Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

ma.ttias.be

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 436 posts

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

#331

Post by usrusr »

dx034 wrote: post #223
olau wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not the real reason. In the places where they have shut down schools, they can't really do it either. But when government says "do X" and has good reasons, the institutions comply. I'm in the board of a private institution in a country with a shutdown order, and there was really no discussion between the board members that this institution would shut down too, despite there being no legal backing at all.

That seems to be exactly the reason in Germany. The federal government has no say regarding public gatherings or schools. They have given out recommendations, some have followed, others have not. There's no repercussion for cities not following the government's decision.

You can hide behind "I lack the legal authority" or you can act. This is one of the rare occasions that absolutely do call for the old "ask for forgiveness" mentality. Nobody in the lower tiers would complain about central government to take a very difficult decision off their plate. (some people will complain, those who still think they can just pretend that the epidemic does not happen, but they will complain anyways)

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

#332

Post by whatshisface »

hef19898 wrote: post #284
marcus_holmes wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rest is reporting crap written every time a new case was found somewhere. This is the problem. Not that our institutions are failing to deal with the problem, but that our media has vastly overblown the whole situation in order to scare everyone witless so they'll keep clicking on news updates and watch those ads. With the secondary effect, of course, that all searches for information end up at a media outlet t…

+1! And just to be sure, I would add social media. But in all seriousness, I am absolutely disappointed with the reactions of Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on this. Everybody made a well deserved fuzz about the 2016 US election. So these companies are absolutely aware of this. Now that the stakes are much higher. Still no response, no action.

What are you suggesting exactly? Do you want them to delete "alarmist" posts? That sounds like a recipe for a total collapse in trust in public institutions.

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

#333

Post by hef19898 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #318
hef19898 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Industrial grade is the key word here. They have there customers, so they don't need "cheap" PR. They are specialized in chemical plants, usually professional organizations know there limits (conditions apply). Plus, the WHO and others have these models and tools as well. Plus the domain knowledge needed. Why wo don't have anything from these bodies is a different story, so.

> Plus, the WHO and others have these models and tools as well. Assuming they have[0], my core issue is: why won't they share them ? Society is not 100% made of illiterate rubes who can only add (but not multiply) and read a line chart (and get confused by a log scale). There's enough people who could make use of more sophisticated information, including politicians and political advisors. The discussion about e.g. w…

You are basically asking the same question I am. Why are they not sharing this kind of things? I think it is because the majority of the population is illiterate in that regard. This whole "exponetial growth modelling" going shows this pretty clearly. Not showing just opens a door they are not aware of I think.

also, I don't care about the tools they use. As lonfg as the results are correct.

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

#335

Post by Zenst »

cstross wrote: post #290
Zenst wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His travel ban was for schengen EUrope countries, many refer to them as Europe, when they are only part of it. Much the same way that some think the UK is leaving Europe and fail to grasp the difference of economic areas and tectonic plates.

It's being reported here (the UK) as "anyone who has visited or trsvelled through a Schengen zone country in the past 14 days". Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/coronavirus-ou...

Yip, I read that elsewhere as well.

Honestly should of just said, all air travel. How the thing spread to other countries in the first place.

Still, I'd be supprised if London don't end up with quarantine zones before the month is up. Going by how it has patterned in countries that have had to move from containment onto delay. Then it's not a case of if, but when.

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

#336

Post by zaroth »

ballenf wrote: post #289
XorNot wrote: post #247

The graph this blog draws doesn't work that way. The whole point of not overloading the medical system - and definitely not getting it at 100% capacity, is that once you're at capacity, it's not just COVID-19 treatment which stops (which means, all those people who would otherwise survive die) - it's all treatment. Get appendicitis? Routine surgery, can be done in a few hours. And will definitely kill you without tre…

Sounds like you don't disagree with his underlying argument, just that the cost is a function of both time and height of the curve. I took his point to be simply that flattening the curve does itself have significant associated costs. That a maximally flattened curve is not necessarily the best approach. For people who rely on public transport to get to work and who can't work remotely, I think they would argue that…

There’s a whole range of costs associated with various preventative measures which could be taken in the face of any risky activity. Some of these things (like encouraging good hygiene) are obviously worth doing, others like canceling all public schools much less so.

