Covid 19

Of all the western democracies, I think Australia and NZ have handled it the best. But we’ve also been exceedingly lucky early on with closing down access to our borders from certain areas.
We did make a mistake and not close down access to Italy and the US early enough, which is where a big percentage of cases came from, as well as those damn cruise ships which are like virus factories.
And because we have no land borders with other countries, it was easier to control this even though we made many mistakes right at the beginning and that is where 90% of our current cases have come from.
We have a very small percentage of unknown community transmission in either country and Australia has the highest case tracing in the world at the moment, which of course has helped control the spread.
We are probably in the best places to ride this out. We have one of the best medical systems in the world and have free health care. The majority have taken on social distancing properly and we now have laws in place to fine or put people in jail who are flaunting them (most of us are sensible and don’t).
NZ went into full lock down to eradicate the virus, but it has come at a higher cost to their economy.
Australia has a different lock down strategy (which I personally didn’t think was tough enough) that seems to be working well.
The economic stimulus they’ve put in place has allowed people the economy to basically go into hibernation for the next 6 months. And those businesses still allowed to operate are innovating enough to take advantage of the changed conditions.

For those interested in what’s happening down under. Here is the last press conference by PM and chief medical officer. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-...tions/12153632

I think the biggest take away from Australia’s response is partisan politics is a road block to responding to emergencies like this. All of the Australian state governments and federal government are running a national cabinet at the moment to coordinate (and they aren’t all on the same political spectrum) and it is working exceptionally well. Even the opposition parties are fully supporting the government and pushing through legislation being put forward.
99.99% of politicking has been put aside. In actual fact, the only politicking I see is some media trying to push a divide or create it so they have something to sensationalise. Which begs the question, does the partisan media organisations do more harm sometimes and create a bigger divide than is needed? I think they do on both sides of the spectrum. I wish they just reported the facts and didn’t run commentators to push an agenda. The news should just be facts and that’s it. If someone lies they should point it out and even held accountable (but that’s a different discussion).
Basically, politics and agendas should be taking a back seat when there are such serious issues. Sadly, there are still leaders around the world playing power games and blame games and some even trying to capitalise for personal gain (which is disgusting). Emergencies like this shows which countries have those sorts of leaders in power and I would hope the populations of those countries take note when it comes time for their re-election.

This was your main advantage. You need to imagine that on continents like EU there are millions of people who live at the borders and go work abroad. This is mainly the case of the east EU countries that use the fact that they can live cheaper in a country and earn more in the west EU country.

Nevertheless as I said the east EU countries have the worst behind them and in Czech republic they will be opening schools in May. In our countries factories where there are 3000+ workers are already running and soon the rest will follow, so if all goes well we are back to normal in June maybe. So much for the pandemic

Yes, that was a massive advantage for us. Having open borders like you do in the EU is great in good times, but the worst in situations like this.

But I think you are being overly optimistic if you think this will be over by June. Even here, our government is planning out for the next 6 months or even longer.

We didn’t actually close our schools as such. But the majority setup schooling online so students whose parents were working in essential services had somewhere to learn. Even then, they were social distancing and away from the actual teachers.
Part of the schooling problem is many teachers are older and more susceptible to this disease. If you watch the video in the link I provided, you can see that our PM is concerned for the teachers, but also wants kids in class rooms too learn.
Opening schools is possible for us because of our circumstances, but that isn’t the same everywhere.

Your flippant comment about the pandemic is pretty immature and shows a lack of empathy. Every country is different. Some have been lucky. Some have had bad luck. Some have had incompetents leading their countries. Some have listened to the medical experts and others haven’t.
You only need to look around the world to see how badly some leaders have handled the situation and how disastrous it’s been for their countries. And even those that have tried to do the right thing have been unable to hold back the tide of this virus.

Imagine if every country handled the outbreak like some of the disasters that have happened in some countries. The global death toll would already be in the 100,000’s and the economic disaster would end up being worse than it will be.
This isn’t anywhere close to being over. Until a vaccine is developed (and works) and is FREE for everyone and is given to everyone, this will continue.
Even once that’s done, we have an economic and social recovery period that will locally last for many years. There will also be knock on mental health issues around the world.

Those of us in better situations need to understand that many people are still in a terribly bad position. They need understanding and empathy and help if we can provide it. What they don’t need is people distorting the facts or making it sound like this isn’t as bad as it is.

This is the thing which I am surprised many do not realize. Right now everyone acts as if the Covid-19 is the only thing killing everyone in the world. Its like if we get rid of this virus the world is problem-free!

This is exactly the moment where people need to realize how many problems in the world there are. People are just too blind, they only see what the media shows them. This virus might kill around 300k people and then it will be over, but things like the flu kill 600k people every year, constantly! HIV, cancer and most of all hunger kills sooo many. But yeah, its not on the news 24/7 so we wont care! People are just too simple, too stupid to realize this.

What part of...

The problem is overwhelming health care systems with a crush of patients at once do you not understand? You keep using aggregate data over an extended time period when that is absolutely and categorically the wrong formula / data set to use.

Say you drink two liters of water / day. Do you drink all 2 liters in one sitting?

Say you and your partner share a bottle of wine with each dinner. So, that means 30 or so bottles per month. What happens when you drink 6 or 8 of those bottles on one night?

McDonald's sells 2.36 billion hamburgers / year. The problem is when a bunch of people go to individual McDonald's and order several thousand at once, well beyond the capacity of that individual restaurant to handle.

