President Biden Says Covid-19 Pandemic is Over in the US (bbc.com) 339
President Joe Biden has declared the pandemic over in the US, even as the number of Americans who have died from Covid continues to rise. From a report: Mr Biden said that while "we still have a problem", the situation is rapidly improving. Statistics show that over 400 Americans on average are dying from the virus each day. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week that the end of the pandemic is "in sight". In an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS, Mr Biden said that the US is still doing "a lot of work" to control the virus. The interview - aired over the weekend - was partly filmed on the floor of the Detroit Auto Show, where the president gestured towards the crowds. "If you notice, no one's wearing masks," he said. "Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape...I think it's changing."
In August, US officials extended the ongoing Covid-19 public health emergency, which has been in place since January 2020, through 13 October. To date, more than one million Americans have died from the pandemic. Data from Johns Hopkins University shows that the seven-day average of deaths currently stands at over 400, with more than 3,000 dead in the last week. In January 2021, by comparison, more than 23,000 people were reported dead from the virus over a single week-long span. About 65% of the total US population is considered fully vaccinated. Some federal vaccine mandates remain in place in the US - including on healthcare workers, military personnel and any non-US citizen entering the country by airplane.
In August, US officials extended the ongoing Covid-19 public health emergency, which has been in place since January 2020, through 13 October. To date, more than one million Americans have died from the pandemic. Data from Johns Hopkins University shows that the seven-day average of deaths currently stands at over 400, with more than 3,000 dead in the last week. In January 2021, by comparison, more than 23,000 people were reported dead from the virus over a single week-long span. About 65% of the total US population is considered fully vaccinated. Some federal vaccine mandates remain in place in the US - including on healthcare workers, military personnel and any non-US citizen entering the country by airplane.
So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, right? (Score:4, Insightful)
So because Covid-19 is over, he'll be getting rid of the emergency declaration and his emergency powers, right? Right?
lol
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Informative)
Your comment reads like Biden has implemented martial law under the guise of Covid, but the reality is that the special powers are not Biden's, but the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and they involve things such as extending Medicaid to people who don't typically qualify, fast-track vaccine and therapeutic approval, including Paxlovid and Monoclonal Antibodies, and testing infrastructure.
I'm sure they will soon end this emergency declaration, as they can be challenged in the courts, but until that time, I guess we'll all just suffer the horror of a couple million extra people receiving public health care.
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Funny)
Your comment reads like Biden has implemented martial law under the guise of Covid, but the reality is that the special powers are not Biden's, but the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and they involve things such as extending Medicaid to people who don't typically qualify, fast-track vaccine and therapeutic approval, including Paxlovid and Monoclonal Antibodies, and testing infrastructure.
I'm sure they will soon end this emergency declaration, as they can be challenged in the courts, but until that time, I guess we'll all just suffer the horror of a couple million extra people receiving public health care.
Hey, buddy, this is America. If people wanted decent healthcare at a fair price they'd have been born somewhere else!
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Okay, it still deserves the Funny, but I'm still waiting for my transparent mask.
Unfortunately, my preference to wear a joke is mostly about protecting other people from me because I'm never sure how healthy I am these years. The incoming virus particles usually have the advantage simply because it's rather hard to remove a contaminated mask safely...
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Your comment reads like Biden has implemented martial law under the guise of Covid, but the reality is that the special powers are not Biden's, but the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and they involve things such as extending Medicaid to people who don't typically qualify, fast-track vaccine and therapeutic approval, including Paxlovid and Monoclonal Antibodies, and testing infrastructure.
I'm sure they will soon end this emergency declaration, as they can be challenged in the courts, but until that time, I guess we'll all just suffer the horror of a couple million extra people receiving public health care.
The "emergency powers" were also used to justify the student loan forgiveness program.
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Insightful)
The only think you could possibly be referring to legitimately is inmates released from prisons into house arrest for their medical safety.
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Informative)
No, they were allowed to leave their homes and go outside, just not to congregate. That is a curious form of "house arrest."
Here is what you just described as "People were not allowed to leave their property except to go to the grocery store":
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the spittle-flecked rant above about "We need to get rid of the Democrats permanently..."
