[Pants-of-dog]

I have no idea, as I'm not privy to what the CDC does or does not do. But I would be willing to bet that whatever procedures for testing which were in place have been there for some time; certainly longer than Trump has been President.

You do not know what the restrictions are or how they impact the spread of the virus, do you?

What has Canada done to combat the spread?

Public health care.

Including testing for free for everyone,

As of 2/29/20, Canada had 37 confirmed cases, and that's among a population of about 37,000,000.

In comparison, the United States has had some 170 reported cases, or about 4.5 times as many cases as Canada. However, our population is almost ten times what Canada's is.

That suggests that the lack of accessible testing has caused you to miss a lot of cases.

[BigSteve-3]

You do not know what the restrictions are or how they impact the spread of the virus, do you?

Whether I'm aware of their impact or not in no way impacts the effectiveness of the measures taken.

If you light a match, it's still going to burn if I don't know what fire is.

Public health care.

Including testing for free for everyone,

You have a rather pronounced outbreak in Canada.

How's that free testing stopping the spread of the virus?

That suggests that the lack of accessible testing has caused you to miss a lot of cases.

It suggests that the Canadian government is failing Canadian citizens, given the alarmingly high rate of infection.

[Rugoz]

How's that free testing stopping the spread of the virus?

What an utterly braindead question.

[BigSteve-3]

What an utterly braindead question.

No, it's not. Pants Of Dog said that Canada has free testing. He offered that up as one of the measures being undertaken by the Canadian government. Yet, the incidence of the virus in Canada is far higher than in the United States, which is the country he wishes to be critical of.

Free testing will only do so much to stem the spread of the virus. If someone tests positive then the virus has already spread to them and, possibly, to everyone they've been in contact with. Testing should be done with an eye towards being able to treat those infected. I wouldn't be able to tell you how many people I've been in contact with in the last 24 hours. I would not be able to name them, or even count them.

Free testing is good, without a doubt. But Pants Of Dog seems to view it as some sort of "end all" with respect to fighting the virus. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but he's not given us a lot more to go on.

[Donna]

His longest-lasting accomplishment will be the courts. The 9th Circuit is now balanced. His tax policies on corporations will probably stick too. Democrats want to raise taxes and are saying so. This will not go over well, I don't think.

So his accomplishment will be a few rank-and-file things that Mitt Romney or Marco Rubio could have done.

Just admit it, you like him because he's a surrogate dad.

[Rugoz]

No, it's not. Pants Of Dog said that Canada has free testing. He offered that up as one of the measures being undertaken by the Canadian government. Yet, the incidence of the virus in Canada is far higher than in the United States, which is the country he wishes to be critical of.

Free testing will only do so much to stem the spread of the virus. If someone tests positive then the virus has already spread to them and, possibly, to everyone they've been in contact with. Testing should be done with an eye towards being able to treat those infected. I wouldn't be able to tell you how many people I've been in contact with in the last 24 hours. I would not be able to name them, or even count them.

Free testing is good, without a doubt. But Pants Of Dog seems to view it as some sort of "end all" with respect to fighting the virus. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but he's not given us a lot more to go on.

It's a braindead argument. The number of infected a country has depends hugely on the number of people it tests and on other circumstances unrelated to the healthcare system. Let me make an almost equally dumb argument: The US has 160 infected and 11 deaths, Canada 37 infected and 0 deaths. Clearly the Canadian health care system is infinitely superior to that of the US.

Basic common sense tells us that free testing makes people more likely to take the test if they have symptoms, and thus makes it easier to find infected people and isolate them respectively relatives and coworkers.

[BigSteve-3]

It's a braindead argument. The number of infected a country has depends hugely on the number of people it tests and on other circumstances unrelated to the healthcare system. Let me make an almost equally dumb argument: The US has 160 infected and 11 deaths, Canada 37 infected and 0 deaths. Clearly the Canadian health care system is infinitely superior to that of the US.

That's an untrue statement, but I can understand why you would think that when not considering all factors.

You have to look at the incidence of the virus compared to the population. In the United States, roughly one in every 2,043,750 people has the virus (160 cases in a population of roughly 327 million). In Canada, it's one in every 1,027,027 people who have it (37 cases in a population of roughly 38 million).

