I imagine in terms of medical care access and affordability or welfare stimulus, practically negligible, but in terms of CDC funding, science literacy, public policy, and general preparedness, it would be a whole lot better put together.
So I'd say... 10% fewer deaths? 200K vs. 220K deaths sounds about right.
I'll just list off all the things that I feel have nothing to do with who is the president-
First off, no one, regardless of political background, took it seriously when it was still primarily in China. I remember all the articles about how EVIL China was for lockdowns, and people theorizing it was fake and actually just a way for the evil, terrible government to take freedom away from citizens. I seriously doubt that Clinton would have acted sooner than Trump. You can also look at Obama not giving a fuck about ebola, ignoring the WHO, until cases showed up in the US if you want another loose example of how it might play out.
Huge fighting between cities/states/feds about how to handle it would have likely occurred regardless. Florida would probably still stick their fingers in their ears and keep everything open
Huge failures in supplies, especially early on. While it's true that Trump gutted surplus and the CDC we were never going to have enough masks for everyone, and wanting to preserve available masks for hospitals and doctors led to people like Fauci downplaying the effectiveness of masks for the general public. Supply failures also caused issues with early testing, and testing rates in the US vs say, Vietnam or China were abysmal. Also lack of available beds early on led to a lot of issues
The most effective way to kill off the virus/prevent its spread is through lockdowns, and lockdowns hurt capital, and the last thing we do in this county is hurt capital. Ghouls crying about the economy would always override actual safe practices, especially given the length of this pandemic
Americans by large are incredibly individualistic, lack proper healthcare, lack savings, and don't have a healthy relationship with their employers. All this leads to people failing to maintain best practices (not everyone, but enough to matter).
We've seen a general refusal, regardless of what level you look at, to accurately report the risks of the virus, amount of deaths, or impact it has on the people. Lots of shit about how the line went down though. And the refusal to take it seriously has been proven to be non-partisan and removed from who is president.
Because of all this, plus some other smaller things, makes me believe we'd be looking at an absurdly small difference. Like 219k deaths vs 220k we have now. And who knows, I could see right-leaning states report numbers more accurately just to stick it to Hillary so the 'official' number might be higher under her
Regarding your second point, I feel the most important aspect of the US' COVID response that doesn't get enough attention is that because of how our government is set up, we've had every state/county/city/ ZIP code all doing their own things, which is of course a recipe for disaster when dealing with a pandemic. It's a massive, massive failure of the "states rights" approach to things. But at no point in the last year have I heard anyone suggest maybe COVID shows our system doesn't work. It should be fucking obvious to anyone that you don't solve a pandemic at the local level. If Hillary was president the right would just be going on and on about "federal overreach" and the Dems would have balked.
COVID has shown the world that the US is completely incapable of adapting to changing circumstances and even just beyond socialism vs capitalism, it's gonna be what bring this country down. Americans would rather let this country collapse than admit that maybe the way our government is set up isn't absolutely 100% perfect.
Yeah, it really highlights how fucked up it all runs, but nothing really has changed lol. I was hoping when everyone was reading stories about how local, state, and federal orgs, as well as private companies, were all fighting to outbid each other on masks or ventilators it would have woken a few people up to it but we've already moved past that
You're suggesting that if Republicans had amped up pandemic panic that it wouldn't have registered more mask compliance?
I'm not sure what you mean?
By saying not only would Republicans accurately report, but perhaps overstate the number of deaths to make Hillary look bad would only facilitate mask compliance and shutdowns, and fewer deaths.
You know that was a half baked idea I threw out and don't think it stands up because I really cannot predict right wing states reporting things under Hillary, and definitely can't predict how that reporting would in turn affect things. Please ignore that part lol
Plus some of the biggest vectors for spread are nursing homes and meat plants. Places where people are incredibly close to one another for hours at a time. The mask shit definitely didn't help, but it was keeping places open that really fucked us over.
deleted by creator