American Politics Discussion Thread

[ipecac]

Related:

'Russia offers to help US with Covid-19 vaccine; US says no

Other US officials told CNN the Russian vaccine is considered so half-baked in the United States that it hadn't even piqued US interest in a serious way before the rollout. "There's no way in hell the US tries this (Russian vaccine) on monkeys, let alone people," one US government public health official said. '
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/13/europe/ru...index.html

'Russia has struck preliminary agreements to sell its Covid-19 vaccine to more than 10 countries in Asia, South America and the Middle East, a development that could give Moscow valuable economic and political leverage internationally.'
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-stri...1600610554

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Russia is slowly but surely proceeding with its vaccination programme. China has had a vaccine for military use ready some time ago, and will also soon be preparing one for the general population.

The West is not going to trust those vaccines, and is definitely not going to accept the idea that they and their democracies are massively lagging behind and basically failing while the evil dictatorships of Russia and China are doing fine.

Meanwhile, what passes for a plan is to come up with more and more reasons to extend lockdown until herd immunity is inevitably reached anyway before a Western vaccine is projected to arrive. Previously the rationale was to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, that hasn't happened so they must have some new excuses.

If a vaccine is accepted by the medical community, no one will care where it comes from.

Hospitals WERE overwhelmed in many places. Italy was the worst case for that.

The russian vaccine, despite peer review and clear evidence is treated with only skepticism.

The US lockdown measures are necessary because people aren't following common-sense practices. This may/may not be why certain more severe lockdown measures (school closings) are still in place, but I think all in all it is the only viable option. The general public is totally ignorant of how to wear masks, and the majority of people I see do at least one of the following:
- take off their mask while speaking
- slide it under their nose
- wear only a thin bandana (does not stop viral particles, is not secure around the face)


In addition, the trump administration prevented the USPS from sending masks to every household in the US. It's not that republicans in government suddenly have this utilitarian moral compass which has told them that re-opening will bring the most social good - no, they simply have a flagrant disregard for human life and revel in their willful ignorance. If they really wanted to keep things open, they wouldn't have disregarded the advice of epidemologists, and instead have sent out masks. Again, the arguments some put forward about the absurdity of a two-year long shutdown are good and all, but they assume a public that will comply with reasonable measures and politicians who wish to protect people. Neither are remotely true in this country.

[Charriu]

A vaccine doesn't have to be perfectly safe and exhaustively tested.  It merely has to reduce serious cases by less than its own side effects to be a net positive.  That's the playbook for Russia and China which understand such things.  The American media and too much of the public doesn't.

But a vaccine has to work. As far as I have understood it the Russian vaccine didn't finish phase 3 of the standard vaccine test and that's why there is doubt about it's effectiveness.

If a vaccine is accepted by the medical community, no one will care where it comes from.

FFS, hydroxychloroquinine was a standard treatment in China and South Korea by Feburary, but it became politicised in the West.

I might be wrong about this, but I think back then hydroxychloroquinine wasn't accepeted as a treatment not because China and South Korea used it. Rather there were new scientific studies that showed that hydroxychloroquinine wasn't as good a treatment for Covid. Those studies of course only came out after February and needed some more time. Hydroxychloroquinine became politicised after Trump promoted it as a cure, while the scientific community was doubtful about it.

This had nothing to do with China and South Korea and I don't condemn them for trying it. The disease was still new and needed to be investigated closer, which China was a big part of. I'm curious because I don't know it, but is hydroxychloroquinine still used today in China and South Korea?

Also could we please stop talking about the "West". The "West" as we knew it is more or less dead and this didn't begin with Trump. By now it's clear that the US and a bunch of their allies are on separate path into the future. Hydroxychloroquinine became politicised in the US, but not to that degree in Europe or other states. The Trump administration is one reason why I as a European would be very sceptical about a US vaccine that doesn't have the medical community behind it.

[ipecac]

The US lockdown measures are necessary because people aren't following common-sense practices.

As previously pointed out, they are unnecessary since the plan is to wait till herd immunity anyway.

I might be wrong about this, but I think back then hydroxychloroquinine wasn't accepeted as a treatment not because China and South Korea used it. Rather there were new scientific studies that showed that hydroxychloroquinine wasn't as good a treatment for Covid. Those studies of course only came out after February and needed some more time.

