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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

#191

Post by dboreham »

A couple of other factors:

Governments don't seem to be able to act based on non-local information. Once the hospitals fill up _here_ , then action is taken. Hospitals filling up somewhere else causes no action.

There appears to be concerted disinformation operation underway, using the same outlets used for politics. I live in a "red" part of the US and can see comments from people on local TV news posts, and I talk to other local people. It's pretty clear there is lots of false information being propagated: comments like "Media stop overblowing this", "it's just the flu", "we can still shake hands here, it's a long way away" (that was a teacher at last night's parent teacher meetings). If the population don't have a realistic view of the situation then how can government take the necessary steps?

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

#192

Post by XorNot »

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…

> Are personal costs of the pandemic encouraging people to support subsidised healthcare, and therefore a left-wing party?

The entire free-world except the US has subsidized healthcare far in excess of the the American system.

Which is to say: no one in Australia is looking at $1000 COVID-19 tests.

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

#193

Post by Shmebulock »

b0rsuk wrote: post #32
mtsr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interpreted it like this: deaths are less expensive than lost productivity. This might actually hold given the groups that are the most at risk are probably least productive: the old and the infirm.

This may explain why sexually-transmitted diseases get so much attention. They're probably the only kind of diseases that hit younger population much harder than senior citizens. THOSE are the diseases that make the rich earn less money. From an ethical point of view, governments owe seniors the money and care, because they had worked for state prosperity. Also, if young people had more foresight, they would realize…

"This may explain why sexually-transmitted diseases get so much attention. They're probably the only kind of diseases that hit younger population much harder than senior citizens. THOSE are the diseases that make the rich earn less money."

This seems implausible to me. Given that the rich tend to be of rather old age themselves, I'd wager that they'd invest in preventing their own deaths

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

#194

Post by alharith »

Pigo wrote: post #188
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…

>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.

No, not we. Only sick people that need help think like this.

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

#195

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

I think Hanlon's razor applies here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

I'm in Spain, one of the countries that is doing way too little, way too late. When I see the measures and statements from our politicians, I don't see a machiavellian plan, I see stupidity. In fact, a prominent member of the government has been infected after attending feminist demonstrations on March 8 that anyone reasonably informed and intelligent knew shouldn't have been held in the first place, others also attended and could follow. If they were such diabolical masterminds, I doubt they would have done that...

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

#196

Post by dboreham »

rsynnott wrote: post #175
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…

There’s a lot that governments can do. Ireland just closed schools and universities, and banned large indoor gatherings, for instance, and directed companies to make work from home available where possible (though this last one is really more a suggestion). This won’t get rid of the virus, but it may help to slow it and thus reduce deaths. Closing borders, certainly at this point, seems largely futile.

>banned large indoor gatherings

I've read (true, who knows?) that in the USA this isn't legally possible. Federal government doesn't have that power.

This may be behind Trump's move to stop flights only to Europe, and not domestic flights. He has the power to do the former but not the latter, apparently.

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

#197

Post by timeattack »

DonHopkins wrote: post #174
uk_programmer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia shutdown its borders pretty much straight away and IIRC they have hardly any cases.

If you believe them, they don't have any gay people either.

Well, there is still no panic and hospitals are not overrun with patients. Russia is not China and far from being able to hide such things from public.

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

#198

Post by hef19898 »

jaynetics wrote: post #112
jcadam wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also in the case of 4a it's hard to define "it works." Because it's hard to know to what degree any actions taken mitigated the severity of the pandemic.

Is it? Just compare countries with similar properties that took measures at different points in time. Japan and Germany might not be the best to compare here, but consider: Japan, schools closed etc. at 200 cases. 8 days later: 400 cases. Germany, no action whatsoever at 200 cases, 8 days later: 1600 cases.

Does Japan include the cruise ship? Don't forget, Germany is a major transit country in Europe, everybody traveling back from Italy to the North crossed through. Italy, and the Alps im general, are in the skiing season. So a lot of tourism going on. Plus, 200 to 1,600 in 8 days isn't nearly as bad as you make it sound.

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

#199

Post by smolder »

Pigo wrote: post #188
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…

>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.

More accurately, I think, we have let very cynical people take control of everything important. So in matters of policy it's reasonable to assume extreme cynicism.

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

#200

Post by mhandley »

When is too late to act? Clearly Italy acted too late. I've been plotting the actual case data, in an attempt to get some idea of where countries lie with respect to Italy:

https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/status/1237781162153717760

These are not strictly predictions, but they give some idea of what will happen if we act in a similar way to Italy. Note that there's a 6 to 10 day lag in the stats (~6 days incubation, up to 4 days testing, at least in the UK right now). Without isolation measures, we're seeing 33% per day increase rates. If we wait until we can measure the scale of the problem, it's likely to be too late to prevent it.

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