I suspect that to achieve the level of preparedness of South Korea and Taiwan, one’s existence must be under real and constant threat from a well-armed and batshit crazy neighbor.
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LoL, good point.
Defense spending (2018) as a percentage of GDP, not sure including intel:
USA: 3.2
SK 2.6
Taiwan less than 2?
The SAR crisis in 2003 also prepped them. However, we did have a few case of Ebola that shows up a few years ago plus there’s another Ebola outbreak in Africa just late last year.
There also isn’t a strong contingent of strong science deniers with their own news channel in these nations, despite their often very contentious political environment.
They may not have their own news channels like the ones we have here, but pseudo-sciences like alternative medicine (aka traditional medicine), astrology, and numerology are well established throughout Asia. They’re better prepared for this because of compulsory military service, which probably includes training for NBC warfare. If your government tells you to wear a mask, you wear a mask, not stage protests.
Not at all. What happened has happened. The only question now if about tomorrow. Do we continue to impulsively throw sticks and stones, or do we focus more on the stones that have more impact and stop throwing the sticks and small pebbles. I don’t know the answer, I’m not one of those so-called experts - but “6 feet apart”, “don’t eat in restaurants”, “gatherings larger than 10”, and “wear masks” produce some extent of redundant effect.
“Could put lives at risk” is an extremely vague standard to be using to justify all this.
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I’d suspect a lot of the difference is in how we’ve done all this piecemail. “Restaurants must close from the risk - but not until next week, this weekend you’re ok.” in itself kind of kills the credibility. Plus the progressive implementation, adding more before the last thing had a chance to produce any results.
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Yeah. What we’ve seen is a systemic failure of our government. Again.
And itts not just the baboon currently running the show. We’ve had a pattern of this kind of problem where there was ample warning and then no action was taken to plan for a calamity. Consider Katrina and 9/11 and now this.
- Theres a big fat government report somewhere saying some bad thing is likely to happen.
- Then the bad thing happens.
- Then our government has no plan or fails to inact the plan and the response flops.
- Wash rinse repeat.
Global warming is kind if in the same vein but that flop will take decades to roll out in agonizing slow mo.
The states and local governments seem to do varying things to react and I think part of that is that they thought it was the federal governments job so they aren’t taking the responsibility to prepare. Maybe this needs to change and thes states need to take it upon themselves to prepare for disasters.
I sadly consider the federal government a lost cause as far as this topic.
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The piecemeal response seems to be a result of a coordinated lack of planning and top down management. Instead of one nation enacting a measured plan we have 50 states running around trying to figure out what to do.
Yes
I think thats entirely reasonable and I think most everyone can agree with the thinking.
The only disagreement comes on where you draw the line exactly on what is too much or too little and whats necessary versus excessive. Its hard to know the right answers for that. It may always be debatable and unclear. I mean even the best expert models we have right now have a wide range of uncertainty.
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For anyone doing business at walmart.com:
If you need to contact them, the virtually unpublished toll-free number is
1 (800) 966-6546
Call volumes are VERY high. I am at present in midst of experiencing at least a one hour hold. Did try to reach them via their email contact service. Nobody ever responded.
Does that number take you somewhere different than 1-800-Wal-mart? Or is that where the main system sends you to once you select the option for walmart.com?
Did you have an issue with your shipment?
Yes. It is the number for walmart.com. 1-800-Walmart is the number for Walmart brick and mortar.
Yes. Broken glass container. Am seeking refund.
ETA
Walmart granted refund straightaway with no problems or hassle. However, there was roughly a 90 minute wait on the telephone before I could speak with a rep. Once I reached the rep problem was resolved easily.
Hopefully our government can get its act together quick enough to make $2-3B by topping off the strategic oil reserve with better than free oil.
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Is it not already topped off? I thought I’d read that somewhere, that all the potential options to stash it, regardless of ownership or control or purpose, have pretty much been exhausted.
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Solved: source for milk
Local dairy will sell all you want from a walk-up window.
If you speak kindly, are nice, and treat them especially respectfully . . . . they might even take you into the barn and allow you to meet a few of the cows. Bovine nirvana! Udder bliss! 
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No, Trump was talking about maybe topping it off, but then didn’t or needed Congress to approve or something. There are also mixing different oil type considerations that limit whose oil you want to use for storing there.
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Nah we’re good 
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pasteurized?
absolutely
“A potential second wave of the novel coronavirus late in the year would likely be more deadly, as it would overlap with flu season, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) head Robert Redfield told The Washington Post on Tuesday.”
…
“And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean.”
Redfield said two coinciding respiratory outbreaks would strain the nation’s health care system even further than the current pandemic, which has been marked by shortages of ventilators, test kits and personal protective equipment.
…
The CDC head told the Post that federal and state officials should use the months ahead to scale up their testing capacity for after more widespread restrictions are lifted as well as their ability to find anyone with whom a confirmed case has interacted.
But… don’t we already have “too much” testing capacity? No need to ever try to trace and test asymptomatic contacts… I guess the key is he pushed responsibility completely off to “state” officials, so he’s not fired yet.