I'm really disappointed in those of my fellow Americans who have not responded well to this crisis, who offer petty meaningless throw-away thoughtless or just plain wrong comments on this board and elsewhere, and who continue to support the horrifying incompetence at the top of our system.

We have had to live with the ignominy, fear and destruction-of-our-system that comes with having a murderously incompetent person at the helm for the last three years, but now we are facing an existential threat more powerful in its way than anything seen in decades, we are conspicuously getting it very wrong in some key ways, and it is going to cost the US many extra lives and dollars on top of what it would have cost if it had been handled with anything resembling competence. We do see heroic efforts amongst thousands and millions of people, but the least we can do to honor those efforts is to have the decency to offer the reality-oriented recognition that those efforts cannot fix what is broken and restore the extra lives that will be lost, and the extra harm to the economy, and all of the other things. The least we can do is to engage in the reality-oriented recognition that our incompetent leader, and his millions of supporters, has caused enormous damage well beyond the less-horrible outcomes that likely would have happened under a half-competent US Administration.

Meanwhile, there are still millions of Americans who think that the administration is doing well. Meanwhile, on this board, instead of rising to the occasion and focusing on what will help, (and instead of maybe representing a bit on behalf of non-theists) the best I can get from some of the board participants seems to be petty, meaningless or thoughtless comments.

Oh well.

As to this thread, it was meant to zoom in a bit on the principle that no matter what one thinks of other people or countries, in the face of a crisis it is rational to be open to taking good ideas wherever you can get them. I had forgotten how poisoned some of my fellow Americans are to other countries, but I suggest focusing on how many lives we could still save if we study and copy (however belatedly) the more effective reactions of other countries to this crisis. One prominent lesson we belatedly need to take from other countries is that they have not struggled as much to understand the importance of testing and isolation as a means by which the transmission pathways of the virus can be cut off.

No one should believe anything the chinese fascists claim.

I’ve been hearing the same.. Here in the US (of A), our lack of an authoritarian crackdown may be our demise..? Instead of everyone on the same page (whether they like it or not), we’ve factions.. Some continue to pretend it’s ‘a hoax,’ others are following best practice recommendations. As the latter ‘come clean,’ the former re-infect..

We’ve reached ‘whatever works’ time, no more politics ~

Theres enough Info coming from several sources that we gave a good idea how China went. And I don't ever expect it to go that way in the US.