According to all the numbers posted by the networks, more than 1 out of every 5 cases...

[kentuck]

...is now in the United States.

We are the pandemic hotspot of the entire world.

That is an eye-popping statistic!

The latest numbers that I saw reported was that there were 788,000+ around the world and 160,000+ in the U.S.

And to think, we have done nowhere the testing that some countries have done.

That is the reality as we know it.

[Generic Other]

1. And Trump is largely to blame

I refuse to call that hyperbole either.

[TheBlackAdder]

17. Along with those sycophantic GOP 😈 governors who chap their lips 💋 on Trump's 💩 ass ✴️.

[Sherman A1]

2. And there was no need for this to be the case

If a competent person would have listened to the intelligence reports.

[SheltieLover]

3. He did

It's just that Putin's intel did not have our best interest at heart!🤬

[LastDemocratInSC]

5. That Thing lacks the intelligence and judgment required for leadership.

Incompetence at the top of an organization always leads to chaos and loss. The only way to fix it is to get rid of the person(s) at the top. The 25th amendment is available but the cabinet and VP are all weak individuals. And the dopey cowards in the Senate had an opportunity to do the right thing but failed.

[uponit7771]

8. +1,

[duforsure]

4. Remember trump called this a hoax, and Democrats were exploiting this for political reasons,

Remember trump claimed it was contained and under control, and said it would just be gone like a miracle and just be gone. trump did nothing when he knew it was coming. Who's he really working for now, cause its not for us. He's doing everything he can to hamper getting help to people, a president intentionally doing things to hurt people with. Think about that for a minute.

[padah513]

6. What leader anywhere in the civilized world aside from Trump

Do you know who would consider the death of 100,000 to 200,000 of his fellow citizens a good thing? You'd expect to hear something like that being said by some third world authoritarian dictator in a fascist banana republic somewhere.

[jmg257]

7. Yep - open society full of selfish ignorant people. More worried about "panic" and inconvenience

and beach fun and going to church than doing what we need to cap the spread.

Spineless leaders have to step up and clamp down.

We are screwed for quite a long time to come.

[Iliyah]

9. t-rump and the republican party are now blaming the lack thereof . . .

is because of "impeachment".

These people can't handle the truth. They are so "perfect" that they can never ever take any blame for their fuck ups.

Looking at the numbers, and many of the "red" states are not even giving their current numbers for the virus and unemployment, I'll say that by Friday 200,000 infected and over 5,000 deaths.

[SWBTATTReg]

10. Ah, the trumpvirus will remain in our collective memories for some time, eh? I hope that the ...

trumpettes are happy! I for one, you all know, have choice words to describe the orange gorilla in the WH (my pardon to the gorilla).

[Johnny2X2X]

11. US did the worst job at everything in regard to this

We didn't do significant health screenings at the airport because it didn't jibe with Trump's take that this was a big nothing burger.

I was following this like the rest of the country. The experts were saying very concerning things from the start. The administration just didn't listen. In mid February I talked to a colleague at work who was living and working in Shanghai and had just returned after getting his family out. His story was really scary, I brought that story here to DU and was told that I was trying to incite panic. Everything and then some came to pass here and it's just starting.

In a few weeks most of the world will be starting to get back to normal and the US will just be hitting peak. No major country did less than the US did to stop this virus, no one!

[SQUEE]

12. That's only if you believe both the Russian and Chinese numbers.

I don't think either have been honest with their reporting

[kentuck]

13. That is true.

We really don"t know how many cases are in the U.S.

[ProfessorGAC]

14. This

I sure don't believe them
Russia was stuck on 16 cases for more than a week, then shuttered Moscow. Thing that make you go, hmmmmm!

[uponit7771]

16. I believe South Korea, they're a NATO alliie with a relative freedom of speech

[Igel]

15. It's a mind-numbing statistic.

Which leads to its being taken at face value.

Look, when the numbers were really low, what was the big insight?

Easy. "Trump's not testing because if you don't test, then your numbers are low!" As one DUer pointed out, if you have 50,000 cases and test so you know about 10, you still have 50,000 cases. If you have 50,000 cases and test so you know about 100, you still have 50,000 cases. It's "reported positives"--the actual number of cases is larger.

That was easy to understand or let slide by as a reason to say, "Trump's bad, the numbers are higher." I've come to the conclusion a lot of people just said, "It's said, helps my argument, therefore it's right."

Now that it's flipped. As my kid pointed out, if you look for something you're going to find it--more testing means more positives.

If you have 50,000 cases and test so you know about 10,000 you still have 50,000 cases. Even if those you're compared to have only tested to find 10 or 100. You do half of all tests in NY (which was the case as of a couple of days ago), all things being equal you're going to have a heck of a lot more tests come back positives. You have a lot more tests that *can* come back positive. That, by itself, doesn't mean you have more cases: If 10% of the population is infected, double the tests and you double the positives.

Problem is, now the reasoning is, "The tests show we have a lot of positives. Trump's bad." The same motivation that got "less testing = fewer positives, don't trust the numbers" is now motivation for "more testing = more positives, but now the numbers are trustworthy." The number has the same flaw, but now the flaw is a bug and not a feature.

Which is why you need something else. Deaths seems more reliable. Perfect? Surely not. But it's harder to say that they only tested 10,000 people for death and came back with 100 dead and that if they'd have had a lot more "hits" if they'd tested 100,000 for death. Some might be mislabeled, but if there's a coroner's check at the end, COVID'll probably be checked for.