COVID-19 & US healthcare system - thread relapse

[LynnInDenver]

How hidden cases, testing blunders and political missteps doomed NYC's COVID-19 response

Yeah, that's about the long and short of the issue... it came in from somewhere else, hence the first U.S. hot spots were caught flat footed. And why the lockdown had to be as hard and sudden as it was. Glad to see Washington state isn't doing that badly under the circumstances.

Anyone who claims Colorado was overreacting... I would have to ask, "do you want Denver to look like New York?" As I recall, a LOT of our deaths are similar to other places; nursing homes that the damned thing got into and raced through the resulting buffet.

BTW, I expect some conservative types that had already decided that metropolitan areas were hellholes to have this feed right into their confirmation bias, given the way it's basically been eating New York City alive.

Trump suffers political side-effects playing TV doctor during COVID-19 pandemic

Yeah, sarcasm and political speech don't mix. At all. It doesn't matter if he's using it as an excuse shield, or if it was actually sarcasm. (hint: the former is why it shouldn't be allowed, the latter is because too many people will take it seriously.)

EDIT: And from north of the border: Why 'be kind, be calm and be safe' is more than just a catchphrase in B.C.'s COVID-19 fight

Yeah, everywhere the challenge is going to be relaxing things without people deciding that things can progress right back to original business as usual. I think we're at least 6-8 months from that being able to even being a remote possibility. We're at least a month away from being able to actually see friends, and that's assuming meeting at a neutral location, nobody touches anything, and we're all at least 10-15 feet apart. (Adam Savage is personally mandating that anyone not in his household stays back 5+ yards, but then, he did participate in the "how far does that sneeze or cough go" mythbusting session.)

COVID-19 deaths per million people in North America and western Europe - in political entities with more than 5,000,000 population only - USA in red, Europe in orange, Canada in blue

BTW, the biggest issue is still not knowing how many people have been exposed to this thing, how many people came through it without being ill (so to speak), and worst of all not knowing how long any resulting immunity may last, if any is conferred at all.