[Farm93]

Goose,

I have full faith the USA will rebound.   No doubt in my mind.

However, the NCAA college football season looks lost while we wait for the rebound to start.   The 2020-2021 athletic year, and likely academic year, appear to be in the same category.

It is true Pearl Harbor, Sputnik and the financial market crash inspired the American exceptionalism examples I noted.   I would have though 120,000 deaths would be enough of a spark to get the USA to at least wear simple masks, but hopefully the mountain of daily events will shock the USA to action soon.

Waiting for the vaccine seems to be our path now, but that would mean that many things we covet will be cancelled or lost while we wait for that medical quick fix.

The problem is that a vaccine is not a certainty, and it's effectiveness also isn't a certainty. Even more importantly what happens the next time we are hit by a novel virus? What if it has a 10 day pre-symptomatic contagious period? We need to restore our ability to manage epidemics at the county, state and federal level. We used to have it. It fell into disuse because we didn't get hit by anything "really bad" in recent memory. It will happen again. In today's world, you don't have time to figure it out on the fly. Lots of people travel a lot, or at least pre-COVID they did. Yet not much, if anything is being done, or even discussed.

That complacency is likely linked to SARS, MERS and even Ebola.   Most in the USA just assumed the oceans would protect us.   Having excess hospital capacity and equipment for pandemics costs money.   And if something hasn't happened for 50+ years it begins to look like a decadent expense.

A politician at any level that said the citizens needed to spend money on those things instead of tax cuts, police on the streets or teachers would eventually get kicked out of office by someone that could fund more desirable things by trimming the fat.
 
A hospital operating with that level of underutilized capacity would be losing too much money each year as our procedure based reimbursement structure does not compensate for that type of inefficiency.

My guess is just like Korea and Japan the government and the citizens will be a bit better prepared for the NEXT pandemic, as long as it happens in the next 10-20 years.

The use of computers has really helped companies at all levels become very efficient with inventory, so my belief is the USA for the next pandemic will need a plan that assumes emergency-use only inventory and staff will not be available unless very clearly required by law.

For this pandemic POTUS45 is all-in on a vaccine.   A bit frustrating to me, but that seems to be our national plan.   Wearing masks seem like a cheap and fast mitigation step, but apparently that's now not a viable USA option because some believe those that wear masks are declaring they don't trust POTUS45 or whatever.

[Farm93]

Goose,

I have full faith the USA will rebound.   No doubt in my mind.

However, the NCAA college football season looks lost while we wait for the rebound to start.   The 2020-2021 athletic year, and likely academic year, appear to be in the same category.

It is true Pearl Harbor, Sputnik and the financial market crash inspired the American exceptionalism examples I noted.   I would have though 120,000 deaths would be enough of a spark to get the USA to at least wear simple masks, but hopefully the mountain of daily events will shock the USA to action soon.

Waiting for the vaccine seems to be our path now, but that would mean that many things we covet will be cancelled or lost while we wait for that medical quick fix.

The problem is that a vaccine is not a certainty, and it's effectiveness also isn't a certainty. Even more importantly what happens the next time we are hit by a novel virus? What if it has a 10 day pre-symptomatic contagious period? We need to restore our ability to manage epidemics at the county, state and federal level. We used to have it. It fell into disuse because we didn't get hit by anything "really bad" in recent memory. It will happen again. In today's world, you don't have time to figure it out on the fly. Lots of people travel a lot, or at least pre-COVID they did. Yet not much, if anything is being done, or even discussed.

That complacency is likely linked to SARS, MERS and even Ebola.   Most in the USA just assumed the oceans would protect us.   Having excess hospital capacity and equipment for pandemics costs money.   And if something hasn't happened for 50+ years it begins to look like a decadent expense.

A politician at any level that said the citizens needed to spend money on those things instead of tax cuts, police on the streets or teachers would eventually get kicked out of office by someone that could fund more desirable things by trimming the fat.
 
A hospital operating with that level of underutilized capacity would be losing too much money each year as our procedure based reimbursement structure does not compensate for that type of inefficiency.

My guess is just like Korea and Japan the government and the citizens will be a bit better prepared for the NEXT pandemic, as long as it happens in the next 10-20 years.

The use of computers has really helped companies at all levels become very efficient with inventory, so my belief is the USA for the next pandemic will need a plan that assumes emergency-use only inventory and staff will not be available unless very clearly required by law.

For this pandemic POTUS45 is all-in on a vaccine.   A bit frustrating to me, but that seems to be our national plan.   Wearing masks seem like a cheap and fast mitigation step, but apparently that's now not a viable USA option because some believe those that wear masks are declaring they don't trust POTUS45 or whatever.