Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[Jaicee]

NightlyPoe said:

That... would end up being a complete waste of time, effort, and material for little gain.  The United States, along with most industrialized nations, have plenty of excess industrial capacity to meet the needs of this many times over once the appropriate sectors get scaled up.  Creating protective gear and a couple hundred thousand ventilators is hardly an undertaking requiring the level of industrial muscle flexing as invading Europe.

Within a matter of months, the shortages will disappear and the materials will be exported around the world without controversy.  The issue is that we need it now, not in a couple of months and it simply takes time to get things up and running.

We don't have spare months for the market economy to voluntarily scale up production of medical necessities and hospital construction. In "a matter of months", there will have been millions of Americans infected and God knows how many deaths. This is the most serious pandemic we've faced in a century. Covid-19 is already the third leading cause of death in America and is expected to bypass the daily death toll of cancer and heart disease to become #1 by the middle of the month. The only way to prevent a bloodbath of millions in this country is to get serious right now. The market economy has not and will not deliver the necessary results in a timely manner.

This, a genuine crisis, is no time for multicultural individualism. At a time like this, relying on markets and self-help will literally kill us. It is time for the establishment of a national culture to meet this crisis head-on. Only with that can we make it out of this alive, as in without millions of deaths.