[Genuine Realist]

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 of immense proportions 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.

BC, I know exactly what I'm talking about. You persist in discussing preventive measures that might have helped  . . . in January. Check the time lines on any country you mention. You're going to see concern, but only moderate during January, rising awareness in February, on occasion some ad hoc cancellations, then a wholesale, society wide reaction in early March, culminating in the lockdown. Nancy Pelosi indeed does not make policy, but her insouciance as late as February 24th is typical. 

Germany? Germany started taking the virus seriously at almost EXACTLY the same time as the US, and it had its own equipment shortages and problems with preparedness.  As I mentioned, its health minister was making public statements debunking the danger of the virus well into mid-February. I"m not going to check the others - I've done enough.  But New Zealand as an example is particularly irksome.

New Zealand is an island nation of 4.3 million. (Santa Clara County alone has 1.9 million). It did not have its first reported case until February 28th, long after the Italian catastrophe had alerted the whole world how dangerous the virus actually was. Testing and tracking was simple. Its practices have next to no relevance to a pluralistic nation of 330 million, with extensive domestic and international travelers, and a viral invasion that probably began in mid-January. There is nothing to be learned there.

You are going to strain to find any Western nation that deviated from the pattern I have described. You're not going to see serious steps at intervention anywhere in the West before the second week in March. (The effectiveness of policy since then varies quite a bit, depending on culture and politics. It is interesting that continental Europe apparently has done quite well, while the UK, USA, and Canada (!) have not fared well.)

The thought that the response was 'botched' because it did not occur earlier fails in my opinion to the observed universal experience. Because this mythical nation that jumped on the virus early on and got a head of the curve does not appear to exist.

[Genuine Realist]

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 of immense proportions 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.

BC, I know exactly what I'm talking about. You persist in discussing preventive measures that might have helped  . . . in January. Check the time lines on any country you mention. You're going to see concern, but only moderate during January, rising awareness in February, on occasion some ad hoc cancellations, then a wholesale, society wide reaction in early March, culminating in the lockdown. Nancy Pelosi indeed does not make policy, but her insouciance as late as February 24th is typical. 

Germany? Germany started taking the virus seriously at almost EXACTLY the same time as the US, and it had its own equipment shortages and problems with preparedness.  As I mentioned, its health minister was making public statements debunking the danger of the virus well into mid-February. I"m not going to check the others - I've done enough.  But New Zealand as an example is particularly irksome.

New Zealand is an island nation of 4.3 million. (Santa Clara County alone has 1.9 million). It did not have its first reported case until February 28th, long after the Italian catastrophe had alerted the whole world how dangerous the virus actually was. Testing and tracking was simple. Its practices have next to no relevance to a pluralistic nation of 330 million, with extensive domestic and international travelers, and a viral invasion that probably began in mid-January. There is nothing to be learned there.

You are going to strain to find any Western nation that deviated from the pattern I have described. You're not going to see serious steps at intervention anywhere in the West before the second week in March. (The effectiveness of policy since then varies quite a bit, depending on culture and politics. It is interesting that continental Europe apparently has done quite well, while the UK, USA, and Canada (!) have not fared well.)

The thought that the response was 'botched' because it did not occur earlier fails in my opinion to the observed universal experience. Because this mythical nation that jumped on the virus early on and got a head of the curve does not appear to exist.