Inverted_Trough

Don't think it's possible to talk COVID without delving into politics. As long as it doesn't get too personal we should let it go.

It's a hypothesis which has been posited by some in the professional field. And it's been part of the political narrative to absolve blame or to show that we took it seriously. But so far I haven't seen any data that supports this hypothesis. Our infection counts are nearly an order of magnitude greater than everywhere else (and yes, I know we know we have a larger population, we've tested more, etc.) I think there may be some evidence that it delayed the onset of the contagion, since things got worse in Europe before here. But what good does additional time do for you....if you don't do anything with that time? What exactly were we doing with that additional time we bought? We did nothing. That's our fault.

Maybe if we purchased a few less F-35 aircraft, or didn't have to maintain thousands of nuclear warheads that we'll never use, or wasting money on a border wall, we could have spent money on a bigger ventilator and PPE stockpile. The DoD gets a trillion dollars per year and yet we don't have an adequate ventilator stockpile. Pandemics happen and will continue to happen. It's just nature. It's up to us to be prepared and we clearly weren't ready. The fact that Hollywood has churned out several pandemic movies over the past twenty years shows you they were more clairvoyant than our leaders are

Italy 'banned' flights from China before we did. Obviously that didn't work. The virus was already here by that point. In any case, let's say restricting flights from China buys you more time. You have to actually do something with that additional time in order to get any benefits. We did nothing with the additional time. Didn't ramp up any tests, and we spent most of the time believing "it's just the flu" Most of the Asian countries (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc.) have done a phenomenal job with containing this virus. Western Europe and the US have done a terrible job. There's no way to sugarcoat it. What do those Asian countries have in common? They went through the SARS epidemic. In other words: They were prepared from the get-go and took it seriously. We didn't. In fact, South Korea and the US had their first COVID case at about the same time. But South Korea has done a much better job at containment.

That's certainly possible. But some of the other Asian countries like South Korea and Singapore have got a better handle on this virus than we do. I think their recent experience with SARS and MERS made them a helluva lot more prepared - and less complacent -- than Europe and the US were.

Yes there are narratives on both sides, but I don't think it's a 50/50 equal split. The conservative side does peddle into the fear, conspiracy and propaganda more than the other. I know that'll offend political sensibilities but it's true. It normally is an effective political strategy -- and it's great for TV ratings -- but, as you can see, it not effective when there is an actual crisis. Cable news is pretty terrible in general. I think the fairness doctrine was a good idea.

Does Ryan Maue trust the climate change science? I thought everyone on WeatherBell were politicized deniers.

Agree that we shouldn't become overly optimistic. The CFS weeklies have consistently been showing an eventual transition to a colder look -- even while we were in the midst of despair when the Central Pacific ridge wasn't moving on the 15-day ensembles. They are continuing to maintain a cold look throughout Feb....so there is that.

A few days ago, we heard about the Central Pacific ridge correlates to a death knell for winter. Now we are talking about too much blocking and cold and dry. Times have changed!

You're both wrong: Peak temps are mid-January.

Well, let's look at the bright side: Hopefully this January won't be as tropical as January 2006. Or January 1950. Or, worst yet, January 1932. I've read somewhere that mosquitoes were swarming in January 1932!