
Why some governments appear not to be acting on the Covid-19 threat - Mojah
https://ma.ttias.be/government-act-corona-covid-19/
======
9nGQluzmnq3M
I think this theory gives _way_ too much credit to governmental competence. I
think Yes Minister's Four Stage Strategy is a much more accurate assessment:

 _Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis:_

 _In stage one we say nothing is going to happen._

 _Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing
about it._

 _In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there
's nothing we can do._

 _Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it 's
too late now._

[https://youtu.be/nSXIetP5iak](https://youtu.be/nSXIetP5iak)

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Sounds like climate change denial.

------
ThePhysicist
It's disappointing that the WHO and national agencies seem not able to
adequately inform the public about their assessment of the situations, the
models they're using and the conclusions they're drawing.

Right now, the most shared article on Corona is written by a growth hacker
from SF who cobbled together an Excel sheet and recommends it to people to
decide whether they should close their companies or stay at home.

I'm not saying this is bad, I just think such recommendations and articles
should come from people that have more experience with modeling such
epidemics.

Fitting a dataset with an exponential function is easy, it just doesn't tell
us much beyond the current growth rate. It's also a bit ridiculous to judge
how bad the situation is in a given country without accounting for differences
like the number of tests that are done and the overall population of these
countries.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It is surprising to me to. If this was Star Trek world, you'd have
computational models built by experts shared and discussed the very first day,
forming the very foundation of the discussion and policy around the virus.

I know of a certain company whose entire purpose is building and selling a
product that lets you plug in equations of complex, dynamic systems and play
with the models to understand and predict things. Like serious, industrial-
grade stuff that's used to design chemical plants. They could easily get a
virologist on call and model the spread more sensibly, or even individual
countries in detail, and release that - which would give a basis for people to
discuss what to do and when in a much better way that's happening now. They'd
probably also save themselves a year's worth of marketing expenses. But I
don't see them, or any of their competitors doing anything like this.

I'm thoroughly disappointed. Is the ArcGIS dashboard from John Hopkins
University _really_ the best our civilization has to offer in terms of
informing people and evidence-based discussions? Because while I want to
believe that our politicians have more sophisticated tools available, I'm
pretty sure they're just looking at the same dashboards and same news stories
as we do.

~~~
makomk
The trouble is that pretty much all of the data is garbage quality, and if you
feed garbage into a computer you of course just get garbage out. The figures
from Wuhan are particularly bad, probably just a function of their testing
ramp-up until _well_ after the peak, and the ones from Italy might not be much
better. (The other problem is that China has taken the position that their
numbers are an exact description of reality and their approach is a model for
the rest of the world to follow, basically for domestic political reasons, and
the WHO seems to be eagerly regurgitating this to the many people who'll
listen.)

~~~
busyant
I wouldn't necessarily call the data "garbage" but the numbers are definitely
_soft_.

But soft numbers are a common issue with many areas of public health. In
particular, analysis of the current pandemic suffers from both a "numerator"
and "denominator" problem
([http://conflict.lshtm.ac.uk/page_83.htm](http://conflict.lshtm.ac.uk/page_83.htm))

I think many of us are accustomed to getting high-quality stats when studying
a process. But that's often not possible with a fast-moving public health
issue.

I think you have to acknowledge the limitations of the data, but it can still
be helpful.

The thing I _don't_ like about the JHU dashboard is that it doesn't really let
you slice the data in interesting ways. For example, I'd like to be able to
click on a country or state/province and see temporal data. This doesn't seem
like it would be that difficult, but maybe I'm naive.

~~~
lbeltrame
I've tried doing some stuff with the Italian data but got a similar roadblock.
For example, I'd be interested in knowing, among the ICU cases, if these cases
were new (people arrived in the ICU with a diagnosis) or a worsening of the
already existing patients (perhaps in sub-intensive care earlier).

It would help forming an idea on how the current situation (in addition to the
new cases) is going.

------
varjag
Doesn't seem very well thought out. The economic cost of the first scenario
(numerous deaths in peak period) would likely be the highest with the impact
both on workforce and market sentiment. The impact of long tail scenarios
lower because death toll would not be just redistributed but also reduced by
likely an order of magnitude.

~~~
lazyier
No it's not. It's just one guy making up random shit on a blog and is
pretending that governments think like him.

The reality is probably closer to the fact that there isn't anything
governments can do about it. They can try to shut down the borders of the
country, but that is going to a lot worse and probably won't stop it anyways.

Just because governments can do something and do do something doesn't mean
that that something is meaningful or will have a positive impact.

Many things are just outside of their control.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
Denmark did close every school and most administrations. France did not.

Many decisions can be taken, but are not (for various reasons). Most experts
recommend to limit contacts rather than closing down borders, and no one is
pretending to stop the virus but they all should try to flatten the curve. You
don't seem to pay attention to the current situation.

~~~
imustbeevil
France has 11x Denmark's population and 4x it's confirmed cases, so it seems
like doing nothing worked better.

