I get what your saying but reality is reality. your a doctor I assume and most doctors and experts say if we do nothing 1.5-2.5 million Americans would die a lot of them elderly. I applaud everything your doing and always do and that goes with the military and for the most part local police. You ppl keep us safe. but at some point what’s worse 2.5 million deaths? or 30 million businesses that won’t reopen the oil and gas industry collapse that employees millions of Texans and ppl in America. 80-100 millions ppl without a job? what do you think those ppl will do? It’s a scary thought of someone coming to Rob you for food and toilet paper. I’m fortunate as well as most doctors when it comes to money but most people are not and live pay check to pay check. It’s just something to think About. Americans can’t live Like this forever I have a 4 year old daughter I would hate for that to be her reality moving forward in life.
Nobody is saying you have to live like this forever. You need to be able to capture the long term picture. This is the reason being reactionary rather than proactive has hurt most of the developed nations. The US knew that this virus was imminent threat since December. The president was briefed and he chose to ignore it. The reality is that a bill should have been passed since early January putting a huge amount of financial resources to start developing PPE equipment to prepare for what was coming to the US and also start providing incentives to companies to start production of quick tests, vaccine and anti-viral development. Instead we sat on our asses for two months and here we are, having to decide between having to re-start the economy and saving lives. The fact is, we cannot restart the economy anymore. We are past that point. We ****ed up collectively as a nation. The president ****ed up, multiple governors ****ed, local leaders ****ed up, etc. Yeah, the feds should have been prepared, but lets face it, if you as governor know damn well that you have an idiot at the helm of the free world that does not believe in science, then you should have started planning long ago for this virus. You should of consulted your experts and taken this more seriously. Now that we've ****ed up the response, the long term picture involves ****ing up the economy in the short term. It's the truth. There is no point in restarting an economy back up when we already have a healthcare system that is stretched to the limits in certain parts of the United States. The other problem is that other states are not immune to this and this virus has already spread across the entire nation and every healthcare system not currently strained is living on borrowed time. You start the economy back up, we are now talking about losing a huge battle with more people dying than just covid. No longer will our hospitals be able to treat other diseases. Our healthcare workers will be sick. Our workforce will become sick. We obviously want to prevent more deaths, but the longer term picture here is to buy us time to catch up with our resources. We don't have an infinite amount of resources. We need to keep producing PPE in large numbers, we need to spread the amount of sick over a longer period of time. The fact is, people are going to continue to catch this virus and there will likely be a second wave after we get passed this first wave. You open the economy back up, we will never get passed the first wave. This isn't about sacrificing human lives for the good of the economy. This is about attempting to catch up to procrastination. Two months of inactivity by every damn leader in our nation, with the biggest fault being up in Washington. You want sick doctors, sick nurses, equipment that is not available to treat for other diseases except covid, then lets open the economy back up. Too long didn't read summary: We need to catch up to our **** up as a nation. Opening the economy just prolongs this period of a stressed out healthcare system that could collapse if we don't treat this virus with the respect it needs to be given. The economy is ****ed at this point. That's the truth. The government is going to need to into ungodly amount of spending in order to keep Americans afloat. Unfortunately our leaders are so ****ing stupid that they think just giving $1200/adult, $500/child (2 limit) is the best solution for the economy. All that ****ing money should have gone to unemployment insurance to beef the system to the max because for the time being, American jobs are going to continue to suffer. It's short sighted that only unemployment insurance is needed, because those americans will also need healthcare and that should of been passed as part of this bill. The leaders of this country for years have given our money away to corporations by making us foot the bill for corporate welfare. Now it's time those mother****ers, whether democrats, independent or republicans, pay back their dues and help us during this time of need. Our debt will balloon, but when we were giving unneeded corporate tax cuts, not a single ****ing fiscal conservative ******* in Washington was crying foul. Imagine that, two months of lead time to prepare and they ****ed it up.
you make some valid points and this is very healthy talk I won’t even call it debate because I want everyone healthy and making money. but you can’t blame this admin when the last one didn’t prepare either nor the one before him or the one before him. it goes both ways my brother. the country was booming 4 weeks ago economically but now were in uncharted waters. I see no reason to blame anyone because what’s the point it is what it is at this point. it’s not like Democrats we’re on the covid-19 case early they were to busy trying to impeach trump when they all knew it was a lost cause. When trump closed travel to China Democrat’s called it racists bit here not doctors and scientists say it saved 100 of thousands of life’s. I don’t agree with everything the president does but im American and he’s our president just like Obama before him and bush and so on. Should be less fighting over votes and more unity. you seem like a very smart person and I respect what you have to say. god bless you and your family hope nothing but the best for your families health and safety. we’ll get through this and be even stronger than before and hopefully more united as Americans.
