Looking at places like South Korea and New Zealand which seem to have pummeled covid19 into submission and getting extra depressed about the discourse in America.
NZ passed a large stimulus that directly subsidized workers on a monthly basis, whether they were full time, part time, or unemployed. The US could have easily done the same. Instead they basically starved people, fucked up the small business loans, and forced people back to work.
Those federal UE benefits expire on June 31st. No way the senate renews it, even if we get hit with another wave of cases/layoffs.
It's not just the fiscal response, but the disease control itself.
South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, etc. have all had some combination of early intervention, isolation, mass testing etc. that let them get daily new cases down into single digits.
But there seems to be relatively little discussion of what we can learn and copy from these, much less just using them as a light at the end of the tunnel. Instead we've got a vocal minority (including officeholders and opinionmakers) still downplaying the danger of the virus and wringing their hands about just how long we can keep up our current measures.
Knowing that the example of South Korea exists and is being ignored just makes "well, guess we'll just have to let grandma die!" that more infuriating.
