fuzzynormal

No. Didn't say that nor hope for any of that. Qualified my definition of what I meant by "Failure". Do you really think I'm some sort of cartoon over here? C'mon now. I don't have a wax mustache and I'm not twirling it with a damsel tied to the railroad tracks. Okay. Okay. Maybe you got me. It's not really a damsel on the railroad tracks, it's an unborn fetus under the heel of my Birkenstock sandals. I am twirling my mustache, but only because I'm proud of it and my new arm pit hair. I was born a woman and have recently transitioned to my true orientation. The hormones are awesome and I can afford them because even though I'm of sound mind and body I'm on unemployment, disability, and food stamps. I threw away my bootstraps while on an Antifa march in Portland during Pride Week. Took me a while to make the decision to accept my real identity, but after numerous trips to my school's gender neutral bathroom and meditating to the Flying Spaghetti Monster I've come to realize that with unprotected premarital sex and a vegan diet I'm ready to take away everyone's guns and jobs. Oh, and then I'll do genocide because bad man in President chair makes me sad. That too. Oh boy. Too much? Was that too much? Curse you internet! You did it to me again!! Speaking of tracks, I've gone off the rails. Sorry about that. I better get outta here. Love you all, seriously.

Not just the media. He is who he is and it unnerves a lot of folks because it's pretty damn bonkers. Which is why his supporters enjoy him. Librul tears and all that.

Well, yeah. But...why is that a bad thing? That's just American politics. From never-Trump conservatives to bleeding hearts liberals. If a guy is implementing policies you think are directly detrimental to the nation, you'd rather not see those things happen. The more noble and fundamental ideals of American Exceptionalism don't seem to be on the Trump menu, imho. This sort of conflict is ever thus depending on who's butt sits at the executive desk. I'm pretty confident conservatives would have liked to see Obama fail at creating the ACA, for instance. I'm not ashamed of my ideology and still appreciate other POV's. Now, I'd prefer a FDR type in office rather than a self-serving-corporate-lackey type, which is how I view Trump and those that prefer America to be a corpocracy; don't think it's a healthy society, that. What can I do but hope the pendulum swings? How do we get there? Trumpism failing is a start...please keep in mind that failure depends on the specific situation! For instance, a China trade war. I could think, "no way that's gonna work, it's unrealistic, full of ignorant hubris, and it can't be pulled off. Great if it somehow did though." Like watching a 95 yard Hail Mary pass. You want to see it happen, but you know it's impossible.

Oh, and for whatever it's worth (not much) I do disagree with the assumption that Trump has "done more." He does have different issues to cope with, but back in 2009 we approved a test for H1N1 a month before anyone listed H1N1 as a pandemic. Ahead of the curve there. If you recall, because of the Obama Care issue, a lot of conservatives were complaining that we were too aggressive regarding treatment. That it was a political ploy or a scare tactic. A flu like H1N1 has anti-virals to treat it. And it's the flu, you know? Humans walk around with some level of immunity because we've all had it. There's even a semi-effective vaccine. COVID-19? Nope. No meds. COVID19 is new to the immune system. No one has protection from COVID19. Well, those that have recovered from it have.

Indeed, but the numbers have been trending to that portion outstripping available care. Luckily, Trump just announced that Americans shouldn't gather in groups larger than 10, so that'll help. Trump's transitioned from a glib attitude about COVID to something a bit more somber. Behind the curve, I think, but at least the tone has changed in the last 72 hours. BTW, you should know he rates his response to COVID as a 10 out of 10! Lots of 10's today.

Of course that really depends on the distribution rate of contagion, not necessarily the sum of contagion. Which is why The WHO and CDC recommend self-isolation, to slow the spread and keep the finite number of hospitals beds/services available as much as possible.

The biggest irony is that if the best case scenario unfolds and we're able to pump the breaks on COVID, many people will assume everything that's about to happen in the next two weeks was all an over-reaction.