It really isn't that difficult a concept to comprehend (for most).

I don't see people turning a blind eye to the world's other problems either, though it is obvious this complicates those efforts. Sadly, I can only imagine what will happen in poorer or conflict-ridden countries which possess insufficient critical care units -- hence the mass burial sites in Iran observable from satellite imagery in space. (I suppose you think those images are fake.)

And we're the blind, dim-witted, uncaring simpletons?

Dasty

Edit: <<Sips Alderaanian Nectar Martini. It's happy hour on Tatooine!>>

I was almost convinced that you started to talk seriously

The fact that you have 1000 people sick does not mean you have 1000 people in the hospital in coma and a machine breathing for them.... A huge portion of the infected simply sit out the virus at home. This is where locking down the risky population comes in. So far the poor countries are kinda well off with low numbers it seems. The only issues are in the big and rich countries. There are exceptions like Iran, but still, very few poor or 3rd world countries have big numbers.

No one, including Dasty the Hutt <<sips another medicinal martini>> has ever said that 1000 people who test positive for COVID-19 enter the hospital, or as the Brits would say, enter hospital (they forgot the article "the"). Now if I could just get them to spell armour and colour right. Oh and stop saying "brilliant" -- my life would be complete. Is that too much to ask for?

You are employing a tired debate technique of claiming I said X. Then you refute X and proceed to claim you have a valid point and possess intellectual superiority on all things. /yawn

I did not claim X (in this case a 1 to 1 ratio of sick people in (the ) hospital in a coma needing to be intubated or in need of a ventilator. You flat out made that up.

Here's what I do know...

1) Your posts are contradictory and you don't even recognize it. You trust some governments (like the People's Republic of China), but not others. You cherry pick data to suit your narrative and are unable to account for variation. And of all countries to trust -- you went with the PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.

2) You say it is easy to avoid the virus if you follow simple precautions, but then say the best idea is herd immunity. You qualify that with saying healthcare providers should also self-quarantine if dealing with populations more susceptible to death, failing to recognize they are not gibbons. For some completely insane reason, based on photos that fit your narrative, you claim that China followed this model. Protip: Cremations in Wuhan spiked (but you probably think that is fake news).

3) Presumably you are from the Czech Republic. Awesome (one of my favorite countries before it became overrun with tourists)! I will trust you that your government did the right thing, you know better than I since you live there. I would hope you're also smart enough to know that the virus could easily impact the population once the government eases the lockdown b/c borders are porous -- hence the need for testing and contact tracing.

Regardless of your identity and your bona fides, your posts speak (well write) for themselves. You contradict yourself, and have tangled yourself in such a web I have no idea what position you hold. You shift with almost every post. Sometimes you trust data, sometimes you don't. Sometimes it is easy to avoid the virus, other times you encourage people to get it.

What I do know is that you just got vomited out of the Sarlacc Pit (yet again) and my fourth favorite Gamorrean guard slipped on the mess and fell into the aforementioned Pit while dancing to "The Sign" by Ace of Base. Now I need another adrenal. Fortunately, Gamorrean guards are easy to replace!

Dasty

P.S. I'm the groundhog. You're the doggie!

https://twitter.com/ABC7/status/1250492458686771200

I do not trust government, but friends that I have in those countries that give me the numbers from their perspective, inside the country. That is mostly more preceise than what the media spills out. I have travelled a lot around the world and made quite a few friends in many countries, with whom I am still in contact with.

Herd Immunity is a wrong term to use, I told you, that needs to use a vaccine, which we do not have now. My approach was more drastical. As for fake news stuff, like I mentioned in one of my previous posts, you cannot actually trust anything you see these days. Sure, even my friends could be wrong and there is nothing you can really believe, but as far as I am not convinced that my sources are lying to me I do trust them. Media lied to me, governments lied to me, friends so far didnt, so I trust them. Its like trusting your parents when you are a kid, until they do not fool you they are the only ones whom you really trust.

No, not from CZ. In CZ they already will easy the lockdown and you will see how that goes. Its all about the people, if they take it seriously and keep the hygiene standards it will be fine.

It is easy to avoid the virus, people are just stupid and dont tell me I am wrong there. I people would be smart the world would be a different place. I am glad you have no idea what my position is, maybe thats the point of all this

Here we go again.......

Just out of curiosity what news do u believe in? US news? CNN? Ria Novosti? Please tell me, I would like to know.

This is not about criticism, but I just want to point out the fact how media works. How people can be simply influenced. On one side you have people who think vaccines have saved humanity, on the other you have people who think they cause autism. You have those who believe in chemtrail, aliens, god and those who do not. What you believe is a result of how you were raised, so you could say they is one way or the other. BUT there is also a middle way, which will grant you and overview of both ways and you can chose based on your experience, not on what people told you.

The fact that you think China is giving wrong information shows a lot. You are probably american (also due to the time of your posts), which is one of the most influeced and manipulated populations in the world. Just try to think about how it would be when China was right and your government was wrong, what would that mean?

The majority of the countries relaxing their lockdowns are doing so because they have plateaued, and have mass screening programs in place to get early warnings about any re-emergence.

The idea they are doing this primarily for economic reasons is a misrepresentation of the facts.

In fact I can think of only one major global economy that is recommending relaxing the lockdown purely on economic reasons, and without having mass screening in place.

All The Best