It's almost like it's been on purpose.

[Roland99]

I’m a Software Engineer (for simplicity’s sake) and *I* knew how dangerous this virus was going to be back over two months ago. I wasn’t privy to top secret briefings and briefings with the CDC and with Congress but *I* knew. A 2-3 week-long Great Pause with strict Stay At Home orders from mid-Feb to early March and we’d have been back to business, with behavior and procedural changes in place and travel restrictions.

Now we’re going to be in what will be 6-7 weeks, maybe another 2-3 more after that?? And what will be the economic and human cost for a two-month shutdown vs a 2-3 week one?

And you don’t think this admin knew all that?!?! Of course it did. But they chose to DO NOTHING. NOTHING. And still aren’t doing anywhere near enough.


It’s almost like it’s been on purpose.

[mercuryblues]

1. Their response is going according to plan

IMO. We're still waiting on that glorious website promised by trump.

[gibraltar72]

2. There are times even Trump can't actually create his own reality.

[matt819]

76. But this is his own reality

As the OP observes, and as I posted on another thread a little while ago, what is happening is what he wants. That is his reality and in fact our own reality. What he says at his daily rallies is theater to somehow leave the impression that he's doing something about the problem. In reality - his and ours - he is doing nothing. Or, actually, worse. He's throwing up blockades, which results in more deaths. And that is his reality. His goal. Under what circumstances could he be more powerful? Under what circumstances could he wreak havoc on his enemies? This is revenge on a grand/global scale. This is not paying his contractors writ large. This is bankruptcy par excellence.

[Beartracks]

3. Trump kinda let's bad stuff happen so he can pretend to be a hero. In his mind. n/t

[Hermit-The-Prog]

12. That's Munchausen syndrome by proxy. ...

Couple that syndrome with the Grotesque Orange Pustule's narcissism and Fox and we get 100 times the mortality rate that we would have had with a competent person in the WH.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchausen_syndrome_by_proxy

[dchill]

48. He's the ultimate arsonist/fireman.

[Beartracks]

75. Except he's a lousy fireman. n/t

[dchill]

79. Yeah, well, that's not his specialty.

[Rebl2]

25. He is no hero

He is a monster that purposely did nothing for weeks and lied to Americans. Should be charged with mass murder.

[wnylib]

62. He's doing what his "fine people"

at Charlottesville appreciate. Let the old, weak, and sick die. It's the Naxi way.

[Beartracks]

77. Nazis. I hate those guys.

==========

[iluvtennis]

53. + agree. nt

[Just_Vote_Dem]

4. Of course this is on purpose

A few hundred thousand get killed off, then around the fall when it tapers off, they strut around as though they are heroes. But, they are monsters.

[Merlot]

44. Disaster Capitalism at it's finest.

[certainot]

60. they used ebola in 2014 and were going to do it again 2020 but got corona instead. problem is

this actually a real disaster and not just something they could just scare people with a 1500 coordinated radio stations and fox yelling about in october and then forgetting about right after the election

stupid motherfucking republicans.

those 600 limbaugh station owners need to lose their licenses for shouting hoax in a COVID theater

[underpants]

5. My wife calculated 1,000,000 infected by April 1 in mid-January

She has no insight to any information other than what we read. She just crunched numbers. She's really good at that.

She projects cases almost doubling each week this month. 100k to 200 to 400 to 500.

[Squinch]

7. Believe it or not, though, that is not bad news. Up until recently, we were

doubling every three days. So the rate of increase is decreasing.

And doubling every week vs. doubling every three days represents a huge reduction in expected deaths.

It's still going to be the most horrible thing we have ever seen in our lifetimes, but it is better than it was going to be a couple of weeks ago.

[uponit7771]

18. +1, R0 of CV19 being nearly twice that of swine which infected 55 million Americans I can see ...

... this whole thing not ending any time soon.

I don't know where they hell they got 250,000 seeing we're not test/trace/isolating

[colorado_ufo]

52. I think that is confirmed cases.

[Squinch]

6. And really, they're still doing nothing. There are still not enough tests, still

not nearly enough PPE and still not nearly enough ventilators, and those that there are are only going to red states.

South Korea is now where we could have been if we had a person with a half a brain at the top. They have had a couple of hundred deaths, and they are back pretty much to normal.

[uponit7771]

16. +1, Pence said there would be 5 million test distributed March 16th ish and there are no logistics

... in distributing anything.

[Squinch]

21. They will never give us enough tests to track and understand the spread. They are

still trying to keep the numbers low so they don't look bad, and they still think no testing is the way to do that.

I really hate these people.

[uponit7771]

23. +1, with a burning passion the reporters who wont do their homework and preempt their fillibusters

... with well formed questions that make them get to the point get on my nerves too.

