I'd argue there's no direct correlation. There are societies with lesser regard for rationality doing just fine too. Several countries not in "the path of the storm" can claim credit for anything they did and didn't do as having stopped covid to the point of superstition. Id credit Germans' preference of beer just as much as their February/March response or their penchant for rationality. It's a form of collective survivorship bias. There are several cases of countries next to each other with no particular great early response having vastly different outcomes. Rational, educated populace doesnt explain away the difference between Italy vs Austria, Belgium & Netherlands vs Germany, the US vs Canada, etc. It's too early to gloat and take digs at the US. Were all countries at equal risk of exposure, or were the US, Italy, and other more severely affected countries already major travel hubs for people coming from early affected regions? Some countries have turned "flatten the curve" into "nobody should ever get a fever again" and have gone to great lengths to make that happen but I doubt the temporary security is worth the "emergency powers" theyve given their leaders.
> Rational, educated populace doesnt explain away the difference between Italy vs Austria, Belgium & Netherlands vs Germany, the US vs Canada
In the case of US vs Canada, perhaps it does. Canadians have a high level of trust in expert civil servants, including public health officials. There is also a general Canadian pragmatism that kicks in: politicians from across the country and across the political spectrum have handled the pandemic fairly consistently. The public remains mostly supportive of the federal, provincial and local initiatives. It has not been perfect, but we have not seen local officials warring with the Premier or the Premier warring with the PM on the issue of pandemic response.
In terms of education, Canada leads the world in working-age adults with post-secondary education[0]. Though primary and secondary education is a provincial and local matter, it tends to be consistently good in most of the country.
Canada has little population density outside it’s local hubs. The virus isn’t going to spread so easily there outside of localities. The USA has more metro areas that are drivable to each other. It’s easier to spread in the USA. Look at the massive EU numbers and consider their density.
Rural places in the US are doing a dandy job of spreading it right now.
In this rural county, daily new infections are at something like 400/million. That rate is arrived at with a big enough multiplier, but it is a reasonable basis for comparison. Our cumulative case / million is ~23000.
> We also find that after controlling for metropolitan population, county density is not significantly related to the infection rate, possibly due to more adherence to social distancing guidelines. However, counties with higher densities have significantly lower virus-related mortality rates than do counties with lower densities, possibly due to superior health care systems.
I think that’s because population density is notoriously hard to measure. The problem is that most countries have a mixture of big cities, rural areas, and uninhabited wilderness. Taking the total population and dividing by the total land area does not tell you anything useful about the actual proximity in which most people live in a country.
On that scatterplot you linked, Canada is way down there in terms of population density. Yet the vast majority of Canada’s land area is uninhabited wilderness to the north. Most Canadians live within a narrow band of cities running parallel to the U.S. border. In addition, a significant minority live in many scattered rural areas outside of that band.
So the question is: how do you measure Canada’s true population density? Do you only look at the high density band? Or do you include the rural areas? Where do you draw the line between rural and wilderness? There’s no easy answer.
Diseases mostly don't spread between strangers. They spread between family members, close relatives and friends. Everybody has those, even in rural areas.
Look at past pandemics for reference, everybody was hit. The Spanish Flu spread in isolated arctic populations just as well as NYC.
remember that in the US, we're still barely in the beginning of this thing. trying to claim correctness of action is largely meaningless as we neither have herd immunity nor have felt the economic impacts of our policies. 9/10 NYC business can't pay full rent
personally, it seems the economic dangers are far larger than the health effects at this point. with that lens, id prefer a republican next term, even if its trump. well, id prefer a libertarian (and the first female president at that!) but thats a nonstarter for some reason.
You’d prefer someone who lies to the population and downplays science and experts in the field of epidemiology? Do you really think this is going to lead to economic recovery?
Canada has been going through a second wave. (Well, Ontario and Quebec are, with Winnipeg as a bubbling hot spot. But given most of the country lives in Ontario and Quebec…)
What’s going on in Canada is, I think, what’s going on in Europe: pandemic fatigue. It sucks to be socially distanced for this long, and people’s guards go down. I don’t think we are seeing the almost nihilistic denial that you see in parts of the States here; we’re just tired.
The protests have been very small, despite the media doing their best to promote them.
If you look at someone like Doug Ford, the extremely conservative, pro-business premier of Ontario, he has consistently advocated for masking and lockdowns as needed. He was tight-fisted with funds for testing, and overly eager to reopen businesses before fall/winter when outdoor dining would be untenable. That set the stage for our current outbreak, but he hasn't done anything on the level of Trump or Rick Scott.