For Covid 19, I blame who ever is currently a leader in this country. Trump will see the most blame, because he is failing to unite the country during this time of need. The previous administrations have nothing to do with how he has responded. I saw that our previous administration had prepared a pandemic response guideline of how to proceed if something like this were to happen. I'm not sure if Trump just threw that to the side since it was developed by Obama's administration. I am a reasonable person with reasonable expectations. I acknowledge that we aren't perfect and it is human nature to make mistakes, however, I see the faults in our current administration. There is a lack of leadership. Mistakes have been made during this crisis and yet I'd be happy to forgive if we could just get back on track. Look at Cuomo in NY, mistakes were made early on and unfortunately, NY played catch up during most of March. If Cuomo would played it the Trump way, then NY would be in a bigger mess now than it currently is (and that mess is growing larger by the day sadly). However, Cuomo put his big boy pants on and started working for the people as soon as he got his head out of his ass. Trump on the other hand is still playing idiotic political games. He is frustrated that he isn't being praised and he is showing a lack of leadership by allowing petty **** to get in the way of him leading. The fact that he is still getting angry at the media during press conferences is depressing. How is it possible that he cannot grow thicker skin and just answer questions with dignity? The American people deserve a president that can handle the tough questions, even if it means admitting mistakes and taking responsibility. We talking about impeachment, but Trump could have been directing his administration during this time to get prepared for this virus, so he failed to act. I'm not dismissing the democrats in this case either. They have a responsibility to the public as well, so they also failed as leaders. The entire government system failed to protect the public and not this is the mess we are dealt with. However, leaders pick up the pieces, make up for the mistakes they've made and they correct them. Trump's administration has been incredibly slow to rectify mistakes. Considering that every day matters at this point, he is falling short. I'm not sure how republicans (I'm not talking about his hardcore supporters, just reasonable people) could even vote for this idiot again. He had one thing going for him in this election and that was the economy. The mishandling of the Puerto Rico situation (another failed crisis response) was in the past because the economy had been so strong. Now, the economy has fallen to **** and his leadership is in the spotlight again. Once again, he has proven he has no idea how to manage a crisis. I truly hope you give it a lot of thought when you go to the polls this November.
All I want is the country united Also. And I will give it a deep though when the election comes around. I’m not with any party I want what’s best for my daughter and the economy. But to call the president an idiot is disrespectful. This is tough times. I truly believe the American ppl will get through this and come out stronger than ever. I don’t think trump is the best president ever but he is our president and all Americans should support him that’s really all im saying. He’s our commander in chief every president has made mistakes we’re all human. He’s doing the best he can at the moment and this is the time to get together as a unit.
You're holding citizens to a higher stand of unity than our President that deflects blame and holds no responsibility whatsoever despite being the leader of the free world. He disbanded the pandemic team of the CDC. He still hasn't set federally mandated social distancing/quarantine protocol for all 50 states. He's still forcing states to compete against one another in a bidding war for medical supplies instead of federally coordinating with other states. He blames healthcare workers that are risking their lives right now for the lack of adequate PPE equipment available to safely do their work. How is that unifying our nation? How is that instilling confidence in healthcare workers that our President has their back? How is that unifying at all? Who benefits most from a bidding war, other than the privatized companies that produce these supplies and people who have stock invested in said companies? Why is Wall Street getting their share in a bidding war more important than coming up with an intelligent plan to assess risk across all 50 states and properly distribute medical supplies for Americans that are sick and need this, without it resulting an upcharges on medical supplies from a bidding war? Why are conservative states getting an overabundance of medical supplies and blue states getting broken equipment or a lack of medical supplies? Aren't we all American? Why are some states getting favorable treatment over others? How is the President unifying that? Why go on Twitter and other forms of media in press conferences, and contradict medical experts who are trying to relay the concerns over this epidemic? How is that unifying? Why are we holding such low standards for the President and deflecting criticism against him and holding BBS posters on a basketball forum to a higher standard than the POTUS? Seems likes concern trolling. If this is the President really truly doing his best, then I can say with 100% certainty, we have far more capable qualified leaders whose best is far better than Trumps.