No, it was not accepted because of politics, and I mean Trump politics rather than anti-China politics. When Trump brought it up in March, there had been zero studies (too early for any to have concluded). At that time, the excuse not to use it was because there had been no gold-standard studies.

The obvious answer was that in a real crisis and a new disease, you can't wait for studies but have to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Trump wasn't being smarter or more stupid than usual, he was just recommending what was working on a everyday basis for the Chinese and Koreans. The critics reacted as T-Hawk described:

A vaccine (or treatment -ipecac) doesn't have to be perfectly safe and exhaustively tested. It merely has to reduce serious cases by less than its own side effects to be a net positive. That's the playbook for Russia and China which understand such things. The American media and too much of the public doesn't.

[ipecac]

That's the playbook for Russia and China which understand such things.

The playbook in this instance is ethics, smethics, the only way to really find out how safe and effective it is large-scale human trials. Ergo, rush the vaccine to mass delivery.

[Charriu]

 That's the playbook for Russia and China which understand such things.  

The playbook in this instance is ethics, smethics, the only way to really find out how safe and effective it is large-scale human trials. Ergo, rush the vaccine to mass delivery.

No, that's what phase 3 of a vaccine research is there for:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phases_of_...#Phase_III

[GeneralKilCavalry]

The US lockdown measures are necessary because people aren't following common-sense practices.

As previously pointed out, they are unnecessary since the plan is to wait till herd immunity anyway.

I might be wrong about this, but I think back then hydroxychloroquinine wasn't accepeted as a treatment not because China and South Korea used it. Rather there were new scientific studies that showed that hydroxychloroquinine wasn't as good a treatment for Covid. Those studies of course only came out after February and needed some more time.

No, it was not accepted because of politics, and I mean Trump politics rather than anti-China politics. When Trump brought it up in March, there had been zero studies (too early for any to have concluded). At that time, the excuse not to use it was because there had been no gold-standard studies.

The obvious answer was that in a real crisis and a new disease, you can't wait for studies but have to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Trump wasn't being smarter or more stupid than usual, he was just recommending what was working on a everyday basis for the Chinese and Koreans. The critics reacted as T-Hawk described:

A vaccine (or treatment -ipecac) doesn't have to be perfectly safe and exhaustively tested. It merely has to reduce serious cases by less than its own side effects to be a net positive. That's the playbook for Russia and China which understand such things. The American media and too much of the public doesn't.

Trump recommended it as a panacea. Healthy people should not be taking it, it reduces the fatality rate in covid patients bit a fair amount. The way trump advertised it, it became a sort of panic,  with healthy individuals buying it up, etc.

And here's the problem ipecac - if the right measures, such as contact tracing, mask-wearing, etc. were implemented on a massive scale, there'd be no need to wait for herd immunity - the vaccine would come first. A partial lockdown (quarter density in restaurants, two-shift schools) would be able to massively reduce the number of cases.

And even if the decision is to reach herd immunity, there are different paths through it. Nursing homes got hit extremely hard early on because of poor safety measures, etc.

[Wyatan]

And even if the decision is to reach herd immunity(...).

I usually don't condone the pervasive problem-solving approach through semantics, but I'll eat my hat and say that the proponents of the "herd immunity" approach should use the proper term, which is herd culling.

[T-hawk]

OK, if proponents of lockdowns use the proper term of authoritarian government tyranny.

[Wyatan]

OK, if proponents of lockdowns use the proper term of authoritarian government tyranny.

Isn't that a pleonasm? Any form of government that isn't anarchy is an unacceptable curtailing of your individual freedom.

Now most people (not all, I'm aware of that) accept that it's okay to have laws preventing you from getting out in the street and shoot a couple passers-by on a whim.
If you agree with that, though, why would it be okay to let you got out and spread a deadly virus on a whim?
Unless of course you think it'd be only fair for you to foot the medical bills of any person you infect, and to face manslaughter charges should they die. It'd be a coherent position then.

Two other points:
1- There's not a single country in the world that doesn't grant extra "tyrannical" powers to its goverment in the case of a sanitary crisis. War and Disease have always been the two widely accepted emergency situations.
2- It would seem that "lockdown" has already seen its meaning greatly widened. To my knowledge, the only country currently in "lockdown" is Israel. But apparently, any form of restriction is now called a "lockdown"?