Where would be now if we had a better COVID-19 response?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

It seems we have had the worst possible response.

[cilla4progress]

1. I think this was inevitable

due to overpopulation.

Other countries have led the way in how to stave this off with proper response, but may only be buying time.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. Uh no

None of this was "inevitable" Other countries have had a vastly better response to it than us and they now have little or no cases. The countries struggling with it currently have or had the worst national leadership. We have had awful leadership at multiple different levels, starting at the top.

[soothsayer]

3. This

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Isn't Massachusetts an example of a state that had a better Covid-19 response? n/t

[onecaliberal]

5. We've had zero response. Our response is let them die.

[unblock]

6. i'll update the math. if we had done the same as the rest of the world, on average:

as of yesterday per https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

world: 586,199 deaths out of 7,798,000,000 people
u.s.: 140,144 deaths out of 331,081,677 people

world minus u.s.: 446,055 deaths out of total population of 7,466,918,323 = 0.0059737%

u.s. deaths are the same rate as the rest of the world: 19,777.99



so we'd have about 19,778 deaths instead of 140,144.
roughly 86% of our deaths are due to us handling things worse than the rest of the world, on average.


lots of caveats, such as these are only official numbers and there may be other reasons for things to be different here. timing of when it hit is relevant, but then china has done a good job clamping it down even though they were the first hit. on the other hand the u.s. had all the infrastructure for an effective pandemic response, yet it didn't happen.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. the country by country variation when looked at by deaths per million, is huge.

And we are by no means the country with the worst number there. Plus, we're still in relatively early days, and a lot of countries are probably not fully reporting their Covid-19 cases or deaths.

Belgium, sweet, lovable Belgium, has the highest number there, at 845. We're right now at 424. But we have some 330 million people compared to 11.5 million people.

India's death rate from this is beginning to take off. Assuming they ever publish accurate statistics, it's going to be blood bath there. When this is all over they may well have villages with no one left in them

[tinrobot]

7. We'd be mostly back to normal.

People would mostly be working, but wearing masks.

A lot more people would be alive.

And, sadly, Trump would be in a much better positioned to get re-elected.

[cilla4progress]

8. Silver

Lining.

[unblock]

10. cynically speaking, covid-19 was huge political gift for donnie, but he's blown it.

donnie was headed for a challenging but winnable re-election.

once covid-19 hit, all he had to do was really basic political disaster handling. make unifying speeches, say we'll all get through this together, and turn it over to the experts while providing enough information to appear in charge.

it's pretty simple stuff and most mayors know how to do it.

but donnie can't make unifying speeches and he can't turn anything over to experts, so not only is the disaster many times worse than it should be, but donnie's electoral chances are also worse than they would have been.