~~~
dx034
Denmark's case number has increased far more than that of other countries in
recent days. They probably had to act as they'd overtake Italy in less than a
week with cases/capita if growth continues like that.

~~~
robotbikes
The case #'s only go up if you test more people. In Ohio for instance they are
only testing very few people and there is now evidence of community spread
because the 4th person confirmed had no known contact but you basically need
to be in intensive car to get tested or have an obvious connection. So the
case # in and of themselves could vary based upon testing criteria. Not sure
if they have the same standards in Denmark vs France.

------
a_diplomat
This is just not correct. Governments are acting on this throughout the world.
Don't conflate governments with politicians. For well-functioning states,
state agencies are dealing with this through well-established protocols that
don't need political clearence. This means that the countries where
politicians are the most visible and calling for action could very well be the
ones that have prepared the least.

~~~
dx034
Exactly. In many countries it's down to the city or county to act and federal
government can only take over as last resort. We're not there yet. Not all
cities are equipped equally and it's frustrating that they don't have a common
policy but they all seem to act. For them that's also the first time they are
confronted with a pandemic and there's a lot at stake. Under these
circumstances, I'm actually somewhat surprised how quickly certain policies
are enacted around the globe. A week ago, banning large public events was a
novelty, now they're basically banned in most of Europe and parts of the US.

The quarantine in Italy seemed extreme a week ago, now several countries are
heading towards the same measures.

In democracies, curtailing peoples' rights is always tricky, it's the first
time I've seen bureaucrats take away individual rights daily without
backtracking on decisions.

------
tomp
I think it's a different reason. Let's analyze the outcomes from game theory
perspective, along two dimensions: virus becomes pandemic or not, and
governments do something or nothing.

1) no pandemic, no action -> government was "right", avoided wasting money ->
reelected

2) no pandemic, action -> government was "wrong", wasted a lot of money,
damaged the economy, inconvenienced the lives of the population -> voted out

3) pandemic, no action -> government was "wrong", caused loss of lives and
damaged the economy -> voted out

4) pandemic, action - this is the trickiest scenario, so let's consider two
options:

4a) pandemic, action, it works -> government was "right", saved lives, spared
the economy -> reelected

4b) pandemic, action, doesn't work -> government was "wrong", their actions
failed, they're incompetent -> voted out

There's two winning scenarios, (1) and (4a), but the problem is that (4a) has
vanishingly small probability of success... with little information available
about the virus, and rampant globalization, it's hard to know what action
makes sense, is correct and viable... Case in point is Italy, which _did_ act
_in time_ (they banned flights from China 2 weeks before the outbreak), but
_still_ failed (i.e. their action was "correct" but not "correct enough")
because their _neighboring_ countries (e.g. Germany - not technically a
neighbor but within Schengen Zone) failed to act.

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

~~~
koonsolo
> 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 in spreading the virus, as seen in other
countries.

\- Putting kids with their grandparents is probaly worse for death toll
compared to keeping them in schools.

Look at the exponential growth curve of for example Denmark
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Denmark)

And compare that to the pretty linear growth curve of Belgium
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Belgium)

So please stop treating this as game theory. Our country is doing the best
thing in this situation.

Edit: denmark link and rude language

~~~
sumedh
> 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.

~~~
usaar333
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.

------
aetherspawn
Had an interesting thought earlier. Seeing as a majority of deaths are in the
range 60 years and above, and very little of the casualties affect younger
(working) people, from the governments POV the virus will do well to decrease
the disproportionate number of older pension receivers and nursing home
residents in comparison with the dwindling number of young people working and
paying taxes.

In other words, the government probably realizes that despite the grim
reality, their POV may be that the virus will have a net positive effect on
the economy and also accommodation affordability for the younger generation.

~~~
johnpowell
You assume that the government cares about expenditures. Old people vote. So
it would be in your best interest to keep the people that voted you into
office alive.

~~~
xenonite
I second this. Because of this I don't understand why the German government is
not acting more drastically in terms of isolating old people. Especially the
current CDU/CSU/SPD leadership was largely voted by the elderly.

Sources:

[https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-
fakten/bundestags...](https://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/zahlen-und-
fakten/bundestagswahlen/279740/waehlerstimmen) (Zweitstimmenergebnis)

[https://www.bpb.de/politik/grundfragen/parteien-in-
deutschla...](https://www.bpb.de/politik/grundfragen/parteien-in-
deutschland/zahlen-und-fakten/140358/soziale-zusammensetzung)

------
soyyo
Last Sunday it was 8th of March, International Women's Day, and the current
spanish government has appropriated it to the point that women from other
political parties are not welcomed in the protests that happen that day.

When gatherings of people started to be canceled all around the world, the
government kept going ahead with the plans because this is a key event for
their agenda.

The very next day, they acknowledged that the virus is out of control in
several regions in Spain, started to take very aggressive measures that are
only increasing each day.

Today, it has been announced that Irene Montero, head of the women rights
ministry, that lead the main protest that day, has tested positive for
coronavirus.

Stupidity at its finest

~~~
stoicShell
The saddest truth is perhaps that functionally, we have the leaders we
deserve.

It's a simple projection from voter space to elected space. As a former
pol.sci. student/researcher, I've grown disillusioned by the fact that
representative democracy, in our day and age, quite evidently no longer works
as intended — the projection is flawed with regards to the conduct of affairs.

I don't know why:

\- might be that voting is skewed by marketing (permanent campaign) money,
government is too corrupt and establishment too entrenched, the "conspiracy
hidden in plain sight / normalcy" idea;

\- could be that democracy simply doesn't work as a system, or maybe not
_anymore_ , because the "average" is somehow not good enough — that was
certainly not my belief, not for a decade, but I had to come to terms: it's a
question worth asking, I assure you. Just considering the quality of
information and the noise/signal ratio throws a huge wrench in the mechanics
of any sane decision-making process...

