White House advisers last week said the virus is being “contained” despite contrary evidence. On Monday, after suggesting “fake news” was driving the stock-market rout, the President tweeted: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
Like the common flu, except the death rate from the virus may be ten times higher. Like the common flu, except the U.S. population has no built-up immunity, so the virus left unchecked could infect a significantly higher share of the population at a faster rate, overwhelming the medical system.
We hope the dire coronavirus prognostications turn out not to pass, and no one knows how the coming months will play out. Yet with stock markets falling, schools canceling classes, companies emptying their offices, and nations locking down borders and some cities, Americans want steady leadership.
The biggest failure so far has been on testing when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produced contaminated test kits and the Food and Drug Administration was slow to approve private alternatives. The best response to that is to acknowledge the delay, explain what happened, and relate when and how the problem will be addressed. The mistake is to claim there was no problem.
Mr. Trump is right that his opponents, in politics and the media, want to turn the virus into his Hurricane Katrina. That is inevitable and he shouldn’t take their bait. The best defense isn’t to strike back as if the virus is Adam Schiff. It can’t be mocked with a nickname or dismissed with over-optimistic assertions that risk being run over by reality in a week or a month. On Wednesday Mr. Trump punched back at an article in Vanity Fair by tweeting: “Our team is doing a great job with CoronaVirus!” Who cares about Vanity Fair?
The best reply is cool and realistic leadership that marshals the strengths of the government a President leads. This means letting the experts speak, not putting himself in the front of every briefing and speculating about things he doesn’t know much about. It means showing personal support, ideally at some point in person, for virus patients and their front-line caregivers.
Leadership means putting together a response to economic weakness and what can be done to help those who lose their jobs, not promising something he can’t deliver on Capitol Hill or blasting the Federal Reserve for the 100th time. Above all, leadership in a crisis means telling the public the truth, lest people begin to tune him out or, worse, make him a figure of mockery.
Disasters and crises can make or break presidencies—not from the event itself but from how the public judges a President’s response. In the last week the Administration’s performance has improved, and his speech to the nation Wednesday night was at least a step toward more realism. But the pandemic continues to build and he still understated the scope of the health risk. Travel bans are less important than mitigation efforts at home with thousands of likely cases already here. Comparing the U.S. favorably to Europe won’t reassure anyone if the U.S. catches up.
Mr. Trump did seem to recognize that the threat to public health is a chance to rise above narrow partisanship and speak for the whole country. His main opponent for re-election now isn’t Joe Biden. It’s the coronavirus.
TL; Passed out drunk, awoke, drank more, passed out second time, and still asleep.
Realistically, its not a crisis, but the fallout has been a disaster be it warranted or not. Its not that testing is needed to avoid a catastrophic loss of life, testing is needed to define the actual scope of the issue so everybody can calm the fuck down.
Testing will make the panic much worse for a short period of tim.
Better than a drawn out one.
Agree completely. But if widespread testing appears overnight, the next 7-10 days will be fucking bonkers.
Director for the Ohio Director of Health stated tonight she estimates there are 100k coronavirus cases in Ohio. Seems insanely high...but in a vacuum with so few being tested she could be right. Hopefully she is as it means the case mortality rate is multiple times lower then we? currently are estimating and this is not really that big a deal.
You're a lying piece of shit, Pedophile. Nothing you'll ever say matters. Liar.
I don't feel like doing this on Twitter but I think our friend Pat is in an epic meltdown. Not TDS but very strange
People confuse the mass hysteria with an actual crisis
We don't have one. Maybe we might someday. Maybe an asteroid will hit the earth
This will be in the psych books someday
Is it possible both are true?
My gut tells me we will look back at this and there will be questions as to whether these rather unique and unprecedented actions were necessary ... and that would be a good thing
The downside of not taking drastic actions are that we risk overwhelming the healthcare system, start having to make decisions as to who lives vs who dies, and have no chance at stopping the spread until it gets to be way too late.
Make no mistake everything that we are doing right now is buying time ... pure and simple. It’s what the numbers and models tells us.
Delaying hopefully gives us time to work on solutions, get the situation back into a controllable one, and hopefully get us into warmer temperatures which may help in slowing this down if it behaves like most viruses.