Statistically speaking, your odds of having the virus in Canada are double what they are in the United States.

[Stormsmith]

No, it's not. Pants Of Dog said that Canada has free testing. He offered that up as one of the measures being undertaken by the Canadian government. Yet, the incidence of the virus in Canada is far higher than in the United States, which is the country he wishes to be critical of.

Free testing will only do so much to stem the spread of the virus. If someone tests positive then the virus has already spread to them and, possibly, to everyone they've been in contact with. Testing should be done with an eye towards being able to treat those infected. I wouldn't be able to tell you how many people I've been in contact with in the last 24 hours. I would not be able to name them, or even count them.

Free testing is good, without a doubt. But Pants Of Dog seems to view it as some sort of "end all" with respect to fighting the virus. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but he's not given us a lot more to go on.

You can't compare Canada to the USA in this particular incident.

Free testing identifies who is infected and the need to self quarantine thus limiting transmission of the virus

But the American model doesn't allow for testing on the scale needed. The best you can do is check dead bodies. Not the same thing. And now President Trump is rattling on about how infected people should go to work. Really. An obese septuagenarian who lives on McBurgers and desserts really oughtn't be causing the spread of the virus.

[BigSteve-3]

An obese septuagenarian who lives on McBurgers and desserts really oughtn't be causing the spread of the virus.

I agree.

And he isn't causing anything except more angst among his political rivals.

Trump didn't say people who are infected should go to work, he said they could. The truth is that most people infected with the virus do recover from it, and I would hazard a guess that many who have it don't go to the doctor to determine that they do have it. They simply self-medicate and go about their life.

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but I am saying that Trumps remarks hardly equate to him causing the spread of the virus.

[late]

The country doesn't even know what pandemic teams you're talking about. It was something that didn't even exist until Obama. The CDC has historically lead in these situations, as they did here. Trump listened to them. The governor of Washington and of California didn't. They didn't declare emergencies until much later. My own county government was more responsive, and they are all Democrats. Trump has done a fine job.


They push for test kits, not the president.


The CDC already has emergency funds and they ask for more as needed.


Sure he did. That's why he suspended travel from China.

Repeating lies doesn't change what they are.

Brace yourself, here comes reality:

The NSC pandemic team was killed.

Trump keeps lying about the virus, and he doesn't understand it well enough to lie to other adults. He babbles. The head of the CDC had to correct him in a press conference the other day.

The Trump crowd even managed to screw up the few test kits they did get.

The CDC advised Trump not to bring people back before we had set up proper quarrantine procedures. The idiots ignored them, and the virus spread.

The CDC has been doing inaccurate reporting, nobody with a medical degree would do that, so that's one of Trumps morons.

The CDC failed to update testing guidelines when the situation changed. (again, nobody with a degree...)

Trump said Democrats wanted the virus to spread and kill Americans. Some idiot here parroted that one.

In 2018 Trump killed 80% of CDC pandemic funding.

Trump killed a program called Predict that Bush started, that was intended to quickly identify animal to human breakouts.

HHS workers have been treating Corona patients without training or proper equipment.

Last week, as things were getting crazy, 1/3 of the virus task force took time off to go to CPAC. Politics is clearly more important than plague.

You keep babbling about borders, but none of the cases so far have come from south of the border.

Pence has stopped the medical experts from communicating news about the disease. No president did that before. So what he have is information that is both late and often incorrect. That's batshit crazy. That information is crucial to managing the response properly.

The House passed a $8 billion dollar bill to fund the fight against the disease. That's just for this phase, more will be needed in the next budget cycle. But Republicans don't want to spend that much, and they want to let drug companies gouge people, which means a lot of people won't be able to afford the shot when it finally shows up. Sane countries negotiate drug prices. They actually want to short change Docs in their fight against this disease.

That's amazing, but not in the good way.

[Pants-of-dog]

Whether I'm aware of their impact or not in no way impacts the effectiveness of the measures taken.

If you light a match, it's still going to burn if I don't know what fire is.

But it would be impossible for you to argue that this is an effective measure.

You have a rather pronounced outbreak in Canada.

How's that free testing stopping the spread of the virus?

We know how many cases there actually are.

The USA does not know how many cases it has.

