COVD19 Update - Day 196

US Tests: 93,470,726*

US Cases: 6,858,927*

US Deaths: 192,741*

Worldwide Cases: 31,467,508*

Worldwide Deaths: 967,881*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

FiveThirtyEight surveyed some economists.  Unsurprisingly, they largely believed that a pandemic is bad for the economy --- and that U.S. policy should have been to lock down and defeat the virus before reopening, rather than, you know, pretending the virus is no big deal:

Back in the early days of the coronavirus in the U.S., many economists believed that aggressive lockdowns would be the best long-term solution for managing the pandemic, despite the short-term economic pain they would cause. Six months later, we wanted to know: Did that logic hold up? And what political events could still be in store to alter the course of the country’s ongoing recovery from the current recession?

In this week’s installment of our economic survey, conducted in partnership with the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, FiveThirtyEight polled 32 quantitative macroeconomists about the present and future of the economy. And because we couldn’t resist some Monday-morning quarterbacking, we also asked whether the lockdowns earlier in the year were too aggressive or not aggressive enough.

Out of those surveyed, 74 percent of economists said the U.S. would be in a better economic position now if lockdowns had been more aggressive at the beginning of the crisis. Among that camp, the most commonly cited reason was that early control over the virus would have allowed a smoother and more comprehensive return to economic activity later on. “More aggressive lockdowns would have [gotten] the country in a better position (health wise) as we head into fall and winter,” said Andrew Patton, a professor of economics and finance at Duke University.

Trump is to blame for the vast majority of the deaths during the pandemic.  And according to these economists, Trump is also to blame for a lot of the damage to the economy.

He gave America the worst possible outcome.