Over 750 people per day are dying of COVID (Pence considers this a victory, but others may disagree) despite the nationwide lock down that by any rational assessment is being lifted too soon in most places.
Of course there never was a nationwide lockdown.
Many states took half measures.
The country was lied into believing face masks were useless for almost 2 months.
And then after these halfway lockdowns, many states started reopening too soon.
Not surprising it isn't going too well.
If you do a serious lockdown and have good compliance with precautions in public for 8+ weeks (preferably 10-12), viral transmission can be limited and greatly reduced.
Then for reopening you need a lot of testing, contact tracers in place (lots of unemployed folks would like jobs), and good precautions being followed in public (masks, distancing, disinfecting, etc).
How much of that has occurred?
A total embarrassing lack of national leadership.
A very simple potentially life-saving precaution (face masks) politicized.
If your lockdowns and precautions aren't thorough and complied with, and then you reopen too soon, without adequate preparations, you get an increase in infections. It's not even a 2nd wave, as its a continuation of and failure to deal with the 1st wave properly.
Maybe not nationwide, but there was a period when some 95% of the country was under lock down.
But I agree that a) that lock down got called off too soon in most places (even according to the guidelines put out by the Trump administration, which called for a two week decrease in caseloads. Some of those states weren't seeing a decrease at all) and b)
Nothing was done (at a federal level) during that lock down to ensure a safe reopening.
We have a "president" who got impatient with the economic and therefore political effects of the lock downs and so decided it was time to lift them, completely divorced from any reality on the ground. As a result, we have ended up with half-assed measures that will get people killed.
--
Generally, I'm struck with the base level misunderstanding of how a virus works by the people in charge. Note in that PBS segment I posted, Redfield is asked about his statements at the end of February that there was no danger to Americans, and he said "well, that was true at the time." Reminds of the joke about the guy who falls off the top of a skyscraper and half way down says to himself "so far so good." It should seem obvious, but a virus takes time to spread. Just because you haven't been hit yet, doesn't mean it isn't coming.
And we now know that in fact we were hit, just a total lack of testing prevented us from knowing.
It should have been clear that as big as the US is, that just because it was mostly in New York City at some point and places like, say, Arizona, weren't getting cases, it was only a matter of time. Instead they didn't have a big case load, so figured all clear to reopen.
Which, as I said, if it is Redfield's sort of thinking that is leading to that, is really fucking stupid.
Poll
5 (45.5%)