The market getting destroyed right now is irrational market behaviors at its finest where the short term focus dominates the long term. There’s no question there will be a 2020 impact. However, successful mitigation will not dramatically alter outlooks as most smart finance people make sure they have contingent working capital reserves in place exactly for situations like this. The biggest downside will be for companies over leveraged.
He and the other schmucks in the media have been saying the same thing for 3 years about Trump...it’s why nobody outside of NY/DC listens to or believes them anymore.
People are going to be freaking out for the next couple weeks, and by mid-April it’s all going to be disappearing and we will be on to the next crisis.
The problem for the TDS folks is that if it doesn’t start killing hundreds of thousands of folks (or now millions with Obama’s crew chiming in) that they are scaring everybody into thinking it should...it lets the folks in charge (I.e. Trump) take a victory lap at their expense. They have built up such a crisis that anything less than a complete catastrophe looks like the folks in charge pulled off a miracle.
Not too much into the prediction game but I bet Biden will be really claiming that Trump copied his recommends after Trump takes a victory lap this summer.
He and the other schmucks in the media have been saying the same thing for 3 years about Trump...it’s why nobody outside of NY/DC listens to or believes them anymore.
People are going to be freaking out for the next couple weeks, and by mid-April it’s all going to be disappearing and we will be on to the next crisis.
The problem for the TDS folks is that if it doesn’t start killing hundreds of thousands of folks (or now millions with Obama’s crew chiming in) that they are scaring everybody into thinking it should...it lets the folks in charge (I.e. Trump) take a victory lap at their expense. They have built up such a crisis that anything less than a complete catastrophe looks like the folks in charge pulled off a miracle.
Not too much into the prediction game but I bet Biden will be really claiming that Trump copied his recommends after Trump takes a victory lap this summer.
God willing we get to that point quickly, Trump will take lap after distasteful lap.
Cancelling everything is the worst thing they could do. Completely driven by fear of being trashed on social media
What are we supposed to do, read a book?
Yep. If there were no Facechats, Twatter (r i p @GrundleStiltzkin ), Grindr, etc., the markets wouldn't have plummeted as they did and schools would not be closed across the country right now. Most if not All the sports would still be on, most without crowds and Epstein didn't kill himself.
Comments
Well, let’s see, MSNBC, CNN, smart phones, internet, facebook, mebook, usbook, Instagram, ,,,,
Kinda fukd up question is that??!
People confuse the mass hysteria with an actual crisis
We don't have one. Maybe we might someday. Maybe an asteroid will hit the earth
This will be in the psych books someday
Blame is a natural reaction
She looked at me and said you know that's something to think about
Being a contrarian has it advantages
I need to unplug. Maybe watch some golf or basketball
Wait
My gut tells me we will look back at this and there will be questions as to whether these rather unique and unprecedented actions were necessary ... and that would be a good thing
The downside of not taking drastic actions are that we risk overwhelming the healthcare system, start having to make decisions as to who lives vs who dies, and have no chance at stopping the spread until it gets to be way too late.
Make no mistake everything that we are doing right now is buying time ... pure and simple. It’s what the numbers and models tells us.
Delaying hopefully gives us time to work on solutions, get the situation back into a controllable one, and hopefully get us into warmer temperatures which may help in slowing this down if it behaves like most viruses.
The market getting destroyed right now is irrational market behaviors at its finest where the short term focus dominates the long term. There’s no question there will be a 2020 impact. However, successful mitigation will not dramatically alter outlooks as most smart finance people make sure they have contingent working capital reserves in place exactly for situations like this. The biggest downside will be for companies over leveraged.
Welcome home, Komrade
People are going to be freaking out for the next couple weeks, and by mid-April it’s all going to be disappearing and we will be on to the next crisis.
The problem for the TDS folks is that if it doesn’t start killing hundreds of thousands of folks (or now millions with Obama’s crew chiming in) that they are scaring everybody into thinking it should...it lets the folks in charge (I.e. Trump) take a victory lap at their expense. They have built up such a crisis that anything less than a complete catastrophe looks like the folks in charge pulled off a miracle.
Not too much into the prediction game but I bet Biden will be really claiming that Trump copied his recommends after Trump takes a victory lap this summer.
Bootlicker