Posted by: Couch_Surfer
Failed. 4.25% of the world's population. 20% of world's Covid infections.
Failed. 220,000 dead Americans.
Most amount of deaths. Richest Country on Earth. Deaths that were preventable if the President of the United States had the simple ability to say months and months ago: "We were wrong, our learning has changed. Wear a mask to help protect our country and our citizens. This disease is serious." But he couldn't even do that.
Failed.
While I'm also not big fan on a lot of what shogun says or how he says it, I think the way you're placing blame here and trying to hang all the deaths on Trump needs some revision. For starters you have to consider how this infection would arrive in a specific population and then how it would spread. That alone would mean a good part of the global population would have limited exposure. In terms of deaths, the US would have had deaths either way, but how would you determine where that number would be. The big thing we've learned - or should have learned - out of the Swedish reaction/experiment is that social conditioning and the public response plays a huge factor in mitigating the outcome of the pandemic. BC also acts as a relatively good example of what happens when the public has faith in its government institutions and makes a decent effort at following their advice. I think cultural attitudes in the US in regards to freedom and independence, the nature of their health care system and the divide that exists between those in poverty an those not would have resulted in a significant number of infections and deaths even if Trump had done more.
As this thing has progressed it's become clear what we need to do in order to keep the spread to minimal levels without disrupting society too much and it seems many people in the US aren't willing to do those things.