Politics Trump Owns Stock in Company that produces Hydroxycloroquine

No, but we know that suicides/calls have spiked, and we also know that the conditions many are living in with stay in place system give rise to suicide rates. Such as being isolated, unemployed, loneliness. Seems like it would be an odd effect of, I'm scared I might get corona and die so I'll just do it myself.
But then you have medicine that people are behind on, you have people who can't afford meals for their families, you have supply lines buckling, you have food shortages coming in the fall. All of those things can attribute to deaths that didn't need to happen. Gun sales have shot through the roof too, that seems like it might not go so well. My point is just that all of these decisions have consequences, and a response, lack of response, over response, they all could and probably will cost lives.

 

I think you are looking at it way to simplistic and it almost sounds like you think less should have been done to prevent possible alternative issues. I'm sure you don't mean that, but it's how some of your posts come across.

 

Suicide is the 10th largest cause of death actually.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm

Suicide is a very large immediate problem too, but let's talk about some of these other ones. Heart-related issues, 35% of mortality from heart issues is due to lack of exercise. It is a minority that have room in their apartments to exercise effectively, certainly shutting down gyms needs to happen, but staying in place isn't going to make heart issues better. Diabetes is like 8th or something on the list, Diet and Exercise are leading factors in that as well. Which is entirely my point. There are effects to all of these things. I am not saying getting out in front of it and taking these measures are bad, and I think if a plan was spelled out and put in place and it was followed that would have been great. The fact is though those plans could and would have killed people as well.

 

I am saying that all of these decisions have impacts that can cause a lot of death and the people saying, "shut it all down". You can be upset that more wasn't done for stockpiles of PPE or the bluster and lack of planning involved by all levels of government and I get that. I am just also of the opinion that it's not nearly as "easy" of a call as people are making it out to be and that risk in all directions was human lives.
I never once said don't take preventative measures, or getting out in front of things is bad, just that, that has risks too.
Trumps trying to make himself into a war-time president (he's not), but let's use an analogy. People were scared Trump would start WW3 that was brought up numerous times in 2016.
What if these same advisors and intel told him hey X country is going to attack us we need to attack them and make sure if a war is fought, it's on someone else's soil. If he, "got out in front" of that people would lose their minds that he was trying to start a war, they'd be trying to take away the credibility of that intelligence, and the advisors who gave it to him. If he does nothing and that country does attack and it costs a lot of American lives he's also got people upset at him.

All of these decisions at a time like this cost people their lives and certainly Trump and all of them have handled it poorly, or differently then I would have, I just don't get why people have such a hard time acknowledging that people can and will die prematurely from just about any action. It's brutal and I hate it but it's almost like running a cost-benefit analysis with human lives. With China's numbers being something they probably couldn't trust, and modeling being all over the place there are just a lot of hard decisions that need to be made. Did he perform poorly IMO yes. I just find this to be a much more complex situation than in February or early March, saying you're under martial law till June guys deal with it, which I have read people saying that should have been his plan...

 

I linked the video of Fauci telling Americans they didn't need to worry about this on Jan 21.

Now there is this.....https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/politics/intel-agencies-covid-november/index.html

Trump saying that he only learned the seriousness just prior to February 2nd is completely plausible if he was listening to Fauci.

 

That's reality. Pretty much any decision always has some consequences that may not be optimum as decisions should be made that make the most sense and the least amount of consequences. We can play the what if game but that isn't reality. Are they hard decisions? sure, but that's the governments job to make the best decisions and to have a leader that actually listens to the experts. Fact is, trump did not jump on this as soon as he could and instead tried to downplay it and it actually took individual states to make decisions rather than have leadership from the top making the proper decisions. All trump wants to do is blame China, blame Obama, blame anyone else but himself. He rated himself a 10 for his reposnse and decision. That's why people are upset with him and it's just a continuation of his 3.5 years in office. He made serious mistakes that has cost more lives.

 

Agreed they should been way more prepared and had plans in place to get equipment manufactured and out to those who need it in a more timely manner.

I have nothing but word of mouth I havent been able to substantiate this, but I was told Obama used up a lot of the nations supply, and didnt restock it, and then Trump continued to not get backup supply during his tenure. Its clear that whatever Obama did or didnt do, Trump and his administration should have had PPE surplus in case something like this happened.

 

as andalusian pointed out, we actually have real examples of leadership reactions to compare to what trump did. We don't need to rely on the 'who-knows-who-would-have-done-better' myths basically designed to mitigate blame for trump

just look at the 'left' coast and compare their curves to the US

United States:



https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

*************************************

California:



https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/california
***************************************************************************
Oregon:




https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/oregon
**********************

Washington:



https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/washington
*************************************

none of it is good news, obviously. But just as obvious is that quick reactions by leadership to the advice of epidemiologists and doctors and modeling based upon past pandemics can mitigate impacts to the spread of the virus

Washington and California were in the shit early, but their governors were also the first to implement statewide action designed to slow the spread. Kate Brown gets a lot of ridicule, much of it deserved, but Oregon wasn't really into the shit nearly as much as the other two states when she took action, and look at Oregon's projections

IMO, it isn't just about leadership either. The majority of people on the left coast don't hate government and don't believe government is always wrong about things. We tend to believe in functioning government and that it has the welfare of everybody in mind. So when a governor declares and emergency and sets guidelines for behavior, we'll tend to follow those guidelines. There is strength in being informed and feeling invested in government. That is the polar opposite of the ignorant hateful fox news universe.