No one is pinning Pence down on the test !

If we test we can isolate, trace and clean

[MontanaMama]

56. Yes. It would be as simple as:

“VP Pence. You told us there would be 5 million tests sent out as of March 16. Did that happen? And can you give us a breakdown of where those tests went?”When he avoids the question as he does, follow-up questions such as “can you refer us to the person that can answer the question?” I don’t hear any of this is ridiculous pressers.

[uponit7771]

68. ..👍🏼

[FM123]

8. Yep, they knew how dangerous this virus was going to be

and they knew how inept this president was going to be. Still on February 5 they voted to acquit him. They (the GOP senators) chose to keep him in office knowing he was going to be in over his head and would not keep the country safe. Like you just said, it's almost like it's been on purpose....

[handmade34]

9. the fireman

who is an arsonist

[Baitball Blogger]

10. I think it's just mismanagment. It's a style of management that they have been

able to get away with for so long. I'll tell you what was going on in their minds. They were thinking that this would just blow off on its own. Trump said as much. He just ignored it. The next do-nothing excuse was to assume that there would be acceptable casualties before it finally would blow off on its own.

But now Trump's buddies are dying. His incompetence is glaring. No where to hide.

[dhol82]

11. I am at hysteria level.

I just keep looking at November and getting more and more worried.

[uponit7771]

13. Swine flu inflected 50 mil Americans with R of 1.6 CV19 has a R of 2.8 ish we're screwed if Trump

... stays president

[Demovictory9]

14. 2 months? you think it will be that long? thats unbelievable

[uponit7771]

19. CDC said 8 - 20 weeks, even if "the curve" is flattened that doesn't mean we're in the clear it

...just means the rate of GROWTH has stopped .... INCREASING.

So if the rate of growth stays at 15% we're screwed

Some are saying if we're a 2 multiple per week we're blessed and that's 100k people

[Demovictory9]

28. I wish America had a sane president during this time... I'm sure the world does too

[uponit7771]

31. THIS !!!

[Roland99]

20. Well, Disney and Universal closed 3/16. That seemed to really kick mass closings all over

Just kinda going off of that

[Generic Brad]

22. I suspect it will be worse than that

Until we have a vaccine or some way to determine who is immune, this will keep happening in waves. This has gotten away from us and it will be like this on and off for at least two years.

[uponit7771]

27. +1, " or some way to determine who is immune" or just some way to tell who's got it and who does not

... and allow us to isolate, trace and clean the environment.

Pence is still stuttering one where the damn test are ... these people make me sick

[Roland99]

29. I'm hopeful this plasma of the immune and/or recovered can help, too

[uponit7771]

32. It does but there's not enough of it

[colorado_ufo]

15. That would be one way to keep up a bidding war for ventilators, PPE, etc.

Wouldn't it?

[Cozmo]

17. 'I'm the Last Thing Standing Between You and the Apocalypse'

[Trueblue Texan]

24. I completely agree.

Could it be more obvious? He’s either following orders from Putin or he is getting off to holding the godlike power of life and death over Americans.

[Tweedy]

36. No doubt the man is a sadist

and causing pain is often the only point.

Yet, he is also the incompetent-in-chief.

[maryallen]

46. Has anyone seen the number of positives and deaths for Russia?

I've seen stats from China, Korea, all of Europe, Iceland, Norway, but no
Russia.

[2naSalit]

65. +1

[bucolic_frolic]

26. Agree, once Wuhan hit 2500 cases you could crunch the numbers

Their response reflects their hubris, sense of invincibility, Darwinist ideology, and their political purposes. In corporate mindset, you deny, deflect, obfuscare, and lie. It's how you can manage anything, like a PR case study in business school. They enjoy it, and they enjoy being able to put one over on, and punish, the libs. Libs should stay in their holes, keep working for the man, and feed their capital UP the income scale to the Republicans.

I got news for them. I'd bet 7% of workers see their work lives differently and either never return to work or eventually start their own business from a side gig during this quarantine. More workers will fiercely guard their capital and their spending. As a group we can bleed their bottom lines.

[uponit7771]

30. "More workers will fiercely guard their capital and their spending" this is what happened during the

... great depression and to some degree is happening in Wuhan China where it started; people aren't rushing out to spend money and be next to strangers.

This shit is traumatizing and we're in week 2 out of 20 (recommended by the CDC), it looks like end of April is where the hurt BEGINS.