\- ... (many more hypotheses)

Regardless, this may help us craft the next-new-better political system, which
might or might not be a regime of increased freedom compared to now (my guess:
much more in some domains, much less in others, and not everyone will like the
distribution).

I mean, look where we are. We had 15 years to get ready for such an event
since coronavirus of the 2000's — tons of reports and words of good will.
_“Guys, we 're not ready for a massive outbreak!”_ — everybody and their Bill
Gates said so! But alas, the political fantasy kept going and it's all been
just words. It wasn't that hard to stockpile masks and various supplies for
when the day comes...

It's a sad day in history when we must face the consequences of our choices,
but it's like a cycle... We get too complacent and something slams us, again
and again and again (give it 3-4 generations apart to "forget", it's as if
written language doesn't exist).

I'm jaded at the irony of our collective behavior, and sad for all those who
will suffer and leave. Hopefully this will be a painful but learning
experience that will last. I'm sad to report that it almost exclusively takes
real pain, real hurt for societies to learn anything meaningfully in the face
of history, of evolution. So, here we are, destiny.

~~~
sumedh
> representative democracy, in our day and age, quite evidently no longer
> works as intended

What is your solution, almost all dictators are not benevolent.

~~~
stoicShell
That's true and I'm certainly not advocating for dictatorship. There is a vast
space of possible regimes and political systems in between total freedom and
total slavery, though... ;-)

Look, I won't pretend having "the" solution because it doesn't exist until we
actually implement something, then iterate our way into a more-or-less final
form that works. That's how we went from absolute monarchy to representative
democracy, but if you trace the roots of that process, you've got a solid
century of experimentation and much, much thinking (pretty much all the great
names you know from 15th-16th-17th century were on some side of that equation,
informed the discussion and ultimate "object", regime, that appeared).

So what will it be? Well I could write some anticipation sci-fi to suggest
possibilities that are non-dystopian (well, not so much that it's unbearable)
and come with a ton of benefits, and obviously some drawbacks / limits /
undesirable side effects to be managed, adjusted.

The question is what the political will of the People actually wants— it's a
question we each have to answer for ourselves —and what is possible, without
breaking the machine, what will be desired, refused or simply ignored by
'elites' who, like it or not, have the fuel to make-or-break such _'
evolution'_. Now add an _' r'_ to the word and you increase the range of
possibilities, but risk as well.

Here is my personal feeling: I think such events as COVID-19 will spark the
kind of seed that eventually grows to fundamental political change; I however
think we're still half a generation away from that — give time for Millenials
1982-1999 to rise to power, as they have the right mix of "values"
(philosophy, circumstantial world experience / view, etc) to move beyond the
systems that govern us today — and have for 70 ±10 years already!

I had a hunch post 9/11 that this century would see regimes evolve either
towards more political freedom (towards more direct democracy) or towards a
more authoritarian form of society (wherein social peace is obtained at the
cost of some freedoms). It turns out that I was wrong, it wasn't either/or but
both combined in a weird way: political freedom was gained but used to promote
clowns to power ( _#all.over.the.world.the.2010s.are.insane.historically_ )
instead of e.g. tackling massive, pressing or idealistic projects (people be
lazy, rite). Whereas _actual_ sovereignty (the one you learn in constitutional
law, the real kind of political power) definitely shifted towards
authoritarianism under various disguises — populism is one form, China's and
Russia's "restoration" of authoritarian federal powers is another, and some
self-proclaimed SWJs may not be far either, in their own "inclusive" way
(kinda like dictatures are all "Democratic Republic").

What this tells me (I've long studied that evolution but again it's really
just my personal view) is that societies are simply not mature for the new
"space of possibilities" (think positive variables, opportunities e.g. via
tech, think also negative variables, constrains of climate and viruses for
instance). It's just too much power, too early, so we basically just F it up
like kids with a problem a tad too big for them.

But that's history. We do things and then we figure out how to deal with them,
there's no reversing that causality. Hopefully we won't ravage ourselves and
this Earth in the 20-60 years it'll take to adapt to this rather sudden
paradigm change — think 1980-today, that's just 40 years ffs, and think of the
mindset _then_ and _now_... And you kinda need "natives" of an era to
meaningfully internalize its reality, process the whole damn thing in "system
1" like human beings do, and eventually sometime between 20 and 80 figure out
ways to make life better. Rinse and repeat with their newborn grand-children
to solve the _new_ thing that's arrived by then.

As for what that will actually look like, your guess is as good as mine. I'm
partial to freedom personally, but I think it's worth choosing your battles,
too. That's when it becomes political thus where we stop: a good regime
doesn't favor "opinions" but rather the expression thereof, in a healthy and
productive manner (able to reach decision; ideally promoting some degree of
consensus, kept in check by some other legitimated power, etc).

Just know that, when we want to, it's relatively doable to write a rather good
constitution (and we have, many times throughout the last century). The real
tricky issue is not to technically implement the ideas, the hard part is what
ideas, what system you actually want to create. Again, many possibilities,
some of which were abandoned by history but are now possible because modern
tech (notably complex voting systems that yield much better representation of
opinions and hierarchies in complex, multi-dimensional systems, e.g. to
distribute might and resources between cities, or agencies, or any such
module. There's about 1 century of great science that we're barely using for
the benefit of the public, troves of innovation in the political realm. Just
so much apathy for change in those who man these offices).