> were the US, Italy, and other more severely affected countries already major travel hubs for people coming from early affected regions?
That only played a role very early on, at the beginning of the pandemic, when imported cases drove spread of the virus.
As the pandemic goes on, community spread becomes the dominant factor, so policies that affect transmission can have a huge effect.
The most dramatic example of this is China. The virus began there, so they had zero time to prepare. They were more "in the path of the storm" than anyone. There was a major outbreak in Hubei province, and the virus gained a foothold in every major city in the country. But then, beginning in late January, China had an extremely strict lockdown that lasted several weeks. Transmission chains ended, and the prevalence of the virus was brought down to a minimal level. Since then, extensive testing and symptom checks in public have kept the epidemic from resurging, and the government has reacted with immediate lockdowns wherever the virus has resurfaced. Compare that to the US (and many countries, though the US is one of the most extreme examples), where the epidemic has been allowed to continue for months.
I haven’t really understood the certain praise the EU has received by the USA media. The EU as a whole is similar to the USA and has done just as good/bad as the USA. Similar number of deaths. The USA has more cases but I suspect the EU has just not tested as much previously. There’s no reason to suspect the EU would have a higher death rate (USA has more confirmed cases but fewer deaths$. But today EU case totals are higher (much higher recently but I suspect the USA is just lagging a bit) or about the same as the USA which makes sense since both places are doing massive amounts of testing.
It's mostly because Germany dominates the discourse, and the impression of outsiders towards the EU. Sure, Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, Netherlands and Belgium are miles ahead of the rest of the EU, but the rot begins once you go south. France, Italy, Spain, etc. are so much worse places with the rest of the EU following in the slow decline. Meanwhile, other places such as Poland and Hungary with rising living standards are turning into ultra-conservative shit holes (to speak broadly. Of course, the story in the cities is usually different).
Got to agree with this. You see European football fans make dehumanizing monkey sounds and gestures at black and brown players. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in American sports.
I don’t think right now. But earlier in the year. I explained in my comment the EU has fewer confirmed cases but more deaths. This implies that either EU citizens are more likely to die from COVID or that they didn’t test as much earlier. Today their confirmed numbers are massive and I suspect it’s because they are testing more than ever.
The null hypothesis is that the differences between countries so far are more due to luck and timing than rationality and education. If that's correct then over the long run infection rates will roughly even out between most countries.
It’s unlike for all countries to have equivalent transmission rates by default. Further, countries with younger populations (specifically vs 75+) would have fewer death even if their adage adjusted mortality rates are identical.
Italy has a much larger percentage of population over 80 than the rest of Europe due to climate, migration patterns, and WWII.
Both countries have a similar percentage of 65+ year olds, but COVID gets rapidly more deadly as you get older and Germany‘s very oldest generation is devastated. For comparison 31.30% of US covid deaths are from 85+ year olds.
Now take a look back at the male and female 90-94 and 95-99 year old slices of both of those charts you said looked similar.
There’s another difference. The US healthcare system has strong incentives to find COVID where there is none, or where it’s irrelevant. They get substantially more money from a COVID death than from a normal death. A guy I know lost his friend to a motorcycle accident, but his friend’s death was officially a COVID death.
When you see really strong outliers, you need to at least consider the explanatory power of incentives.
I think the US has mismanaged the crisis, but I also think there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the numbers.
A lot of them might just be better liars; E.g., here in Iran the gov has managed quite a good marketing, but the reality on the ground makes it clear that the hospitals have been severely out of capacity, and infection is very widespread. Still most people are so stupid that they trust official stats to be order-of-magnitude accurate (my guess is the official stat is logarithmic) and think our situation is better than, e.g., the USA.
I'm not sure how Hitler winning 1932 German elections improved human rights in Germany and overall Europe. Instead it turned into dictatorship, tyranny and mass murder. And you can not say that Germany at the time was not rational and not educated populace. It was a Physics mecca of the world with people like Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger and Albert Einstein.
My point is education does not equal to rationality, and democracy is not good but it is the best system we had so far.
"Germany 1932 was massive mess. It was not rational place in a lot of ways. It was also quite violent place."
I know, there was hyperinflation in 1920s and there were violent conflicts and confrontations between right nationalists and left communists. I think huge negative influence was Soviet Union exporting communist revolutions in European countries which eventually escalated to civil war in Spain and almost a civil war in Germany. But Hitler and his ideology were a product of First World War and not a product of unstable Germany or unstable Europe.
