Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Each country has its differences, its not necessarily that we can't, but rather that we won't. This is due to public opinions, cultural differences, etc.

As far as it being someone else's fault, or problem, I would agree with that 100%. Everyone refuses to take blame, right now everyone loves to point fingers at our leaders, you even said it in your post, had our president taken it more serious in January things would have been different, sounds a lot like blame is being deferred to him.

Taking responsibility is interesting because you can only take responsibility for yourself. It's like leading an horse to water, but you can never force them to drink, same thing. Apply this to our current situation, and this is why I support opening everything up. Jeff, you have removed basically every outside contact point from your life. This being the case, let the virus do it's thing, you aren't going to get infected if you aren't going out anyway. You have taken it upon yourself to ensure you minimize your risks. You cannot make others do the same thing, let me give you this example: Menards and Home Depot are across the street from each other in town here. Menards mandates you wearing a mask, home depot does not. Guess which store is taking business from the other right now and is busier overall?

Our entire culture is shifting towards it being someone else's responsibility for everything. Look at the legal system, the amount of lawyers to get you off the hook for any little thing, how about the recent noise about a national basic income, government healthcare, or even the idiot who spilled coffee on themselves and sued McDonalds. why is it always someone else's responsibility? If you got hurt, man up and pay more attention next time, take responsibility for your actions and those outcomes. Why does the stove need a warning light that it is hot after I got done using it? I know this, and so did the person who got burnt and managed to sue the manufacturer and now that little light is installed.

Maybe the courts should stand up and say tough luck, maybe society should deflect blame back onto the individual instead of someone else. Take any trivial matter and someone somewhere is making others jump through hoops because they don't feel like it.

You are never going to get anyone to take real action on a major difficult crisis because it is someone else's problem, the only thing you can do is take care of yourself. This cycle has been started and will only worsen. Open the world back up, let the virus run its course, if you don't want to get sick stay away from everyone else. Otherwise take your chances and participate in society again.

Oh, and stop pointing fingers at our leaders, we elected them, so we need to own it. If we don't like them we can change it in a few months. The president is not illiterate, he wouldn't be the president if he was. Maybe he sucks at speaking, or at whatever other task you want to insert. But he is obviously better at it than you or I otherwise we would be sitting in the white house right now. It is easy to point a finger at the government, but it doesn't do anything to help the situation.

You had me for the first half. But Trump is not at all better than you or I or anyone here would be. So much of this is 100% his fault. I would have the best interest of the nation and world as a top priority. He does not. He's in office because (in my opinion) a 2015 publicity stunt for his own ego and his personal brand went waaaay too far.

Gonch/Jeff 2020

Slightly more realistically how about Iger/Ouimet 2020

I'd take that over Kinzel/Spehn.

They'd just win the election to close it.

You can't make others do the right thing, but you can still call them out them when they don't. I would even argue that it's our civic duty to do so.

And I think this is the 8th time I've said this, but I am totally for reopening a whole bunch more stuff when we have strong testing and tracing infrastructure in place. I see no evidence that that is that case. The argument for reopening is almost entirely "because staying closed sucks worse." Not "because we have figured out how to safely reopen and we have a plan that we believe will allow us to minimize risks." What did we do with the 2+ months (starting week 12, here in San Jose) that we bought? To me it looks like we increased our health care capacity and then mostly crossed our fingers and hoped the virus would magically go away.

(And on a totally unrelated note, if you read the actual McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, there's a good reason the suit was upheld. It's easy to simplify complex things to fit a narrative you want to confirm, but the world is often more complex than "take responsibility for your own d*** self.")

If Trump's election was a successful publicity stunt what does that tell you about the people of this country?

I often thought about just plucking some random schmuck out of the population and making them president.

TheMillenniumRider said:

If Trump's election was a successful publicity stunt what does that tell you about the people of this country?

It tells me that they'd rather believe conspiracy theories, blame other people, and remain willfully ignorant than actually address problems. And yep, sure enough, that's what we're doing as a country.

ApolloAndy said:

You can't make others do the right thing, but you can still call them out them when they don't. I would even argue that it's our civic duty to do so.

And I think this is the 8th time I've said this, but I am totally for reopening a whole bunch more stuff when we have strong testing and tracing infrastructure in place. I see no evidence that that is that case. The argument for reopening is almost entirely "because staying closed sucks worse." Not "because we have figured out how to safely reopen and we have a plan that we believe will allow us to minimize risks." What did we do with the 2+ months (starting week 12, here in San Jose) that we bought? To me it looks like we increased our health care capacity and then mostly crossed our fingers and hoped the virus would magically go away.

(And on a totally unrelated note, if you read the actual McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, there's a good reason the suit was upheld. It's easy to simplify complex things to fit a narrative you want to confirm too, but the world is often more complex than "take responsibility for your own d*** self.")

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't put a hot cup of coffee between my legs and then attempt to add stuff to it. No surprise she got burnt, regardless of how hot coffee is, it is still hot and not something I want to spill on myself. Sorry, but I don't have pity on that one, it was stupid.

TheMillenniumRider said:

If Trump's election was a successful publicity stunt what does that tell you about the people of this country?

It tells me the average voter is not smart enough to come up with the right answer. Maybe Jeff has a (cedar) point with regards to the virus, let's go with the experts.

Here is the million dollar question, will everyone reelect him?

Pre-COVID my theory was that he would lose the popular vote by even more than he did in 2016 but still win the election.

