COVID-19: Chapter 5 - BACK TO SCHOOL

I don’t think we should personally “expect” it as if our shit doesn’t stink. I think from a policy perspective it’s reasonable to expect that a number of western democracies would be happy to have this subset of Americans, in no small part because we’re the ones most likely to be polite guests who are appreciative.

I don’t expect them to help us with underground railroads. I just think when we show up at their border as huddled masses yearning to breathe free, they’re going to have compassion and point us toward the quarantine spot. I also don’t think we’d double their population. I think the percentage of American liberals who will run in time is going to be very low. Most won’t be under as much threat because they aren’t outspoken. They are unlikely to flee. Many of the rest will think, “They’ll never come for me,” until it’s too late.

They wouldn’t, except that we’d be showing up at their border because we’re their neighbors. They wouldn’t be fighting for us, they’d be opening the door.

I think you guys are giving too much credit to how much we could’ve contained this virus around the world with the pandemic response team that was only a couple years old.

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Well you guys literally held a feast to say goodbye to Corona. So you had to know it would be coming back after that.

As far as the US invasion of Canada goes though, invalidating the election is a pretty important prerequisite, just like The Enabling Act came before the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

And it’s not that easy to find people to help. You’ll do your part if you get the chance Johnny. Don’t expect one person (you) to help thousands or hundreds or even dozens.

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What? Pretty sure the cuts at the CDC were at the office in Beijing. There were about 30 staff members cut from the roughly 50 staff person in their offices including the guy who is the lead in pandemic response. But there are many epidemiologists and CDC officials that said even with those positions they probably wouldn’t have a big effect, if any, on stopping the virus from spreading out of China

Edit: here’s an article regarding that. Most believe the main issue with it spreading from China wasn’t that we didn’t have great Americans working there to help, it was that China concealing information lead to the spread. Like I don’t see how 30 Americans in China would have much effect

We would have had a much better chance of getting that information, as our team would have been working with the Chinese team.

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There’s no way any nation could have contained a virus like this.

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So the Chinese would’ve shared more information when there were 47 Americans there but since there were 14 they didn’t? Or do you think these extra Americans were master spies or something? Like I’m pretty sure the Chinese government was withholding the information from their own experts up to a certain point, I don’t see how the extra 30 or so Americans would’ve done too much in the grand scheme of things

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I’ve also stood outside protesting this, called politicians about it, donated money, etc. I also voted for politicians that would not do it (or as much of it), they lost. The difference is that in Canada, people can sit at home and let a functional government let us in. Like essentially if public opinion is, “Yeah, we should let them in,” then it can happen. Here we’re split on it and our side lost, so it doesn’t happen.

I guess what I’m saying is if these people from the south showed up to the border of the Republic of California or the country of New York, they’d be let in. Canada is more like that than it is like the United States.

Or at least I’m hoping, because if I get thrown in a camp at this point, I don’t expect anybody other than my parents to cry for me, nor do I expect a single living soul to do a damn thing about it.

I guess the other big difference is that a lot of us showing up would have significant bank account balances, and as such be treated differently than the people showing up at our Southern border. It’s not right, obviously, but that’s how it is.

Any flattening in Feb or early a March would have had a 10 fold difference.

I’m not particularly optimistic in this regard, but I hope the same obviously.

This might be how you see the subset you’re in but it’s not how Americans are seen from abroad.

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And yet some are doing 100 fold better than here.

Are you saying my international friends only pretend to like me?

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Yeah they are but many of the countries doing a lot better also have a better healthcare infrastructure and better leaders even compared to our democrat leaders. I mean if we had German leaders in NY even with trump in charge the state would’ve done a lot better

Belgium, the UK, Spain, Italy, Sweden and France all have higher deaths per capita than the US. Canada has 57% as many deaths per capita.

Biden/Clinton/Obama, fighting against some of the governors, with very limited federal power to enforce any of this, were going to do how much better than Canada?

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They won’t for long…

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It’s an extreme form of American Exceptionalism that thinks any US government could have restricted covid deaths to double digits.

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I don’t dispute that, but not a single one of these countries were able to keep the 'rona from making its way in. There’s just no chance China could have kept this thing bottled up in Wuhan even if they hadn’t bobbled the initial response.

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Agree.

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