I think it really comes down to perceived competence and assurances, rightly or wrongly. That comes from the CDC, WHO, POTUS. You mentioned lower numbers of initial infection, but exponential infection rates don't really care about starting from a low value. It's an "It only takes one" sort of situation to get that ball rolling. As for swine flu, H1N1 has a much lower case fatality rate of 0.01-0.08%. It does not disproportionately infect adults older than 60 years. H1N1 was spread out across the age spectrum. Weirdly, the CDC's experience with H1N1 is one of the reasons scientists are more on edge now-a-days. Perhaps it was ignorance before, wisdom now. https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/10/covid-19-gets-bad-are-we-prepared-for-triage/ The pulmonary infection among the elderly is a big deal with COVID. I lost my Dad a year ago to a pulmonary fibrosis disease. Being in the ICU on a ventilator is serious business. It's not just a cold compress to the head and two Tylenol. So that's why there's alarm bells ringing with COVID. Experts are saying one thing and Donald is, well, just being himself and saying his typical random musings. We all know those musings are not fact based. So, no assurances. If Trump's opinion about COVID aligned with the scientific facts/assertions, sure there would be people still grousing about him, but that's not what's happening here. I'll tell you this, if I'm wrong and Donald Trump has somehow been right about all the random stuff he's said regarding COVID over the past 4 weeks, that'll be the most delicious crow I've eaten in a long time. In the meantime, we all know what he was saying about COVID before Friday. And many on the right were happy to be all jokey jokey about things. Now that's it's a national emergency his supporters have instantly pivoted to this being "serious" all of a sudden. So it's a bit maddening to those of us less forgiving of his tendencies. For instance, he had a conference call with the nation's governors this morning. Standard Trump things ensued. A transactional mindset was once again at the forefront. He told them to buy medical supplies themselves to get stuff faster. Afterwards the gov. of New York let loose with this: https://www.militarytimes.com/2020/03/16/ny-governor-calls-on-national-guard-army-corps-of-engineers-to-increase-role-in-coronavirus-response/ Take it as you will, but it's not just me, random guy on the internet, worried about Trump's capability to actually govern when it matters.

Well, that's pretty much just a straightforward insult, not an answer. I'm legit asking you in good faith here. I'm willing to debate, to a point. You're welcome to read the posts I'm made earlier in this thread regarding sourcing if you want to know the kind of things I read. In the meantime, I'm challenging you a little bit because all I want is a serious response to why you believe the things you say you do. You don't have to have try to convince me of anything or worry about me doing the same to you, I just want to know what forms your opinion. I'm not much of a rhetorical "scoreboard" guy. Hoo boy, with freelance gigs drying up, I do want to be careful I don't go down the internet rabbit hole with my time. More productive things to do really.

That's like, your opinion, man. But, really, I'm inquiring about your specific example.

Where? On a Facebook post? If you can't source it, don't say it.

So, in all seriousness, do you really believe this? I mean, I suppose if you bounce around the lefty crackpot websites that are the equivalent of "InfoWars," you might dig up some nonsense, but otherwise? You gotta show your work on this one. If only to give the rest of us an idea where these sorts of assertions are coming from.

This is tangent to the COVID conversation, but I would like to point out that polls are simply pollsters asking a control group questions about how they're going to vote. People answering those polls could have been coy, the posters themselves might have asked poor questions, people were legit undecided up 'til the end, ect. Donald's win fell inside the margin of error for respectable polls that were held within the few days of the campaign. So, no, reporting how people answered a well regarded poll isn't fake news. It's just news. I mean, if you want to hold up the less respectable news outlets as examples, by all means lift an organization like HuffingtonPost up on your petard. I guess we agree on that. They were ridiculous and stupid, but they're akin to Brietbart.com. AKA: full of shit. So much so they were founded by the same dude. Even so, the HP pollster did her job so poorly during the campaign she had to issue a mea culpa on their front page before she was fired. Still, let's not use yellow journalism or an 11th hour poll shift to dismiss all news reporting. Very bad and unhealthy idea.

One of my big fears about the USA and COVID is simply that I don't believe our society is set-up to effectively stop it peaking and overloading hospitals. That's one of the disadvantages of being a mostly free culture. However, reports coming out of South Korea offer hope as their cases are on the down slope without lock-down measures like China: “Without harming the principle of a transparent and open society, we recommend a response system that blends voluntary public participation with creative applications of advanced technology,” South Korea’s Vice Health Minister Kim Gang-lip told journalists. Conventional and coercive measures such as lockdowns of affected areas have drawbacks, he said, undermining the spirit of democracy and alienating the public who should participate actively in preventive efforts. “Public participation must be secured through openness and transparency,” he said. South Korea has been proactive in providing its citizens with information needed to stay safe, including twice daily media briefings and emergency alerts sent by mobile phone to those living or working in districts where new cases have been confirmed. The hitch in Korea vs. the USA is that our federal government is unwilling or unable to offer useful media briefings, and we can't effectively test. Both of those things are unsettling to the public. An unfinished google homepage isn't a solution. It's a cruel joke. Still, a bit of a glimmering light from other front lines.

