
Europe Said It Was Pandemic-Ready. Pride Was Its Downfall - js2
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/world/europe/coronavirus-mistakes-france-uk-italy.html
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mytailorisrich
I don't think that Europe was pandemic-ready, or that it thought it was.
Rather, like everyone else apparently, it thought that it would not happen.

An example of that: France bought a huge stockpile of face masks in 2009-2010
because of the swine flu pandemic. Since then they expired and were not
replace, hence no masks available in 2020.

They thought it was not needed and governments/politicians have problems
thinking long term and justifying expenses that may not be needed or needed
once every 50 years to their constituents.

This might change for as long as this pandemic remains in living memory, then
I'm sure we'll go back to complacency.

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Nomentatus
Risk homeostasis is real, yes; but the answer is a mixture of your view and
the article's view. Those in charge declared themselves prepared, and weren't
consciously lying. But in their heart-of-hearts they didn't think it would
happen (on their watch) so they never examined realistically what prepared
would actually mean. Delusion is our daily bread. Fantasy is just the butter.

~~~
mytailorisrich
Did any European country declared themselves prepared in any way other than to
placate public opinion?

I am sure that they knew full well that they weren't prepared (Reports from
previous years that said exactly were leaked or mentioned in the media), and
the initial and continued reaction to Covid-19 in my view showed very plainly
that they were not prepared.

When the shit actually hit the fan, as it did at the beginning of the year
they went into panic/damage control mode. At that point PR is to keep everyone
calm and to save the government if possible. Showing up on TV and saying "
_yep this is going to be shit and we 're not prepared. Good bless you all_."
is not something any government is going to do.

I think the delusion really is to think that it wouldn't happen, either on
their watch or at all. The example in France shows that very well: They knew
that masks would be needed in case of pandemic, but they clearly saw no
urgency in maintaining a state of readiness.

We're in fact very lucky that Covid-19 is actually not that bad. Thinking
about it, this is what's terrifying.

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Nomentatus
COVID-19 is that bad - the virus itself is very much in the sweet spot, that
is not so vicious it's easily detected and squelched, but not so harmless we
can let it run through the population. It's probably close to the worst case,
in fact, given our current technology and public health knowledge. Viruses
optimized for spread are not optimized for dealing death, and vice versa. I'd
say all were sleep-walking - doing preventative medicine theatre. If you'd
quizzed them (and they were quizzed) they wouldn't have said (and didn't say)
"It won't happen" they would say "we're prepared." But in their heart of
hearts - that is unconsciously - (see my first comment) they obviously didn't
think it would happen to them, now. We hate to think unpleasant thoughts, and
really hate to be the first one in our crowd to do so.

