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<blockquote data-quote="zubenelgenubi" data-source="post: 4659666" data-attributes="member: 63706">I guess what I should spend a little more effort pointing out is that you can&#039;t compare different countries with widely different circumstances and say that government response is the only thing that is different. I don&#039;t know that government response was all that different anyway. What will work for one country may not work for others. We have states that are more sparsely populated who were doing just fine with very little&nbsp; government response, until the weather got colder/drier, and cases increased. But their hospitals still aren&#039;t overrun, and their death counts aren&#039;t out of proportion to other states and countries with more government intervention. Why so many states went off the deep end with their response? I have my thoughts and opinions on that. But it is probably a combination of several factors. I&#039;m sure many governors thought they were doing the right thing, and wanted to be heroes. Some may have believed the public expected a certain response and felt pressured to act accordingly. You said you don&#039;t think contract tracing and testing is totalitarian. Is that what you believe was all that would have been necessary to &quot;contain&quot; the virus? If so, I know there was criticism that we weren&#039;t doing enough testing or tracing early enough, but the speed with which tests were put on the market, it&#039;s not unreasonable to assume that many of the early tests weren&#039;t reliable, especially since we know that the tests we were using were being conducted at too high a sensitivity, and that most of the positive results should have been negative. I don&#039;t know that tracing wasn&#039;t being done asequately, but it is certainly something that should have been done at the state level. A centralized tracing bureaucracy in a country as big and populous as ourswould be inefficient at best. Without incentives for declaring emergencies, and deaths as covid related, I&#039;d bet that our numbers wouldn&#039;t have been reported at as high levels as they have been. And I&#039;m sure the media hype wouldn&#039;t be as intense if Trump weren&#039;t in office.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="zubenelgenubi, post: 4659666, member: 63706"] I guess what I should spend a little more effort pointing out is that you can't compare different countries with widely different circumstances and say that government response is the only thing that is different. I don't know that government response was all that different anyway. What will work for one country may not work for others. We have states that are more sparsely populated who were doing just fine with very little government response, until the weather got colder/drier, and cases increased. But their hospitals still aren't overrun, and their death counts aren't out of proportion to other states and countries with more government intervention. Why so many states went off the deep end with their response? I have my thoughts and opinions on that. But it is probably a combination of several factors. I'm sure many governors thought they were doing the right thing, and wanted to be heroes. Some may have believed the public expected a certain response and felt pressured to act accordingly. You said you don't think contract tracing and testing is totalitarian. Is that what you believe was all that would have been necessary to "contain" the virus? If so, I know there was criticism that we weren't doing enough testing or tracing early enough, but the speed with which tests were put on the market, it's not unreasonable to assume that many of the early tests weren't reliable, especially since we know that the tests we were using were being conducted at too high a sensitivity, and that most of the positive results should have been negative. I don't know that tracing wasn't being done asequately, but it is certainly something that should have been done at the state level. A centralized tracing bureaucracy in a country as big and populous as ours would be inefficient at best. Without incentives for declaring emergencies, and deaths as covid related, I'd bet that our numbers wouldn't have been reported at as high levels as they have been. And I'm sure the media hype wouldn't be as intense if Trump weren't in office. [/QUOTE]

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