The moderately right-wing UK paper, The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/flu-kills-five-times-more-than-covid-9wlzsdlh9
"The 'Highest Single-Day of COVID-19 Deaths' That Wasn't ": https://reason.com/2020/08/17/the-highest-single-day-of-covid-19-deaths-that-wasnt/ excerpt: Under the best of circumstances, reporting on COVID-19 is tough. There are simply too many unknowns, and even when officials aren't manipulating the truth they aren't always willing to cop to the fact that they really don't have solid answers. But there's really no excuse for journalism as sloppy and misleading as the August 13 ABC News segment whose headline blared "US reports highest single-day of COVID-19 deaths." This video was widely shared, appearing not just on the main ABC News site, but also on Good Morning America, MSN.com, and elsewhere. And it simply wasn't true. In it, the anchor solemnly intones that the "United States is reporting the highest number of deaths in a single day—nearly 1,500" while a graphic briefly but completely undercuts her point. The graphic at least points out an important qualifier: The 1,490 deaths represent the deadliest day "since mid-May." In fact, according to The New York Times' count, the seven-day rolling average number of deaths in April was double what the current numbers are. If you look at the graphic, you can see that peak deaths plainly occurred months ago. But such attention to such an enormously important detail goes completely missing in the ABC segment, and a less-than-attentive viewer could be forgiven for thinking that the country was in fact experiencing record-setting COVID-19 deaths right now.
SK and US has the same number of cases in March. SK now has ~300 deaths and ~15k cases. US has ~200k deaths and ~5.5M cases All these numbers are just kind of noisy due to the nature of reporting (or non-accurate reporting, especially with the added confusion and mess - sounds familiar - created by change of reporting in the midst of a crisis by Trump's HHS). But if you look at the bigger picture... the US is leading in a very bad way compared to most modern countries because Trump believe it was a DEM hoax, it's just a flu, a cure is here now, mask was for cats (and later for hero), it will just vanish away, and ultimately, I take no responsibility.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised but this was the line for months until May when it was obvious that COVID was killing far more and wasn’t stopping.
Eh, I'm getting repetitive, but here goes again. I'm convinced that Trump is responsible for some portion of our inexcusable total of COVID deaths. But when you compare us to other countries, our entire country is on trial, not just the president. I think he's been terrible, but our country is so (literally and figuratively) unhealthy that some huge number of deaths was just baked in. So many people in poor shape. So many American people prone to independent, "I got my own opinion" thinking. And a current cancerous political climate that will politicize anything. So two things, I'm fairly convinced of. A president Hillary Clinton goes on TV and wears a mask (in a parallel universe). I honestly think even fewer people would be wearing masks and socially distancing. The unhinged lunatic conspiracy theories in some communities would be even worse. (That's not her fault, directly, but just look at our dumb country.) A president Donald Trump gives into his inner germaphobe and starts wearing a mask in February 2020 and taking the pandemic seriously. Some of his followers might have joined in (until they realized it's inconvenient at least), but I bet you a good chunk of liberals would then have joined in the "oh its an over-reaction. he's doing this because he owns mask companies. you can't trust him." We'll never know, but I think at least 100,000 deaths were built into our fairly dumb, very unhealthy, and strongly independent citizenry. Maybe I'm wrong and the pandemic playbook could have made a bigger difference. But we're nearly ungovernable, and that's not entirely a new thing.
I really disagree that liberals would have not been wearing mask out of spite, especially if doctors would have been saying the same thing and certainly not at this date. Sorry this just does not tract the logic of liberals, now of course there would be outliers.
I agree in part. Our whole nation has fallen short. But I do feel that comes in large part from leadership. I feel like you skipped a step with the parallel universe scenario though. If Hillary were the leader, there would be people claiming the virus spread was her fault and that it was some sort of pedophile germ thing. I agree with that much. But I don't think anyone would have planted the seed to distrust the science of combatting it. So people would have blamed Hillary for the virus but would not have even thought that science was a conspiracy theory without leadership spreading and encouraging that idea.
Yeah, I’m overstating things for sure, but our culture does have an independence streak like few others.
