Well, Joe could certainly take non-extraordinary measures to make sure he doesn’t get COVID unnecessarily. If I was a super successful podcaster I might take similar precautions if a virus was going around.
Moreover, there’s no reason we can’t be both individually cautious AND avoid a shutdown that has far-reaching, long-lasting implications for the economy. That kind of granular policy making escapes the centralized, plodding ability of federal and state governments and cowardly, inept politicians.
Suffice to say I don’t wait for the government to fill me on on things. They’re almost always incorrect in some way that serves their interest at my expense.
Public policy almost ALWAYS lags public opinion. People were voluntarily distancing themselves socially weeks before the official shut down. I didn’t need a shelter in place order to avoid going to keggers and concerts. As I suggested, competent leadership would have an exit strategy. I doubt they have any idea of what they’ve done so far. They don’t have any idea what will come next. Least of all, they don’t have a coherent plan. These people are not competent stewards of anything but their own careers, and only barely then. I wouldn’t trust our governor to run my daughter’s daycare. These people are politicians and not rocket scientists, engineers, bricklayers or anything useful at all for a reason: they’re accomplished self aggrandizing liars.
I don’t know about China’s results. I think it would be very idealistic to assume we got correct information from them at any point. We already know they lied throughout the early stages of the outbreak. Why should we believe they were successful? Because they said so?
I don’t trust our own politicians, let alone Chinese authoritarians who are proudly so.
If anywhere flattened the curve, rural Vermont did. We also flattened our small business community. And it’s not like Vermont has a bunch of big corporations taking up residence. We don’t. Ben and Jerry’s, Green Mountain Coffee and Dealer.com are really it. The rest of our businesses are tiny and now shuttered. Cui bono?
If we continue to listen to our political class, we don’t deserve to prosper. All of these people should be worrying about a Ceausescu moment, instead they’re updating their resumes to say “saved the world.”
Probably just like Ceausescu right before he ended up on TV on Christmas day in front of a wall!