That particular idiot probably thinks that when the republicans finally end even the pretense of democracy that he will will be one of the ones on top.
You'd almost think none of them had ever read a history book.
Re: So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, ri (Score:3)
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Insightful)
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Of course, by failing to immediately rescind Trump's orders when taking office, Biden becomes the most socialist/authoritarian/freedom-hating president ever. Of course back in Trump's reign it was al Fauci's fault who constantly had Trump in a Half Nelson and thus was the only person that Trump ever backed down from.
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Insightful)
> Turns out, it's one of the emergency powers granted by Congress due to the COVID pandemic. No pandemic, no ability to buy votes by forgiving loans.
No it isn't. This is an unintended power that was granted to the Treasury after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which nationalized much of the student loan industry.
_The pause_ on payments was a reaction to Covid, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with emergency powers related to Covid.
Re: So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, ri (Score:2)
Why would we make private vaccine and mask requirements illegal? If a business doesn't want to do business with folks that don't get those, then that's their choice. Don't get Uncle Sam any bigger than he already is in the lives of everyday
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes... that is right. Formally declaring the emergency is over -- get this -- is precisely the legal way a president lays down his emergency powers.
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Informative)
A day later, an administration official told CNN that the President's comments do not mark a change in policy toward the administration's handling of the virus, and there are no plans to lift the Public Health Emergency, which has been in place since January 2020 and is currently extended through October 13.
-- CNN [cnn.com]
He (or the people actually running his administration) doesn't seem keen to do that, regardless of his stated position that the pandemic is over
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Biden has twice said that and twice his handlers rush to reporters to explain it's not true...
Remember how the press used to act when the President (any President) spouted falsehoods about matters of national security and defense?
There's a lie being told here, but it's not what Biden is saying [fpri.org]. Put as simply as possible in deference to you and yours, any decision to defend Taiwan will be made with the consent of Congress [wikipedia.org], and what we are specifically obligated to do under the Taiwan Relations Act is make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary [congress.gov] to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capacity as determined by the President and the Congress. IOW, we are oblig
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The forgiveness was already put in place, so no.
By analogy, A building is collapsing and as an emergency measure, a scaffold is erected to take load off of the walls such that the building is no longer in danger of collapse. Since the danger is over, does that mean it's time to yank the scaffold down?
If you can show that by declaring the pandemic over, Biden traveled time and deleted the existing damage that made the forgiveness a good idea, I'll agree with you. But then I'll vote for Biden again because ob
Re: So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, ri (Score:2, Insightful)
Yea, that is what it would mean. If you declare the emergency over, that means youâ(TM)ve shored up the internal supports of the building and it no longer needs to be held up by scaffolding. If a system canâ(TM)t stand without continuous support (is not self-sustaining) it is a failure.
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Unless what you mean is that it is now simply a situation rather than an emergency since the building is no longer threatening to create a rousing game of "downtown dominoes" killing thousands.
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By this argument, at the end of the American war of independence, the United States would revert back to subjugation to the King of England? War's over people... go back to being British!
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How odd we don't see news about loan relief being cancelled...
Democrats would never do that because right now they can blame the relief being cancelled on those "evil" Republicans, and just before citizens cast votes.
That's not "odd". That's called American Politics.
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Funny)
those "evil" Republicans
No need for those quotation marks.
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those "evil" Republicans
No need for those quotation marks.
Ah yes, because "smart" voters clearly know best, as evidenced by current leadership, right?
Democrats are voting with good intentions, even if they're dumb. What are Republicans' intentions? Mostly to make sure nobody gets anything "for free" unless they're also getting it, and ideally not even then. They are practicing prosperity theology [wikipedia.org] (we can know them by what they do) while 65% of them claim to be Christians, and [supposed] Christ [allegedly] said to give away everything to those less fortunate than you, and love your neighbor as yourself — so they're not just selfish, the bulk of them
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The actual U.S. Webpage on student loan forgiveness????
All that shit is irrelevant. When Biden was proposing to forgive $150,000 during the presidential debates, it wasn't because of Covid. It was because it was already a problem. Biden knew it was a problem because he had helped create it. Maybe he meant well at the time, and maybe he didn't, but that doesn't matter either. What matters is that student loans which cannot even be discharged through bankruptcy are fundamentally predatory, and they should all be cancelled — except perhaps in rare cases that
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Interesting)
One, this is an informal interview. It's just got a clickbait title to let you think it's an official position. The President can recommend to the director of HHS to change position or the President can execute an executive order to change direction of the director. However. . .