(It's honestly a fascinating topic of inquiry if you like systems, puzzles,
cybernetics (different name for systems theory), all things mechanical in
nature that must work with a "real-world" chaotic human environment.)

------
silvestrov
Denmark did act yesterday evening & today:

\- events with more than 100 people forbidden.

\- all schools will close

\- all non-critical employees must stay home.

\- all private employees off-job as much as possible.

\- stay in your home.

\- don't travel to [many] countries, more restricts will come.

\- All indoor cultural institutions, libraries, leisure facilities, etc. are
closed.

And today they made a temporary law which will sunset 1 year from now (the law
is only in effect for 1 year):

\- ability to force people to be tested and put into isolation

\- enter homes without warrant when occupant is suspected to be infected.

\- much expanded ability to forbid events and collection of people (Note: the
permission to assemble is just as fundamental culturally to Danish people as
freedom-of-speech is to USA).

\- ability to forbid/restrict use of transportation (likely number of
passengers in buses, trains)

\- suspension of "free choice" of hospitals and quarantee of treatment within
some time frame (we have "socialized medicin" where we have a right to
treatment within a given time frame)

\- allow temporary suspension of other laws if deemed necessary

 _Why did this happend now:_ They were told yesterday that Northern Italy no
longer has enough resources in their health care system and that there are now
official guidelines for whom to treat and whom to let die:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-
gets-h...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-
hospital-bed/607807/)

Italy is close and "one of us".

~~~
mhandley
Denmark's situation is very unusual. This graph gives an idea of where Denmark
lies relative to Italy:

[http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/tmp/covid-eu-
norm2.png](http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/tmp/covid-eu-norm2.png)

This is actual case data, plotted with the time offsets shown in the key.

No other country had a ramp-up like that. Right now, Denmark is 5-6 days
behind Italy in terms of cases per million inhabitants, and the incubation
period is about that time. Really pleased to see some quick decision making on
the part of the Danish government.

~~~
bufferoverflow
Maybe it is quick decision making, but the list of decisions is questionable.
This one the most:

> _events with more than 100 people forbidden._

Which still allows rapid infections of relatively large groups of people.

In Italy you can't even walk outside without a valid reason (buying groceries,
medical emergency, solo exercising).

------
XorNot
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 treatment. Break a bone? Car crash? Treating you
in emergency now might involve kicking someone else off respiratory support.

The cost of overburdening the healthcare system is not some calculation of a
nuisance amount of citizen death over a time period - it's a whole bunch of
people who otherwise live full and productive lives, instead stop existing.

What happens when you go above that dotted line is not the continuation of a
predictable trend, it is a chaotic bifurcation in behavior which does not have
predictable secondary effects. The COVID-19 case load follows that shape. The
deaths and long-term health problems _do not_.

~~~
ericol
> Treating you in emergency now might involve kicking someone else off
> respiratory support.

This has been my standard reply to the "It's just a flu" concept for some time
now.

Aside from all this, it's incredible how difficult it is for people to think
about this using all the info available (long onset of symptoms, asymptomatic
spread, high % of hospitalizations / intensive care, etc) plus thinking in the
long term.

I know the generalized idea is no face masks if you don't have symptoms, but
if we all used them it might have a good effect on curving the spread.

Unfortunately, western cultures associate face mask with sickness, and are
frowned upon.

~~~
PaulHoule
I think we're out of N95 masks in the U.S. and we have to wait a month or so
to get them from China.

~~~
ComputerGuru
3M is retooling their US factories. They should be producing by now.

~~~
PaulHoule
There also is a factory in Georgia that makes them. They probably are working
three shifts.

------
izacus
Or perhaps our government is acting and handling the threat, just not in a way
mass hysteria on Twitter demands. Knee jerk reaction usually ends up in
theater, not proper containment.

(Then again, my government isn't the Belgian government.)

~~~
exegete
So to you would consider what’s been done so far by the US federal government
not theater?

~~~
rsynnott
The US is doing particularly badly (and going for nonsensical solutions; note
the most recent one). Various Asian and European states are being much more
aggressive. Some US states are also doing the best they can.

------
Al-Khwarizmi
I think Hanlon's razor applies here: "Never attribute to malice that which is
adequately explained by stupidity".

I'm in Spain, one of the countries that is doing way too little, way too late.
When I see the measures and statements from our politicians, I don't see a
machiavellian plan, I see stupidity. In fact, a prominent member of the
government has been infected after attending feminist demonstrations on March
8 that anyone reasonably informed and intelligent knew shouldn't have been
held in the first place, others also attended and could follow. If they were
such diabolical masterminds, I doubt they would have done that...

~~~
nmeofthestate
Except there's not necessarily any malice exposed by this explanation.

To incur massive economic cost is literally deadly. For example, in the UK
austerity is blamed for tens of thousands of deaths (some people say 130,000,
others 30,000). The unpalatable fact is that trade-offs need to be made when
deciding how to tackle this.

In the case of covid-19 I don't envy anyone who has to make these decisions,
due to the exponential nature of infection spread making small changes in
measures potentially have big results. We are all in uncharted territory.
Hopefully the examples of countries such as Italy will help decision makers
get it right, or perhaps more importantly will influence peoples' behaviour to
reduce transmission.

Also, I think he's wrong about the Y axis equalling "deaths" \- the point is
to keep cases manageable by the health system, which minimises deaths.
Dragging things out doesn't necessarily improve outcomes for at-risk people.

