I don’t think the other ones exist in significantly large amounts to be meaningful and even then, keep in mind that furloughed people are not getting paid. The money has to come from somewhere to start paying them for whatever again, and states and cities have limited funding resources even before COVID blew a hole in most tax revenues.

The only entity capable of nationwide deficit spending is the federal government, which seems unwilling to step up to the plate.

The feds have decided to prioritize the economy in an election year, for some short-sighted definition of a good economy. And the party in power has never liked a strong federal government anyways.

They can issue bonds to raise capital and, last I heard, the Fed is buying.

But at the same time, there were health officials being given PUBLIC DEATH THREATS by people who insisted that wearing a mask was dangerous to their health.

Ultimately, I suppose you have to give into politics and public pressure. A mandate that nobody respects and can't really be enforced has no value at all. It's plausible that responding to political pressure and trying to reopen, or give dates and phases, would result in better adherence than just telling the whole state "sorry, stay home indefinitely".

A mandate is essentially unenforceable, yes, but it's valuable regardless. It's about setting social norms and expectations. If public figures had put forward a consistent message regarding masks from the beginning, we'd have seen better compliance and fewer people would be dead now.

True, and that was impossible once CDC decided to lie to the public in an attempt to preserve supplies for hospitals.

https://www.ncsl.org/research/fiscal-policy/state-balanced-b...

That is no longer true: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/muni.htm

  On April 8, 2020, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
  (the Board), by the unanimous vote of its five members and with the approval of
  the Secretary of the Treasury, authorized the establishment and operation of the
  Municipal Liquidity Facility (MLF) under section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve
  Act (12 U.S.C. § 343(3)). The MLF is intended to support lending to state, city,
  and county governments.
  
  Under the MLF, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Reserve Bank)
  will commit to lend on a recourse basis to a special purpose vehicle (SPV). The
  SPV will purchase eligible notes directly from eligible issuers at the time of
  issuance.
  
  [...]
  
  The Department of the Treasury, using funds appropriated to the Exchange
  Stabilization Fund under section 4027 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and
  Economic Security Act (CARES Act), will make a $35 billion equity investment
  in the SPV in connection with the MLF.

Paying to millions of unemployed people to do contact tracing - does not mean effective contact tracing.

I was recently (a year and a half ago, time flies) out of work, and I did get a solicitation about a contact tracing job since the epidemic started. I didn't think my experience was applicable, nor am I free, but somehow they found me. Maybe they have indeed been trying to recruit pretty widely?