in the morning and shop or else I'll be too exhausted to get any work done. However everything around here closes by 8 p.m. now with this, Walmart and a few others were formerly 24 hours and our governor put a stop to that. That limits my ability to perform adequately because every other day I have a narrow window of 3-4 hours to get any outside work done before things close down. I'm not the only one this has affected and that's why I said that limiting hours was a retarded move.

I have other reservations why I don't vote besides losing faith in democracy mainly because there are really messed up privacy laws in many states that would make it easy for people to doxx me if they got my home address. It's something called a registered voter system and several states have publicly searchable databases. Currently if you pull up my address it only shows my roommates names living there and the landlord's name. My mailing address is not the same too, to prevent my address from being discovered. I actually have stalkers so I have a vested interest in keeping my privacy. there are other issues as well that I'm not going to get into because the primary topic is not voter related. However I would agree that multi-party systems are better, though certainly not bulletproof.

I'm solely comparing death to population size to show you the scale of how the US compares to a much smaller and more dense country.

Another thing that you might not quite understand about being in the United States is that we generally have pretty strong animosity towards other states. I regularly mock and deride California and New York because not only did I live in both places for a short period, but they hold disproportionate power in the country. The only counterbalance that the right has is Texas, and as of late Texas has turned more liberal. this is not necessarily a good thing because it's going to tip the scale in the wrong direction.

That's why I kind of compare us to discrete countries in Europe because it's honestly kind of similar. And this is why I disproportionately hold blamed against Washington State, California, New Jersey and New York for the state of the COVID response. A large portion of the response isn't at the federal level it's at the state level and they are the ones responsible for this. Personally when Trump joked about cordoning off New York I honestly agreed with it because that's where a significant number of the infections are coming from down east coast. I saw a New Yorker here the other day and I swore at him because he was mocking us for not wearing masks outside. I don't wear a mask outside because it's 90 degrees Fahrenheit and I can social distance from anybody I need to while I'm taking a walk or walking the roommates dog. I told him if he didn't like it he should go back to New York and starve because his superiority complex was literally smelling like rotten garbage. before you criticize my response to him know that a lot of people from New York and California do have really nasty superiority complexes and are incredibly rude to what they regard as country bumpkins even though I personally spent many of my formative years in Norfolk VA, the largest naval installation in the eastern United States and one of the most urbanized areas of Virginia.

[lunatic]

Why do I think South America has seen a steep rise in COVID cases? Pardon my lack of following the situation but I'm not really sure who or what was the patient zero for South America. It could very well be travel from North America but I'm not entirely sure of that, so I think I'll have to wait for the initial dust up to settle to draw my conclusions.

As far as what you're seeing here I'm not actually in Southern Virginia, I'm in the eastern part called the Northern Neck. It's a sparsely populated area primarily dominated by agriculture and aquaculture as well as fishing and crabbing. people from Northern Virginia have come down but because our population is so sparse, and you don't get masses of people together the disease has spread very slowly. I don't want to name my county in particular but we've had less than 30 cases confirmed.

I can only say that you should rethink your opinion about his. The idea of a patient Zero only helps if you completely shut down all connections and trace all the infections. At the state of a global pandemic, this is impossible.

I'm aware COVID is a serious disease for people with underlying health conditions or who are elderly. That's a loud and clear statement and that's why I've been pitching in and doing errands for my grandparents.

Good. Now also accept that it is not just dangerous for old and sick people, but also for healthy young people. The fatality rate for otherwise healthy young people is very small, but compared to other disease still terrifyingly high.

My frustrations are that I work from 6 p.m. to oftentimes 5 in the morning at my current gig and as an insomniac I can't go out in the morning and shop or else I'll be too exhausted to get any work done. However everything around here closes by 8 p.m. now with this, Walmart and a few others were formerly 24 hours and our governor put a stop to that. That limits my ability to perform adequately because every other day I have a narrow window of 3-4 hours to get any outside work done before things close down. I'm not the only one this has affected and that's why I said that limiting hours was a retarded move.

Sorry about that. It's really annoying for all of us and some people certainly are more affected than others.

I have other reservations why I don't vote besides losing faith in democracy mainly because there are really messed up privacy laws in many states that would make it easy for people to doxx me if they got my home address. It's something called a registered voter system and several states have publicly searchable databases. Currently if you pull up my address it only shows my roommates names living there and the landlord's name. My mailing address is not the same too, to prevent my address from being discovered. I actually have stalkers so I have a vested interest in keeping my privacy. there are other issues as well that I'm not going to get into because the primary topic is not voter related. However I would agree that multi-party systems are better, though certainly not bulletproof.

I know the basics of the American voting system. I wouldn't say it's flawed, because you are the oldest democracy still in existence, but it's certainly archaic in some parts.
More generally speaking, I don't think that voting should in any way endanger your safety, whatever exact procedures are implemented in your political system.

I'm solely comparing death to population size to show you the scale of how the US compares to a much smaller and more dense country.