[bucolic_frolic]

33. Wow, I hadn't heard CDC had a 20 week on it

the hurt referring to nationwide overcapacity? I did back-of-the-envelope math all along, and always came up with numbers north of 2.9 million, sometime several times that

[uponit7771]

37. CDC couched it in school closes (link)

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/considerations-for-school-closure.pdf

The CDC titled a mailer with Trumps name, they CDC head is a sell out bastard

[Tweedy]

34. I do believe you are underestimating the sheer incompetence

Of this president, and the political hacks who surround him.

It does feel designed, true. It is incomprehensibly idiotic if not.

Yet, upon closer inspection, it is the sheer breadth of incompetence that jumps out at you. It looks a lot like nobody around the president knows how to use the NDA, for example. The pentagon does, no doubt.

Does the White House? I have serious doubts.

Combine the utter incompetence with this president's fantasies and you have a recipe for disaster.

Combine Mr. Trump's fabulism and incompetence with the GOP pro-death cult wanting to appease mammon with human sacrifice and you have the tragedy we are experiencing now.

If this president does not put someone in charge who knows how the government works-- not how Mr. Trump badly plays government on t.v.-- the scale this tragedy could reach is almost unfathomable.

Thank God for decent governors! How I wish there were fifty!

Since our president is a nincompoop snake oil salesman, we desperately need our sane, competent governors!

Perhaps if we can bend this curve and give healthcare workers a respite, our competent governors will be able to work around Mr. Trump and come up with a multistate strategy that other states would join (even ruby red ones) once it became apparent that the strategy was working.

Our only other hope is some actual genius out there develops a safe and effective vaccine and somehow proves that before Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th as the forty-sixth president.

The prospect of waiting until January 20th to begin a multistate strategy to meet this virus effectively is a nightmarish scenario.

I hope our competent governors are putting their counterparts on speed dial.

[uponit7771]

38. If it was just blind stupidity there'd be some stupidity in America's favor. There's not one thing

... they've done to benefit the country.

[Tweedy]

81. True

Yet, incompetence can create outcomes that are desperately wrong each and every time, too.

[ProfessorGAC]

71. I'm With You

I don't buy they're smart enough to have been able to predict some favorable outcome, following a disaster.
They just didn't understand the seriousness, did nothing & they've been in full backpedal since.
The reason why they continue to fuck up (see Kushner's " our stockpile&quot is that they are 1000 feet underwater and don't know enough to hold their breath.

[Chicagogrl1]

35. I swear...

He’s doing this on purpose. It is very clear. Maybe in exchange for debts owed, quid pro quo? Theres so much more to this issue than we can even begin to speculate.

[LiberalArkie]

39. Watch the series "Last Ship"

[OMGWTF]

40. I smell Putin.

[chwaliszewski]

41. On purpose? You mean, like this?

?t=45

[Marrah_Goodman]

42. Yup I knew too and I never even went to college

Maybe it is because epidemiology is one of my interests and I have read a lot. I knew it was coming here when reports were coming out of china. I knew it would be bad when they quarantined Wuhan. I would bet my life on the fact that epidemiologists were yelling bloody murder to the administration and just like a disaster movie, the politicians did not listen.

[pnwest]

43. It seems as purposeful as appointing

people to head up committees, etc who are hell bent on decimating them. I’m with you that this entire slow-walk response seems to be on purpose. I was having these same thoughts today, and mused all the way back to when he said if he ran, he’d run as a Republican because they’re stupid and will believe anything (paraphrasing). In a work of fiction, it would seem he’s been being groomed since way back then, as a Russian asset to destroy the US from within. And what an stroke of luck that a pandemic struck, providing even greater opportunity and means to bring the US to its knees.

100 years from now, our grandchildren will know the truth - America was destroyed by a long-term. multi-pronged attack and this man aided, abetted and even facilitated.

[Joinfortmill]

45. Yup. The ? Is WHY?

[live love laugh]

72. My same question. To pocket a trillion $$$???

[Wednesdays]

47. 6-7 weeks plus 2-3 more is unduly optimistic

There's no "bending of the curve" now, nor the sight of a peak yet in the U.S. We're going to be in at least a partial lockdown until mid-summer at a minimum. And things won't completely return to normal until a year from now. April 2021.

[AdamGG]

49. He said the WHO projections were "fake news" and "a hoax" for 3 weeks

And then he shifted right into proclaiming that doctors are amazed at how well he understands things and that if he hadn't become President, he'd be a great doctor and that he knew this was going to be a pandemic from the beginning.

His polls should be crashing 10 times more than Bush's after Katrina, but they're not, and my patience for anyone who can't see the basic reality of what he is is permanently beyond exhausted.

[Initech]

50. To me, one of the most bizarre things about this.

I was listening to, what used to be my favorite morning radio show - Kevin In The Morning on KROQ. And on February 27th (two weeks before they were canceled), they had Dr. Drew on as a guest. Two weeks before it was declared a pandemic, Dr. Drew was on the radio downplaying the severity of this situation, saying that the flu kills more people, and that the media was blowing this thing way out of proportion.

