[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by zendog3

I don't think Sweden is the best model to look to for fighting pandemic. Look at S. Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, even China. Those countries have done a much better job of fighting the disease. Some have a serious handicap like a lot of population crammed into small spaces. What they did well is jump on the problem with force when it was small. You can contact trace and isolate when your country is having only a few cases each day. No way to do that when you have 15,000 cases in a day. Putting this genie in the tub is impossible, we are beyond control. In New Zealand and Australia the people had confidence in their leaders and a social cohesiveness. They believed their leaders when they said it as a serious problem that required everyone to sacrifice for the good of all. And their leaders were forceful leaders against an enemy of their people. In the Asian countries that have a cultural norm for cooperation that leaders exploited to fight the disease. They gave up part of their freedom to fight a common threat.

Correspond that with the US. We have a fractured and decisive society. We have little national cohesiveness, with a lot of people unwilling to sacrifice any of their freedom for the common good. Even when the facts are known, a fair percentage of the population are unwilling to accept them and inside cling to magical thinking and hope instead of science. And, it must be said, when the problem was clear to our best scientists, many of our leaders chose to ignore science and spread happy-talk and unrealistic optimistic thinking instead of LEADING -- which is asking all of us to join together to fight the disease.

Our sense of freedom is our strength, but without an equal sense of responsibility to one another it is our weakness.

That was sssssoooooo beautiful Zen doggie, dog and I like your cars. "putting the genie in the tub" was (I hope) pun intended. Either way, it is QUITE funny. Hope that genie does not drown in that tub! Needs a lifeguard.