Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat • Hacker News Board

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#141

Post by hef19898 » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 12:21 PM UTC

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #37

lazyier wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. It's just one guy making up random shit on a blog and is pretending that governments think like him. The reality is probably closer to the fact that there isn't anything governments can do about it. They can try to shut down the borders of the country, but that is going to a lot worse and probably won't stop it anyways. Just because governments can do something and do do something doesn't mean that that…

Denmark did close every school and most administrations. France did not. Many decisions can be taken, but are not (for various reasons). Most experts recommend to limit contacts rather than closing down borders, and no one is pretending to stop the virus but they all should try to flatten the curve. You don't seem to pay attention to the current situation.

Yeah, and we don't know the reasoning behind either decision. I can come up with maybe a hundred different parameters that could be relevant or not.

At this point we can trust authorities to have a reasonable approach to this and that they monitor the situation closely. Or we can assume they don't.

In the first case, we follow the action plan. In the latter we do what we can, best based on actions that worked elsewhere. Just complaining about how insufficient actions are in our eyes doesn't help.

Anyway, there plans for stuff like this government drawers everywhere. Ranging from school closures to plan keeping critical infrastructure up. Heritage from the cold war.

And even if the US federal government seems to screw up, states like New York and Washington seem to react rather decisively. And we shouldn't forget that things in China are calming down to an extent ad-hoc hospitals are closed down and medical supplies can be shipped to Italy.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#142

Post by BiteCode_dev » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 12:21 PM UTC

C1sc0cat wrote: post #127

germinalphrase wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural human instinct is to look to leadership during a crisis. This is why Bush’s competency in the eyes of the public was harmed after Katrina. This is why McCain’s “maverick” rep harmed him against “steady” Obama during the financial crisis. If the coronavirus starts impacting the lives of Americans in a widespread manner (shuddered schools, closed offices, loss of jobs), the same instinct will kick in.

And the economy

The economy is going to be in shock, whatever you do.

Don't act, and you'll get a messup economy because of the panic and the sick people.

Act, and you'll get a messup economy because of the panic and the sick people, and the cost of tests+quarantines+curfew. Less people dead is the ethic thing to do, but power is not about morality.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#143

Post by AstralStorm » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 12:21 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #61

Rastonbury wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's now how game theory works, the pandemic is not another player who is 2nd guessing the government or vice versa. Instead governments are weighing the probabilities (think a probability tree, according to your scenarios) you kind of point to this in your conclusion.

The point of Game Theory is to analyze the situation according to the actual payoff function for each player, not according to the socially (Pareto) optimal outcome. The 2 players here are the government, and the voters. The socially optimal scenario is action REGARDLESS of whether it's a pandemic or not (in a hyper-globalized world it would hurt a bit, but only the first time, after that the tourists, supply chains,…

This is the problem of simplistic analysis.

The question here is which actions of what severity, not simple act or not.

There are many ways to handle this, from maximum quarantine and cancellation of medical appointments, through closing mass gatherings (e.g. schools), rationing, enforced testing, closing public transportation, controlling private transportation, closing airports, sea and river ports, mandatory sampling for tests etc.

Each choice comes with a value for disruption and voter groups it will affect, and value for monetary cost.

Game theory is not too helpful here, as disruption does not directly affect discontent and definitely not your chances of getting elected. These are much more complex decisions with many more actions between here and then.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#144

Post by tsukurimashou » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 12:21 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #54

fxtentacle wrote: post #43

TLDR: It's cheapest to let old people die, so that the young can continue working. A very cruel view on humanity, but I would be surprised if these thoughts hadn't crossed our politicians minds. Also, many initiatives by young people (e.g. limiting climate change, re-structuring society to be more equal-opportunity) are being blocked by old people who wish to preserve the status quo. So there is a general dislike by…

If you do that in the US you'd lose 60% of politicians and 90% of presidential candidates.

don't get my hopes up like that

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#145

Post by AngeloAnolin » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 12:22 PM UTC

The action that any government should take now is find a cure for the virus. Collectively pool resources, bring up the brightest minds in health sciences and devise a way to remove the virus from the equation. The fact that despite lockdown and other government actions and the virus is still spreading just mean that all this measures would become nil at some point.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#146

Post by hef19898 » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 12:22 PM UTC