Yeah, I know. But you are really throwing the bible at the pastor here 

Another thing that you might not quite understand about being in the United States is that we generally have pretty strong animosity towards other states. I regularly mock and deride California and New York because not only did I live in both places for a short period, but they hold disproportionate power in the country. The only counterbalance that the right has is Texas, and as of late Texas has turned more liberal. this is not necessarily a good thing because it's going to tip the scale in the wrong direction.

That's why I kind of compare us to discrete countries in Europe because it's honestly kind of similar. And this is why I disproportionately hold blamed against Washington State, California, New Jersey and New York for the state of the COVID response. A large portion of the response isn't at the federal level it's at the state level and they are the ones responsible for this. Personally when Trump joked about cordoning off New York I honestly agreed with it because that's where a significant number of the infections are coming from down east coast. I saw a New Yorker here the other day and I swore at him because he was mocking us for not wearing masks outside. I don't wear a mask outside because it's 90 degrees Fahrenheit and I can social distance from anybody I need to while I'm taking a walk or walking the roommates dog. I told him if he didn't like it he should go back to New York and starve because his superiority complex was literally smelling like rotten garbage. before you criticize my response to him know that a lot of people from New York and California do have really nasty superiority complexes and are incredibly rude to what they regard as country bumpkins even though I personally spent many of my formative years in Norfolk VA, the largest naval installation in the eastern United States and one of the most urbanized areas of Virginia.

Yes, that's something I recognize, but cannot follow.
Over here, we have been at war constantly over centuries and after two world wars, we kind of calmed down, I guess. Now, I can have a beer with a Frenchmen and a glass of wine with a Brit, knowing that it's gonna be alright overall. We can still argue about politics of course, because honestly the EU is a mess. Still better than having jackboots marching across Europe.

[lunatic]

oh, well. A recent Dilbert:

https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-05-29

[Raion]

I found that relatively fair. I think the biggest thing to remember though is that there are deaths that are going to be associated with lockdown. Depression, suicide. Unemployment, money issues these all kind of go hand-in-hand and it's something to be keeping in mind. I myself in pretty vulnerable to depression and have suffered several bouts of it during the last couple of months. I luckily have the coping skills and the ability to self recover from those sorts of things but some people do not, those with a weaker mental constitution in particular. It's worth understanding that there is a cost associated with lockdown and social distancing that could eventually surpass covid-19 if we're not careful. It's important to understand that.

[lunatic]

Yes, death is not the only major health problem, although it is a big one.

I am fully aware of the importance of mental health and affected people should seek and receive help and treatment without shame or stigma.
Social interaction, engaging in communities, and trusting relationships are essential parts of being human.

This is something I like very much:

[Raion]

It's not just a matter of getting medicated or speaking to a psychiatrist. Meds for depression are often ineffective or addictive in natures. The fact remains that depression due to social isolation is difficult to treat without... Well you know. Lifting the lockdowns. But that's beside the point.

Venice is a neat place and I definitely like the message that Hank's brother (forget his name) was trying to convey. I don't like Hank as much because he has a tendency to be a preachy guy. I don't like being preached at. It's an obnoxious trait I find in people.

On the topic of transient beauty, Venice is a great example. You know what else is? There's a bunch of islands in the Chesapeake Bay sinking slowly. I went and saw one off of Mobjack (a place in Matthews County, Virginia) a few months ago. It's called Newpoint Comfort. It used to have a town and house on it, but today only the lighthouse stands by virtue of volunteers who keep erosion at bay. I've also visited the reclaimed Island in Maryland I forget the name of where they're literally dredging the soil back up on the island. Enjoying temporary things while they last is a thing that's nice, and I look forward to one day telling my children about how I used to visit Newpoint Comfort and watch the lighthouse. Will it be standing 20-30 years from now? Who knows.

[lunatic]

It's not just a matter of getting medicated or speaking to a psychiatrist. Meds for depression are often ineffective or addictive in natures. The fact remains that depression due to social isolation is difficult to treat without... Well you know. Lifting the lockdowns. But that's beside the point.

It's clear that the quality and type of available treatment varies widely and often depends on what the health care system of a country implements and pays for. Scientific studies and clinical experience seem to suggest that medication and proper psychotherapy are effective in treating depression - again all depending on all the details of an individual patient. Over here, both psychiatrists und psychotherapists have been working through the lockdown and have been seeing patients as usual. If the lockdown itself takes a person to the edge of suicide, I would probably suggest to seek treatment anyway, because there likely is an ongoing, already existing issue that should be looked at.
That is not to say that COVID does not affect the availability of treatment. For example, clinics often implement group therapy. Well, you can't have group therapy with social distancing, without a group, right? I generally do not recommend to put all your hopes on medication. Evidence clearly indicates that medication has its drawbacks and limitations. If your doctor gives you medication that is addictive (benzodiazepines come to mind...) talk to your doctor or consider seeing another doctor for a second opinion. Experience also tells that if you need medication as mental health treatment you should see a dedicated psychiatrist and not a general practitioner. With psychiatric medication, you often need to find a balance between treatment effects and side effects. Depending on the case, side effects may outweigh treatment effects.