in other words, we deserve some of the credit here, not just the governors

I'll make a prediction, but it really doesn't take much smarts to make it. In fact, I knew exactly what trump was angling for a couple of weeks ago when he started throwing around the 100.000-240,000 deaths numbers, with an occasional mention of 2.2 million deaths. He was laying the groundwork to claim credit when the deaths fall below those numbers, and of course, he's already doing it.

but go back to California for instance: if the US has 200,000 deaths, then California's share of those deaths would be 24,000-25,000. But that model projects California to have 1,600 deaths by August 4. And trump did nothing to drop that number from 25,000 to 1,600. But of course he'll try and take credit for it, and some people will be dumb enough to believe him

meanwhile, California and Oregon are shipping ventilators to the east coast because of their mitigation efforts. That's despite trump, not because of him

 

I don't know. I've been involved with Manufacturing for years and helping to automate processes and all that. It is a lot of work to do change over of assembly lines get supply lines in place and all that. They definitely could have done better there, but it's not as if someone makes a phone call and a day later you have PPE everywhere. In say a month or two in January could they have gotten stuff done, no doubt about that.

 

You're leaving out some variables here though. California has a massive population but it's way more spread out then say NYC. New York City btw is very "blue" in their voting so I don't think we can say they "hate their government". Geography as well since California is a warm climate compared to the Northeast. I didn't claim that they couldn't have done better but you failed to actually address my point, that we don't know if the measures taken on the west coast will have devastating effects to human life or not. I pointed out that Heart-disease, Diabetes, suicide, etc are all dangers of this stay-at-home type orders and that those factors should at least be considered when making those decisions. It may and probably has slowed the spread of COVID19, but will the measures cause other deaths? I think the answer is yes, now which one will cause more deaths is the question IMO.

I think the best answer to this would have been in late February / Early March for a stay at home nationwide order except (essential personnel) - also they need to do a better job of determining what jobs are essential. Spell out here are the milestones we're looking at to get back going, this is the type of things we want to see before we determine how to rolls back the restrictions on travel, movement, commerce, etc. Also using whatever resources they have to get PPE to hotspots, and get tests out.

 

That's trump spin as he also claimed that the military had NO ammunition as well and I don't believe it was "bare" like he claimed. Same with the coronavirus equilment needed. He has lied so much that it's hard to take anything he says (especially when he passes blame to previous administrations) as he's better at pointing the finger and blame than actually making decisions to alleviate the issue. If it was depleted he had over 3 years to replenish it but didn't.

 

I basically agreed. Wanna fight about it?

 

As I said, I haven't substantiated it. I don't know. I don't really watch network TV, and haven't watched a single one of his press-conferences in a few weeks. I just read the cliff notes version. I don't really care what he has to say about it, as I wouldn't put any stock into it anyways.

 

As long as you keep your social distance.

 

of course there are variables. California and Florida are very similar in climate and urban density so those two big variables cancel leaving the biggest variables being government mandates. They are on much different curves right now and we know Florida's governor is a trump sock puppet. Louisiana has a warm climate too. Also, it's not like people are crowding the beaches of Oregon and Washington for swimming and working on tans right now. There has been no "hot month" mitigation" in the Pacific Northwest yet

mainly, I was going after the implication that "we just don't know" if somebody other than trump would have done better. That's easily refuted by looking at states, governors, the actions they've taken, and the results to this point

you're right, I didn't address it. But that's because I think it's a poor theory. And I think not taking actions we know can mitigate COVID because other things might get a little worse would be really bad policy...sorry.

To start with, where is your evidence that heart disease and diabetes will get worse? And that they would get worse because of stay-at-home orders or because bars are closed? I can certainly see more people dying from other things because the health care system is so overloaded, but that's a reason for more restrictions, not less.

as for suicide, maybe, but again, there's little evidence. The stock market would have collapsed if we were heading for 2 million deaths, so the people that would be rocketing out windows because of losing their IRA's would do it either way. With 2 million deaths there would definitely be more suicides as spouses and family members pulled the plugs on themselves in their grief.

in fact, it's those very measures you're criticizing that are starting to inject a little hopeful news into the situation. As curves flatten and cities drop onto the downhill slope off the crests of those curves, light begins to glimmer at the end of the tunnel. Heading toward 2 million deaths right now with the total collapse of the health care system would generate massive hopelessness...and that would increase suicide. This what-if future you want to argue can head a different direction with a more realistic set of what-if's, or at least with more complete context

you're making a trump/fox-news argument when you try and criticize current mitigation measures with the suicide card. It's a really bad argument IMO

 

Are you not using the same what / if card when you shut down things down, by saying what if we don't. It is literally all guesswork, that's why the models are off every day. You have no way of gauging if they will get a little worse or a lot worse, you're saying they might get a little worse is your own theory and "what if" scenario. The point is there are a lot of factors to making these decisions.

I am not criticizing those measures though and this is why it's so hard to actually have conversations, I am questioning them, and saying yes I do in fact have questions that I don't believe you or anyone else are really answering. Somehow questioning things and saying well let's look at this from other angles, Is Fox News / Trump arguments (which I don't watch either so whatever). Of course, there are multiple factors and what-if's we do this or that, and they all need to be weighed IMO.

How is it unrealistic to say stay-at-home orders can contribute to deaths from Heart Disease, suicide, Diabetes, etc. When literally sedimentary lifestyles are KNOWN contributors to all of those things.

I could just excuse your post and thoughts away by just saying you're just making a CNN argument or some crap too, but I'm not.