~~~
creaghpatr
>To incur massive economic cost is literally deadly.

This is also the main argument against taking dramatic action to combat
climate change.

------
JdeBP
Far more enlightening than reading some inexpert web log with wobbly hand-
drawn graphs with unmarked axes is to read the actual after-the-fact analyses
of the measures taken against the 1918 Influenza pandemic. People learned from
history, what actually did not work. It influenced what they did the next time
around, in the 1920s.

Don't read some Belgian web developer's web log.

Read the likes of _Ethical and Legal Considerations in Mitigating Pandemic
Disease: Workshop Summary_ published by the National Academies Press in 2007
(ISBN 9780309107693
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54167/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54167/)).

Read _“Destroyer and Teacher”: Managing the Masses During the 1918–1919
Influenza Pandemic_ (Nancy Tomes. Public Health Rep. 2010. 125(Suppl 3) 48–62.
PMC2862334. PMID 20568568.
[https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00333549101250S308](https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00333549101250S308)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862334/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862334/))

Tomes is particularly enlightening on the internal conflicts between
government public heath departments.

------
numpad0
First: SARS-CoV-2 is the virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-
CoronaVirus-2. COVID-19 is COronaVIrus Disease-2019 which is the disease
caused by CoV-2.

Second: Flattening the curve isn't about shortening any duration.

The Y axis is the number of infected.

In the Red Line scenario, like packets overflowing a buffer, _patients above
the dashed line will (have to) be medically neglected._ Rest assured, our
immune system will eventually gain the upper hand, the virus will eventually
decides its job done, red line settles, we'll congratulate the lucky few who
won scarce beds at surviving hospitals, as well as those who treated
themselves next to remains of deceased hospital staffs. Then we will assemble
at rubble of our cities and start walking towards the former glory of human
civilization up until 2020(hyper exaggeration).

The Blue Line, "Flattening the curve", lets us avoid that apocalyptic
situation: by boldly suppressing infection early on and spreading it out to a
longer duration, ignoring economical disaster ensuing, _no patient will be
left behind_. The hope is that by allowing every patients to be semi-
adequately treated WHEN infected(not IF infected), total population of alive
and recovered combined at the end of this pandemic at maybe late 2022 or so is
going to be far better than the Red Line scenario. So we'd want to flatten the
curve.

Green, is just a pipe dream. Makes no sense. If that's possible we might as
well get production back up full over in China.

I think there's an important, sub-vocally communicated notion: the containment
had failed long ago, and there is an ongoing pandemic. Many stays
asymptomatic, some experience manageable illness, some would need to stay at
ICUs, around 0.5-1% life will be lost, but we will all(~70%) get infected.
Ideas that requires or aims at containing infection or isolating infected few
are useless. We must all accept that almost all of us are situationally
required to "schedule" an infection, and fortunately, exact time, place or
severity of it is left to our discretion.

We must be aware of these facts, and must use it to our maximum advantage,
starting from washing hands often.

~~~
ronyfadel
Since it seems deadlier than the common flu at the moment, I personally would
prefer to “schedule” my infection by waiting for a vaccine.

I’m in Latin America where it isn’t spreading as fast (my best guess is warm
weather), and I’m planning to wait it out until it’s warmer in the northern
hemisphere or a vaccine comes out.

------
mhandley
When is too late to act? Clearly Italy acted too late. I've been plotting the
actual case data, in an attempt to get some idea of where countries lie with
respect to Italy:

[https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/status/1237781162153717760](https://twitter.com/MarkJHandley/status/1237781162153717760)

These are not strictly predictions, but they give some idea of what will
happen if we act in a similar way to Italy. Note that there's a 6 to 10 day
lag in the stats (~6 days incubation, up to 4 days testing, at least in the UK
right now). Without isolation measures, we're seeing 33% per day increase
rates. If we wait until we can measure the scale of the problem, it's likely
to be too late to prevent it.

------
gdubs
I think there’s a simpler explanation which is that governments are comprised
of people, and people are — to borrow a phrase — predictably irrational. We
consistently prioritize the short term over the long term.

Take Climate Change. There’s no shortage of brilliant scientists who have
warned us of the long term costs (in human toll and wealth) of inaction. Yet
we wait.

Unfortunately, scientists are not the ones flying the plane, so to speak.
There are brilliant epidemiologists here in the United States. What are their
recommendations behind closed doors? Classified. We don’t know. We do know the
opinions of the ones who are free to speak their minds, and they have been
warning us to be proactive. For years, before this crisis, actually.

The rest of us are sitting in the back of the plane, uncomfortably
contemplating whether the pilots have perhaps made a fatal error in their
judgement. It happens. Now we wait.

To quote Carl Sagan:

“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a
foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time—when the
United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key
manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome
technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing
the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the
ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority;
when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our
critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good
and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and
darkness“

------
bronzeage
This is all dumb. saying this is unstoppable is a misconception. China reduced
cases. South Korea and Singapore and Hong Kong and Taiwan have it under
control. This is a statistics game, if you manage to reduce infection rate
below 1 you win. the faster you respond, less time it takes. it's also clear,
that if you could respond patient 0, that would be ideal, and you can prove by
induction from here it's always better to act sooner. There is no reason
whatsoever that makes it better to stop the spread after it reached 1000
people versus when it reached 10. What works when you have 1000 cases works
just as well for 10.

------
AllegedAlec
> Here in Belgium though … we’re doing nothing. No government-based sanctions.

That's because Belgium has no government to put sanctions into place.

