[2006alum]

Pretty jejune. I mean as you walked around the City, there was no reaction, no alteration in lifestyle, no discussion . . .  nothing. You get the feel for a public ambiance. This was a public that was less troubled 

Walgreen's sold out of surgical masks? Yawn. All you need is a few dozen survivalists - people who react to anything - to accomplish that?

The declaration of emergency? Another yawn. It's a predicate for action, not action itself - and there wasn't any, not for a couple of weeks, when everyone else acted.. On February 24th, Nancy Pelosi famously urged everyone to go out and celebrate Chinese New Year, 'because 'it is perfectly safe' to be here. Here's one link - https://yournews.com/2020/03/30/1536317/in-late-february-nancy-pelosi-encouraged-large-groups-to-congregate/. There are others.

I'm getting the same reaction I got when I posted 'Timelines'. Some of you are so wed to the idea that the US was delinquent that the notion that its reactions were roughly identical to the rest of the West are infuriating. Why that should be, I don't know.

Honestly, GR, I just don't think you know what you're talking about - you truly can't speak for everyone's experience. I went to a birthday brunch the last weekend in February in SF and COVID-19 was all anyone was talking about - no one hugged or touched and we all sat a few feet apart at an outdoor restaurant. That was my last social outing to date. 

Early the next week, around March 3, SF was blanketed with door hangers that had information about COVID-19 in about six languages. Symptoms, what to do, how to avoid it, etc. I assume printing and distributing hundreds of thousands of door hangers in a week's time was only possible due to the emergency declaration. Once those went up, everyone started paying much more attention.

I don't know if you realize this, but Nancy Pelosi doesn't set policy in SF, and she is much more closely followed in DC than in SF. I greeted her Chinatown performative for what it was - a political response to a political response. I did not perceive it to be at all representative to how most people I knew in SF were thinking about COVID-19.

And when you look at countries in "the West" like Germany, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, and Australia, you realize that leadership makes a brobdingnagian difference. It is not a coincidence that the US and UK had leadership that resisted taking the virus seriously at all costs and are now numbers 1 and 2 for most deaths. Despite very different national infrastructures and healthcare systems, both bungled their responses in epic fashion and have tens of thousands of deaths to show for it.

[2006alum]

Pretty jejune. I mean as you walked around the City, there was no reaction, no alteration in lifestyle, no discussion . . .  nothing. You get the feel for a public ambiance. This was a public that was less troubled 

Walgreen's sold out of surgical masks? Yawn. All you need is a few dozen survivalists - people who react to anything - to accomplish that?

The declaration of emergency? Another yawn. It's a predicate for action, not action itself - and there wasn't any, not for a couple of weeks, when everyone else acted.. On February 24th, Nancy Pelosi famously urged everyone to go out and celebrate Chinese New Year, 'because 'it is perfectly safe' to be here. Here's one link - https://yournews.com/2020/03/30/1536317/in-late-february-nancy-pelosi-encouraged-large-groups-to-congregate/. There are others.

I'm getting the same reaction I got when I posted 'Timelines'. Some of you are so wed to the idea that the US was delinquent that the notion that its reactions were roughly identical to the rest of the West are infuriating. Why that should be, I don't know.

Honestly, GR, I just don't think you know what you're talking about - you truly can't speak for everyone's experience. I went to a birthday brunch the last weekend in February in SF and COVID-19 was all anyone was talking about - no one hugged or touched and we all sat a few feet apart at an outdoor restaurant. That was my last social outing to date. 

Early the next week, around March 3, SF was blanketed with door hangers that had information about COVID-19 in about six languages. Symptoms, what to do, how to avoid it, etc. I assume printing and distributing hundreds of thousands of door hangers in a week's time was only possible due to the emergency declaration. Once those went up, everyone started paying much more attention.

I don't know if you realize this, but Nancy Pelosi doesn't set policy in SF, and she is much more closely followed in DC than in SF. I greeted her Chinatown performative for what it was - a political response to a political response. I did not perceive it to be at all representative to how most people I knew in SF were thinking about COVID-19.

And when you look at countries in "the West" like Germany, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, and Australia, you realize that leadership makes a brobdingnagian difference. It is not a coincidence that the US and UK had leadership that resisted taking the virus seriously at all costs and are now numbers 1 and 2 for most deaths. Despite very different national infrastructures and healthcare systems, both bungled their responses in epic fashion and have tens of thousands of deaths to show for it.