Low Flyin

A radical overhaul may be needed in my opinion. If anything this pandemic has shown how vulnerable the US and and it’s economy are, it seems like it was built on a house of cards - compared to other nations. Seems like going back to “the old way i” might not seem to work to well in days of future pandemics and recessions. A hard reset may be needed.

PurpleToolBox

Which nations? I am curious.

Excargodog

Seriously? You think this is going to require a vaccine to get back to normal? Or that it will NEVER get back to normal?

COVID has - thus far - killed (or at least been potentially present at death) of less than 100,000 people, fully half of them nursing home residents or employees. Out of a population of 333 Billion or so. That’s one in 3330 or so. That is 0.03%. For those under 60 years of age, the mortality was no worse than a once in a decade severe flu season.

A little over a hundred years ago The Spanish Flu pandemic killed 675,000 Americans, disproportionately 20 and 30 somethings. Out of a population of 107 million. That was like 0.63%. So many orphans were created on the East Coast that they shipped “orphan trains” full of kids to the Midwest and West to be adopted. No immunization against the flu was available until 1933 and it wasn’t very good. It still isn’t great for that matter, even if you take It which 50% of adults don’t bother to do, but that’s another story. Yet from 1920 to 1929 the US economy grew by 42%.

i realize we don’t even let kids play dodgeball in school any more but the American people - heck, the people of the whole world - still aren’t the cowardly wusses some people appear to think they are. There have been plagues since Biblical days, and ultimately people get over even the worst in a year or two. They’ll get over this one too.

HulkaBurger

Seriously? What universe has a population of 333 Billion?

FNGFO

Or, you could put on your thinking cap, see that he correctly used millions later in his post and surmise that a typo or autocorrect occurred.

Sluggo_63

I don't know if I'd use the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic to prove your point. The first wave of deaths caused by the Spanish Flu was a mere blip compared to what the second wave did a year later. And, amazingly the second wave was exacerbated by the fact that the American population was sick of wearing masks, being quarantined, etc. Sound familiar? Hopefully history doesn't repeat itself.

Excargodog

brain Fahrt. Million

I actually started posting a third of a billion but then changed it to 333 million thinking it would make the math more intuitive. So I changed the 1/3 but not the billion. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Excargodog

DESPITE WHICH the economy grew 42% in the next decade and doesn’t negate a thing I said. Epidemics happen and people get over them - including those far more severe than this one. More people have died in hours in tsunamis and earthquakes and people pull up their big girl panties and press on.

RJSAviator76

In 1968, we had the Hong Kong flu pandemic. It killed over a million people worldwide and over 100,000 in the US. This is also back in the day when we had around 200 million people living in this country. No shutdowns or lockdowns. They even held Woodstock.

Personally, I think the economic shutdown is gonna go down in history as one of the worst possible decisions we ever made.

Timmay

I see we've moved on from comparing the severity of this pandemic to the flu to comparing it to catastrophic natural disasters. A month ago it was "Yeah but the flu killed 45,000 people last year and this has only killed 20,000 and we're destroying the economy!" What's going to be the next parameter people compare this virus to in order to say it's not serious enough to warrant quarantining and justify getting back to normal?

​​​​​​The deadliest tsunami in history, by the way, killed 230,000 people. I think worldwide covid death counts are over 300,000. Earthquakes have been deadlier, with a few in history reaching over 750,000 deaths in a single event. So what are we gauging this against next once the death tolls go past that?