Everyone here was bragging how the Europeans had it all figured out over the Americans. I've been the one saying we won't know whose methods were the best until it's over. Along that line, I was watching a Youtube video about the Spanish flu. It lasted four years 1917-1921. The second season is came back with a vengeance. Highest infection and death rates. The 4th year was the "best" with most people recovering who were infected.
A couple of interesting things. Everyone seemed to be wearing masks. So how come the CDC told us they don't help a hundred years later? Where was the press challenging them? It seems Asians learned the lesson as they always wear masks when they're sick. But we in the West are dummies.
The other thing was that one year after the end of infection, the US economy had come back very powerfully ushering in the Roaring Twenties. Let's hope we can recover as quickly although back then we were on the gold standard, had lots of savings and little debt unlike today.
There was enough evidence already four months ago that the masks are helping. Countries like Singapore, Thailand, Czechia, Slovakia, South Korea mandated masks in the early days of the epidemic and had very low infection and death rates. As you say, the dummies instead of doing something tangible and what was in their control were spreading conspiracy theories, fairy tales about the end of the epidemic in the summer and advocating dangerous chemicals as healing methods. Canada has recently mandated also masks everywhere in public spaces. Its death rate in the last week is in low 2-digits compared with over thousands deaths in USA. Yesterday's count - 11 dead in Canada, 1245 in USA. In relative terms, that's about 10 times less than in USA.
As to the economy coming back, it could happen again. The effects of dealing with Covid-19 will accelerate more effective transitions across various industries, i.e. more people working from home and thus reducing or eliminating commute time, closing of small bank branches in lieu of increased online banking, reduction of office spaces and converting some of the office buildings and shopping malls into condos, etc.