There were multiple political murders too. There were fistfights in parlament and screaming. But violence definitely was not just Soviet export. Communists were minority compared to right wing extremists - who started to operate right after WWI.
> But Hitler and his ideology were a product of First World War and not a product of unstable Germany or unstable Europe.
What does this mean? WWI itself was consequence of unstable Europe. Germany was heavily militarized culture even prior WWI. Their imperial ambitions were definitely pre existing.
Hitler tapped into nationalistic, racial and Darwinian trends that already existed.
World War II has been over for a while and Germany has a scientist as the leader of the country.
Human rights in Germany improved as a result of WWII because Germany - unlike any other country - has seen first hand what will happen when you let human rights slide.
I was referring to the guy who said "Societies with largely rational, educated populace are weathering COVID just fine, wrt. democracy and respect for human rights."
My conclusion was that education does not equal to rationality with regards to human rights and that democracy is not good but it is the best system we had so far.
Sure. But China, arguably not much of a democracy did just fine.
So the whole link between the pandemic and political systems is mostly nonsense, the countries where the impact is least are simply the ones that reacted fastest and most decisive. Everybody else is playing catch-up and they may have to substantially pause their 'freedoms' and 'democratic rights' to get through to the other side.
This is a simple result of early incompetence and refusal to assign sufficient gravity to the situation.
So you believe in information that Chinese communist party is providing. A totalitarian regime with mass violation of human rights?! I love China and Chinese people but people suffer a lot under the rule of CCP. They are faking their financial data and they are faking their COVID data as well.
I believe that if a regime shares information that is at face value negative for that regime that we can believe them in so far as that aspect is concerned. China has shared a lot of information around the pandemic that can be classed as 'draconian countermeasures', but they do seem to have the COVID situation under control.
If you want to argue the opposite then you should substantiate that with data and sources, rather than just with claims left hanging without support.
I'm sure there is going to be some discrepancy between the facts and what we get from official communications but at this point in time there are very few governments left that have been 100% transparent during this whole saga. China likely is no exception to that but I would not expect them a-priori to be worse than say Russia or some of the countries of the EU.
I'm the guy you refer to. You are confusing broad education with STEM. It is very possible to be poorly educated while being OK at math or engineering.
I think it's more that Germans, unlike most nationalities, had great psychological and political incentives to imagine themselves as the victims of human rights abuses, but unlike real victims of human rights abuses, didn't face an entrenched establishment designed to keep them from asserting their rights.
It's important to remember that Germans, as in present Germans, are very rarely descendants of those who 'saw first hand' the atrocities of the Nazis, unless you count the perspective of the perpetrators. A large part of the post-war German identity was based around the idea that they did not know what was being done, that they would have never allowed it if they had known, and so on.
My opinion here is obviously controversial (especially in Germany), but it goes a long way to explain why Germany, unlike most post-genocidal nations, has very robust defence of human rights at the core of its state. Most survivors of genocide (e.g. the Armenians) face an establishment committed to defending itself against any assertion of wrongdoing, and a society committed to keeping hold of stolen property and lands. In Germany, there were essentially no survivors, and no advocates for the dead, so there was no real pressure either to bring the perpetrators of the holocaust to justice, or to defend them. In Turkey, recognition of the genocide would have been extremely expensive, both in terms of reputations of establishment figures, and in terms of property and land. In Germany, most Nazis and Nazi businesses (VW for instance) could simply go on.
In any case, I'm not sure how you would respond to the Holocaust within the framework of human rights. Retroactive justice is against the german constitution, and what the Germans did in the second world war was predominantly legal. It would have been very hard, even if there was a great desire to do so, to convict anybody of doing acts which were fully lawful at the time.
> It's important to remember that Germans, as in present Germans, are very rarely descendants of those who 'saw first hand' the atrocities of the Nazis, unless you count the perspective of the perpetrators.
On the contrary, the vast majority of the Germans alive today are the descendants of those who saw these things 'first hand'. You have this about as backwards as it gets.
No in relation to Nazi victims in general. Jews were not only German victims of it all and most killed Jews were foreign. (German Jewish minority was rather small). As any other regime, it had huge amount of other victims too.
The crimes against non-jewish germans are part of the whole thing and part of reason for robust rights. So was the destruction of Germany after all of that which was pretty profound.
makes for interesting reading. Particularly the line: "some homosexuals were forced to serve out their terms of imprisonment, regardless of the time spent in concentration camps". Although it's hard to say if that was the Germans or the Allies who were responsible. Perhaps both?