Two, the declaration ends on October 13th and there's no expectation of it being extended. So. There you go. Besides the vast majority of the funds for emergency stuff and what not, have pretty much already ended. The only thing really left in the "emergency powers" is the ability to rapidly shift funds into State programs if they request it, which none of the States have really done so in the last six months.
A lot of the people are still under the impression that the COVID vaccine is still under EUA, which it is not. The Pfizer one was approved on August 23, 2021 for 16 years old and up, and at a later date was approved for two years old and up. For the BA.4/BA.5 variant, it is approved for 16 years old and up, with a EUA for 12 years old and up. And the EUA there is mostly because the FDA hasn't adopted a formal rapid approval process like the one they use for flu vaccines, which that's slated to be taken up next year.
But pretty much the "emergency powers" thing has been a mostly name only thing since April. Now as for:
Some federal vaccine mandates remain in place in the US
My guess is those are going to stay in place for forever. None of those are tied to any of the emergency declarations. However, who knows, a President could come in and roll those requirements back. So while those requirements were pushed out on the basis of there being an emergency, they are not explicitly tied to the emergency.
Now that said, each State may or may not do something with this new stance. But that's a State by State thing. So all important things to keep in mind in case you were worried that Biden was looking to one up Sheev Palpatine.
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72 emergency declarations issued since 1979 (Carter's sanctions of Iran, which are still in effect), 42 of them are still in effect [wikipedia.org]
Not counting today's Puerto Rico emergency due to Tropical Storm Fiona. Or the on going rail carrier emergency earlier this year [whitehouse.gov]
Re: So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, ri (Score:2)
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No. No. No.
Emergency powers are forever. Our security takes priority over our freedom, even if it means being groped by airport employees, or being forced to take medication, or prohibited from taking medication, or told not to travel, or told to wear certain things, or whatever our betters know better for us.
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It was just a few weeks ago he used covid as a means to cancel $10k in student loan debt without the consent of Congress. This was based on emergency powers. Also several months after saying covid wasn't en emergency any more in order to rescind Trump's eo for illegal immigrants. Now, with the elections nearing, he's once again declaring covid is over to get a boost. All he does is switch back and forth on covid to get what he wants and skirt Congress. He is the one acting like a God-King.
Re: He doesn't have any powers (Score:3)
It wasn't emergency powers that the Administration is using to forgive debt. It's 9/11 powers. Trump also used the same path to delay payments. Biden has extended that under the same logic till 2023. He then used that to forgive the amount his administration can.
None of this is "skirting" Congressional powers. These are all powers he has been duly given by Congress. Maybe we will finally get a Congress that will do their job and remove some of these powers. Or just quit whining like little brats over it. E
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"They're", not "their". Literacy is your friend.
Re:He doesn't have any powers (Score:5, Informative)
the current Supreme Court will cheerfully do as their told by the ones who put them there
I'm curious why you believe this. Supreme Court appointments are for life. What do you believe the people who have already been appointed have to gain from "doing as their [sic] told"?
The US Constitution has some checks and balances, but Supreme Court justice is pretty much at the top. There's very little that even the president can do to take action against them. Are you suggesting they're taking cash payments? Or are afraid of some sort of physical threats?
Supreme Court justices may feel some appreciation for the people who helped them reach their position, but nomination and confirmation are a one shot deal. No matter how much somebody helped them make it, there's no backsies, nobody who helped them reach the top has any power to remove them from their position.
I do think that most of the Supreme Court justices probably do share common views with many of the people who supported them in their rise to the top, but that's a lot different than your claim which implies that they'll follow new orders that don't match their personal views.
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The appointments made under Trump were on the understanding that those nominated would vote a certain way on certain issues, like abortion rights. And sure enough, they did.
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Of course it is not, but it is one major factor (stock market in general) that is used as a major parameter when evaluating the US economy.
There's plenty of other signs the economy is in the dumps, and if we're not careful...we could potentially slip from a light recession into a depression if things go really wrong.
