throwaway41920

Indeed, the most economically destructive responses like the lockdowns were put into place weeks before less economically destructive responses like widespread mask use. In fact, when the lockdowns started they were even telling people there was no use for most people to use masks. Responses across the board seem to be random and haphazard.

There doesn't seem to even be a clear goal to the lockdown. Originally it was to flatten the curve so as to not overwhelm medical services. We'd still have the same amount of people infected, but it would be spread out. But many (though not all) hospitals are seeing a decline of cases and even furloughing workers because of lack of activity. So now the argument has turned to we need more testing, but to what end? Tracking and quarantining infected individuals requires much more than simply testing (for instance, look at the problems New York had in tracking just a few cases at the very start of the outbreak), and it's doubtful that we'll be able to contain the outbreak at this advanced stage (it seems like millions have been infected in New York alone).

We should have a clear goal for our actions (especially when they're this destructive!), but it seems like everyone in power is just winging it.

> FPTP as in the US will always yield a two party system in the long run as thats the only way you can “win” in it.

I don't think that's true. If you simply removed the de facto state endorsement of parties - if you only listed candidates by name on the ballot and moved to a California type open primary instead of having partisan primaries - you probably wouldn't end up with two parties like we see today.

Party primaries are a good example of this. They're also FPTP, but that hasn't lead to the emergence of two subfactions because such a thing is hard when it's not entrenched in the ballot. Instead primaries have much more loose coalitions of groups and endorsements that shift around in every election. Even in a particular election there are often more than two.

From what I've seen, once parties are dropped from the ballot (it's common to have positions where party isn't listed) people seem to stop caring about them. I've seen hyperpartisan areas where people will never vote for party B over party A when party affiliation is listed on the ballot, but when it's not listed they end up happily vote for someone from party B over A. Removing parties from voting would make it less likely that so many issues break down among strict partisan lines, and would make compromise much more likely because not every piece of policy would be tied to a political identity. Factions would still exist, but they would be much more fluid and adaptable.

> I think since February we’ve learned more and more that people without symptoms are contagious.

Here's an article from January[1]:

> "There's no doubt after reading this paper that asymptomatic transmission is occurring," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "This study lays the question to rest."

I've noticed a lot of excuses for poor decisions, as well as rewriting of history that's only a couple of months old. I doubt we're going to see much accountability for the way the pandemic was mishandled.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/31/health/coronavirus-asymptomat...