Uh, yes?

If they’re in such a precarious medical situation that they can’t wear a mask, I don’t see how they could also be healthy enough to fly for several hours in a high cabin altitude.

Fortunately most of the airlines agree. However, if they are in the extremely rare position of being healthy enough to fly, but can’t wear a mask for a valid medical reason, they can obtain a physicians note for a mask exemption.

Oh for sure. US residents are going to one of the absolute last people allowed to travel internationally. It amazes me that US based airline pilots are defending the absurd way all of this has been handled in the US.

Odd that Americans are being singled out as somehow more likely to be COVID-19 carriers.
If you compare our numbers to that of Sweden, for example, the US is actually doing better than they are (per 100k individuals).
The trend is the same for total deaths, daily deaths, infection rate.
Maybe we're too hard on ourselves?

There have been a lot of people in these forums and around the U.S. in the past few weeks pointing to Sweden's response saying that's how we should've responded.

South Korea is a better comparison. Their first case was the same day as ours. But instead of practicing denial for the first 2 months of the pandemic, they ramped up testing and contact tracing. Their economy is doing much better than ours, and they've had a fraction of the fatalities. Amazing what good leadership can do

So you’re saying they weren’t stupid enough to send Covid patients into nursing homes?

Our response has really been "middle of the road" and the numbers reflect that. Unsurprisingly, it seems the more seriously a country takes the virus, the less painful it is for them. It's not a black or white binary choice between complete over-reaction and complete head-in-sand denial, but it seems a lot of people take it that way. I think the GOP and Dems have polarized, per usual, their chosen news networks have followed suit, and their viewers have followed them down the rabbit hole to two outcomes that burn it all down in different ways. If everyone follows the CDC guidelines to the best of their ability the virus won't disappear overnight, every small business won't be saved, the stock market won't continue rocketing to all time highs (although it kind of is for some weird reason), but we'll all get through this with a lot less drama and damage.

South Korea has a young and thin population. I believe they are the 2nd or 3rd least obese country in the world (after Japan and Vietnam) and their average age is 41. In South Korea do the politicians march in anti-police rallies while they keep schools, restaurants and parks closed? Probably not.

Using fatality rates from the US based on age and obesity, it's certainly possible South Koreans could be massively exposed to COVID and the outcome wouldn't be too different. In addition, there has been no massive outbreak in any Asian country, past exposure to other coronaviruses may play a roll in immunity.

Good leadership is something lacking in the United States, without a doubt. The political response to COVID-19 has been an economic and social disaster, however without taking into account overall health, demographics, and an entire list of other metrics I'm not sure how useful comparing one nation to another is regarding COVID-19 outcomes. Even the way countries count a positive viral diagnosis or COVID death varies significantly.

In the US the probability of death goes from almost zero for the age group under 30 to almost 5% for the age group above 75. Seniors are literally THOUSANDS of times more likely to die from COVID than the youth.

Regarding the drama, the overwhelming majority of Americans aren't significantly effected by COVID. The risks are well documented at this point. The disease is much less lethal than it was just a few months ago for reasons that don't seem to be understood or even acknowledged yet. I disagree the US response was "middle of the road", there has been immense damage done for a virus that isn't particularly harmful except to specific groups. Locking down people that are very unlikely to be significantly impacted, especially children, and the unemployment rate increasing significantly is a crime, in my opinion.

Taiwan has done great with COVID. But, it's an island with a young and healthy population probably exposed to more coronaviruses than the West has.

Why the elderly and obese in America aren't more protected and more cautious I have no idea. Why the rest of us were locked down and suffered I have no idea. Perhaps it goes to the need for "equality" in our culture and our psychological need to "be safe" when life is inherently filled with risk. But, we are so removed from our natural state our ability to assess risk is perverted, viruses don't effect people equally no matter what our politics are...unfortunately science and medicine can't be practiced well when they are directed by political motivations. The CDC is a political organization, I personally would view their recommendations with great skepticism for any health related issues. For example, the science of masks hasn't changed. Politics has and psychology has, but the science has not. Good science doesn't change in 2 months. Even in The Lancet the most recent (and best) mask study recommends masks but indicated the confidence was "low" that they are particularly effective.

There is a reason Asian Tiger Moms aren't featured in PrEP commercials to prevent HIV, but looking at the CDC webpages on the subject it would be impossible to figure out why.

I'm surprised people trust the government so much regarding medical advice when their track record has been horrible and they are clearly biased politically to the point of irrelevance.

The US had become a very untrusting country even before COVID 19 with only a few institutions being generally rated positive:


https://i.ibb.co/8zJPb8k/5-C91-F2-ED...32-F590-BD.jpg


Since then, we don’t even trust our fellow citizens very much. I’d imagine the police have taken a recent severe hit now too.

https://i.ibb.co/1v2DS0j/D5-F5-A833-...4630-EF7-A.jpg

It really seems like you're trying to use politics to dismiss the actions that other countries have used, with success, at mitigating the virus instead of trying to learn from them. The fact of the matter is that 5.4 / million South Koreans have died from COVID19 whereas the US is at 361.5 / million. Demographics, lifestyle, etc play a role, but that doesn't explain away a disparity that big.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...n-inhabitants/


Also, I'm Independent, but if you're going to throw rocks at the Dems don't forget Trump had an indoor rally last night in Tulsa where masks were optional and he doesn't wear a mask on TV. People do follow him and if he shows contempt for masks, or the virus in general, they will to. Study after study shows that masks do help mitigate the virus and having a POTUS that was onboard would be much more helpful right now.