This is an epic side track, but the argument you could make is that Germany's choice at the time was between Nazi-ism and Stalin controlled communism. Liberal democracy was a distant third option that had no real chance.
We know the Nazi option turned out very very bad. But it's possible a German/Soviet Stalinist block would have been even worse.
First, the second most probable outcome was non-nazi military dictatorship that almost happened.
Second, the other largest party was strogly pro democracy. They were called social democrats and were definitely not communist. Trying to cast them as such is just repeating nazi propaganda.
> We know the Nazi option turned out very very bad. But it's possible a German/Soviet Stalinist block would have been even worse.
Say what you want about Soviet-caused famine, but they never shipped people in trains to gas chambers for the express purpose of exterminating them. Pretty contrived and callous to say that choosing the Nazis might have been the right choice.
Stalin did plenty of genocides of his own, and murdered far more of his own citizens than Hitler did.
If your criteria is that the genocide has to be conducted with a similar train system etc as the Holocaust, you're probably not serious about this discussion.
> Stalin did plenty of genocides of his own, and murdered far more of his own citizens than Hitler did.
Hm, yes - I would like to see the evidence that Stalin directly, intentionally murdered more than 11 million of his citizens.
You're really going out of your way to justify voting for the Nazis, huh.
If you're just going to go ahead and conflate the Holodomor and Holocaust as basically the same thing, then it's not really worth continuing the conversation.
why Brazil? The Democracy there works fine. There was a change in the power, which brought new dynamics to the Country, but IMO their democracy are eroding much less than in US, France and Germany
Disclaimer: I'm German/Brazilian who lived 10 years in US.
> Bolsonaro endorsed the protests of a far right movement that literally
> wants to "return to military rule under Bolsonaro
Please, add reference for that.
The democracy is working as usual in Brazil, nothing changed. No rights was taken away from the people and no riots or civil conflicts are worse than before. Look America, France and Germany where the social fabric is partially destroyed.
So you don't know about his endorsement for #SomosTodosBolsonaro and the "fuck you day" and that "in an April rally also attended by Bolsonaro, demonstrators called on Sunday for the closing of the Supreme Court and Congress, and a return to authoritarian measures used during Brazil’s 1964-1985 military government"?
You don't know that he "ordered the country’s armed forces to commemorate the anniversary of the 1964 coup which brought the military to power."?
You don't know about his interference with justice and when Moro presented testimony about it Bolsonaro tweeted that he was "a traitor, a Juda"?
You don't know that "As Bolsonaro’s relationship with legislators and the courts has cooled, he has become increasingly dependent on a cadre of advisers in his government who are active or former military"?
You don't know that in a Facebook live he said “We have the armed forces at the people’s side: the side of order, democracy, liberty,”?
You really don't know any of this?
Tell me. if you can, when in France or Germany the President attended a far right rally where they hoped to return to the nazi period...
As german I can tell you, you cannot compare the center-right in Brazil with Nazi Period, there is no way to continue a discussion with someone with this arguments, sorry.
> you cannot compare right in Brazil with Nazi Period
Is it true or not that Bolsonaro is against democracy and rallied against it or not?
Can you find a moment when French or German president said something like "the military must be back in power"?
The last time it happened in Europe was when nazi ruled, or when in Spain the fascist ruled, or when in Greece the fascists ruled etc. etc. I think the comparison is apt.
> user: notreallytrue created: 8 minutes ago
I know for a fact what happens to you when you go against far right movements, especially south american ones.
you are creating a rhetoric that doesn't exist. There are 0 risk to be critics to south american regimes online. Maybe Venezuela?
To compare the Brazilian Government with The Nazi Period, you are not making the Brazilian Government look bad, but you are making the Nazi Period look harmless. From my personal life (my family moved from what today is Poland to Brazil, around 40s). Today 80 years after, I feel safe to wear my Kippah in Sao Paulo, but I don't feel safe to do it in Paris or Berlin (city where I studied and lived).
Bolsonaro as person and citizen has his opinions and he is really vocative about that (which is bad, and populist), but it doesn't reflect on the Politics being made in the Country. As it should be in a democracy, the personal opinion of a President has almost 0 influence.
> To compare the Brazilian Government with The Nazi Period
Never did.
I compared the military coups, which Bolsonaro is rooting for, undeniably, to the military government the nazi-fascists had over Germany and Italy and then Europe.
They came to power thanks to the military support.
As every far right movement usually does.
Bolsonaro is praising and rallying for a return of the military dictatorship.
He was there, in person, endorsing it.