But yeah, inflation, workforce participation, etc...there's plenty that shows Biden's economy is floundering and failing, and that nothing they've passed so far is rea
Re: So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, ri (Score:5, Insightful)
And basically survive till 2024 when anyone besides Joe and Kamala would HAVE to be better than what we're stuck with now.
This kind of thinking is how Biden got into the WH in the first place.
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Complaining is easy, 3-year-old's quickly master it. The hard part is coming up with workable solutions. If GOP has a grand econ fix, let's hear it! Bring on the brilliant thinking, you stable geniuses you.
> pushing through more and more progressive agenda items that will hurt the US economy even further.
Example? Infrastructure? Even Don wanted that; couldn't get it passed because he blew his bill window on taxcuts for billionaires.
Green energy? Should we ruin the planet for a short-term econ gain? Drou
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Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Informative)
Let's rephrase that accurately: companies are unable to hire at the miserable pay levels they are offering.
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's rephrase that accurately: companies are unable to hire at the miserable pay levels they are offering.
While this is true, doubly so at a time when inflation is high and yet companies are making record profits, the reality is millions can’t work because of long Covid or they simply died in the pandemic [npr.org]. Cut 4 million workers, while graduation is stalled a bit and a few more than average retire and you’re going to have a worker shortage across the board in all professions.
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Cut 4 million workers, while graduation is stalled a bit and a few more than average retire and youâ(TM)re going to have a worker shortage across the board in all professions.
If the US had a truly capitalist economy, worker shortages would translate into higher pay. The fact that this mostly hasn't happened shows that the US has some other economic model. We just haven't found a name for it yet, probably because few economists are prepared to admit that it exists.
Re:So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, rig (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that you are confusing capitalism with the free market. The successful capitalist hates the free market as that means competition, which gets in the way of profits while if they can become a monopoly, there are lots of profits.
In the case of labour, a free market means higher wages, better working conditions, and less profit for the capitalist, so the capitalist will try to undermine the free market.
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I think you are confusing capitalism with cronyism. The successful cronyist hates free market capitalism for all the reason's you stated.
I really hate it that people can't seem to understand this and continue to conflate the two.
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I think you are confusing capitalism with cronyism. The successful cronyist hates free market capitalism for all the reason's you stated.
I really hate it that people can't seem to understand this and continue to conflate the two.
I feel like this is exactly the same argument that actual communism has never been tried. The reality is about 1/3 of people favor might makes right and serve themselves before all else. They can’t see that this behavior on a grand scale ruins the quality of life for everyone to the point even though they are getting a larger chunk of the pie, the pie itself is so anemic they are really getting less. It’s not that great to live as a warlord in Syria despite thinking what is best in life is t
Re: So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, ri (Score:3)
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Re: So he'll be releasing his emergency powers, ri (Score:2)
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You're not allowed to advocate for the working class, if the working class is the wrong color.
And when you do advocate for the working class of the wrong color, you're totally allowed to make sure whatever they do for the economy is done far away from your multi-million dollar island estate.
Like the Cold War (Score:2)
Sorta like the cold war. Yeah, it's basically over but there will be an outbreak every now and again that will require special attention.
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If you want it.
He said the pandemic was over... (Score:5, Insightful)
... but he qualified this by saying that COVID is still a risk.
I'm sad about the 400 people a day dying, especially since the majority (300 or so) are unvaccinated, and many of their deaths could probably have been avoided with better health messaging.
I'm glad that the US didn't unite behind things like vaccine passports, though. The passport system (if widely and fully implemented) would have amounted to an electronic ID swipe every time a person entered a place of public accommodation. If the data had been retained (and it could have been, the QR codes were in plain text with a digital signature only for verification), then it would have been a gold mine for law enforcement and lawyers.
Require "caring and sharing" with law enforcement as a condition of keeping a business license. Be a shame if cops periodically ran the entry data against known warrants, immigration wants, parolees that should be home during certain hours, etc. Not to mention that a vaccine passport could have amounted to a "license to do everything fun." The temptation would have been huge to tie issuance to legal immigration status, parole status, unpaid fines, unpaid child support, and/or to revoke because of certain non-public-health crimes.
