Do you agree with the Debate Commission that the next Presidential Debate should be virtual?

Totally agree. And it isn’t all about Trump and his run-in with COVID-19. And the debate being viral doesn’t mean there can’t be spontaneity. Being viral means being moderately civil.

No. They should be in plexiglass booths with a negative pressure air system, live, on a stage. It’s essentially a job interview for the most powerful position on the planet, the least they could fucking do is show up in person.

I’d have it in person under 3 conditions.
1) the opponent’s mic is turned off while the other person speaks
2) The cameras should only be pointed at the speakers while they are speaking.
3) There is a penalty in the form of reduced speaking time against the opponent if they make noise or otherwise try to distract the speaker during their allotted times.

All 3 are easy to implement automatically and are totally fair to both sides.

Trump and his entourage have proven they can’t be trusted to be considerate of others’ safety. They refused to wear masks at the first debate. The White House has more active infections than whole nations like Taiwan and Vietnam.

The virtual debate is a consequence of their childish defiance.

\You are considered infectious for 10–20 days after your positive test. And it’s droplet or aerosolized, so even a plexiglass shield wouldn’t necessarily protect people. And it’s not just the debate. It’s all the people he will infect on the way too and from the debate.

Yes, especially since the first one was a waste of time and the Trump team doesn’t understand what rules mean. It should be virtual to prevent people from spreading covid and to cut mikes off after 2 minutes. I believe they have changed the date now and it will not be virtual. Which only means another event of Trump screaming over people so I will not be watching.

Well, Trump chickened out of the virtual debate, so that’s good. Less of his bloviating.

Thanks all, for well-thought out, and well-presented answers. See below for some specific comments.

@Caravanfan I am not a doctor. But I consider myself a fairly intelligent and well-educated person. Everything I have read about Covid-19 testing has taught me that a PCR test may pick up virus that is present in quantities too small to be contagious. So I have a very hard time with your statement that a covid patient is considered infectious for 10–20 days after a positive test. Surely, if you have a negative test and no symptoms, you may be non-contagious?

@Pandora Even I was yelling at the TV Trump to shut up! He never gave Biden enough clock to put his foot in his mouth. I think he has been counseled to be more patient.

@Call_Me_Jay A debate is a freewheeling contest between two individuals. A virtual debate is a contradiction in terms. It is neither a contest, nor is it freewheeling.

@LuckyGuy I agree with all three of the conditions.

@gorillapaws Agreed. There has to be a way to make a live appearance by both candidates safe.

@kritiper “And the debate being viral doesn’t mean there can’t be spontaneity.” I think you meant “virtual”, not “viral”. Any way, I disagree with the notion that a virtual appearance can be spontaneous.

@crazyguy CDC guidelines. My bad, it’s 10 days after the last symptom, not the positive test. 20 days if critically ill.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/duration-isolation.html

@Caravanfan My respect for you just went up because you admitted a possible mistake in an earlier post.

I still disagree with your assessment as it applies to Trump. From your link:

“A large contact tracing study demonstrated that high-risk household and hospital contacts did not develop infection if their exposure to a case patient started 6 days or more after the case patient’s illness onset (Cheng et al., 2020).”

Even six days, I think, is too much in the case of somebody who can be tested by the PCR test repeatedly. My understanding is the PCR test picks up even minor amounts of virus:

“Although replication-competent virus was not isolated 3 weeks after symptom onset, recovered patients can continue to have SARS-CoV-2 RNA detected in their upper respiratory specimens for up to 12 weeks (Korea CDC, 2020; Li et al., 2020; Xiao et al, 2020). Investigation of 285 “persistently positive” persons, which included 126 persons who had developed recurrent symptoms, found no secondary infections among 790 contacts attributable to contact with these case patients. Efforts to isolate replication-competent virus from 108 of these case patients were unsuccessful (Korea CDC, 2020).”

In any case, if replication-competent virus is present in a previously infected patient’s upper respiratory specimens, s/he should isolate. The question is: What if they are not?

@crazyguy We are talking about two different things. You are talking about repeating a PCR test. I am talking about when the CDC says it’s safe to go back to activity. It is not recommended to repeat a test after a positive test. In fact we do not retest any positive test for 90 days. But we allow people to go back to work after 10 days after the last symptom per CDC guidelines.

So if Trump were running, say, a comic book store, I’d say that he could go back to work 10 days after symptom onset and 24 hours after his last use of a fever reducing medicine. But he’s not running a comic book store. He’s the President of the United States and there should be an abundance of caution around him.

Oh, and for the record, I don’t care if you respect me or not.

@Caravanfan Actually the statement put out by the White House doctor does reference the CDC guidelines and says Trump has met every one of the recommendations.

Let me understand what you are saying about “abundance of caution”. I would think, since he is POTUS, he can have advanced testing to ensure that he is incapable of infecting anybody else and therefore go about his activities sooner than the average person, not later.

@crazyguy There is no way to know if he is incapable of infected anybody else. Testing is useless in him since he is already positive.

@Caravanfan I would hope CDC had some basis for determining the 10–20 day period after the first symptom. It turns out they do. But what do I know? I am no doctor.

One word: Pandemic.

If you need more information, reference the million+ people who have died in less than one year. I’m believe in taking ALL precautions to preserve lives.

@give_seek I think we are talking about a specific issue, not general bullshit.