Let's be honest - how many people really thought that Trumpf was being sarcastic ? Really. You were aware of that within seconds ? I'm not too bright, so it actually never occurred to me, I couldn't see it in the little smile or the barely-discernible wink. God, he's so clever.

Or maybe not. Obviously the Medical Officer behind him - perhaps because she couldn't see his subtle facial expressions - didn't see the sarcasm: she seemed to slowly take in a deep breath in utter shock, knowing that she would very soon have to say something in support of the lunacy that she had just heard from her president (being oblivious of the sarcasm).

People don't realise that this virus thingo is providing so much opportunity for jollity, humour and sarcasm. After all, what is it but a few sniffles ? No worse than the flu. Fifty thousand deaths in the US so far - pffft ! One day, there'll be a comedy show - like 'MASH' - which lampoons all the girly-man worry over this seasonal outbreak. Jesus, more people died in World War One. Like SARS or chlamydia (which Trumpf doesn't have), this is just another virus.

Which the Chinese have caused: who was to know, when they started to weld people's doors shut in early January, that it was maybe serious. Anyway, they didn't tell us. And anyway, we acted to shut down travel from China pretty quick. Well, yeah, people who had been in China could fly in from everywhere else, like from the European ski-fields, but how were we to know that ?!

Anyway, it will all be back to normal by Easter. Well, okay, it's after Easter now, but that's the Chinese fault. And WHO. And probably the UN. It's certainly not the president's fault, even though he has total power. Okay, not total, it's all up to the governors now, if they want power they can have it. I'm off to Florida.

Joe

Wow, SR, now you're going to parse the Chinese statements in order to exonerate them and convict Trump? They already knew there was human to human transmission. WHO probably did as well.

The whole world took it as meaning they knew of no human-to-human transmission. TDS really does leave its suffers plumbing the depths.

The way I'm reading this discussion there appears to a lot of cherry-picking to support what are political positions.

Countries are being awarded points for success in treating the virus when it's probably not policy at all that is making the difference. For instance, Australia and the USA both stopped Chinese arrivals at basically the same time, and in both countries the leadership was accused of being xenophobic. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51338899. Why have we got a better result? Read the first section in my article.

Goodness only knows why we're critiquing Trump because he has little to do with us, but if anyone is interested in the facts this is an interesting summary of Trump and Biden on Corona Virus https://www.procon.org/view.background-resource.php?resourceID=007115. It shows Trump, being his usual Pollyannaish self, but you can see Biden criticising him early on for closing borders, and with not a lot to add. Whoops. You can also see that both sides have been complicit in lack of preparedness.

You can also check testing rates, and the US rate is as good as ours. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-daily-covid-19-tests-per-thousand?country=IND+KOR+USA+United%20Kingdom%2C%20tests%20performed+AUS+TWN. If testing alone were the solution, then we should be doing equally as well as each other.

The Swedish case is interesting. I think they've got it right, but I'm not going to dive on one data point and rest my whole case on it. According to Bjorn Lomborg they now have an infection rate of somewhere between 26% https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1253605358205128705 and 33% https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1253605360373583872. So they are getting close to herd immunity, and if this is the case we should see dramatic slowing soon. I'll be watching and not prejudging.

This shouldn't be a left-wing/right-wing argument, any more than mathematics is. If it is, then it suggests that the right has a monopoly on logic and empiricism, and the left a monopoly on empathy. In which case, if by being logical and empirical I'm right wing that's a good place to be and there should be more of it.

quite amusing that those with TRD continue to become more deranged. Meanwhile Chris Cuomo CNN anchor and brother of New York Mayor goes out bike riding while recovering from covid and abuses another cyclist who challenges his selfishness. Of course CNN does not report on such hypocrisy especially as this same regressive was used in ads telling people to stay at home. Unfortunately the NY Police seem to be absent. Oh well it must be Trumps fault!

Dear GrahamY,

Sorry mate but I real am finding this quite bizarre.

I accept that when mhaze looks at data he comes up with extraordinarily conclusions utterly unsupported by that data.

You claim to be an empiricist yet you put this;

“You can also check testing rates, and the US rate is as good as ours. http://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-daily-covid-19-tests-per-thousand?country=IND+KOR+USA+United%20Kingdom%2C%20tests%20performed+AUS+TWN. If testing alone were the solution, then we should be doing equally as well as each other.”

Let's look at the graph with just our two countries.

http://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-daily-covid-19-tests-per-thousand?time=2020-03-06..&country=AUS+USA

Even though both closed their borders to travelers from China at the same time Australia went far harder far earlier on testing than the US. That is one reason why we are doing so much better.

This is highly supportive of the notion that after the travel ban the US basically sat on its hands for a month. It's what the press has been constantly putting to Trump and he is calling it fake news. Well the 'empirical' evidence is there in spades.

In my opinion the right gave up being logical and empirical quite a while ago. A fawning subservience to economic rationalism has stripped empathy from its ethics, and in its service we now have Trump and his collection of wannabes, enabled by an antiChrist in Murdoch, wreaking havoc around the world instilling their brand of inequality in the name of obscene profits for the already obscenely wealthy.

The mainstream left are where the right use to stand.

As to the claim “Biden criticising him early on for closing borders” no he didn't. He called him out on his use of the term Chinese virus”.
http://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/27/donald-trump/fact-checking-whether-biden-called-trump-xenophobi/

Dear mhaze,

Why do you think you can lie about what WHO had said and then when pulled up on it whip out the good old Trump Derangement Syndrome card and once again claim I said something I most certainly did not.

Again, it is utterly childish and you need to stop. I'm always up for a robust discussion but your behaviour is hardly conducive to it. Grow up.

I am neither left nor right, nor do I like China or the US. I do however think there is way more to this virus than we are being told.

Take this highly interesting article, and consider the ramifications:-

http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-our-coronavirus-catastrophe-as-biowarfare-blowback/

Galen

P.S. posters need to remove the ‘s’ from https:// if they want a hyperlink to work.