I'm very glad that red/authoritarian states didn't take digital vaccine passports and run with them, because they could have easily used them to create a much more rigidly regulated and policed society.
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In short, I'm very much pro-vaccination and pro-mitigation. I was wearing masks from March of 2020, I spent quite a lot of time working at a public vaccination site (doing tech work for them) for shit pay, because I wanted to do my part for this to be over. I wanted to do my part to protect those whom I loved.
But I'm glad that this didn't permanently usher in measures that could be abused by authoritarians. The US is already authoritarian enough without making it easier for those that want more control o
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I'm not opposed to vaccine mandates for school or for work, since you already need to show ID to enroll in school or get a job ... and it's a one-time check. Plus, there's precedent for healthcare workers and students ... I had to show an MMR vaccine to enroll in university, and that was long before COVID!
I was opposed to anything that had the potential to be a data grab, where you'd be required to scan a barcode that amounted to an ID multiple times a day, every time you entered an indoor location.
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Re:He said the pandemic was over... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sad about the 400 people a day dying, especially since the majority (300 or so) are unvaccinated, and many of their deaths could probably have been avoided with better health messaging.
Nope. The same people who say they wouldn't do stuff because they didn't trust the CDC because they kept changing their minds were the same people who didn't trust the CDC anyway and weren't going to do what they said regardless, or just didn't give a fuck about anyone but themselves and were looking for an excuse.
I'm very glad that red/authoritarian states didn't take digital vaccine passports and run with them, because they could have easily used them to create a much more rigidly regulated and policed society.
They're all authoritarian states, they're just exercising authority over different things, and some of them don't have enough warm bodies to cover their territory with any kind of thoroughness. California is getting ready to start forcing people into non-science-based mental health care... you know, the only kind we have in this country [madinamerica.com].
Re:He said the pandemic was over... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's odd how so many conservatives don't trust the government, yet trust slimy preachers, pundits, and web trolls. If the gov't can "get away" with so much lying despite checks and balances, what keeps the second group in check? (No large group of humans is perfect, by the way.)
Re:He said the pandemic was over... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also the odd dichotomy of (a) thinking the government is incredibly incompetent and bad at everything EXCEPT (b) maintaining some sort of conspiracy about consistently over years.
Re: He said the pandemic was over... (Score:2)
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California is getting ready to start forcing people into non-science-based mental health care..
What??
IT IS OVER and people still die ; DUH! (Score:2)
The disease doesn't go away and people will die of it for probably the rest our lives. We will all probably die of COVID or the FLU, if we don't die of heart failure or cancer 1st.
It is not a pandemic anymore it is just a deadly disease that mostly kills unvaccinated people and it fucks up some people who don't keep up to date with their shots. Some old people die despite the flu shot because their immune system is too weak.
Why would you say this as winter is coming? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's the perfect setup for likely getting owned for being wrong / callous due to future events.
358 deaths per day (Score:2, Insightful)
For those keeping score at home that's about 4 9/11s. I seem to remember taking 9/11 pretty seriously...
Biden's no dummy, he knows this isn't over. He knows that politicizing vaccines has put tens of millions at risk. But he also knows the American people are tired. So he's gonna let it go. Hoping that during the next spike he can get us to listen.
He's treati
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Biden's no dummy
Yeah, a real genius.
Your president, before he had hair. [twitter.com]
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Re:358 deaths per day (Score:5, Informative)
The critical security change that was required to prevent 9/11 was a simple shift in the security doctrine regarding plane hijackings. The traditional doctrine, drilled into people's heads was to do nothing, obey the hijackers and wait for trained authorities to rescue you. Don't try to be a hero, you're not law enforcement, you'll just get people killed. After 9/11, the doctrine is more like: Someone is trying to hijack the plane? Crush them under a tidal wave of bodies. All they have are box knives and a fake bomb. Even if the bomb is real, you'll save a lot more lives if it goes off than if they get to use the plane as a missile!