If it fits your workflow and you really like using it, the answer is “you shouldn’t” I still shoot occasionally with my 5Dii. My GH5 is a more practical camera, however. What it offers, and the ease in which it offers it, makes it a great tool for documentary work.

Good God I want to lose that bet. Maybe I will? Italy has an older population than the US.

Well, at the very least, and as you can tell from my posts, I think he's a study in what not to do in this situation. Hopefully your government is using this example to their advantage. I guess it's sort of like watching a bad movie; seeing what mistakes to avoid to make yourself a better filmmaker. And to try and pull the convo back to where it started, getting gigs in this market is stressful! Add on top of that the fact that we've been trying to juice the US economy for waaaaaay too long. COVID plus a bubble burst and market correction?? No thanks. Seriously, I've been having exestintial episodes about this career for awhile now, not sure where I'll be by mid-summer if this is our track.

Every country really does have to try and flatten the curve of contagion. If there's a sprint to getting infected then people will absolutely be dying that could have been saved with otherwise available medical equipment. When it gets bad doctors literally have to let people die to treat other people that have a better shot at living. From USA Today: "If the nation sees a major spike in COVID-19 cases, there could be almost six seriously ill patients for every existing hospital bed, according to the analysis, which is based on data from the the American Hospital Association, U.S. Census, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. The estimate is conservative." So, yeah, I just... *sigh*

Unfortunately If you can't access a ventilator to keep you alive during a contagion, you very well might die. And, you're right, there's only so many ventilators on hand. I don't know if people realize this and why the WHO have been extremely aggressive regarding their advice. And I shudder to even mention the problem of viral load for health care workers, of which I have numerous family members. Throw in the mix a POTUS spending weeks yet again claiming he knows better than anyone else -- that it's all nothing to worry about, burning time off the clock to be usefully proactive. Now imagine criticizing the POTUS for this behavior, knowing that the delay can cost lives, and having people defend his attitude for... reasons. I gotta say, American citizens can like the guy because he's brash, upsetting the norm, or generating librul tears, but excusing his behavior regarding COVID should simply be a bridge too far.

Hey, like I said, let's let everyone hold their opinions. You're completely in your right to be skeptical of news sources and see things through a prism of being anti-conservative. Similarly, I don't watch FNC without deep skepticism. All that's not necessarily bad. But, let's also be fair. If you're gonna call me out for a report originating from a newspaper like Die Welt, which is considered to be a conservative European source, let's at least leave Shapiro's name out of the conversation and source someone, anyone, with more integrity. Here's a suggestion: https://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/the-trouble-with-ranking-national-health-care-systems-819/ I'm not gonna say that the WHO doesn't hold certain biases, but the WHO is scientifically reputable and allow their journals to be peer reviewed. All of this is a tangent from COVID. I do fear contagion and the direction it's heading. And, man, I really hope I'm on the wrong side of history here.

I hope you're right and I'm so so so wrong. I don't like exponential numbers, however. Perhaps a capitalist Deus Ex Machina will sweep us right outta everything. Because of the current culture of the US I don't think we'll escape mother nature on this one. Again, I hope I'm completely incorrect about that. Regardless, H1N1 is not the same thing as a new novel COVID. Here's a excerpt from factcheck.org, where I've been spending alot of time recently: "Contrary to Trump’s suggestion that the Obama administration did “nothing,” officials declared a public health emergency early in the H1N1 outbreak, secured funding from Congress and ultimately declared a national emergency, as we’ll explain below. On top of that, the CDC sequenced the new virus, created testing kits, and the Food and Drug Administration approved multiple vaccines, among other actions. Rep. Michael Burgess, a Republican from Texas, praised the CDC at a House hearing in 2016 for quickly developing a vaccine for the swine flu in about six months — in time for the start of the school year in September 2009. “So that’s a 6-month time frame if I’m doing my math correctly that you were able to identify the genetic sequence of the virus, reverse engineer a vaccine, test it, assure its safety and efficacy, and get it to school teachers on the second week of school. That’s pretty impressive,” he said. Trump said in a tweet that the Obama administration’s response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic “was a full scale disaster.” While he can have that opinion, there is little to support such a negative view." Let's hope scientist can somehow hit that 6 month H1N1 window for COVID instead of the projected 18 months. I would like to ask, since your original post was about vaccines, what do you think about the report I put up of Trump trying to buy vaccine development from Germany? Or the advanced development of a vaccine in Canada? Finally, here's a ranking of the USA Health care from 10 years ago: https://www.internationalinsurance.com/health/systems/ Our rating has gone up from 37th at least.