[Rugoz]

That's an untrue statement, but I can understand why you would think that when not considering all factors.

An untrue statement? Wtf are you even talking about.

You have to look at the incidence of the virus compared to the population. In the United States, roughly one in every 2,043,750 people has the virus (160 cases in a population of roughly 327 million). In Canada, it's one in every 1,027,027 people who have it (37 cases in a population of roughly 38 million).

Statistically speaking, your odds of having the virus in Canada are double what they are in the United States.

And the odds of dying from the virus in the US are infinitely higher than in Canada. Stop this [personal insult deleted. Prosthetic Conscience]

[Stormsmith]

He has challenges with the methodology of collecting empirical data.

[BigSteve-3]

But it would be impossible for you to argue that this is an effective measure.

No more impossible than i would be to argue that it's ineffective.

We know how many cases there actually are.

The USA does not know how many cases it has.

We can only use the data we have. There are undoubtedly unreported cases in Canada, just as there are unreported cases in the United States.

I get the impression that you're not actually interested in discussing the problem and what can be done about it but, instead, would rather just argue for the sake of argument.

Is that an accurate assessment?

[BigSteve-3]

An untrue statement? Wtf are you even talking about.

Well, your statement was "The US has 160 infected and 11 deaths, Canada 37 infected and 0 deaths. Clearly the Canadian health care system is infinitely superior to that of the US."

You can't make the determination that the health care system in Canada is superior based solely on those numbers.

Do you deny that the percentage of Canadians infected with the virus is higher than the percentage of Americans?

And the odds of dying from the virus in the US are infinitely higher than in Canada. Stop this ... We have enough Trumpsters here.

I'm far from a "Trumpster". But I am someone who considers all factors, this one being that you are more likely to contract the virus in Canada than in the United States.

[Godstud]

@ProPhoto I guess Thailand must have a far superior medical system than either USA or Canada, as they've only had 43 cases and 1 death from COVID-19, in a population of 68 million, despite being far closer to China. Also, they have free testing(Universal healthcare system).

USA has the best healthcare in the world. Americans tell me this all the time. Why is it failing them?

[Pants-of-dog]

No more impossible than i would be to argue that it's ineffective.

Yes, it would be equally impossible for you to argue that as well.

By the way, there were no restrictions lifted. Pence was clarifying that tests were available to anyone who could get a doctor to order a test. People had incorrectly thought that you needed a doctor’s order and to be showing symptoms, but that was never the policy. Instead, that was a guideline suggested by the CDC to prioritize the test kits that they did have.

We can only use the data we have. There are undoubtedly unreported cases in Canada, just as there are unreported cases in the United States.

There is no reason to assume that the number of unreported cases is roughly the same in both countries.

We have less obstacles to access. In the US, you need a doctor to order the test, and the money to pay for the test, and the money to pay the doctor. In Canada, you just need a doctor to order the test.

We are also not limited by the number of testing kits the way you are. We have a National Microbiology Laboratory that works with the federal health ministry (who in turn works with the provincial ministries that actually run health care) that can confirm each case. BC and Ontario, where most of the cases are, have also set up testing lab sites.

So, tests are not only free at point of use, but we are also not at the mercy if the market in terms of how many tests we can do.

[BigSteve-3]

Yes, it would be equally impossible for you to argue that as well.

Are you more interested in being "right" or "winning" some debate?

Because I'm interested in discussing what can be done to address what's happening, whereas you seem far more interested in blaming someone for it.

Neither of those holds a lot of interest for me.

Who did or didn't do what is largely unimportant in the discussion of what to do about the problem now.

[Rancid]

USA has the best healthcare in the world. Americans tell me this all the time. Why is it failing them?

It depends on how you define it. IN terms of cutting edge treatments and technology, the US is the best. However, in terms of access it's one of the worst of all advanced nations/economies. Many Americans cite the first statement, but also choose to ignore the second.

[Pants-of-dog]

...what can be done to address what's happening,

Make the corona virus test free for the person being tested. Also, let the Chinese communities know that undocumented migrants from China can also receive the tests without ICE being notified.

Fund a lab for the CDC and other labs to test the way we do, so that you are not restricted by how many test kits some company can make.

Provide free lodging and food for quarantined patients.

Provide free treatment for the sick.