That was on February 27th. I was just completely dumbfounded, listening to that podcast. Just...

[OverBurn]

51. You just know as soon as the peak happens and it flattens out a bit.

Trump's going to open shit up to soon, that's almost a guarantee. Then morons will be out in droves and it's going to blow up again.

Maybe I've watched to many apocalyptic movies, but Trump may actually destroy the United States. The federal government is failing, hard, right before our eyes. I knew Trump was incompetent, but I never thought it would kill so many. Our day to day life may never be the same again in most of our live times.

Maybe I'm being overly dramatic, maybe not. I've took this very seriously since the day the NBA shut down, I was at a game the night before. I'm actually scared for the first time. Probably watching Contagion last night didn't help.

[Initech]

55. I was really hoping that cooler heads would prevail at the state level over this.

But then there's the superfecta of stupid - Brian Kemp, Kay Ivy, Tate Reeves, and Ron DeSantis. These morons are going to get a whole lot of people killed over their arrogance and drag this thing out months when it should be weeks.

[sandensea]

54. It's *almost* as if he's trying give himself a pretext for canceling the elections

It wouldn't surprise me if we later found out the Fat Bastard is, as we speak, hoping this gets to 50-100 million infected, with a 1 million+ dead, to then turn around and invoke Continuity of Government - or some similarly unconstitutional (but legal) Cold War-era backstop.

[tiptonic]

57. Putin

Look for Putin, to ride in on a 'white horse' and save us all

[Hotler]

58. LIHOP......... Been used before....... nt

[GoCubsGo]

59. Nope. He's just the world's biggest fuck-up.

We're talking about an asshole who has destroyed every business he ever touched. FFS, he even bankrupted a casino. How goddamn stupid does a person have to be to lose money when the House always wins??? Nothing but sheer incompetence by a moron who surrounds himself with other incompetents. Add to that the fact that he's also a sociopath, who only cares about himself, and this is what we get. Our situation is due to him not giving a shit about anything other than lining his own pockets and that of his cronies, and to him covering his own ass.

[rocktivity]

61. Another example of great minds thinking alike

Last edited Fri Apr 3, 2020, 03:45 PM - Edit history (1)

"...We are now trying to outrun an opponent who was six inches from the finish line when the starting gun went off...(W)ithout a vaccine, a cure, the ability to test everyone efficiently, or a healthy healthcare infrastructure, the virus is running the show."

And I can think of a "purpose" -- Trump being "forced" to "postpone" the next election.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=13220866


rocktivity

[Doreen]

63. I think trump is handling it the way he is

to show the world that he has the power to decide whether we live or die.

[greyl]

67. There's a New and Improved Triple-Blade Razor, now with added Greed! Byyy, Hanlon.

A Greed Blade® between stupid and evil splits the difference.

[Roland99]

69. Doesn't necessarily take intelligence when one controls the helm

[BComplex]

66. Trump has the whole United States and half of south america in cages.

He's got to be loving this. He thinks it's just the democrats he's f***ing with on this virus issue, but this evil reptilian president is going to pay his karmic debt to the universe one day. I would not want to be him, or his supporters.

[kskiska]

70. Speaking of cages...

What is the impact of the coronavirus of all those adults and separated children in the cages? No one has mentioned them.

[MagickMuffin]

73. Remember hearing of ALL those Death Panels

They are the Death Panels it turns out.

They want us to die, Especially the members of the Senate. The senate "leader" even loves the term Grim Reaper that has been given to him!

Now they are deciding American citizens fate. It's starting to look very grim.

[Newest Reality]

78. Well,

LIHOP has some ground to it. It all depends on the modus oporandi is and who is responsible. While our natural paranoia may come into play, it is not necessarily in the conspiracy theory zone since there are real conspiracies. The difference is that a REAL conspiracy does leave some evidence that can be substantiated.

This is from a recent interview with Noam Chomsky where he gives a rundown on the circumstances, (and sounds a bit familiar):

The current administration had ample warning about a likely pandemic. In fact, a high-level simulation was run as recently as last October. Trump has reacted during his years in office in the manner to which we have become accustomed: by defunding and dismantling every relevant part of government and assiduously implementing the instructions of his corporate masters to eliminate the regulations that impede profits while saving lives — and leading the race to the abyss of environmental catastrophe, by far his greatest crime — in fact, the greatest crime in history when we consider the consequences.

https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-ventilator-shortage-exposes-the-cruelty-of-neoliberal-capitalism/

There is some reason to be concerned here.