The Economy

What you are insinuating is misleading.

It's not like the virus began killing people on January 1, 2020. The spread didn't start until March or so, and didn't really start ripping through the population until April.

The number of deaths from Covid peaked in late 2020, and that was before a vaccine was available to people. And as the peaks and valleys of the different mutations brought waves of cases, it would have gotten worse from there.

On top of that, when the vaccine was rolled out in 2021, it's not like everyone got vaccinated on January 1. Even when it was widely available later in the year, a relatively high portion of Americans wouldn't get it.

Someone using reason, would frame it differently than you did, using evidence. ... namely how many deaths were avoided because of the vaccine. ... Conservatively, more than a million people wouldn't have made it through 2021 without the rollout of the vaccine (deaths would have been at least 3 times higher), and more than 10 million people never saw the inside of a hospital because of it. And that doesn't include the residual of what 2022 and 2023 would have looked like, because natural immunity providing protection would have made the pandemic last longer. ... not to menti0n the unknown mutations (which could have been more deadly) we never saw because the vaccine slowed the spread. We would have been looking at 15,000, 20,000 funerals a day at points in 2021 without the vaccine if it had been left to natural immunity, without the benefit of the vaccine.

 

But you thought it was necessary to say, "With a vaccine," even though it wasn't part of that point.

 

Obviously the virus killed people.

But incrementally there are undoubtedly more people dead than there would have been with a president who wasn't a complete dumbfuck, who didn't keep trying to minimize or hide the threat (because he perceived it as hurting his own interests) and then spent a year creating confusion, spreading misinformation and demonizing anyone trying to give good information.

 

That's a cop out kind of response.

A president who lies like it is a bodily function, has no idea what he is talking about because he is an uncurious narcisist, and doesn't listen to people more knowledgeable than him. ... is damaging during a crisis (as opposed to an asset). He certainly did some degree of harm, compraed to what a president being honest with everyone and using his bully pulpit to mobilize people, would have done. It's actually the unique role a president plays, where one who has character can actually rally people for something positive.