Articles that discuss the USA as a monolith are immediately problematic. There are 50 states, and 50 different philosophies on fighting the virus.
Also, this:
"Mission accomplished only works when there is a vaccine, which is at least a year away."
No, we didn't sign up for a lockdown until a vaccine exists.
Has anyone wondered why we don't hear about Wisconsin in the news? The Wisconsin lockdown was ended a month ago by the courts, against the state government's will.
There isn't a spike in cases a month later. Why is that? Why isn't that being reported? In the US, I no longer hear about Sweden on the news either.
What I do know is that the US media was vehemently against people congregating outdoors a few weeks ago, and then decided that the risk was worth it when people began to protest for a righteous cause they happened to agree with. They were acting like the world was going to end a week before when a bunch of rednecks were swimming together at the Lake of the Ozarks. Specifically, they talked about covid spreading like wild-fire at choir practices due to the nature of people yelling and projecting moisture droplets. They were totally cool with the yelling protesters though. (I support the protests and think they were right to ignore the virus while exercising their rights.)
It's summer time, and my friends and neighbors just don't think it's worth it to not live their lives. It might be a dumb decision in the long run. We shall see. But the media is invested in an apocalyptic narrative. They report bad news, ignore good news. Their reporters, like the vast majority of journalists, are essentially mathematically illiterate, Nate Silver and his like aside. Twitter is filled with opinionated morons who I wouldn't trust to walk my dog, and these journalists are part of that club. Not listening to them anymore. From now on, I just look at the data.
Edit:
Ah yes, commence the down-voting by the fearful for not endorsing their strategy of pretending to be agoraphobic for 2 months. I might be wrong, and I admit it. But are any of you who are wiping down every package that comes into your house willing to admit you MIGHT be overreacting?
If your look for news articles about Sweden, recent ones are about how the government is admitting it made a mistake.
This is evident if you compare Sweden's mortality rate to it's neighbors (10x higher).
> What I do know is that the US media was vehemently against people congregating outdoors a few weeks ago, and then decided that the risk was worth it when people began to protest for a righteous cause they happened to agree with.
There's differences between going out in crowds without masks and with masks. There's also differences between just causes and mediocre causes.
And as to your last point about Wisconsin: most places aren't Wisconsin. Socal, Florida, Texas and other major population centers are back over their early peaks. And these increases predated the protesting this past week. Things were on the upswing already.
Also, this: "Mission accomplished only works when there is a vaccine, which is at least a year away."
No, we didn't sign up for a lockdown until a vaccine exists.
Has anyone wondered why we don't hear about Wisconsin in the news? The Wisconsin lockdown was ended a month ago by the courts, against the state government's will. There isn't a spike in cases a month later. Why is that? Why isn't that being reported? In the US, I no longer hear about Sweden on the news either.
What I do know is that the US media was vehemently against people congregating outdoors a few weeks ago, and then decided that the risk was worth it when people began to protest for a righteous cause they happened to agree with. They were acting like the world was going to end a week before when a bunch of rednecks were swimming together at the Lake of the Ozarks. Specifically, they talked about covid spreading like wild-fire at choir practices due to the nature of people yelling and projecting moisture droplets. They were totally cool with the yelling protesters though. (I support the protests and think they were right to ignore the virus while exercising their rights.)
It's summer time, and my friends and neighbors just don't think it's worth it to not live their lives. It might be a dumb decision in the long run. We shall see. But the media is invested in an apocalyptic narrative. They report bad news, ignore good news. Their reporters, like the vast majority of journalists, are essentially mathematically illiterate, Nate Silver and his like aside. Twitter is filled with opinionated morons who I wouldn't trust to walk my dog, and these journalists are part of that club. Not listening to them anymore. From now on, I just look at the data.
Edit: Ah yes, commence the down-voting by the fearful for not endorsing their strategy of pretending to be agoraphobic for 2 months. I might be wrong, and I admit it. But are any of you who are wiping down every package that comes into your house willing to admit you MIGHT be overreacting?