> my family moved from what today is Poland to Brazil, around 40s
So did thousands of former SS officials who went to live there after WW2, protected and kept hidden.
Including Joseph Mengele.
> I feel safe to wear my Kippah in Sao Paulo, but I don't feel safe to do it in Paris or Berlin (city where I studied and lived)
As much as I respect feelings, they are just feelings.
Sao Pauol has a much higher crime rate and 10 to 15 times worse homicide rate than Berlin, you might feel safer, but you are not safer.
“I hope God continues to enlighten President Jair Bolsonaro because he has a Jew who is at the head of the Senate at his disadvantage, Jews are miserly. Jews are wicked and think only of their well-being.”
Said Bolsonaro's supporters when the first Jewish president of Brazilian Congress was nominated.
Have you seen supporters of Merkel or Macron write something like that?
Uncondemned?
Remember that Bolsonaro in Brazil controls the media, but he cannot hide that under his government
> And if two key elements had been missing – anti-Semitism and the use of the state apparatus, especially the police, to stifle the press and persecute political dissenters – and thus prevented us from characterizing Bolsonaro and his gang as fascists once and for all, that is no longer the case.
> 1. On its official website and its verified Twitter profile, the Brazilian Army recently honored and treated as a "martyr" Eduard Ernest Thilo Otto Maximilian von Westernhagen, a Nazi major who was decorated by Hitler and killed in Brazil by members of the Colina, a resistance group against the military dictatorship and its state terrorism.
> Bolsonaro’s Justice Minister Sérgio Moro – after being unmasked in the conspiracy against former President Lula and Brazilian democracy as a judge of Operation Lava Jato, which was denounced by The Intercept – decided to use the Federal Police to try to intimidate the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, editor of the prestigious news site, and to persecute me over a conspiracy theory.
Moro is the same man that presented testimony for interference with justice by Bolsonaro that the president from his social account called "a traitor, a Juda"
Moro was chosen by Bolsonaro himself, exactly because he handled the operation "car wash" that illegally put Lula out of the competition.
If a man who obstructed justice to stop a former President to run for re-election is saying that the current President is interfering with justice, it is probably worse than we think.
> So did thousands of former SS officials who went to live there after WW2, protected and kept hidden.
Bolsonaro helped them too?
> Sao Pauol has a much higher crime rate and 10 to 15 times worse homicide rate than Berlin, you might feel safer, but you are not safer.
I don't know if you understood what I meant, but I'm Jewish and because of antisemitism, which we have back in cities like in Berlin or Paris, I don't feel there safe there as I felt in Sao Paulo.
> Have you seen supporters of Merkel or Macron write something like that?
You don't have idea about the CSU/CDU parties (parties from Merkel) in Germany. But again, no reference, "somebody said, bla bla", just the socket puppet in the internet saying.
You are trolling with a lot of "factoids" to support your agenda and to avoid being down-voted you created a socket puppet.
Fun fact IMO which makes the whole South American soup even more interesting and supports my argument that the Government Politics has nothing to do with his personal ideas: He was personally against this "monthly emergency aid payment", and it was mainly pushed by the opposition, but now he is being treated like Hero because of that and enjoying the popularity.
> I don't know if you understood what I meant, but I'm Jewish and because of antisemitism, which we have back in cities like in Berlin or Paris, I don't feel there safe there as I felt in Sao Paulo.
I don't know if you understood that it's your feeling, not a fact.
There are more nazi and nazi heirs living in Brazil than in the rest of the World.
If you feel safer in Sao Paulo than in Berlin, it means you are part of an elite that is not affected by Sao Paulo criminality.
“Massacre the Jews, God, hit them with your sword, for they have left God, they have left the nations. ... God, what you have done in World War II, you must do again, this is what we ask for in our prayers to you: Justice, justice, justice!”” Pastor Tupirani da Hora Lores shouted at dozens of congregants earlier this month at his Geracao Jesus Cristo church"
Have you got news of something like that in Berlin?
Did Bolsonaro said something about it?
> You don't idea about the CSU/CDU parties (party from Germany) in Germany. But again, no reference, just the socket puppet in the internet saying.
I sure have, I'm Italian, part of my family moved to Germany soon after the war and lived in Berlin myself.
Frau Merkel surely didn't ever support anti-semitic or anti democratic groups or movements.
Anyway CSU and CDU are two very different beasts, just putting them together shows that you are just trying to spew propaganda.
> You are trolling with a lot of "factoids" to support your agenda
I have no agenda other than stopping your BS about Bolsonaro the great democratic president.
He is not.