The previous administration DID leave the trump administration a detailed pandemic preparedness plan. The trump administration made the colossal mistake to ignore that plan.
Um...speaking for someone that was in the military, the president isn't "our" Commander in Chief...he's the military's Commander in Chief. To everyone else, he's the President of the United States. The civilian public doesn't have a "Commander" in a Democracy like ours...they have an elected official who answers to them. You might be right that calling the president an idiot is disrespectful...however, the president has lowered the nation to his bar by calling quite a few people names. It usually isn't respectful of a president to call his constituents names either, but that flew out the window over 3 years ago when Mr. Trump was elected and then continued to call the other side names, call the media names, call corporations names, call anyone that disagreed with him names, made sarcastic remarks about how a congressman, in his own party, didn't have the virus, continued to disparage the person who came before him, and generally takes no responsibility and deflects any attempt to assign responsibility to him. I believe all Americans want to support our president during tough times...hell, George W. had 90%+ support after his response to 9/11 because he was able to unite the country with his words and actions. What has Trump done to deserve that kind of unity? Where has he attempted to bring people together during this crisis? Other than 2 days where he actually acted like a decent president, he has gotten up on stage and deflected blame, responsibility, blamed the other party, blamed the media, gets upset when criticized, and has generally tried to make it about himself. Just because he's human and makes mistakes doesn't mean he can't correct course...so far he hasn't done that, and we've seen the same old drama that we've seen since Day 1. Sorry that we all don't fall in line behind that...again, he's not a Commander of the people, he answers to us. So far, from what I've seen, he hasn't done a good enough job to unite people behind him. If this is his best, he's the wrong man for the job. And, I don't mean offense at this, just an observation, but I find it a bit disingenuous that at one point you mention folks that are living paycheck-to-paycheck to garner sympathy, but then mention you're a capitalist who is looking to make the most money. By the time you get to the post above that I quoted, you don't even mention anyone else, just what's best for your daughter and the economy. So why even mention that you're worried about the people living paycheck-to-paycheck in the first place? You obviously don't really care about them...you only care about you and yours, which is fine...to each their own. But, realize, many of us do care about the people living paycheck-to-paycheck...and those that don't even have a paycheck right now. Many of us would love to see those folks taken care of as well. Under this president, that hasn't happened as he's tried to role back medical coverage and many departments and safeguards that were in place. Earlier, you mentioned that this is a failure on this president, and the president before him, and the president before him, but is it? The president before him created a pandemic response department that was promptly cut when this president took office. The president before him instituted a pandemic response book to follow due to the response he had to make earlier in his presidency...which was promptly ignored by this president. This president haggles over the costs of making ventilators and accuses medical personnel of stealing and hoarding masks, while also saying the federal government is a backup plan and states should have known this was coming...yet, 3 weeks ago, wasn't even initializing action to prepare this country for a possible pandemic. For all intents and purposes, many people have/will die because of the actions of this president...not because of presidents that came before him, but because of the actions this president took when he was in power when he could have been proactive. That's a failure, and until he accepts responsibility for that failure, he doesn't deserve any respect from anyone. If you want to support him, fine, support him...I won't, he hasn't earned my support and likely won't after what's already happened. I do wish you and your daughter the best, and I, like you, do believe that we will come through this stronger and better than we were before. However, I believe that has more to do with the willpower and strength of our country's citizens to overcome, not just the virus, but our extremely poor leadership at the moment.
I appreciate you giving us the facts even if they are scary. We need to know these things. Following up on the excellent posts you've made this is a message from a former student of mine (Martial Arts not medicine). I posted this in the Hangout COVID thread but it bears repeating. I am am a medical doctor working in trauma surgery and am certified in prehospital emergency medicine. If you're young, healthy and fit, you NEED to read this: Let's ASSUME you're right, you don't need to worry about CoVid19, only the old and the sick can get severely ill and die... You know what can happen to young, healthy people? Car accidents, catastrophic falls, gun shot wounds, stabbings, appendicitis, pneumothorax (one of your lungs spontaneously leaks air out) to name just some things that can kill you. Take a moment and think who is going to care for you when every ambulance in your area is either transporting CoVid patients or going through the lengthy process of disinfecting the ambulance. Go one step further: What resources are left to treat you in the hospital? There might not be a respirator left to put you on, the surgeon might be helping out in the ICU or the ER and a bunch of the staff might be sick themselves. Now please tell me again how letting this thing run freely and sacrifice the old, weak ones for the economy is a great idea! If you want to be selfish, at least be selfish and smart: realise that this can affect you just as much as it can your parents and grand parents (I am not even mentioning all the young diabetics and COPD patients...)
