Former President Barack Obama said he gave ex-President Donald Trump a pandemic playbook when Trump took office — but he disregarded it.
“He ignored it,” Obama said during a rallyfor Vice President Kamala Harris in Las Vegas on Saturday. “And three years later, a pandemic hits.”
Wow it’s almost like letting it rip through the population was a terrible idea. So why did they “end COVID” (just the payouts to people, gotta make them get back to work) under Biden when it’s still very much around? Levels were higher this year than any previous years and the Biden admin actually took Trump’s advice “Just stop counting”
Because expunging an endemic disease is a hell of a lot of effort. Zero Covid didn’t work (ask Winnie the Pooh), so most efforts were undertaken instead to weather the large amount of simultaneous harsh cases where patients required a ventilator and constant medical attention.
Would it be possible? Probably, but do you really want to convince Billions of people worldwide to regularly buy and use tests, masks and to distance where possible for a few years? I mean, I’m in Biotech, I’d live a fulfilled live employment-wise - if I don’t get gunned down due to political violence that would ensue.
I’m just sitting here thinking if we can’t even get our shit together for a disease pandemic we’re going to be beyond fucked for anything that requires collective action and sacrifice with even higher stakes, like climate changes.
Zero Covid didn’t work (ask China)
It kinda was though, the issue there was that all their trade partners were doing the “let it rip” strategy. Drastic measures can only hold for so long and if the world superpower determines that economic activity is more important than hundred of thousands of its citizens I don’t think there’s anything China could have done alone.
We will never be zero COVID, but the pandemic crisis is over. Hospitals aren’t overcrowded to the breaking point, the vaccines are pretty effective, and it’s much less deadly. We’re managing it like the flu. None of that was true under Trump.
When Trump said it hundreds of thousands of people were dying from covid because we did not have a vaccine and the variant was extremely deadly. Hospitals were nearing collapse, and ignoring it would have been an even bigger catastrophe than it was.
Now we have vaccines and have built up enough immunity that while it is still around and still causing damage to the population, it is no longer the massive threat that it was, even if it is still worse than most people think.
Now we have vaccines and have built up enough immunity that while it is still around and still causing damage to the population, it is no longer the massive threat that it was, even if it is still worse than most people think.
I agree on most- vaccines are great, but immunity doesn’t work like that, if anything people getting repeat infections fare worse.
I fear for the children growing up with years of covid infections racked up by the time they’re 18, and allowing that to just happen is going to be regarded the same way leaded paint/gas is now.
Like obviously the social/developmental/economic impacts of interrupting school for lockdowns are bad, but both things still be bad and are ultimately solvable problems that we’re worse off for not addressing.
I agree on most- vaccines are great, but immunity doesn’t work like that, if anything people getting repeat infections fare worse.
That is exactly how it works! Immunity doesn’t mean your body has a perfect defense or that nothing will ever come from a minor infection, it means your body will be able to fight off the worst effects and might even result in not having lasting damage. This is true for ALL diseases including the flu and even colds!
Covid is still on the terrible end of the spectrum and if people would actually keep up the vaccination rate the disease could become as rare as measles over time, but that takes decades and expecting something like that right now is pretty ridiculous. What we have to do it mitigate it as best we can, and at this point we are doing as much as society will accept for lengthy periods of time with lowered rates of death. We were fine with 10s of thousands deaths and the long term impacts of the flu prior to 2020 and we are approaching that with covid.
“Playbook”
Huffington Post - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Huffington Post:
MBFC: Left - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United States of America
Wikipedia about this source
The real question is: if Obama gave Trump an obviously terrible plan, with the goal to let as many people die as possible, would Trump have gone out of his way to save each and everyone - simply out of spite for Obama?
Of course he wouldn’t have, but I like the idea.
trump ignored everything everyone gave him. except putin’s marching orders