~~~
artemonster
What?

~~~
AllegedAlec
After the last elections on 26 May 2019, the winnings parties have been unable
to form a coalition, so there is no real cabinet at the moment which has the
power to do the things that need to be done.

~~~
seszett
We do have a government though (quite a few of them even, but the federal
government is the one that matters here) with all the power needed to do
whatever it deems necessary.

And the federal government has said that indoor meetings with more than 1000
persons are "not recommended". The Brussels government has cancelled those,
the Walloon cities don't have events of more than 1000 persons planned in the
near future, and the Antwerp government seems to be using the whole thing as
an opportunity to criticize and reject any responsibility on the federal
government without taking any decision (as far as I know, the Simple Minds
concert hasn't been cancelled yet, and is supposed to have a lot more than
1000 people).

There are actually a lot of governments which each have the power to do
things. I personally think that the only reason they don't do anything useful
is pure incompetence, irresponsibility and political calculations.

~~~
AllegedAlec
> We do have a government though (quite a few of them even, but the federal
> government is the one that matters here) with all the power needed to do
> whatever it deems necessary.

Really? Because I seem to have read that budget deficit is getting out of hand
because there is no federal government to fix it.

Also, yeah, fair enough. There are a handful of other governments that
technically could take a decision, but as you said: it's easy to say: "well,
this is a federal decision, so we won't do anything".

~~~
seszett
Budget is one of those things that cannot be voted by the current affairs
government so they just keep renewing the last budget allowances from the last
actual government, as far as I understand (I don't know if it's a legal
requirement, or just a custom). Don't take my word for it though, I'm
definitely not an expert on Belgian politics.

But the coronavirus crisis is definitely a _current affair_ , and the current
government has free reign to do anything it deems necessary about it.

------
DanBC
> Why aren’t we going for green though, that seems even better?

Because we want to avoid Covid-19 becoming a recurrent winter illness like
other coughs and colds and flu. Those already cause considerable pressure on
healthcare systems, and adding annual covid-19 season on top would be pretty
rough.

~~~
earnubs
Yes! We don't want to flatted the curve so much that it extends into winter,
because then we compound other seasonal illnesses like the flu, and the
pressure on the health service is back above the red line.

------
wjnc
Let's start with one fundamental assertion that I feel is missing in many of
the discussions in this thread: There is no "the government". In most
countries "government" is a collection of agencies, staffed by individuals,
not completely in sync on all levels (micro, meso, macro).

You see that playing out when measures on one level (most prominently medical
advise) are not in line with broader approaches to managing events, groups,
tourism and travel. We all notice the disconnect, and some might think of
'dark conspiracies'. There are none (rule of the most kind interpretation).
It's the dispersion of institutions in action.

Another one is my assertion, as a former public servant with friends in places
that /should know/, that there is no structured economic analysis of possible
outcomes of various scenarios of intervention. There are no models, there is
no time, there is not enough collaboration between agencies. On the one hand
you have the medical staff and agencies doing what they can where they can on
a medical level, on the other hand you have bureaucrats making decisions with
limited information and way more limited understanding. Politicians probably
get in the way more than they support.

My thought: Governments are acting. They are just not acting in a way that we,
the public, can understand is internally consistent. That's because the acts
aren't internally consistent. That is due to the fact that governement is made
up of institutions with different levels of understanding, information, scope
and time to act.

In a pandemic, this is all very unfortunate and a more singlehanded style of
governement could help. China got it quite right after an initial denial.
Nobody in the West is equipped to both think about and act on China-style
measures. In normal situation our distributed model of application of
knowledge (Hayek) is more efficient. Most we can hope for is rapid learning in
our institutions and the fact that a whole lot of capital, both human and
monetary, is available for solving this crisis.

I'm quite in a shock (my province is in partial quarantine) with what's
happening, but _if_ the world economy proofs resiliant to this shock on a say
2-yr horizon, I'm quite bullish on how strong and adaptable our institutions
are and see more hope for f.e. tackling climate change than before.

------
KarlKemp
It’s almost tautologically true that the cost of closures are considered in
the decision-making process. This “article” tries to portrait this entirely
obvious fact as some sort of sinister conspiracy, with cargo-cult charts to
appeal all scientify.

------
xvilka
Ethics aside, more fatalities will cause the bigger economical impact as well
due to the lower amount of consumers, the lower consumption rate of the
survivors (they will lose their close people, relatives, friends), will
increase the long-term burden to the public health due to increased depression
levels, lower immunity levels, and so on. Moreover, the political damage of
the governance system, including healthcare. It's sick that people look just
to the first-order effects but completely forget about second-order ones.

------
tda
Just a little thought experiment: If the current wisdom is actually that
almost everyone will be infected eventually, wouldn't it (ignoring any ethical
issues) be wiser to deliberately infect medical personnel as soon as possible,
so the 5-10% of infected that need IC treatment can actually get it, before
the medical system is overrun by the infected general population. In a few
weeks, all doctors are immune (or deceased) so that they are much better
prepared when the number of cases in the general public explodes