The scary part is that this could go higher. a week from now we could be looking at 20% unemployment. A week after that!?
The last one tried to prepare this one 4 years ago with a plan and warning but this one ignore it. The last one created a new section of Homeland Security to deal with this exact situation, but Trump dismantled it 2 years ago. Congress did tell Trump to come up with a plan in early Feb but Trump dismissed it as fear mongering. You need to get the facts straight. Trump has had almost 4 years, trying to blame the previous administration is just a weak excuse.
This is why it’s so frightening. We understand the disease. We know how to take care of them on the ventilator. It’s nothing new. We just literally have to wait it out and see if the body recovers from the inflammation. the problem is the sheer volume of patients that will contract this disease. It is a novel disease our bodies have yet to see this even the most conservative estimates think 20% of americans will contract. Most people think this will contract 50-60%. That would mean Around 65 million to 200 million will contract. If 5% of those are critical that would mean 3.25 million to 10 million. Even if 5% of those patients who contract are critically ill that’s 3 million people in an icu needing a vent. Do you think we as a health care system could sustain that if we don’t spread out the hit. And then what happens when us intensivitsts get sick from the increased exposure. Who then will take care of the increasing covids. While you have potentially 3 million covids that are critical where are the regular trauma, Gi bleed, cirrhosis, infected, heart attacks, transplant, drug overdoses supposed to go? Who takes care of them if they’re critical? Do they share a room with covid patients?
lol you don’t get it man. If 1-2 million Americans die. How many of them were using up hospital resources for how many days. “Just 1-2 million died from corona” no big deal. But what about all the other people who will die from lack of access to me and my hospital and limited resources. How much of the health care system will go down to keep you guys alive “when all of this eventually died down”. We’re not talking about just old people dying quick. We’re talking about old people dying eventually while using up hospital resources and young people not dying but staying on vents critically ill for protracted amounts of time. The healthcare system is collapsing. You need to do your part and stay home. This is literally a ****ing war. Stop being dense. He is not my commander and not my president. **** him and his base. For many reasons he ****ed up him and it’s time to stop defending this stupid ****. The moment he put me and my hcw on blast for demanding too much PPE was the final straw. First of all the previous administration had a pandemic team ready for this outbreak which he foolishly fired. Obama set it up for trump to knock it down. Strike 1. We physicians have known about this virus for literally months. We have been awaiting its arrival to the states. There is no doubt he knew it was coming because I knew it was coming in early February and I’m a lowly ICU physician. My department started talking about how we would treat these people in February and we’re doing research on the topic in January. If we knew he knew. Strike 2. He then spends the early portions of this disease calling it a hoax and the invisible scourge and the Chinese virus. First of all it wasn’t a hoax. Italy and China were dropping left and right. Why would they lie and be part of some “democratic conspiracy” they and the WHO were literally warning us for months. His verbiage and defiance of taking this seriously leads to his idiotic repugnant base and stupid people to think of this disease frivolously which stresses the hospital system kills more people and directly puts HCW in lines of danger. Strike 3. We knew we had a PPE issue before all this began. Calls were made to enact the defense production act in February. It took him a week to sign it and then not enforce it. He then makes asinine comments that hospitals are stealing supplies and don’t know how many vents we need. How would it sound if the president told the army. Hey man I’m gonna hold off on making tanks and bullets and missiles during WW3 because I don’t think y’all need more and I think y’all are stealing it. That’s essentially what he did. He limited our ability to defend ourselves. Strike 4. He doesn’t mandate social distancing and leaves it up to the states to figure it out. Strike 5. He is choosing which states get what supplies first because of who kisses his ass. He is killing civilians possibly his voters because of his ****ing ego and exposing doctors and other civilians. Strike 6. His first actions for economic stimuli were not to help people or healthcare but to stimulate Wall Street and infuse it with money to promote confidence. This backfired. People saw through it immediately. The issue wasn’t lack of confidence in the market. It was people worrying about being liquid enough to ****ing eat and pay rent. Instead of helicoptering money or pursuing QE in times of extreme recession he chose to bail out big corporations and wal Street. Strike 7. you talk about economics a lot. I always hear about the economy was booming. I don’t think you understand there are 2 economies one we live in and one they live in. The median income before this pandemic for a family of 4 was 58K. How in the hell is 58K supposed to afford you a mortgage, food, health insurance, premiums on health insurance, co payments, and college. It’s downright impossible. Of course people can’t ride this out. The system was ****ed to begin with. They don’t scare about us. When I’m in the outpatient setting looking at these hospital bills or cost of medication that I have to prescribe to keep people healthy and alive. I realize I can’t even afford this stuff. Lol the looting argument always comes up. If it comes to that I thought we had the best military system in the world stacked with 1 billion dollars yearly that are supposed to defend us from overseas threats. Least they could do is come back and protect us from ourselves. The least the government can do is helicopter money to the people to keep things afloat while everyone develops an immunity to this new virus. This is literally what the government is for. Trump time and time again has shown he’s a narcissistic snowflake piece of ****. Not my president.