In a COVID world I have increasing hope he will lose. I wish it hadn't taken a deadly pandemic for that to be what turned enough people. But I think his gross incompetence and mismanaging of this will chip away at enough of where he won in 2016. He can't win solely on his hardcore base, and it's my hope they will be the only ones left this November.

Trump is the president. He absolutely bears responsibility for the action (or inaction) of the federal government. His entire presidency is rooted in scapegoating everyone for every problem, but mostly brown people, because his base is really into that. He's a pathological liar, which has been objectively documented to death.

As a manager, I get fired if my team doesn't deliver what it's supposed to. It's staggering that we don't hold the highest office to the same standard.

Andy said it perfectly:

The argument for reopening is almost entirely "because staying closed sucks worse." Not "because we have figured out how to safely reopen and we have a plan that we believe will allow us to minimize risks." What did we do with the 2+ months (starting week 12, here in San Jose) that we bought? To me it looks like we increased our health care capacity and then mostly crossed our fingers and hoped the virus would magically go away.

That is my frustration more clearly articulated.

TheMillenniumRider said:

Here is the million dollar question, will everyone reelect him?

I found myself in Lausanne, Switzerland the last summer of GWB's first term. My host was originally from the German-speaking side of the country, and was characteristically blunt: "No one really blames you for electing him in the first place. He was a relative unknown, and you could not have predicted how he'd handle things. But, if you re-elect him after seeing what he is capable of, the rest of the world is going to wonder why."

I can tell you that most of the people I know outside the US are much less charitable this time around. That said, this is not an isolated situation. There has been a fairly significant rise of right-wing populists: Johnson in the UK, Bolansero in Brazil, the BJP and Mohdi in India. In some places it's been going on even longer: Abe and before him Koizumi in Japan, for example. Interestingly I can't think off the top of my head of any equivalent movements in the Euro zone proper, though Le Pen in France came close. That could just be because I am not thinking of the obvious candidates.

On a somewhat unrelated note, the problem isn't that people need to work. People don't need to work. The problem is that people need to pay their bills and buy necessities. I feel like as a country we could (at least short and medium term, I know this isn't a multiyear solution) have brought a lot more resources to bear on that problem instead of using people's desperation as a reason to put them at risk (and give us an excuse to demand a haircut).

I think part of the issue with that is that we are a culture where work is ingrained into us. We have practically no time off compared with other developed nations, we get up early to work, we buy a car to go to work, we choose where to live based on work. I at one time worked for a major Fortune 500 who gave 0 sick time to the employees, the union eventually fought it and gained 5 days sick time, but even then that time was not protected and you would be written up if you used it.

We basically live to work, it blows.

People need to work to live, unless someone else steps in and funds their bills. Businesses have the same issue, but on a bigger scale. Giving out $1200 did little to resolve the issue. Depending on where you live that wouldn't even cover a rent payment.

And worse, we need to work to have health insurance to have healthcare. Why? Because socialism? I don't see anyone opposing universal healthcare refusing to take social security checks, or schools, or refusing help from first responders.

I think work is ingrained in us as a culture, but I don't think that's why people are clamoring to go wait tables or ring up cash registers right now. It's because they need to put food on the table. If we took all the stimulus money and just gave it to individuals, then (at least in the short to mid term) people could pay their bills and wouldn't have to endanger themselves or their communities.

You're telling me that people would still go out and demand that they be allowed to work, even if all their bills were paid for the next 2 months because of a "culture of work"? I don't see it.

Right-wing parties have made in-roads in Europe though to date they haven't won leadership positions (to my knowledge). I believe currently they are the lead opposition party in Germany and have made in-roads in Spain and Italy. But its not just right wing candidates that are gaining support in various countries. Its also anti-establishment candidates on the left as well. And a lot of that is the result of beliefs (not science -- ;)) that the establishment has failed to address issues of various groups of people (either because the establishment doesn't care about those issues, refuse to address them because other special interests will not allow it or are simply unable to do so).

2020 presidential election was for the dems to lose once Trump won in 2016. With everything he has done and not done, the dems may well just lose it in November. We shall see.

Money to pay bills is part of it. And related issue of healthcare tied to work is as well. But its more than that. People want to be social. Go out to a restaurant, movie, play, sporting event or amusement park. With more than just the 2-3 people they have isolated with the past 2+ months. They want to go out drinking with friends, dancing or to crowded beaches. Get on airplanes for vacations. They want to get their hair cut (and in many cases colored). None of those things have much to do with being able to pay bills (though they do allow others to pay their own bills as economic activity).

Just getting money to people to pay bills doesn't address all economic issues. There is a lot of economic activity which isn't happening right now. And won't happen even if people have enough money to pay bills. A lot of businesses won't survive (certainly not beyond a number of months) without assistance. State/local governments need assistance too.

And a lot of the stimulus checks were saved. Not used to pay bills or otherwise spent. Savings rates are supposedly back to where they were in the 1980s. If only interest rates on savings were at 1980s levels (though business is addicted to low interest rates at this point).

When I was in my 20's, all I wanted to do was eat, drink and ****, but you know, I was a grown up and had to accept that there are limitations to what I can do in a functional society. I hate wearing ties, but if I'm invited to a funeral or a wedding, I put one on out of respect for others. I hold doors open for others. Social contracts are what keep us together, including those intended to, for now, keep us separated by six feet. The desire, even if it is by a vocal minority, to reject those contracts is surprising.

Also, really good data here, and you can see the math and source code for the modeling. There are counties all over the country that are, right now, out of ICU beds.
https://covidactnow.org/