I know that New Zealand is a far different place from the United States, and it is wrong to draw too many parallels, but this is an example of an effective government response:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/new-zealand-edges-back-to-normal-after-routing-coronavirus-in-49-days/2020/05/15/c8f43f46-950e-11ea-87a3-22d324235636_story.html
Even though they had not experienced any significant effect from the virus, epidemiological studies (you know, āscienceā) had told them that they were on a similar trajectory as Italy. They acted decisively, and beat back the threat in seven weeks. Seven weeks!
They have had 21 deaths, all of which were in people over the age of 60. They are not completely out of the woods and are in the middle of figuring out a reopening strategy, but they are doing so in a thoughtful and organized manner. I guess that this is what living in a civilized nation must be like.
Again, a direct comparison is not possible, but that number of deaths prorated to a population our size would be approximately 1400. Instead, we lose more than that number every day, and in the next 10 days will be looking at a total of 100,000. Even if we had lost 10x the number of people per capita compared to New Zealand, our numbers would be closer to14,000.
Instead, the incompetent venality of our own government has left us with this unparalleled tragedy. It may not exactly be genocide, but to me it feels like it. Genocide targets a segment of a population for extermination. The coronavirus targets the elderly and sick, with some collateral damage to the general population. Trump and his sycophants have aided and abetted the virus by ignorance, perhaps, rather than malice - but the dead are just as dead.
Crisis reveals character. At the very least, this tragedy has exposed a huge vein of willful ignorance in our very dysfunctional society.