~~~
nhumrich
Potentially, yes. But, only if by being infected, it would mean you were now
immune, which isn't the case with covid-19. Reinfections have happened.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Is there any evidence of that at scale or is it just the odd anecdote?

~~~
coldcode
I have not seen any evidence either way. At this point it is too early to have
any.

------
neuro_image3
The more I see and hear about coronavirus, its origins and the knock on
effects it has on the economy and society I can only hope that this becomes
our 'come to Jesus' moment (figuratively speaking).

This pandemic started because too many people are living together in close
proximity, eeking out a living by literally catching and eating any living
thing they can.

The economic effects are due to an unforgiving system that takes pride in an
'eat what you kill' culture and a 'winner take all' model of enterprise. As a
consequence, there are a LOT of businesses running on thin margins and making
just enough to cover costs each month.

Even one month of things going to zero will ruin a whole host of restaurants,
sole proprietors, real estate speculators, and on down the chain. I hope I'm
wrong, but this kind of instant systematic reduction in the economy feels
unprecedented within the last 50+ years.

There are so many knock on effects of all this - people will be unemployed
with limited opportunities at best. They'll potentially lose their healthcare,
and in the worst cases their homes. Schools are closing around the country,
and they won't have lunch programs running which means a lot of kids are
likely to go without adequate food.

We need to fix (or create) safety nets in our country (and indeed the world),
so when things like this happen we can all chip in to cover each other. Basic
healthcare, affordable or public housing, eviction protections, food programs.
These aren't radical ideas, these are the only way forward.

------
iovrthoughtthis
I like how cost is modelled as linear with time here and independent of
deaths.

Surely, cost is the area under the curve of the original graph. Massive strain
on our systems doesn’t come for free.

------
anotheryou
I see how the struggle for economic reasons, but I have too little faith in
them being smart enough for that plan and doubt they have good enough data
scraping by the max capacity line so closely with confidence.

Even the graph in the article is weird, why is there a sharp limit at max
capacity in the T2 curve? the virus doesn't care about max capacity....

~~~
pishpash
Yeah, no. Nice hyperactive imagination to find any plausible justification for
inaction.

The intuitive impulse is there (trade off hospitals getting "creamed" vs.
shutting down economy), but the implementation isn't realistic, so with the
incubation period and lag in testing, all governments act too late. It's an
impossible control problem.

On the other hand, maybe the right time to act _is_ to watch your stock
market. It's a forward predictor. When it starts to tank, go all out.

~~~
anotheryou
it does tank already, no? (sorry for the german link, just literally what I
have open in the next tab)

[https://www.onvista.de/etf/VANGUARD-FTSE-ALL-WORLD-UCITS-
ETF...](https://www.onvista.de/etf/VANGUARD-FTSE-ALL-WORLD-UCITS-ETF-USD-DIS-
ETF-IE00B3RBWM25)

~~~
pishpash
At least the US seems to have waited for the markets to signal, not
epidemiology.

------
dboreham
A couple of other factors:

Governments don't seem to be able to act based on non-local information. Once
the hospitals fill up _here_ , then action is taken. Hospitals filling up
somewhere else causes no action.

There appears to be concerted disinformation operation underway, using the
same outlets used for politics. I live in a "red" part of the US and can see
comments from people on local TV news posts, and I talk to other local people.
It's pretty clear there is lots of false information being propagated:
comments like "Media stop overblowing this", "it's just the flu", "we can
still shake hands here, it's a long way away" (that was a teacher at last
night's parent teacher meetings). If the population don't have a realistic
view of the situation then how can government take the necessary steps?

------
Paul_S
"Wherever I'm going, I'll be there to apply the formula. I'll keep the secret
intact. It's simple arithmetic. It's a story problem. If a new car built by my
company leaves Chicago traveling west at 50 miles per hour, and the rear
differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped
inside, does my company initiate a recall? You take the population of vehicles
in the field (A) and multiple it by the probable rate of failure (B), then
multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C). A
times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a
recall. If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no
one gets hurt. If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall."