That was pretty much all that was needed: ceasing to tell people that they should sit there meekly and do nothing otherwise they were horrible and pathetic. All the rest of the stuff: the virtual strip search machines, the whole TSA, the ridiculous and pointless VIPER program, etc. is mostly just theater. Then there's stuff like RealID that's really just an abuse of security scares to push a national id program (something the Republicans used to be against, until they realized that they could use it to prevent minorities from voting)
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It wasn't even that (Score:2)
Also we don't let potential plane hijackers swim for a little while anymore. We knew 9/11 was coming but our law enforcement let it go. Some say they were trying to catch bigger fish and some say they were hoping for a minor terrorist incident that they could use to argue for a bigger budget next year. By the way everybody knew it
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non-vaxxers? (Score:2)
> Statistics show that over 400 Americans on average are dying from the virus each day.
If most of those are intentional non-vaxxers, I don't see that as a problem. They took the risk themselves. Note that regular flu kills roughly 150 per day.
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I pray you take an articulation and counter-argument course.
Biden Says a Lot of Things... (Score:2)
I'm honestly not sure what metric I'd use to finally declare the pandemic over, but I do know that I haven't seen it yet. It's slowed down a great deal, but we're far from out of the woods IMHO.
Jolly good! (Score:2)
Just because you say it doesn't make it true. (Score:2)
Re:The pandemic (phase) ended sometime last last y (Score:5, Informative)
attention whore Fauci
You know that it was his job right? Like the government hired him because of his expertise and part of that was to talk to the public.
Anyways, we have the vaccines now, it's not like people haven't had the chance to get them anymore. There haven't been lockdowns or mask mandates in months (in the US)
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Like the government hired him because of his expertise and part of that was to talk to the public.
He is not a psychologist or a global disaster coordinator, however. Nevertheless, he prioritized guiding anticipated public response instead of medical advice when he said not to use masks (to keep masks available for health care workers). It was an admirable goal, but his advice still contradicted his actual medical opinion.
There haven't been lockdowns or mask mandates in months (in the US)
This is current and I am guessing this is not limited to MA: "All people in Massachusetts (regardless of vaccination status) are required to continue wearing masks or face coverings in
Re:The pandemic (phase) ended sometime last last y (Score:4, Informative)
Fauci's job was to handle an unknown pandemic and one of the top priorities is to protect the medical workers who were suffering from a lack of PPE (partially because it was stolen by the Trump admin). It was good advice to tell people to not buy up the limited supply at the time and obviously the advice changed in a few months when supplies stabilized.
I live in MA and that may be still official policy (very reasonable one at that), it's not something that's heavily enforced aside from places like hospitals with vulnerable people
Re:The pandemic (phase) ended sometime last last y (Score:5, Informative)
It was good advice to tell people to not buy up the limited supply at the time and obviously the advice changed in a few months when supplies stabilized.
He absolutely did not say 'mask supplies are low please wait to buy one.' That's revisionist. He said they didn't work: "Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection....I do not recommend that you wear a mask" and "there's no reason to be walking around with a mask".
Rationing supply may well have been his goal, but the downside to lying to achieve that is the part where COVID policy was actually a multi-year long campaign reliant on public trust for co-operation in things like vaccine uptake. At this point we're going to have to deal with decades of increased anti-vax nonsense for even non-covid vaccines because of how poorly public trust was managed.
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At the time we didn't think it was going to make a big difference in whether you got the virus. That was before we had studied the risk of transmission from surfaces. We had studied how long the virus could persist on surfaces (which was interesting and weird — over a week on stainless, but only a few hours on plastic?) and we thought that meant people would be getting it mostly that way. But then we did some studies and found out that it was actually very hard to get it from a surface, but very easy
Re:The pandemic (phase) ended sometime last last y (Score:5, Insightful)
Even attention whore Fauci has admitted it.
Jesus christ you people are nuts. Let me guess, Trump *isn't* an attention whore, somehow?
Re: The pandemic (phase) ended sometime last last (Score:5, Insightful)
attention whore Fauci
Jesus bloody Christ, people like you need help. Please do your family a favor and get some.
That man has served more of his life to this country than most families ever will. He is due some respect irrelevant of your disagreements with him. He wasn't even known for all the prior *demics he has worked on. You wouldn't even know who he is unless the media, the former President, and some useless Politicians didn't plaster his name all over the place.