C1sc0cat wrote: post #136

lm28469 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also depends on the country's government. Afaik in Germany the country's government can't force schools to close or public events to be cancelled. These decisions have to be taken locally (at state/city or even district level). All the health ministry can do is tell people "you shouldn't do A B C and you should do X Y Z"

They haven't got laws on the books to do this? - the UK Passed some enabling legislation in Jan I believe

We do, ever since the cold war.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#147

Post by jcims » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 12:22 PM UTC

the8472 wrote: post #93

tomp wrote: post #31

I think it's a different reason. Let's analyze the outcomes from game theory perspective, along two dimensions: virus becomes pandemic or not, and governments do something or nothing. 1) no pandemic, no action -> government was "right", avoided wasting money -> reelected 2) no pandemic, action -> government was "wrong", wasted a lot of money, damaged the economy, inconvenienced the lives of the population -> voted ou…

> 4a) pandemic, action, it works -> government was "right", saved lives, spared the economy -> reelected This is too optimistic. If it works then people see a tiny death rate and a shutdown forced by the government. The greatest success will look like an overreaction.

Exactly. Anyone around during y2k is quite familiar with this phenomenon.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#148

Post by normalnorm » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 12:23 PM UTC

avip wrote: post #107

tomp wrote: post #31

I think it's a different reason. Let's analyze the outcomes from game theory perspective, along two dimensions: virus becomes pandemic or not, and governments do something or nothing. 1) no pandemic, no action -> government was "right", avoided wasting money -> reelected 2) no pandemic, action -> government was "wrong", wasted a lot of money, damaged the economy, inconvenienced the lives of the population -> voted ou…

Nothing in your analysis makes any sense. First, there's no "no pandemic" case. Not anymore. Second, your conclusion says that "politicians choose (1)" but that is not the case at all - almost every country in Europe, Asia, middle east had taken measures, with varying severity, and significant economic cost. Last but not least, the whole framing is extremely simplistic and follows the "politicians are evil" reddit-li…

> First, there's no "no pandemic" case. Not anymore.

I am not saying that the analysis is correct, but information that is disclosed now has no bearing on an explanation of the actions of actors in the past.

> Last but not least, the whole framing is extremely simplistic and follows the "politicians are evil" reddit-like logic.

Politicians are people who happen to really care about being reelected. If you have any contact with them, you will realize that this is the ulterior motive of all of their actions. In a sense, as it should be. Being our democratic-elected representatives, it seems reasonable to me that they behave as slaves to the preferences of those who elected them. Like everything else, this creates a bunch of perverse incentives. You would have to be very naive to overlook these things, and imagine that powerful politicians will no put reelection above all things. The ones that didn't did not get reelected, and are not powerful politicians.

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#149

Post by tomp » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 12:24 PM UTC

peterburkimsher wrote: post #114

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Besides, it's a lose/lose proposition for the gov anyway. If they do act, people will blame them for the cost of the action. If they don't, people will blame then for the cost of not acting. Nobody will pat them on the back, except a few intellectuals, for acting. In fact, economically, the virus spreading is an opportunity to fire people you couldn't fire before, get rid of an old population costing money a…

At the risk of being down-voted, I'm not trying to start a political debate. I'd just like to know, as someone outside the USA, how this is affecting the election campaigns there. Are personal costs of the pandemic encouraging people to support subsidised healthcare, and therefore a left-wing party? Or is the xenophobic rhetoric of "blame China/Europe/travellers/etc" causing people to support a right-wing party? I al…

I doubt it will affect elections directly. Looking around the world, there's mostly bad examples from all kinds of governments - right-wing (Trump in US, Johnson in the UK), centrist (Macron in France, Merkel in Germany), left-wing (Slovenia - was centre-left until a week ago, Denmark), totalitarian (Iran, China)...

Re: Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat

#150

Post by codingdave » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 12:24 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #31

I think it's a different reason. Let's analyze the outcomes from game theory perspective, along two dimensions: virus becomes pandemic or not, and governments do something or nothing. 1) no pandemic, no action -> government was "right", avoided wasting money -> reelected 2) no pandemic, action -> government was "wrong", wasted a lot of money, damaged the economy, inconvenienced the lives of the population -> voted ou…

You may be right.... but it is time to start voting out politicians who put their own careers above the well-being of their constituents.