Hey B-Bob, I hear 3 things. A- We are unhealthy. B- Cancerous political climate C- Nearly ungovernable, cultural I agree on all 3 things, and more. A- I made this point in Feb or maybe early March, that we are more unhealthy and this virus kill them more Because we are relatively unhealthy, we HAVE to assume, all thing equal, that we will have a higher CFR and IFR. We shouldn't just try to be on par, but to raise above what other countries assumed and react accordingly. However, in this universe, the much bigger factor to high death # isn't this, but the high # of cases. 5.5M cases and counting, far above any other modern nation. With so many more cases here, relative unhealthiness almost become a moot point as compared to other nations.. In a parallel universe, we are surely as unhealthy, but more than 50/50, we would have way less than 5.5M cases and thus less death. B- We do politicize anything and everything It's a DEM hoax. No one is stupid enough, seriously, to said the virus is another political party hoax. That's this universe, we started off politicizing this to an extreme and continue to do so. In a parallel universe, we definitely will politicize, except we would have politicize this to a much lesser degree (with any OTHER president). 80/20 chance that any OTHER president wouldn't start off the presidency as political as Trump and would be a president for all, not just a political team - that itself lower the overall polarization. Smart leadership would easily use the common enemy approach. It doesn't matter if you a conservative, a liberal or an extremist, it's a danger to all of us. That message would reduce the level of politicizing by putting us all on the same team. As a side note, the same idea exists - that locking down is the cause of the economy to collapse, which is correct on the surface, but completely missed that the lockdown is caused by the virus, that the inability to contain it is the cause of economic collapse and massive death. Putting on my bias lens here - it's very MM and GOP like to think... 2020 election is near, perfect political opportunity - let her lockdown and blame her for the collapse of the economy. That would help contain the virus. C- It's not we, it's I, who care what the gov said In this universe, the "I" burst out like it has been held back for ages with the help of Trump pushing to re-open now (anyone recall Easter full of church)? We actually don't have to go to a parallel universe to see that we are fully capable of being "WE" for a period of time. We did obey the gov for 3-4 weeks of lockdown. After cases started to exploded again, we did obey gov to wear masks Yes, mask-less strong man still exists, but pretty irrelevant with gov dictate (even the soft type) Italy and other European countries aren't babies when it comes to the "I". It took risk of jail time for Italian to obey the lockdown, and they did. They are doing so much better for it. Gov can and do sometime overrule culture of "I" when they do it with purpose and over a short frame of time. This isn't theory - it worked in EU and it EVEN worked here for 2-3 weeks, until leadership torpedo it. And it worked again after weeks of "I" with the additional mask mandate. D- A growing culture of anti-science, anti-experts, self-expertise Probably nothing is more important than this IMO. The big problem with this in this universe is that the very nature of that culture is running the nation, controlling the resources, leading with anti-science, anti-experts and self-expertise. So big an issue this is that the very best CDC in the world with some of the best people here in the state and absolutely the most resources of any nation couldn't overcome it. In a parallel universe, while we have that culture in segment of the people, it would not be the very nature of it in the running of our nation. Anyone can play the game of no one know for sure what would happen - it's fair. But I think that's also false. We can look at history and project into the future - human have the unique ability to do that. We can judge and estimate the likelihood of something if we have enough data to work with and without bias. Yes, it's possible that in a parallel universe, we are here, with 5.5M cases and almost 200k death. It is SO MUCH MORE LIKELY that we would be doing much better. Heck, if in this universe, we simply just did one thing better - the initial ability to detect early and not be so blind, we might have held this virus in check. As many of you said, the horses were already out of the barn by the time we could detect -the problem was 10x harder that after (but still possible to dealt with).
Stupid decision to move the collection from CDC in the first place (as a way to protect trump), and was bound to fail... and, it did.
yeah, I heavily disagree with that sentiment as well once it became clear that masks could help stop the spread, there wouldn’t be some huge chunk of liberals refusing to wear them to spite Donald Trump science has shown that masks should be worn...it is the right that is anti-science and anti-facts
Holy bleep...this is monumentally nuts and there should be heads rolling at the HHS and on the Pandemic team. What a clusterbleep.
Rolling out a brand new system with almost no notice to those impacted is extremely risky thing to do in the middle of a crisis. I doubt HHS would act so risky. I'm assuming there was pressure from somewhere to do this.
