EVEN THEIR STRONGEST SUPPORTERS THINK THE PUBLIC-HEALTH COMMUNITY HAS SCREWED THE POOCH HERE:
By supporting, or at least tolerating, the protests, officials seem to have declared the pandemic less important than they previously made out. To some Trump supporters, the double standard validates their belief that the shutdown was a political ploy to hurt the president’s reelection prospects by harming the economy. To others, it shows that what really matters is who suffers: small businesses are fair game, left-wing protesters aren’t.
Yep. This is a historic failure. Plus:
“Flatten the curve” worked as a slogan, because most Americans wanted to avoid overrun hospitals. They didn’t want what happened in Lombardy to happen here. And, outside of New York City, flattening the curve has worked. Hospitals have been able to cope with the influx of COVID-19 patients.
But once you’ve solved that problem, then what? Officials never offered a coherent and realistic plan for going forward. Epidemiologists, people began to suspect, would demand that we stay home forever — or at least until a vaccine worked — never mind the economic, mental and physical toll. But the public was never going to tolerate a year-plus shutdown.
Read the whole thing.
And you know if the protests lead to a spike in cases that will somehow be Trump’s fault.
h/t GR