Huh? It's more or less flat. https://covid-19.direct/county/CA/San%20Francisco?tab=peakde...
In fact probably better than flat - 2 deaths in last 7 days is lower than any 7 day period in April.
Considering multiple states are larger than many European countries, I don't think it's appropriate to treat the US as a monolithic entity with respect to virus containment. Even if all of the states reacted identically, time and space dictate that different regions will be in different stages at any given time.
It's simply a fact. Total death counts in the US are still going up.
Once the quarantine is relaxed and things "open up", we WILL go through a second wave. That is by design of shelter in place.
Why the defensiveness on part of the US? With or without the above, it's response has been terrible. Why defend bad practices?
It depends on the state, though. New deaths are decreasing in many States, including Washington, Texas, and California [1]. Looking at the US, as a whole, isn't really useful here.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/washington-coron...
The United States is a nation. It has a federal government and federal bodies which are responsible for preventing spread of disease.
People can travel freely within these bounds without passports or visas or checkpoints.
Of course states have their own rules, and this is good, and yes, some states are doing better than others, but why the fear of revealing the incompetence of one nation?
This is how nation-states work in 2020 on planet Earth.
People can travel freely within Member States without passports, visas, or checkpoints.
Of course, Member States have their own rules, and this is good, and yes, some Member States are doing better than others, but why the fear of revealing the incompetence of one Union?
This is how Unions work in 2020 on planet Earth.
I think we both agree that looking at the EU as a whole is totally meaningless in the context of the current discussion about Amazon workers. We are simply arguing the same about the United States. This isn’t some pro-US propaganda, the only agenda here is an insistence on ensuring that we are comparing apples to apples.
P.S. Speaking of "Nation-States", hilariously enough, Gavin Newsom recently referred to California as a "Nation State"[4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_European_Union
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_European_Coun...
[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/coronav...
I'm still flabbergasted at the need to compare to the EU or European states.
No where in my original comments did I bring them up, or was thinking of them. Your snide metaphor also doesn't work since the EU does not override the nation-state model. The EU parliament only exerts some powers over EU nations. The Health department of Germany cannot made decisions on behalf of the health department of France. I understand you're going to compare this to two American states, but honestly, it doesn't work.
> This isn’t some pro-US propaganda, the only agenda here is an insistence on ensuring that we are comparing apples to apples.
Again, when did I compare anything to Europe? You brought up the comparison for no reason I can comprehend. Hence my questions about the defensiveness.
I don't think we're going to agree, so happy to leave this here.
Now consider that the US is substantially larger and more sparsely populated. That alone ensures that it doesn't make any more sense to say "US is at stage 1" than it does to say "EU is at stage one", because that fails to capture the range of different stages in different geographic regions (countries/states). That doesn't even begin to capture policy differences.
That was the sole reason I brought it up. Nothing defensive anywhere.
The US and the EU are federations[2][3], and their sub-national units are sovereign. Like the EU, the US’s COVID strategy has been left to the States[4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation#Federations
[3] https://gizmodo.com/why-is-the-united-states-considered-a-co...
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-stay...
My point was that you can't say even a country is in a certain stage because the outbreaks are much more local than that. London is a month ahead of some parts of the country. So its just as incorrect to say the UK is at a certain stage as it is to say it about the EU and USA.
If you can’t take it, then don’t dish it out.
> The EU Parliament only exerts some powers over EU nations
The same holds true for the Federal government of the US. The 10th Amendment ensures this. Similar to the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, EU law overrides Member State law (E.g. GDPR).
> The Health Department of Germany cannot made decisions on behalf of the health department of France
Yes, the same way the Minnesota Department of Health cannot make decisions on behalf of the New York State Department of Health.
> I understand you’re going to compare this to two American states, but honestly, it doesn’t work
Saying “it doesn’t work” again and again doesn’t magically make it true, you need to provide actual concrete counterpoints.
The US is a Union of States. The Federal government does not have the authority to issue lockdowns or stay-at-home orders. The vast majority of US testing is being funded and administered by States, not the Federal government. In practice, this is indistinguishable from the EU.
The US contains 330 million people, and consists of 50 different states, each with their own Constitutions, legislatures, and their own responses to COVID.
