Question for my fellow AMERICANS: If Trump had...

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I'll be glad to answer your question.

The very same people who are banging the one note drum of Trump not acting fast enough and thereby blaming him for the outbreak in the U.S. would have had a conniption fit if in late December or early January he would have closed the borders, stopped flights and pushed the governors to have citizens shelter in place. He would have been been called demented and they would have pushed for him to be removed from office for that reason.

That thin argument doesn't hold up and it will become more tiresome and less relevant as time goes on given the continual and focused action the federal government is taking and has been taking to combat this virus that originated in China and with information vital to the world purposely suppressed by the communist Chinese government.

Before anyone jumps in to call me a "Trumpster" etc, I'm objective about him. I'm not a fan and can acknowledge that he can make bad choices but I can also acknowledge when he makes good choices for the U.S.. I'm not a Democrat nor and I a Republican.

Closing the borders at any time is stupid. Certainly you don’t shut the country down because somebody sneezed in China. Authoritarians deserve to be clowned at all times, like Orban and Duerte are being clowned now.

There is a sensible middle ground though, where you start quarantining people who return from Wuhan, where you start ramping up production of ventilators and PPE, and so forth.

I think the reason Trump has been criticised so widely is because last week he was saying that this isn’t as bad as flu and the country would be open again in Easter. Because he didn’t take the threat seriously you’re left with deaths that could have been avoided and nurses wearing binbags.

Ultimately there is no sensible course of action that could have stopped a global pandemic. But countries could have been better prepared. We’ll see how different countries end up faring, and probably only then will we be able to say what did and didn’t work.

On this, we agree.  With the increasing global population (and its propensity for intercontinental travel), it was inevitable that a disease would eventually develop and spread to other countries in a short amount of time.  We've had previous 'warnings' (i.e., SARS, various flu virii, et cetera), but those 'warnings' went unheeded.  Attacking and disabling social medical systems limited the current response, which was even further exacerbated by our current administration's overall arrogance, as well as its ignorance of medical science.

We were unprepared, and our current attempts at catching up with the disease (forget about getting ahead of it) may be futile; but we shall see...

Speak for yourself. my first thought was that it was dreadful and would no doubt spread.

My first thought was that all nations should close down borders, no one in, no one out, so the virus wouldn't spread (and yes, it works, it works perfectly!) And the world should have assisted China with their outbreak so as few as possible would die. No one outside of China needed to die from this. It was 100% avoidable.
This remains my view and will remain so. It's so extremely obvious how to deal with epidemics.

It has frustrated me to no end previously that countries haven't taken proper precautions (SARS, MERS, avian flu, Ebola, swine flu), and even though it's now taken more seriously and measures taken, it was too late. I wish far more had happened earlier, I have called for it before and I would have welcomed it (or been envious of the lucky nations who were protected if my didn't). We'd be close to done with it if it had.

We could still have had cargo delivered and quarantined at airports/harbors for 14 days, and companies wouldn't see this level of shut down because the contagion wouldn't be in most countries. So even those who believe in the economic fairy tale (love Greta Thunberg's wordings there!) over life, would be better off.

You've made some very good points. The whole thing got out of hand. Here, we will have to see just how effective early lockdown will have been when it ends after Easter. Strict measures are in place, yet unevenly and randomly enforced.

Btw Chinese tourists were still roaming around the world during January, the biggest blame is on China really.

Series of bad decisions starting with the CCP not closing their borders and ending with governments recklessly maintaining open borders in western countries. The diamond princess cruise ship incident in Sydney was the tip of the iceberg, people were flying back from the US with colds and coughs as late as early March and allowed to go straight through quarantine/customs.

Imagine how that would have gone over had Trump said in February:

"To try to prevent the virus from spreading to the U.S., I'm signing an executive order today that NO U.S. citizens on cruise ships will be able to enter the U.S. without first going through a 14 day quarantine."

Hilarious. And again, people and the media would have had a conniption fit over it. Whine, whine, cry cry, wail, wail.

The argument that he has done too little too late doesn't hold water because the same people (e.g. the media, Democrat politicians, etc) that are pushing that narrative as hard as they can are THE same people that would have freaked about aggressive measures taken in early February. Doesn't work.

That's true but governments need to take hard decisions and not cave in to media driven public opinion all the time. Our prime minister Scott Morrison now famously told the media that mass gatherings will be banned on Monday but he was planning to go to the football on Saturday! as if the virus takes holidays on weekends

This short sightedness is symptomatic of most governments where the leadership have little interest in the public good and are more interested in their own self-interest (Trump is not alone here).

As for the media they play games for the prime purpose of selling papers/advertising

My god is it ever low to accuse someone of what they would've done.

The fact is that you're describing liberals as you've stereotyped them & not as they really exist.

Do you think deadly diseases give a f**k who you voted for or not? Get over yourselves & show enough respect for your own species to merit all our own survival.

Are you saying governments are not accountable?

Last edited by cyberdad on 01 Apr 2020, 10:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it's a bit more interconnected and nefarious than just that, but you have a point.

Yes of course! academics make a career of media studies