He is a dangerous man.
With dangerous ideas.
> What make you angry are stuff like:
LOL
No, it doesn't.
North Korea style propaganda doesn't affect me, sorry.
Mussolini did the same thing, he knew very well guns were not going to opposition but to his supporters that used them to kill or oppress his opponents.
The rhetoric of "citizens that simply want to defend themselves" is an empty one.
Russia passed gun control legislation in 1929 coinciding with the beginning of Stalins rule.
Italy's current gun control laws date to the fascist period, notably the public safety act of 1931.
Cuba's gun laws are classified as highly restrictive.
How it looks in Brazil after the decree:
"Getting permission to buy a gun in Brazil still requires a lengthy process — including a mental health assessment and a criminal-background check — that can drag on for months. But shooting ranges and gun stores started to see an uptick in business, even before the new rules went into effect."
So you can have a gun at home, but no carry is permitted.
> Italy's current gun control laws date to the fascist period, notably the public safety act of 1931.
9 years after Fascism raised to power and abolished democracy in Italy.
BTW you are not reading it well, what the Royal Decree No. 773 of 1931 established was that production of arms had to be licensed by the regime and that armed military parade were abolished UNLESS EXPLICITLY AUTHORIZED
Guess who gave the authorizations?
Exactly! the fascist prefects!
After all fascism went to power by marching to Rome in a military armed parade...
That's a good point. IMO he is center-right with some influence of liberalism and populist as typical politician in South America. However his govern still open, respecting the diversity, supporting the refugees from Venezuela and respecting the sovereignty of Neighbouring countries.
Most wealthy countries are weathering corona quite decently, with woman-led countries being in the lead (e.g. NZ, Germany).
The most notable exceptions are the US, Brazil, UK and Turkey - these four countries have one thing in common: far-right populist "strongmen" in power who are unable to find a line between the demands of medical/epidemiological expertise and their self interests.
Can we have a break from the thought-terminating cliches that abound on HN? Just like Pavlov's dogs: mention the word or phrase and the subject salivates. To suggest that medical expertise as such has a decided opinion on the covid crisis is merely to show that you haven't read the literature but have taken the line that more closely aligns with your political agenda. Reality is rather more complex as indicated by https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat... giving deaths per capita.
That doesn't disprove that Trump, Bolsonaro, Johnson and Erdoğan are far right populist who fucked up.
On the contrary, it proves that US handled the crisis badly, worse than many other countries less developed and less rich.
Of course Belgium, with 11 million citizens (less than NY) and a population density of 385/km2 (USA is at 36) and headquarter of European political institutions had it worse
NY city death rate is in fact 1,960 deaths/million (2 times Belgium)
NY state is at 1,710/million
New Jersey 1,820/million
It's easy to win the stats game when you do not watch them closely
Of course you can scoff the numbers when you don't know that Belgium is counting any death happening in nursing homes (there are over 15 hundreds of them) as covid related, even the untested ones.
If you wanna talk about complexity, you should at least show that you can handle it.
Why are you equating the response of the UK to Brazil or the USA? The UK locked down for months on end, and continues to lockdown areas depending on infection rates. To me, a Briton, the description of Johnson as "far right" is bizarre -- he's about as "far right" as Harold Macmillan.
Because he is in the same ballpark of the other 3, denial of the covid dangers, a strong sentiment of economy over people lives and the call to sacrifice
Isn Boris Johnson who said “I must level with you, I must level with the British public, Many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.” just to keep the business going?
I'm sorry but UK had it very bad under Johnson, it's an undeniable fact.
Huh? No you've got it backwards - the argument at the moment is the Johnson is being too careful to protect people at the expense of the economy - the opposite of what you've claimed.
> Isn Boris Johnson who said “I must level with you, I must level with the British public, Many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.” ...
Yes. Isn't that just a fact? More people did lose their loved ones. That happened all over the world.
> ... just to keep the business going?
No, again you're confused here - that quote was about enforcing new restrictions to protect people - closing more businesses - the opposite of what you've claimed.
> the argument at the moment is the Johnson is being too careful to protect people at the expense of the economy
A variation on that argument, is that careful protection is only an option if the economy is simultaneously protected, by paying people and businesses cash, otherwise people desperate for income will not comply with lockdown directives.
We're seeing that being argued from Manchester right now: They want a national "circuit breaker" rather than local lockdown, because a national one is more likely to be accompanied by financial support, as well as a shorter "tier 3" lockdown in Manchester.