On the topic of transient beauty, Venice is a great example. You know what else is? There's a bunch of islands in the Chesapeake Bay sinking slowly. I went and saw one off of Mobjack (a place in Matthews County, Virginia) a few months ago. It's called Newpoint Comfort. It used to have a town and house on it, but today only the lighthouse stands by virtue of volunteers who keep erosion at bay. I've also visited the reclaimed Island in Maryland I forget the name of where they're literally dredging the soil back up on the island. Enjoying temporary things while they last is a thing that's nice, and I look forward to one day telling my children about how I used to visit Newpoint Comfort and watch the lighthouse. Will it be standing 20-30 years from now? Who knows.

That sounds interesting, but I haven't seen it of course. I hope to spend a proper vacation in the US at some point and see a few things. But I guess the vast emptiness of some parts of the US is hard to experience in just a vacation.

[Trippynet]

My thoughts on all of this: First of all, I do feel it is unhelpful and distracting to point fingers at this point in time. Of course it will need to be done in due course, but my approach to this is similar to when dealing with a major outage at work. First, fix the problem. Then, start investigating what caused it. The primary focus right now should be on limiting the impact and fatality rate of Covid-19. Once things are fully under control, we can start to investigate far more rigorously how the outbreak happened and what we can learn for the future to prevent and/or minimise future outbreaks.

It is true to say that the response of some countries has been appalling. The US is one such country, another is the UK where I live. In both cases, those in charge spent way too much time burying their heads in the sand, pretending the disease would just "go away" and failing to prepare.

For the UK, all the data in early March showed that we were roughly 2 weeks behind Italy. The rate of increase in infections, spread of the disease and death toll all pretty much matched Italy's figures from two weeks previous. So, we actually did have a crystal ball to tell us what was likely to happen. And did those in charge use this as an opportunity to get ahead of the game? No.

Boris Johnson insisted it was "business as usual". When health advisors here started to recommend we avoid shaking hands with people, he publicly went against this. "I’m shaking hands continuously, I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were actually a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you’ll be pleased to know. I continue to shake hands..." - this is a direct quote from him from early March. Oddly enough, a couple of weeks later he tested positive for Covid-19.

As Italy went into full lockdown, some countries (such as Greece) moved to ban large public gatherings. Greece has an elderly population and poor healthcare system, yet has not experienced too much of an outbreak. In the UK? Boris took his pregnant wife to a rugby match (80,000 fans). Liverpool played football against Madrid, and we allowed 4,000 fans to travel over from Spain for the game (another country with high infection rates at the time). Cheltenham festival (250,000 people) went ahead as normal.

Basically, those in charge sat back, did bugger all as other countries went into lockdown and basically gave Covid-19 several weeks of freedom to spread as rapidly as possible. We also were sending elderly patients from hospital back to care homes without testing them - and we've had many, many deaths and serious outbreaks in care homes as a result.

So yeah, the UK's response has been crap, and we've paid the price. What I find most galling is seeing people here that still think the government is doing a good job, despite the death toll and inaction.

[lunatic]

My thoughts on all of this: First of all, I do feel it is unhelpful and distracting to point fingers at this point in time. Of course it will need to be done in due course, but my approach to this is similar to when dealing with a major outage at work. First, fix the problem. Then, start investigating what caused it. The primary focus right now should be on limiting the impact and fatality rate of Covid-19. Once things are fully under control, we can start to investigate far more rigorously how the outbreak happened and what we can learn for the future to prevent and/or minimise future outbreaks.

I disagree, because I think it's important to understand the cause of the problem and the way this works, in order to be able to fix it. And it's not just about fixing this in the UK or someplace that has the peak of the curve behind it. Other countries are just at the beginning of the curve. Being able to tell them exactly what happens when you screw up can save many lives. This is not a time for sugarcoating. Our past is their future and there is no time to waste.

A good response for example would be if the US or Europe would be leading the charge, helping other countries to implement effective measures to combat the virus. For the benefit of other countries, but also for our own benefit, because the virus will come back when travel restrictions are lifted.

As I told Raion, whether you as citizens want to reelect Trump or Johnson is all in the future and all your own business.

Boris Johnson insisted it was "business as usual". When health advisors here started to recommend we avoid shaking hands with people, he publicly went against this. "I’m shaking hands continuously, I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were actually a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you’ll be pleased to know. I continue to shake hands..." - this is a direct quote from him from early March. Oddly enough, a couple of weeks later he tested positive for Covid-19.

Even worse. It turned out that he had a serious case of COVID and needed emergency care. He is lucky to be alive. If he were not the PM of UK, but some poor guy in Brazil, he probably would be dead now.

Basically, those in charge sat back, did bugger all as other countries went into lockdown and basically gave Covid-19 several weeks of freedom to spread as rapidly as possible. We also were sending elderly patients from hospital back to care homes without testing them - and we've had many, many deaths and serious outbreaks in care homes as a result.

So yeah, the UK's response has been crap, and we've paid the price. What I find most galling is seeing people here that still think the government is doing a good job, despite the death toll and inaction.

Yes, that is really tragic, especially because the UK overall has a pretty good health care system. It's actually a perfect example how difficult it is to catch a runaway infection rate. The UK and Sweden are like Europe's control group. Other countries could learn a lot from understanding the mechanisms of the pandemic.