I find it amusing that liberals/progressives are apoplectic over how our government is allegedly botching the response to the coronavirus. I find that amusing because these are the very same people who think we should have government-run healthcare. Medicare for all! :)
(Of course, that's not to say Trump's administration couldn't do better, or that he hasn't made mistakes. I'm simply referring to the liberal/progressive reaction.)
Well of course the Democrats would get the right response to Coronavirus!
ReplyDeleteVery true. Probably could have started testing earlier, but it seems to me that wouldn’t have really changed the nature of the game as the Chinese pretty much decided for the rest of the world how this was going to go down (I wish more Americans were ticked off at their govt), but it also seems that the early strict China quarantine helped slow it. I’m curious what you, Hawk, think about this twitter thread:
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/lizspecht/status/1236095180459003909?s=21
Thanks for asking, Derek.
DeleteYeah, I saw that on Twitter too. I also saw a couple of other Christians re-tweet the thread. I guess I'd say it's mixed at best. Good and bad.
1. For starters, she does make some good points. For instance, we do have a shortage of a lot of health care personnel and equipment and resources. But the problem is this isn't uniform. It's not like every hospital or city or state in the nation is equally short of health care workers, equipment, and other resources. Some are beter/worse than others.
2. On a related note, it seems to me US populations aren't as centralized (if that's the right way to put it) as Asian and European populations tend to be. It seems to me we're more spread out. In fact, I think a majority of Americans live in suburbia and small towns (pace places like NYC and SF). By contrast, Europeans and Asians tend to live closer to their city centers. At least that's my understanding. I think Wendover Productions once made a video about this. But of course fact-check everything I say. Anyway, if this is true, then it's possible the coronavirus won't impact us as badly as it has impacted other nations. Of course I'm speaking generally, but it really depends which specific places we have in mind.
3. She makes a big deal about N95 masks. Sure, those are important, but not every health care worker in the hospital necessarily needs an N95 mask. It's not like physicians and nurses in rheumatology or dermatology are as likely to need N95 masks as the ones in the ICU, for example. I doubt her figure that "6 million HCWs" will need N95 masks.
4. I think the main problem is she doesn't know what she doesn't know. She explicitly says she's not an epidemiologist, but a biologist. Yet, even epidemiologists are debating how bad coronavirus will be. I'm not sure what gives her more relevant knowledge and expertise than, say, physicians and epidemiologists have about this.
5. I think she's sending mixed messages. On the one hand, she acts as if she's giving dispassionate facts and figures and nothing more. As she says, she's speaking as an "engineer" and a "biologist". On the other hand, she says things like I'm no "epidemologist", she's clearly not a physician, she says she could be "VERY wrong", she says if she is wrong, then at least people will have tons of stockpiled food, she says she's not trying to sound like an alarmist, but this is very alarming, etc. So which is it? Is she giving people her expert opinion on how bad the coronavirus truly is or is she speaking outside her field of expertise? Does she think she's more likely right or more likely wrong? Does she think people should be alarmed or not?
6. In my view, I don't think anyone truly knows how bad the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19) will be. Everyone is flying by the seat of their pants right now. Even the medical and public health experts. So it might be that things will be as bad as she says, but then again it might not. Hard to say.
(These are just my off the cuff remarks and impressions. I saw she made some calculations. I might look at what she did more closely at a later point.).)
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