Not mentioned much, but hovering in the background, is a minority but significant number of people who aren't entitled to government financial support of any kind. Some as individuals (no recourse to public funds) and some as businesses (started business at a time that haven't shown figures yet by April, or were in an invest-and-spend phase so low/negative profit). In the absence of any government support, during lockdown they depend on volunteers for food and temporary non-eviction law to keep their homes, so they have a strong incentive to resist lockdown measures.
I've not heard "denial", a la Trump, from Johnson.
That's the trade off every country is making: dangers of the virus Vs long term effects of response to the virus. It's a balancing act. What would you prefer, wanton destruction of everyone's livelihoods in overreaction? Not everyone is lucky enough to have a job that can be done from home, such as us on this site (typically). Every country is trying to avoid shuttering everything.
The quote from Johnson isn't talking about what you're inferring. It was a broad statement of what was going to happen (and it has, across the world): people will still die, in spite of the lockdown. It was a public address, not a policy statement.
It isn't purely the economics: I've had friends and relatives that have had significant effects to their health (including a death) because of being locked in their houses for months.
> I've not heard "denial", a la Trump, from Johnson.
He literally said it himself when he recovered from COVID-19
> A few hours later, he received a positive test result, and the next day he made a video statement in which he said he was self-isolating, but would continue to work and lead Britain’s coronavirus response.
> But during the next nine days, as he worked in isolation in an apartment above his official Downing Street residence and office, his condition deteriorated, with persistent symptoms including a high temperature.
> Later, he said he had been in denial and continued to work despite feeling groggy and “pretty rough”, until doctors told him firmly to go to hospital.
Boris Johnson was forced to change attitude, but he didn't believe covid-19 was a life threatening disease.
> The quote from Johnson isn't talking about what you're inferring. It was a broad statement of what was going to happen
If he hadn't been in denial he could have acted sooner and save a lot of those people that instead died.
It's the PM responsibility and anybody else.
If we were talking about Italy, for example, I would tell you that 60% of the covid related deaths are a responsibility of Attilio Fontana, the president of Regional Council of Lombardy who left elderly to die in nursing homes while he was subcontracting the supply of medical equipment to his brother in law and when journalists found out he tried to repay the debt using his own money from a Swiss account (yes, he has secret money in Switzerland)
But in UK B.J. is the major responsible for the debacle.
Nonsense. Nothing in your comment is "denial". The guy got progressively iller. He "felt rough" at one point, and then felt worse. He was commenting on his own state and his perception of it, not making some great statement of it being nothing. He self-isolated throughout during his illness, before going to hospital.
This was all against the background of the government shutting down the country's economy in response to the virus. A torturous definition of "denial" if I've heard one.
Thinking you wouldn't be badly affected (and by Johnson's demographic, statistically it was likely he wouldn't have been), doesn't mean you think it doesn't affect others badly.
I'm in my twenties and fit, and going by the vast majority of cases that means I'll have very mild symptoms. That doesn't prevent me being considerate how badly it affects others.
You're also completely ignoring the context that at that point the country had been locked down: you couldn't leave your house except to get supplies and 1 hour of exercise. Does that sound like the decision of a man that denied the gravity of Covid?
I'm sorry I'm in my fourties, still functioning and while in Italy, France and Spain the virus was causing havoc, Downing street was still taking time to prepare an "adequate response" trying to "find a balance to not take Draconian measures"
We've all seen the consequences of their choices
At one point they also talked about "letting the virus spread through the entire population and take it on the chin"
Either Johnson believed it or not, he said it and people reacted to it.
Was it a communication problem?
Maybe
Was it a grave mistake
Yes, it was
I'm not ignoring anything BTW, I stayed home 94 consecutive days in Italy, so please don't try to teach me what it looks like to take responsibility for the sake of your community.
The reality is, most people are going to get the 'rona. Germany for example; they didn't get it as much last spring; they're getting it now. NZ, same thing's going to happen, unless they develop North Korea style immigration policies or 12 monkeys style lifestyle. They're better off in general because they have healthier populations than, say, the US or the UK, but putting it off isn't going to work forever.
I don't think the US, Brazil, UK or Turkey explicitly realized this or anything (Sweden did; they're doing fine, and are basically over with it). But ultimately getting it over with is probably going to look better in the long term.
> they didn't get it as much last spring; they're getting it now
That are lives saved. The more knowledge we have about the disease the easier is to treat it. Also, that measure has extended the lives of all the people that would have died months ago.
Gaining time has a lot of value.
> Sweden did; they're doing fine, and are basically over with it
No. A second wave is starting in Sweden. And, the father of a colleague died of Covid19, that is not "doing fine".