The EU contains 500 million people, and consists of 27 different states, each with their own Constitutions and legislatures.
We can do this all day, but it’s pretty clear that your argument doesn’t have any legs.
It certainly doesn't once you begin to ignore facts. Coming up with literal parallels is not a good argument. No wonder you can keep it going all day.
In either case, I'm going to stop because I still don't know why we're comparing the US and the EU. I didn't start the comparison, and it has no bearing on the subject.
Period.
The response is handled at the state level, not the federal level. The federal level can provide advice and help coordinate actions between states / provide backup resources, but isn't meant to take direct action.
This is invalid, because for example a couple of states could be bring the total number up. Further, again because of the scale of the US, policy appropriate for one state may not be appropriate for others.
Again, the issue here is treating the gigantic US, a mishmash of cultures in 50 states with semiautonomous governments, as a monolithic entity. If you evaluate response policy in this way you're not going to get a good signal.
That isn't true according to the numbers from https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en. Do you have a citation for that? Numbers for new deaths have been hovering between 0 and 5 for the last month in SF, SF has had a total of 22 people dead, due to successful lockdown measures it basically never hit SF.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/case...
Wildly irreaponsible and unqualified statement. Please stop being part of the problem.
The only goal posts you should care about are herd immunity or vaccination. Nothing else matters when discussing how much longer this pandemic will last.
edit: Wow you guys are really mad at me judging by all these downvotes. You're right, the pandemic is over, lift the stay-at-home orders!
For a long time I thought HN had higher quality discussion than Reddit, but in reality it's just the same BS with slightly larger words.
Absolutely not. If you believe enough information is known about herd-immunity in relation to Corona, you are dangerously misinformed.
Please don't play the "I thought you people were smarter" card if you're being downvoted for spreading misinformation.
Number of deaths DO matter in relation to: 1. Human suffering (perhaps the most important metric) 2. Learning how we prevent further deaths (calculating hospital and materials dissemination needs)
We are VERY FAR from the few responsible re-opening scenarios that exist: https://www.niskanencenter.org/tired-of-the-covid-lockdown-h...
(It it recommended we run 2 million tests a day in the US alone; the current number is 150,000).
> Number of deaths DO matter in relation to: 1. Human suffering (perhaps the most important metric) 2. Learning how we prevent further deaths (calculating hospital and materials dissemination needs)
Did I ever suggest otherwise? Literally all I said about "number of deaths" was that it does not tell us how close we are to the pandemic being over. You just brought up a bunch of other stuff to feel good about yourself.
I really did think you people were smarter though. Apparently you haven't even learned how to read something before you reply to it.
> If you believe enough information is known about herd-immunity in relation to Corona, you are dangerously misinformed.
Again, I never said anything about this. Please learn how to read. I'm not claiming to know how we reach the level of "herd immunity" we need to get out of this. I just said "herd immunity" or a vaccine would be the solution here. Am I wrong about that? Jesus fucking christ, the only thing HN does better than Reddit is self-righteousness and smug asshats.
Herd immunity would be nice - but so far none of the known coronavirus infections grant immunity. Herd immunity cries will only kill innocent people.
Herd immunity is more a myth than a fact right now.
How do you believe people recover from COVID-19?
The fact that you recover from it at all, and generate measurable antibodies in the process, and that humans generally gain some level of immunity to all the other coronaviruses we're plagued by weights my belief strongly towards at least short term immunity being very likely.
Amazon is doing pretty well due to the quarantine (as they deserve to given the services they provide). Them having to reduce their share of the profits from these extraordinary times is not particularly noble, but rather just average.
The United States hasn't even passed the first stage of Corona yet (in SF, daily number of deaths is still rising). It is too early to mandate come backs.
Here in SF, multiple employees at 3 Whole Foods locations have already contracted Covid. Amazon has not done nearly enough thus far. The fact that they are now providing masks and cleaning up door handles is again, a bare minimum.
They should let exigent time off policies rein for at least 2 more months, before going back to business as normal policies.
Please realize, that even despite all of the above, their profits will keep rising through this period; there is no reason to think of them as victims, when they very much so are winners in this situation. Foregoing just a little bit of your extra profits to ensure your workers stay healthy in unprecedented times of a pandemic is not asking for too much.