And it’s not just an abstract “economic” cost on the X-axis, ultimately it also comes back down to quality of life and even a cost in lives. Actual people losing their businesses, losing their houses, etc.

I can’t help but think of Asimov and Three Laws. Taken to its extreme, robots interpret the law of “not allowing humans to come to harm” in a way that they ultimately enslave humanity.

First, I think the nCFR is fundamentally and significantly overstating the risk to the general population because orders or magnitude more people already have it than have been tested positive. Second, I think the treatment for COVID is pretty basic. With a concerted effort to deploy temporary facilities across the US we could add sufficient ventilator beds for a quick peak in cases and save trillions of dollars in economic damages.

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

#337

Post by hef19898 »

whatshisface wrote: post #332
hef19898 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1! And just to be sure, I would add social media. But in all seriousness, I am absolutely disappointed with the reactions of Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on this. Everybody made a well deserved fuzz about the 2016 US election. So these companies are absolutely aware of this. Now that the stakes are much higher. Still no response, no action.

What are you suggesting exactly? Do you want them to delete "alarmist" posts? That sounds like a recipe for a total collapse in trust in public institutions.

No, just giving the top search spots to updates from WHO, followed by the national, regional and local sources. Play with the search algorythm to push the more alarmist ones further down.

Help the above mentioned institutions to write their "content" in a social media optimized way. That would be agreat opportunity for these tech giants to gain trust they lost since 2016. Not doing anything right now moght very well have the opposite effect.

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

#338

Post by s1artibartfast »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #268
hef19898 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this! I kind of understand the WHO, the broad public, including media, doesn't care about models and such things. Providing to much details can have the opposite effect, instead of calming things down it could spark more fear. On the other hand, online stuff like said growth hacker can draw a lot of attention. This will end up in the mainstream. That diseases aren't exponential, who cares when exponential cur…

> The rest is reporting crap written every time a new case was found somewhere. This is the problem. Not that our institutions are failing to deal with the problem, but that our media has vastly overblown the whole situation in order to scare everyone witless so they'll keep clicking on news updates and watch those ads. With the secondary effect, of course, that all searches for information end up at a media outlet t…

Yes and no.

People keep turning to the media because our institutional outlets provide inadequate information for the majority of the population. The institutions default to saying nothing useful because they are scared of blow-back.

I check my city, county, state, and world health sites and there is simply inadequate for my needs. I want to know what closures are in place in my community. I want to know if asymptomatic transmission is real. I want to know if there is a plan to widen the testing criteria.

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

#339

Post by usaar333 »

sumedh wrote: post #314
koonsolo wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, politicians choose (1), no action, as the most likely winning scenario. 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 i…

> kids are not the main factor in spreading the virus, as seen in other countries. Why did Japan close down schools, do they know something which Belgium does not or did Japan make a mistake by closing down schools.

There's always uncertainty. In societies where you have fewer mothers of young children working, economic cost of closing schools is lower.

All said I agree with GP that existing evidence suggests kids aren't a driver of the pandemic.

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

#340

Post by hef19898 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #338
marcus_holmes wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The rest is reporting crap written every time a new case was found somewhere. This is the problem. Not that our institutions are failing to deal with the problem, but that our media has vastly overblown the whole situation in order to scare everyone witless so they'll keep clicking on news updates and watch those ads. With the secondary effect, of course, that all searches for information end up at a media outlet t…

Yes and no. People keep turning to the media because our institutional outlets provide inadequate information for the majority of the population. The institutions default to saying nothing useful because they are scared of blow-back. I check my city, county, state, and world health sites and there is simply inadequate for my needs. I want to know what closures are in place in my community. I want to know if asymptoma…

That's the problem, yes. I still ignore the media, others don't. Both approaches are fine. The thing is, the media doesn't have any other sources, do they? But the have to produce content, so they do. Not very helpfull in the quality department if you ask me.
Post reply on HN