Sweden has had mixed results because has applied non-strong measures. Most companies are working remotely and there are strong safety nets for people to stay home if they feel sick. Even with that, it has been far from perfect, and it is far from over.
This. For all the debate about the Swedish approach, Sweden isn't really any better -- or worse -- off than comparable countries.
The one thing that could improve the situation is social distancing for an extended period of time, in combination with contact tracing and compulsory quarantining of contagious individuals. In that regard, Sweden dropped the ball completely along with the rest of the EU, when the EU decided tourism was more important than containing the pandemic.
People have been predicting a second wave in Sweden for months now but average daily deaths continue to be only about 2. They must be doing something right.
I'm not sure placing all the responsibility for survival on the most vulnerable is 'doing something right'... Over here in Finland we strive to take care of the vulnerable even if it is no direct benefit to us, and inconvenient.
France was doing worse than Germany in the first wave, and is doing worse than Germany in this second wave. In fact Germany is doing much better right now than the European average.
The only "evidence" that countries that did worse in the first wave do better now seems to come from counties that decided that reducing testing is the easiest way to make the numbers look good.
You fail to understand the fact that everyone's going to get it. You can't control that fact, not even by blowing up the economy. The best thing you can do if you're afraid is to wear a mask and take vitamin-D (or go outside to get some).
Unless there is a miraculous breakthrough in vaccines, which seems unlikely in current year, this disease will be with us for the rest of your life. Just like the flu. If it works like other corona viruses, it will burn through the population kill off the people who are susceptible to it, and remain with us forever, just like HCoV-OC43 probably did in 1889 with the "Russian flu" of that day[0]. Nobody worries about that now.
You can do reasonable steps (masks, distance, no big events) that keep the infection rate to a minimum until we can get a vaccine approved and administered to 95% of the population in 1-2 years time.
Maybe we will live with strains of the virus forever, but that's not the problem. We have many diseases among us that are harmless in childhood and much worse later in live, but they are much more harmless both because people are exposed to them starting in early childhood, allowing them to build some immunity; and because vaccination is an option. That's a much more harmless situation than the initial outbreak ripping through a population that has never seen the virus.
You can do whatever makes you feel better: everyone who is not living in a bubble is getting it, vaccine or no vaccine. Notice how we wiped out the flu with the flu vaccine back in 1956? Yeah, me neither. Lung borne viral ailments do not work that way.
5km rules are in Victoria, yes. The west coast is enjoying the benefits of its natural isolation and I don't hear a lot of complaints from other states.
Locking down hotspots seems rational enough. How else do you control an invisible virus? What alternative do you really advocate for that is effective?
Going to need a citation for that claim. I'll assume you meant "in WW1 operations". Otherwise, whilst I don't have data for total US deaths 1914-1918, even given the much smaller population I'd expect > 1M per year, far in excess of suspected US covid deaths. The main complicating factor is, of course, 1918 saw the Spanish Flu.
Also, the US declared war in 1917. Spool through the main battles of WW1, when and where they occurred and who was in them.
Also, put bluntly, age matters. Wars are fought mainly between young men, and women and children don't exactly get off lightly. France lost ten percent of its active male population. Death, eventually, is inevitable. Death in a field, often over a period of days, when you should have lived another 40, because some ####### ##### of ######### ##### with the collective brains of a ######### #### couldn't do their jobs right, isn't.
In summary, you may not be wrong but its utterly sensationalist to compare the toll of WW1 to covid.
> You literally can't go 5km from your house in Australia.
I am in Norway, taking my flight north of the country today in 4 hours. It's my 5th domestic flight since May, when the country reopened after 6 week long, early, popularly supported, voluntarily enforced lock down.
> More people have died in a few months from Covid in the US than the entire 5 years of WWI
I live in Rome, near the Colosseum, I never travel 5km from home, unless I have to. Being stuck in the traffic jam in your car is not a nice experience.
EDIT: maybe I should add as a disclaimer that the post tone wasn't obvious.
it came out bad.
My fault.
As someone else said after me, lockdown in Italy meant "stay home, don't leave your neighborhood"
I couldn't even go to visit my parents that live 4 kms away.
So if in Australia 5kms look bad, what would they think about staying confined in your homes to live and work, while also trying to keep your kids happy and motivated, because schools are closed?
Not going outside a 5 km radius from home would barely allow me to visit the neighbours. I can imagine the situation is similar for quite a lot of people Down Under.
On the plus side, we were doing social distancing before it was cool.