Hey, I can withstand the slings and arrows. You think I'm wrong, and you're saying so. BTW, here's the original article if you want to run it through a translator: https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/plus206563595/Trump-will-deutsche-Impfstoff-Firma-CureVac-Traumatische-Erfahrung.html FWIW, Die Welt is sorta akin to the WSJ in Germany and Welt is the broadcast offshoot of the paper, which is why you might find this URL a little superficial. I can't find any news sources right now that dispute the actual reporting of this story. Perhaps you can?

I don't know. Do you want to revisit this thread 12 months from now? The hard data suggests that fast comprehensive suppression action, such as that taken in Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong has helped mitigate the contagion. Places like China and Italy have not fared as well. Italy's numbers from two weeks ago directly track day-to-day numbers of the USA. Italy is a top 5 health care system. The USA is below 25th. I'll say this: I don't believe I can change anyone's mind typing on the internet, so no big deal there. It's your right to hold your outlook about American life and politics.

It's just context as I was responding to a post about the world wanting a "sweet, sweet AMERICAN created vaccine" and that "the rest of the world has been sucking on the [American] teet." So, you know, highlighting the contradiction. There's also a promising vaccine coming out of Saskatchewan. So eleison's jingoism I thought was a bit much. FWIW, it's not just the article that got my motor running. It's everything. There's a special situation in my life that makes this pandemic a bit unnerving to me, but that's neither here nor there.

I'm going to leave this right here: https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-confirms-that-donald-trump-tried-to-buy-firm-working-on-coronavirus-vaccine/amp/ And request OP to respond. With any luck, the response will be in good faith. Meanwhile, all we are left to do as citizens is slow the roll of infection. Hopefully so hospitals do not have to triage patients due to a rush on their health care services. Imagine being an elderly 80+ person that just had pneumonia, you then get hit with COVID and you find out you're going to need a ventilator to assist your lungs from failing under the strain. So, you go to the hospital but you're informed there are no ventilators available for you. Why? Because all the COVID suffering people that are 50+ and more likely to survive get priority. You, 80+ old man with weak lungs, you unfortunately have to die. Keep in mind too that the US healthcare system is ranked 27th globally, so it's not like we have the best resources across the socioeconomic spectrum. And since I'm getting back into politics, why wouldn't we hold accountable people with the power of America's purse to help, yet for weeks actively not helping? Openly mocking the situation or dismissing it because they don't want to accept any responsibility? https://tinyurl.com/vdnjuoz https://tinyurl.com/txex9zo https://tinyurl.com/tll9d9o https://tinyurl.com/t52s9lx I don't understand this attitude of ideologists to earnestly ignore reality that cuts against their ideals. This era of truthiness doesn't work against the hard facts of nature. You can't bend optics to offset this sort of reality. If someone is making the situation worse, they simply need to be held accountable. That's. Our. Job. As. Americans. It's literally our civic responsibility. Maybe it hurts someone's feelings because a guy they champion is being criticized? C'mon. What are we, a bunch of overly sensitive snowflakes now? Have we truly lost the ability to look at a problem directly and honestly in order to attempt to solve it? I mean, things have been bad, but are they really beyond all hope? Sad to say, I'm beginning to think so. All this might seem out of place on a film making website, but I have a friend who is 80+ and vulnerable. We've been chatting about making a movie as this unfolds and I'd follow him through the ordeal if/when he gets it. I've never done guerrilla documentary work before and it seems daunting, but I feel like he and I need something productive to hold onto.