A few misconceptions...
The USA is currently in its first wave of C19. If you look at comparative charts of countries' infection rates, the US hasn't dipped all that much, more like plateaued. And in some places such as Arizona, Texas, Florida and Georgia, infection rates are going up rapidly, in fact setting daily records. Pence recently wrote an editorial stating the USA is not entering a second wave; Anthony Fauci agreed, but for a different reason -- the USA is still in its first wave. The red states where fewer precautions were taken and where leadership didn't want to close wanted to open too quickly. One precaution that many people are avoiding is wearing a mask. The issue has been politicized, and for the life of me I don't get it. It's common sense and common courtesy. But Trump himself has said that people are wearing masks to undermine him.
If the USA had taken stricter measures from the start, the wave would have crested and fallen, the number of infected people would have decreased drastically to a more manageable number (Arizona, by the way, is warning of shortages of hospital beds), and the US could start thinking about initial steps to reopen. As it stands, being at the crest of the first wave, it simply doesn't make sense. If only there had been smart leadership that enforced precautions. By the way, some of the people who Trump demonizes, such as WA's gov. Jay Inslee, did the right thing and enforced strict closures -- no doubt saving many lives. It is now the rural areas of Washington where numbers of infected are going up -- the places that refused to take strong measures.
Speaking of saving lives, the death toll has reached 121,000, more Americans than who died in WWI (many due to flu of course), and now double Viet Nam. Remember when the President said it would be tens of thousands? The US is on a course to lose 200,000 people by September.
The notion that wider testing means that increased cases are simply a result of the testing has been proven false. The opposite -- that if you didn't test, there would simply be fewer cases -- is akin to saying if you never took that pregnancy test, you wouldn't be pregnant. Stating that "the only thing significantly going up is the number of people being tested" is false. Relatedly, the consensus remains that the number of C19 deaths is under reported. Rumors and conspiracies that deaths are overreported have been debunked.
And then there is the whole common sense thing, returning to a point I made above. Raging parties in Lake of the Ozarks? Huge gatherings of people on beaches? An indoor political rally where masks are not required, where many attendees probably believe C19 is a hoax, and yet where people have to sign a waiver that they won't sue if they contract C19? Orwell couldn't have written something like that.
What pisses me off is that, as I stated, if the US had taken stricter precautions in a timely manner, reopening phases could have started. I've cancelled three trips since early March, two to the USA and one to Cuba, and I need to get to Arizona before too long. My wife is pregnant -- there is no way I would go to Arizona now, nor take a flight. I was hoping to go by July, now its August, but really -- there is very little likelihodd it will happen.
Everybody is frustrated and sick of this. Nobody wants to distance or wear a mask or stay home. But it's the right thing to do -- and people in the USA should have been more serious about it months ago.
** I should add -- I'm not an epidemiologist, and I don't think others on here are. But I read a lot of what they have to say, which is where I get my information. I'd recommend that for others as well -- the info is readily available.
