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

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

#181

Post by hadrien01 »

keiferski wrote: post #69
TulliusCicero wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has there every been a time when, "Country X can't do what country Y can, because X is too [big/small] while Y is [small/big]" has not been a useless comment? Is there a generic term for this sort of fallacy, where someone brings up a random difference between [cities/states/countries] as an excuse for why one can't do what the other has already done, without ever bothering to explain why the difference matters?

How is it a useless comment? If you want to compare the actions of Denmark to France, it's more relevant to compare it to a particular region. Grand Est, for example has a similar population as Denmark. This is almost common sense in the business world. No one thinks BigCo and LittleStartup are capable of the same things or that one's ability or inability to do something is equivalent.

Well, in that case, let's compare: the Grand Est region has about the same population as Denmark, slightly more COVID-19 cases than Denmark (587 vs 514), and more deaths (9 vs 0). And yet, most schools and the administration are still open.

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

#182

Post by gizmodo59 »

alex_young wrote: post #173
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…

This may be true if politicians are selfishly focused on reelection, and it’s one of the core reasons western democracies have term limits. In times of crisis our system needs leaders who do the right thing over the popular thing, even when it means risking losing office. This is called statesmanship. Voters would do well to remember this when choosing leaders, it’s an increasingly rare quality we select for.

The president may have term limit but the party might want to continue to be in control of the senate and congress (or the equivalent in other countries)

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

#183

Post by mostafab »

endorphone wrote: post #116
mostafab wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

posts from health professionals can be even worse. this one was not too bad at explaining the thinking of ruling elites (who think they can fine-tune an epidemic)

"this one was not too bad at explaining the thinking of ruling elites" By inventing a completely unsupported rationalization/conspiracy theory? "Ruling elites" are not omnipotent, and paradoxically most are in the most vulnerable demographic. And as others said, it is a situation where one can be damned regardless of which way they act. In the case of strong containment/quarantines, unless you're willing to completel…

French President Macron seems to be doing what this post is writing: trying to fine-tune the spread, and find a balance between economy and health, with proportional measures

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

#184

Post by DonHopkins »

yardie wrote: post #98
rorykoehler wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you will never know if it worked or not though. 4a & 2 look the same after the fact

After Y2K I tried to raise this point that all the work did pay off. I guess people were expecting a control case somewhere, like a random power station in the middle of nowhere crashing, to show what happens if a system remained unpatched. After a while, I started to doubt myself as well. Even going to "Y2k was a hoax", for a brief period. But talking to more programmers from that period snapped me out of it.

You have to take the long term view...

https://medium.com/@donhopkins/cobol-forever-1a49f7d28a39

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

#185

Post by rsynnott »

exegete wrote: post #18
izacus wrote: post #7

Or perhaps our government is acting and handling the threat, just not in a way mass hysteria on Twitter demands. Knee jerk reaction usually ends up in theater, not proper containment. (Then again, my government isn't the Belgian government.)

So to you would consider what’s been done so far by the US federal government not theater?

The US is doing particularly badly (and going for nonsensical solutions; note the most recent one). Various Asian and European states are being much more aggressive. Some US states are also doing the best they can.

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

#186

Post by whydoineedone »

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…

[dead]

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

#187

Post by addHocker »

yread wrote: post #74
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…

But banning direct flights from Italy was definitely not the right action especially since the tourists were just rerouted through other European airports. All the epidimiologists are saying that closing borders doesn't help since the beginning

Dishonest. THe epidemiologists are recommending closing borders, if and only if there is proper enforced quarantine established at those checkpoints who remain open.

The ones recommending a complete, (aka non-discrimnatory open border practice), are the WHO which is basically a discredited ccp mouthpiece by now.

They even pressured the Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases Graph from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) to rename Taiwan into Taipe & Chinese Environment. Live on twitter.

The very party who caused this epidemic with mismanagement from the start, gets now barely vailed praise from its WHO for not beeing weak and democratic like the west. Including racistic harassment of all non-chinese wanting to travel to china at this point.

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

#188

Post by Pigo »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #76
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…

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…

>the virus spreading is an opportunity to fire people you couldn't fire before, get rid of an old population costing money

We have become very cynical people.

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

#189

Post by [deleted] »

aetherspawn wrote: post #12

Had an interesting thought earlier. Seeing as a majority of deaths are in the range 60 years and above, and very little of the casualties affect younger (working) people, from the governments POV the virus will do well to decrease the disproportionate number of older pension receivers and nursing home residents in comparison with the dwindling number of young people working and paying taxes. In other words, the gover…

[deleted]

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

#190

Post by whydoineedone »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #178

It's disappointing that the WHO and national agencies seem not able to adequately inform the public about their assessment of the situations, the models they're using and the conclusions they're drawing. Right now, the most shared article on Corona is written by a growth hacker from SF who cobbled together an Excel sheet and recommends it to people to decide whether they should close their companies or stay at home.…

mind sharing the 'growth hacker from SF's article?
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