Coronavirus (Covid-19) Discussion
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1692 influenza attributable (laboratory tested) in ENGLAND in the 2018/19 influenza season. This is Government data shared with us at work. For perspective at this stage.
I think one of the many potential positives of global Government's isolation strategies is the option to measure reductions in pollution due to hugely reduced transportation.
The benefits of living more frugally on our households, the emphasised focus on just how important direct human contact is.
I really hope that we use this potential to become a kinder, more considerate species, and change our current trajectory.
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I agree with @DougNg that there's almost certainly something major to be learned by looking at Singapore. Although I don't think the mainstream media are lying per se, they are relaying "official communication". "Official communication" in turn serves multiple purposes, some of which are political. For example in Europe the media:
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Complained that Trump's banning travel from EU was useless and spiteful, when it was almost certainly partially useful. In fact European countries have mostly adopted a total ban now.
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Claim that masks have absolutely zero usefulness for most people when in fact it almost certainly have some usefulness, even if it's not perfect. The fact that there weren't enough stock to supply even the hospitals certainly had something to do with this message.
Maintaining a reasonably skeptical attitude, an active mind is healthy.
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travel bans are NEVER useless and spiteful.
one of the reasons why Singapore kept its numbers low was when the news first broke about. the wuhan virus as it was known (at that time). they swiftly move to ban Chinese foreign nationals. from entering AND/OR transiting through the country. the list was slowly updated to include countries that started experiencing a spike in cases such as South Korea, Iran and most recently UK, French, German, Spanish and Italian passports. That was how they stayed ahead of the curve compared to whatever the media is recommending right now.
i also seem to see a lot of news of selfish people ignoring mandatory self isolation orders in Australia simply because they couldn't care less or believed it was impossible to police. What Singapore did to ensure people are compliant was to make use of technology and get those affected to send location from mobile phone, take photos and videos or surrounds or random home visits etc.
talk about staying ahead of the curve and keeping numbers low.
Australia has finally decided to ban travellers of all nationalities from entering from friday onwards. let's see if they can follow what Singapore has been doing and stay ahead. The only tough factor for returning citizens and residents is that being so far away, it might be hard to find a flight home.
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We need to be responsible and very careful when sharing 'information'. Much of it is subjective and not formulated by research.
Governments are drip feeding information, advice, and direction as to not overwhelm people. If the UK Government announced that all schools are closing this Friday, AND it is likely that all but key workers will be placed under forced isolation by the beginning of next week, there would without doubt be even more panic than there is currently.
All Government communications are deliberately behind the curve. I'm almost certain that @Chap and others of us who are essentially key workers at this time have different information available locally than others in the general population.
Let's not speculate, make sure we check the sources of information are from reliable, and not assume we are all experts in something that we could generally have little understanding of.
That is making our jobs in the public and health care sectors that bit harder than they need to be at the moment. Thanks for understanding.
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@Stuart.T - This is silly. On the same post you say that government's communication is behind the curve and that the rest of us should not speculate?
Of course we should speculate. We should bring up ideas and hypothesis, based on the information and understanding that we have, even if it is partial. We should not panic and spread rumors, but we should keep an active mind. We should not be conspiracy theorists, but we should also not delegate our entire decision processes to the tender mercies of the governments.
We have to make judgement calls in the absence of perfect, peer reviewed, blind tested information. This is what it means to be a human being.
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Silly? OK, I reserve your right to an opinion as long as it doesn't make the jobs of those on the front line who are trying to care for the most vulnerable in society, prevent and contain further infection, and manage the anxieties within the communities we are trying desperately to support even more impossibly difficult than it is every other day of the year.
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As a US govt employee of Health and Human Services I have a couple of observations:
- the release of information at the rate that it is intentional (my department was told to tell our constituents everything is going as usual)
- the movements and actions are intentional (there was no change in our operations until Monday)
- optics and expected responses are being taken into consideration
Big picture I'm a pretty small fish, so I don't know what's going on behind the curtain, but when everyone was saying that the US govt was pretending that there is nothing going on it was a smokescreen. I still feel like there are some major moving parts moving behind the scenes, I can't explain it.
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@DougNg thank you, it is much the same here at Local Government level here. We generally get any new Government directions about 8 hrs before they go to the public with the Government's televised updates in the early evening.
I think you are right about the major moving parts too. I think some of that will be opportunism, particularly in the private and financial sectors.
There is already evidence of international companies being bought up wholesale by some countries. Just as with WWII, trade and commerce will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this global struggle. I certainly don't see my cost of living going down anytime soon as a result of this.
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Now is a good time to think critically before saying things and react (or not react) accordingly.
A good example was how the EU said that they weren't happy with the US travel restrictions. 72 hrs later, they did the same thing.Smoke, mirrors, and calculated emotional responses.
Because I love to say "I told you so", when Trump said that he was implementing travel restrictions, I looked over at my wife and said "Europe is going to get pissy over that and implement the same thing shortly"
I get that my President is an unlikable dick, but he wasn't wrong. -
Of course he wasn't wrong. It was the only sensible decision. However, stumbling fool that he is, did anything but clearly communicate what exactly was going to happen… It had US citizens on holiday so worried they wouldn't be allowed back into their country, that some paid a lot of money to get back again...
Anyway... This video covers that, ànd is quite funny... Cause John Oliver slaps...
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a lot of countries were being very cautious in what restrictions they wanted to impose for a fear of offending another country which resulted in measures applied "after the horse had bolted".
some implemented banning flights which always meant there was a loophole of travelling through another. banning a passport seemed harsh but is effective in narrowing down the impact of where the risk might be.
a citizen will always allowed back into their own country no matter what lockdown/ restrictions there are in place i believe. the only worry is trying to find flights.
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Another article on ‘flattening the curve,’ and who’s having some success
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