G, I think that you're somewhat comparing apple and oranges.
I agree the global action and news has been much higher than normal, and certainly a stronger response than SARS or MERS. The "flu" is here every year, and somewhat nonplus now.
But let's look at the why of the action.
You mention corono19 numbers are much lower than the flu (after a year). Yup. Part of that is
because of effort to social distance, to limit large gatherings (except, apparently, on Florida beaches?), to reduce international travel spread, quarantines, etc. all those actions combining to slow the spread. I keep thinking of playing Pandemic board game, but that's the geek in me.
The second numbers issue is off-count because of the lack of testing. When I was doing court in northern Saskatchewan, one of the judges commented that he had thought that staffing shortages would have increased crime, but look at how reduced was the docket! At which point the police agency looked at him like he had two heads, because the police simply hadn't been investigating anything non-violent, because they didn't have the bodies. The hall in which court was being held had been vandalized three times that month -none investigated- for instance. Similarly, when there is a big hiring of law enforcement, there are more eyes and responses in the street, so more crime detected.
When tests are not being done, or being limited, it throttles the known numbers, artificially deflating the true count. If we're not testing all the bodies (no one is) even in Canada, the true death number is deflated as well. If we're not presenting accurate degree and range of spread of the virus, whether argued for preventing social panic or incompetence, we're not gathering a true image of how prevalent is the virus.
I admit that I struggled a bit with the response to this v. others. The simple maths answer finally cracked it into my thick skull.
SARS and MERS high mortality rate = scary.
Flu kills, spreads quickly, but is low rate.
Rifle v. buckshot. The new unknown is always scary, and this one is being treated more cautiously because of SARS/MERS (the virus is a SARS variant, IIRC). In theory, updating responses to prevent or reduce fatalities is a good idea? Complacency factor on the known flu deaths?
The rough numbers are something like this:
C19 is a tenth the lethality of SARS. Good. But it's 10x the lethality rate of the flus. Bad.
Flu is around .1% mortality, C19 1.4% (though varies depending on testing/response!), and SARS around 10%.
Worse, C19 spreads MUCH more easily (like 10x) than SARS, and it doesn't present strong signs in all the carriers, and doesn't immediately present symptoms unlike SARS. So you have a hard to detect disease, not being properly tested for, that spreads much more easily than SARS, can't simply isolate the sick folk because you cannot ID them accurately without testing, and you don't know enough of the disease to confirm its characteristics or rates or vulnerable groups or mutability. Then factor in how long it can remain a threat outside the body... If you don't stomp on the spread, you have a disease that spreads like the flu but has a much higher danger/death rate. Learn from the previous epidemics/pandemics, strike strongly quickly to clip the expansion = reducing deaths in one's populace.
The next problem with the numbers/rate.. is that they are already outdated, and arguably misleadingly low. The virus has already mutated at least once, and the majority of deaths are from the new strain, so numbers/rates are artificially deflated again by mixing the lower version1 C19 with new-and-improved version2 (the L-strain).
The graphic in this one is handy:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...hs-compare-covid-19/
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One theory expectation is that eventually everyone will contract it, and the countries are trying to slow the rate so their very limited ventilators can keep up, to reduce the mortality.
I'm not a big US politics guy, so I take my own words w/ a grain of salt.
That "Obama let 1000 ppl die before acting" is spun reporting , to my understanding.
"the PJ Media article claimed that Obama “waited” until millions of people were infected with H1N1 before he declared an “emergency.” But that isn’t the case. The Obama administration started to address H1N1 just as the disease emerged in April 2009. A public health emergency was declared on April 26, 2009, when there were about 20 confirmed cases in the United States. The Obama administration renewed this declaration twice in the ensuing months before declaring a national emergency in October 2009. "
This is more detailed:
"On April 15, 2009, the first infection was identified in California, according to the CDC, and less than two weeks later, on April 26, 2009, the Obama administration declared a public health emergency. The day before, on April 25, the World Health Organization had declared a public health emergency.
Dr. Richard Besser, then-acting director of the CDC, confirmed to the press on the day of the U.S. declaration that there were 20 cases of H1N1 in the U.S., and that “all of the individuals in this country who have been identified as cases have recovered.”
The same day — April 26 — the CDC began releasing antiviral drugs to treat the H1N1 flu, and two days later, the FDA approved a new CDC test for the disease, according to a CDC timeline on the pandemic.
On April 30, 2009, two days after the public health emergency declaration, Obama formally asked Congress for $1.5 billion to fight the outbreak, and later asked for nearly $9 billion, according a September 2009 Congressional Research Service report. On June 26, 2009, Obama signed Congress’ supplemental appropriation bill that included $7.7 billion for the outbreak."
Obama did wait (until Oct, I believe) on declaring it a national emergency though. I took a walk through the news articles for memory lane, and you could sure see the people griefing for the delay in responding, and the people griefing for "why is this emergency?"
Bad news media reporting sadly is a characteristic of humanity. We sure remember the people that cut us off, but rarely those that let us in.
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Trump is certainly being lambasted for shutting down Obama's pandemic-response team and trying to throttle numbers, changing his story, etc. The lack of honesty and accuracy from Trump doesn't help his position, and he has lied consistently enough that nothing he says is accepted anymore barring on Fox.
I admit that I don't like his approach to matters. I really don't understand how a grade3-name-calling person with an aversion or inability re truth becomes the leader of a strong country like the USA, but that's why I don't follow enough politics, I guess :)