The guy is a humble, back office, back photo, "My recommendation report is on your table" type of guy. He was trust into the spotlight, jabbed with a mic, and you all are pissed he talked and didn't look back at Trump to get his taking queues.
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Wow, it's almost as if each individual state isn't enclosed in its own bubble. Also almost as if a huge number of people did not ignore most of the safety procedures. Then, it's even like most of the people who didn't ignore the safety procedures completely still didn't implement them. I saw _so_ many people who wore masks as only a token gesture - they didn't adjust the strip at the top to the shape of their nose, or just wore the mask entirely off their nose, etc.
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1. We should have got out of there 15 years ago. Actually, we should have never gone in with boots on the ground.
2. Good. Fossil fuels should be expensive. Americans have become spoiled rotten and 15-20 mpg SUVs became the norm, so much so that some automakers basically stopped making sedans. Yes, we need to transition to electric vehicles, but 40-50 mpg gas family cars would have been a good intermediate step.
3. Inflation is high in most of the world ... let's see, we just had a pandemic that massive
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Wait, weren't you the one who's "anti-authoritarian"?
What other choices do you support taking away from people?
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If anything, we've lost choices in efficient cars since the early 2000s. I remember when you could buy a 40+ mpg non-hybrid Civic in the US for under 20 grand.
I'm not saying that we should ban bloatbox SUVs, but we shouldn't deliberately keep gas prices down just so people can afford the Earthkilling pieces of rubbish.
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So you want to use the power of the government to force people to get the cars you think they should drive.
Why is it every time you scratch a "progressive", you find an authoritarian?
Re:Uh huh... (Score:4, Informative)
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2. No, we should be manufacturing 40-50 mpg gas econoboxes in the interim until electric cars get good enough. They were common in the 90s, they are still common in non-US countries, even with those with strict safety standards (EU, Japan).
3. The US actually shut FAR LESS down than China and many European countries.
4. I own a home. I bought before the pandemic. I really don't care if the value drops -- I'd rather others be able to buy, not have homes just be for AirBNB investors, oligarchs, and flippe
Re:Uh huh... (Score:5, Informative)
1) Humiliating and disastrous exit from Afghanistan
Which was set up by Trump, even if it was left to the Biden administration to follow through. It might have gone a little better too if Trump had not handed the country to the Taliban first.
2) The price of gas has essentially doubled on his watch
Which is partly due to the pandemic and partly due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It's mostly because people keep forgetting that gasoline prices are a scam and that oil companies are making record profits. We really need to dump gasoline and at the pump pricing based on market speculation.
3) 7.5% inflation rate - a 40 year high. Of course, that excludes "volatile" items like energy, housing and food. Include those and it is much higher.
Mostly just the result of the pandemic again, along with recorded inflation catching up with the real inflation that's been happening this whole time. Also, more on this in the answer to point 4.
4) Stock market down, layoffs up
Going by the Dow Jones, the stock market is "down" to where it was a year and a half ago, which is still higher than it's ever been. The unemployment rate is still very low. However, one important thing that anyone who has taken at least one freshman level economics course should remember is the Phillips curve. The Phillips curve shows a pretty standard inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation. High unemployment tends to mean low inflation, whereas low unemployment tends to mean high inflation. There's often a time lapse, but it's a fairly predictable part of the economic cycle that any economist should be able to tell you (but most working ones probably have an incentive not to, in order to avoid self-fulfilling prophecies, which are a real problem in the field of economics).
Anyway, the whole "its the economy stupid" is pretty silly. For the most part, the current President does not really affect the economy that much, especially in the early part of their term (assuming an eight year term). There are some bone-headed things they can do, like starting trade wars and then just kind of forgetting about them, but there are usually larger factors that influence the cycles of the economy. You go ahead and believe what you want to believe though.
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Trump negotiated a date and requirements, not the method - that was decided by Biden.
He created the date and the requirement and effectively negotiated the country away to the Taliban, releasing, if I recall correctly, 5000 captured Taliban along with their current leader, who subsequently took over the country. Now, the Taliban were not the ones who actually attacked and killed US soldiers on the way out - that was an Al Qaeda splinter group - but the pressure of having the Taliban recovering their strength almost certainly influenced the pace of the pullout. Also, Trump negotiated the dat