211–220 of 436 posts
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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.
This all assumes that executive level government functions rationally and in the long-term national interest. Which is normally the case, but this is an abnormal decade. Let me be extremely cynical (at risk of down-voting) about the current US administration's motives: Consider Trump's just-announced travel ban on the EU-26. It misses out the UK and Ireland, despite COVID-19 having a toe-hold in those countries ... b…
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> 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.
Unless there are other countries that had more serious problems.
So it's a complicated problem, with many dynamics at play.
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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.
France has 11x Denmark's population and 4x it's confirmed cases, so it seems like doing nothing worked better.
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…
I'm from Belgium myself, so I can chime in.
Our minister of health is a docter herself, and is advised by a panel of experts including a professor of virology. They know very well what they are doing with the current 400 known infections.
Closing schools makes no sense currently because of following factors:
- kids are not the main factor in spreading the virus, as seen in other countries.
- Putting kids with their grandparents is probaly worse for death toll compared to keeping them in schools.
Look at the exponential growth curve of for example Denmark https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in...
And compare that to the pretty linear growth curve of Belgium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in...
So please stop treating this as game theory. Our country is doing the best thing in this situation.
Edit: denmark link and rude language
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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…
That's probably not the decision-making strategy of most governments, but it's a compelling POV for looking at the situation. Let it spread fast, wreak havoc and disrupt the social order, or control it within the capacity of health systems, or try to minimise the infections with constant awareness of the society for a prolonged period of time, affecting the economy in the long run.
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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…
The actions taken during February in Wuhan and neighboring provinces seem to have stopped the spread there, so effective actions can be taken. Thing is, it appears that there's little overlap between actions that seem reasonable and actions that are effective. If you wait until drastic actions seem justifiable, then by that time it's too late to be effective (i.e. the Italy lockdown which would have helped Italy if i…
So the overall cost picture is strongly in favor of early action.
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.…
This is just not correct. Governments are acting on this throughout the world. Don't conflate governments with politicians. For well-functioning states, state agencies are dealing with this through well-established protocols that don't need political clearence. This means that the countries where politicians are the most visible and calling for action could very well be the ones that have prepared the least.
The quarantine in Italy seemed extreme a week ago, now several countries are heading towards the same measures.
In democracies, curtailing peoples' rights is always tricky, it's the first time I've seen bureaucrats take away individual rights daily without backtracking on decisions.