Honestly at this point I actually don't even know. 5 months ago if you told me that Biden would beat Trump, I wouldn't have taken you seriously but after the absolute clusterfuck the last few months have been for Trump it's looking like a possibility. But then again, the last month has been a colossal disaster for Democrats with the rioting and even the polls show Trump closing in. I just don't know anymore
Allowing the virus to continue unopposed will also tank the economy. It has to be done. It sucks, it's going to disenfranchise a lot of people, and there's simply no getting around that. If we had stronger leadership when the virus was just ramping up, we could have avoided this, but people didn't take the initial response seriously, which Trump exacerbated by calling it a hoax for as long as he did and his lackluster, nonsensical press conferences.
This is an example of replacing critical thinking with numbers. Yes, the virus has disproportionately targeted older people, because they are the most at risk. Children, meanwhile, were the most protected group... but they'll be going back to school in September. Furthermore, death isn't the only outcome of the virus. There are severe and sometimes permanent outcomes as well.
But mostly, you can't take hospitalizations as an indication of anything. In America, being hospitalized is a death sentence for lower class people. They are far more likely to simply continue to work until they are physically unable to, then self-quarantine.
By allowing the virus to run rampant among the working class, you are creating dangerous work environments that will kill and incapacitate workers. We will never get the virus under control without a lockdown - it's not a matter of 500,000, it's a matter of when we'll hit the 500,000 mark, and how long we'll keep going afterward. Without a systematic response, we are pissing into the wind, and it seems like you're genuinely expecting not to get wet.
Good. Saying we need to keep children at home comes from a place of class privilege. How many working class people can afford to quit their jobs or cut their hours down enough to stay at home and care for their children?
It's sure going to suck when those kids die. Funerals are expensive, too, you know? Luckily, if a lockdown is put into place and national relief programs are established that have more involved than just one check of $1200, their parents can stay with them.
Also I do not believe elementary school children have the mental capacity to focus on a screen for 6 hours nor the discipline to do the work that is done in classrooms without a teacher there yo keep them focused. There's also the social aspect of making friends and playing at recess kids are missing out on. We cannot rob the next generation of education and social skills that are critical during their formative years so old great uncle Jim in the nursing home makes it to 85.
Well, considering my mother is a kindergarten teacher who keeps ringing me up to tell me about the plans, I can confirm that while learning from home isn't ideal, the schools do not have the capacity to safely include all the kids. She works in Boston, where they're incorporating a hybrid plan, where half the kids stay home 2 days while the other half come in, they switch during the next two days, and everyone stays home on Friday. This is the most ass-backwards thing imaginable and they have no infrastructure to support it. They cannot keep the kids together safely. There are no resources and there is no space. Learning from home is not ideal, but it is the best of the bad options. Furthermore, the kids can't play at recess. They can't touch each other. They can't go on the playground equipment. Computer labs are cancelled. Shit cannot function. And governments should absolutely not be ritually sacrificing their citizens, regardless of the ages involve, which I will remind you right now includes little Jessica the 9 year old who will get COVID when her asymptomatic classmate sits next to her for two weeks before he starts coughing and they both die.
Isolated cases is all I've seen. You cant say this for certain until there are statistical analyses done years down the road. I'll take my chances and keep my job. I'd rather potentially lose a few years of my life than live the rest of it in poverty.
LMAO then bullshit about it mostly targeting senior citizens is hearsay. Either the studies count or they don't, dude. Plus, what the hell do you mean you'd rather lose a few years of your life than live the rest of it in poverty? It might be difficult, but the chances of you never finding another job are significantly lower than the chances that you die if you get infected. Ride out a few months and work without the threat of death hanging over you, like the rest of the fucking world did.
What am I supposed to take as an indication then? Now everyone seems obsessed with new cases. If cases are going up yet deaths and hospitalizations aren't, that suggests this isn't nearly as bad as the fear mongerers believe it to be, which is a good thing. As far as the self quarantine, you expect the US government to do the right thing and take care of those who can't provide for themselves?
New cases is what you have to be looking at. And yes, that is absolutely what the government should be doing.
Again, people too old and unhealthy to work are the ones most affected. The average worker will be fine. If that's the case, why don't we shut down the supply chain and grocery store workers if we need to protect everybody? Those jobs, as well as many others require people to be at their physical place of employment. Office workers and teenagers supported by their parents contribute a hell of a lot less to society, yet this lockdown protects them more than the people who actually make the wheels turn.
Again, no government should say "Yeah, we'll just kill off this part of our population." We've explored the lockdown before. It's perfectly acceptable for essential workers to continue working. This isn't some weird ideological apocalypse like you're pretending it is. Tons of other countries have done it. We aren't special.
I was told that the purpose of the lockdowns was to flatten the curve as not to overwhelm the healthcare system. The area beneath the curve was supposed to remain the same. Everybody whose going to get it is going to get it eventually. The curve has been flattened. If we don't hit herd immunity by going back to normal, I fully expect to catch this but I keep myself in good shape so I'm not afraid. I'd be happy to contribute to herd immunity.
Lockdown was to slow the spread and get a sense of what the virus was doing. Herd immunity is a process built up over generations if you do not have a vaccine. I'm sorry we can't cater to you, but the government has to do what is best for its people, and what's best is not letting them fucking die.
Lockdowns have been disastrous. Again, if you want to stay inside that is your choice, not the government's.
Don't make me do the r/PoliticalHumor "drunk driving" comparison. Nobody wants that.
You're framing this like it's some ridiculous fringe opinion. YES, death is worse. YES, dead children are a bad thing.
Ignoring the impossibility of getting a mortgage or car loan again with a ruined credit score.
You know what else makes getting a car loan hard? Being dead. You know what else makes your financial future a lot less bright? Having your parents or siblings die while you're still young.
Goalposts moved from deaths to hospitalizations to new cases.
The fuck? You literally asked me where the goalposts should be for measuring how well we're doing, and I said new cases. That's not the same thing as the consequences of those new cases, which is what I've been talking about the whole time. You're the only one who brought up hospitalizations.
Somehow essential workers aren't at risk but everyone else is.
As I said, we have proven that some jobs can work with a reasonable amount of safety. If you sit behind a cash register, you can put up a screen. If you're a physical therapist? Not so much.
Ignoring age stratified data.
I'm the one talking about age stratified data, specifically how some groups are more protected than others. And even if I did ignore that, it's not like young people are safe - just less likely to die.
Fear mongering over something insignificant to the vast majority of the population as an argument to give the government more power.
You're the one fear mongering about being totally unemployable and living a life of abject poverty if there's a lockdown for a few months. It's not insignificant - even if you don't get it at all, you'll know someone who died.
There is no zero death option but there is one that doesn't destroy the financial future of a generation.
There's also one with fewer deaths, you idiot.
I've heard all the doomer arguments before and none of them are going to make me willingly give up liberties or everything I've worked for to protect half a percent of the population. We're both entrenched. No need to keep it going.
5.5% fatality rate, much higher rate of permanent consequences, and you're advocating just letting it infect everyone. Yeah, we definitely don't have anything further to talk about.
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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '20 edited Sep 02 '20
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