U.S. Lost 701,000 Jobs In March; Much Worse To Come For the first time in nearly a decade, the U.S. suffered a net loss of jobs as the coronavirus began to take hold in the country. But a monthly snapshot from the Labor Department shows only the first pinpricks of what will soon be a gaping wound. U.S. employers shed 701,000 jobs in March — the most since 2009, during the depths of the Great Recession, according to the monthly survey. But that was conducted three weeks ago — before the pandemic forced the widespread closing of restaurants, retail shops and other businesses. That unprecedented shutdown has already pushed some 10 million people out of work, according to initial claims for unemployment filed in the last two weeks. Most of those job losses won't show up until the April employment report is published a month from now. Still, Friday's report is a milestone. It snaps a record-long streak of employment gains that stretches back to the fall of 2010. The job losses, while understated, are the worst since March, 2009. The unemployment rate rose from 3.5% in February to 4.4%. That's the highest the jobless rate in nearly three years, and marks the sharpest increase since 1975. "That will only be the tip of the iceberg," said Lydia Boussour, senior U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. "We think April will be really the month where you will see the full magnitude of that labor market collapse." Boussour likens the abrupt halt in economic activity to what the Gulf Coast experienced during Hurricane Katrina. But in this case, the shutdown stretches across the country. She projects that the U.S. will lose as many as 20 million jobs before the pandemic is under control and that unemployment will soar higher than at any time since World War II. "We wouldn't have thought a few weeks ago that something like this would be possible," Boussour said. "You're basically asking people to stay home and not go to work." More than 6.6 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week alone, 10 times the number who did so during the worst week of the Great Recession. Losses are concentrated in restaurants, retail, recreation and manufacturing — all jobs that cannot easily be done at home or while practicing social distancing. Retail and manufacturing were struggling even before the coronavirus pandemic, but restaurants and hotels had been adding jobs at a rapid pace. About two-thirds of the job losses in Friday's report were in leisure and hospitality, especially bars and restaurants. But few industries were unscathed. Retailers shed 46,000 jobs. Construction companies lost 29,000. Even health care employment declined by 43,000 as doctors and dentists closed their offices for all non-emergency services.
My wife and I will be fine, but holy ****, this stuff still keeps me up at night.I feel for every American out there that is going to suffer over this **** man. Every small business that will close down. Seeing this unholy percentage of unemployment is going to be scary man. A 2nd bill needs to be drafted that expands unemployment insurance further, expands medicaid to those that are laid off, perhaps some student loan forgiveness (not 100%, but perhaps deduct 1 years worth of payment based on current rates people are paying, at least do this for federal loans). Congress better get their head out of their ass and understand that this next bill needs to not have petty bullshit. Can we just get a ****ing bill that is a clean bill that doesn't attempt to one up the other? One that doesn't require negotiations because we need to throw some credits for solar technology or restricts abortion? I need a clean bill that's going to help Americans. I can't believe it man, but this **** is really keeping me up at night because we will all know somebody or multiple people that will be affected. Government needs to work for the American people in the worst way right now. This is ****ing tragic. My mom and dad live in Mexico and they are starting to see the economy suffer over there. My sister and brother in law own hair salons that are shut down in Florida for the forseable future and they just bought a house!! I'm trying to purchase food and beer from local places. If you guys have the means, do what you can to help out those small businesses. Go buy some meals, go buy some beers, go buy some wine. We are all in this together bros.
