Trudeau led his country out of a pandemic while Trump's lack of leadership

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Yes, the population is 10 times greater, but the number of cases and deaths is disproportionately still significantly higher in the US vs Canada. It’s not 1 to 10 as the population disparity would suggest…
Canada is also a federation and the provincial premiers were absolutely vital… some provinces faired better than others. But as Ora pointed out, there was cooperation across party lines… Covid, and basic hygiene such as wearing a mask, didn’t become a huge political point of contention as it did in the US.
 
Now that I can post again, your right. I could’ve sworn I heard about a study like that from my roommate. (He was a biochem major) Guess it may not exist.
 
I also mentioned that the US has a higher urban population, and something I didn’t mention was the terrible response specifically of New York. If you take out New York, almost all other states had a similar if not better outcome from the virus as Canada.
With regard to the political split on wearing a mask, that probably happened because the CDC strongly suggested that nobody should wear a mask in the early days of the virus, but then flipped and suggested that everybody wear a mask. There were a couple of conflicting studies, and I for one can attest that the medical experts where I work strongly recommended that no employees should wear masks then flipped on that. My guess is the contradictions caused a rift.
 
twf said:
Yes, the population is 10 times greater, but the number of cases and deaths is disproportionately still significantly higher in the US vs Canada.
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We have different strategies. Canada, as with NZ is targeting to completely squash the virus in their countries. Hence they have lower infections and deaths, at this stage of the pandemic.

The experts agreed it was very unlikely the US could eliminate the virus in the USA, so our strategy has been to protect the risky and don’t overload hospitals. The US death rate would be much lower if NY, NJ, MA etc had not forced infected people into assisted living homes that were not equipped for it.

The young having COVID parties are jumping the infections, but not the deaths.
 
USA is a big transport hub in comparison to Australia and Canada.
 
Stamping out wasn’t realistic, nor do I think was an expectation. However an honest attempt at controlling it has been offered repeatedly by Dr. Fauci only to be summarily dismissed because of lack of will by both the government and the populace.
 
Ross Douthat made that point in one of his columns earlier in the crisis (that if you took out New York the U.S. was faring not that badly in comparison to other countries); however I’m not sure it’s still true since cases have exploded in the south and west since he wrote that article.
 
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If only the virus could be made more visible to the human eye…
 
The_Catholic_Dude said:
With regard to the political split on wearing a mask, that probably happened because the CDC strongly suggested that nobody should wear a mask in the early days of the virus, but then flipped and suggested that everybody wear a mask. There were a couple of conflicting studies, and I for one can attest that the medical experts where I work strongly recommended that no employees should wear masks then flipped on that. My guess is the contradictions caused a rift.
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The reason for the reluctance to recommend PPE for everyone is that they were afraid that the public would deplete the supply of PPE needed by health care workers. That alone would not account for the political split. I is apparent that the main source of the split was Trump’s mixed messaging and overt politicization of the issue, going so far as to accuse people who wear masks and “not liking him.”
 
Theo520 said:
Canada, as with NZ is targeting to completely squash the virus in their countries. Hence they have lower infections and deaths, at this stage of the pandemic.
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I know New Zealand aimed for that but I don’t think Canada as a whole aimed for this. There might have been some places but the largest provinces didn’t try that because some cut themselves off from the rest of Canada and the world.
Theo520 said:
The US death rate would be much lower if NY, NJ, MA etc had not forced infected people into assisted living homes that were not equipped for it.
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This was similar in Canada and the UK too. This should have been obvious to most people but those in charge didn’t see anything wrong.

I don’t know all the details about what the US did since there are 50 states. But we know there were many politicians who didn’t take it seriously, left and right. Florida allowed Spring Break to continue and NY mayor encouraged large gatherings. Then there’s the lack of coordination and political fighting. No one wanted to take the high road.
Victoria33 said:
USA is a big transport hub in comparison to Australia and Canada.
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This is true. But Australia sealed off its borders completely to every country. Now we know that reasonable decision to seal all borders to every country might be political in the US. Canada reduced international flights to only a few cities to ensure better monitoring.
 
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I would add to how cooperation was better in Canada.
Despite the unfair treatment the province of Alberta got from other parts of the country, Alberta stockpiled PPE and other equipment well before this pandemic and gave away some of the extras to provinces for free that have been less friendly. In the midst of a crisis, you don’t double down on political point scoring. You put away your feuds and hurt feelings.
 
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LeafByNiggle said:
The reason for the reluctance to recommend PPE for everyone is that they were afraid that the public would deplete the supply of PPE needed by health care workers.
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So they deliberately lied to the American public about a life threatening medical issue? The CDC has lost any credibility it had.
 
The CDC did not lie. This reasoning was explained at the time. It was much more urgent the doctors and nurses who have no choice to avoid sick people. That is just common sense. If you were running the CDC would you have done anything different? Remember this was also at a time when the virus was not as widespread as now. And the knowledge of how it spreads was not quite as detailed as it is now.
 
But also in the beginning it wasn’t understood that the virus could be airborne. They thought the virus was spread through contact and touch. That’s why there was no hand sanitizer available.

I know personally of a major medical center that stopped handshaking at doctor appointments. When asked about mask wearing, the doctor said she thought it wasn’t necessary. This was early March before there were any deaths in NY.
 
The_Catholic_Dude said:
This is ridiculous, the United states has 10 times the population as Canada, and a larger percentage of urban populace, these numbers make complete sense if both responses yielded exactly the same results. Twisting the truth like this disgusts me.
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If the source is CNN, there is going to be a huge bias towards “Trump is horrible”. Almost every article they run is twisted that way.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
If the source is CNN, there is going to be a huge bias towards “Trump is horrible”. Almost every article they run is twisted that way.
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That might be a reason to distrust the analysis, but not a good reason to distrust verifiable facts that just happened to come from that source. That would be an ad hominem.
 
LeafByNiggle said:
The CDC did not lie. This reasoning was explained at the time
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I know it questionable here to even suggest trying to stop a train by jumping in front of it is stupid. I guess even the most obvious st******** can’t be called st***** any more. But seriously? The CDC clearly stated that people did not need to wear masks because (1) there was not a lot of evidence, as it was too soon, and (2) there were not enough masks to go around to medical personnel. There was no reversal.

As to the credibility of the CDC, I am floored that they have lost credibility due to Trump playing doctor.
 
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