------
cycomanic
Here is a discussion of some of the numbers and models. It's in German but I
guess deepL should give a reasonable translation. One part of an answer that I
extract from this article is that it's complicated. People do have more
sophisticated models (see some of the ones mentioned in the article), the
issue is these require more parameter inputs with significant uncertainties
(we really don't have enough information on the virus yet). if some government
would come out and say this is the model we are using you would immediately
have lots of discussion about the validity and how everything would be easy
peasy if we just change this parameter. Another aspect is probably that
accurate modelling is not the primary focus right now.

~~~
cycomanic
Sorry missed to paste the link:
[https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Zahlen-
bitte-3-4-Cor...](https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Zahlen-
bitte-3-4-Coronavirus-Fallsterblichkeit-False-Number-4679338.html)

------
fiatjaf
It's ridiculous to imagine governments are doing the best thing possible and
then try to decode their actions from our inferior standpoint, like if they
were full of wisdom we just don't understand -- more likely doing the worst
thing possible and we are the victims.

------
sandgiant
This looks like false conclusions from oversimplifying the death ratio above
health care saturation.

You can't just change the axis labels because the death ratio depends non-
linearly on infection ratio above the threshold.

Are we willing to take the risk when we don't know the consequences?

------
nl
This is just so completely wrong.

He just relabelled the curves for no apparent reason!

To make it clear: The vertical axis should not be number of deaths. While the
number infected remains below the health system capacity the number of deaths
should remain relatively low. But once it hits capacity there is a step
function that ratchets it up.

And the horizontal axis isn't cost at all. The green line shows something that
is within the normal capacity of the health system. There aren't additional
costs and so should be relatively cheap.

And the green curve is great - everyone would like that - that's the normal
Flu. The Blue curve is the maximum we can sustain without overwhelming the
health system.

------
muh_gradle
I don't know who the author of this blog is, but this was sincerely the least
insightful article that I've ever read. Kindergarten level, crayon drawn
graphs were representative of their insight.

------
PaulHoule
What I see is that the impetus to action starts from below and works up.

New York City declared a state of emergency first, then the state. I guess the
U.S. is in a state of emergency because it is shutting down flights. For a
while people were accusing WHO of inaction, finally WHO declares a pandemic
and they start accusing other people of inaction.

The structure is that an outbreak creates a crisis in one spot even though
others are currently unaffected.

------
johnchristopher
While it's true our federal government hasn't issued orders but only advice
the local and provincial authorities have the power to prevent some things
from happening. And they are using it: some classes or schools are getting
shut down, some away trips are being cancelled.

But I agree, everything's fine in Belgium :D. The virus is likely to have
taken a detour to avoid Belgium, like the Chernobyl cloud did.

------
angry_octet
I've read a lot of dumb COVID-19 takes, and this has to be in the top 10.

Disregard the wishful thinking, psychopath level lack of empathy and poor
graphing. The problem with this is the lack of any actual model or
incorporation of any variables that disagree with it. Things like confidence,
certainty, the value of all those parents & grandparents.

I'm chalking this one down to ostrich syndrome.

------
AngeloAnolin
The action that any government should take now is find a cure for the virus.
Collectively pool resources, bring up the brightest minds in health sciences
and devise a way to remove the virus from the equation. The fact that despite
lockdown and other government actions and the virus is still spreading just
mean that all this measures would become nil at some point.

~~~
hef19898
I had the impression they are doing so. All the measures taken now aim at
flattening the curve. Which spreads cases out to prevent ICU beds and
hospitals from being overwhelmed. This helps to keep the hard cases alive and
buys time.

Which might also explain why countries act differently, the max threshold for
the respective medical system is different. As are projections of the spread.
But I don't think we have to believe governments aren't analyzing the
development daily at least.

------
generalpass
This the type of analysis that comes from people who spend most of their lives
analyzing data. If you were to go into the offices of the elected and the
offices of the government, you would generally find the same thing:

The actions they are taking are based on what they feel will serve them best.

This should be the first assumption in the analysis.

------
polote
This article describes how to approach the problem to minimize economic cost
by keeping under control the number of deaths.

Which would be how a company think, I'm pretty sure governments don't think
like that

Most presidents want to be elected at the next election and this is probably
the main thing they are trying to optimize right now

------
Pusha_Drugz
It depends, a lot of european countries right now are banning events that have
more than 1000 people, schools are closing down and simmilar places.
Technically, they need to push the agenda even further as everyone should buy
more so that the economy would not collapse as it is already near that

------
nathell
This presupposes rational action on behalf of those in power, which I don't
think is a correct premise.

------
cstross
This all assumes that executive level government functions rationally and in
the long-term national interest. Which is _normally_ the case, but this is an
abnormal decade.

Let me be extremely cynical (at risk of down-voting) about the current US
administration's motives:

Consider Trump's just-announced travel ban on the EU-26. It misses out the UK
and Ireland, despite COVID-19 having a toe-hold in those countries ... but the
UK and Ireland have Trump-branded golf courses! A ban on travel from UK and IE
would hurt their viability, so it was quietly omitted.

Meanwhile, the Trump hotel chain is being hit as badly as anyone else in the
hospitality trade by fears of a pandemic, and revenue of his hotels in Florida
is driven by spring break traffic. So he's downplaying anything that might
reduce vacation travel at spring break.

Denying that COVID-19 is anything to worry about is _personally advantageous
for Donald Trump_ as a hotel magnate, because it protects his investments.
It's disadvantageous for the USA as a whole, but where do his priorities lie?

~~~
Zenst
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.

~~~
cstross
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...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/coronavirus-outbreak-us-
trump-latest)

~~~
Zenst
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.

~~~
Zenst
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51857856](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51857856)

Does appear that the transition from containment into delay has just started.

------
mg794613
I know this sounds like a lame joke, but it is not. The true reason why
Belgium is not doing anything, is because they can't form a government, let
alone take these kind of coordinated measures.

------
scarmig
At this point, the writing for the USA is on the wall: either institute a
national quarantine policy, or face a mass die off of hundreds of thousands of
the elderly in the next couple months.

We need to start the national quarantine _before_ things blow up to Italy and
Wuhan level proportions. Yes, it will be extremely costly. But riding on
imaginary hopes that the virus will just disappear for no real reason is
extraordinarily irresponsible.

The details of what it looks like will take time to figure out--it will be a
complicated collaboration between the federal, state, and local authorities,
with the justice system and health sectors being deeply involved. That's
reason to start figuring those details out now, and not two weeks from now.

Donald Trump was elected because he said he was a risk taker willing to do
what needs to be done despite criticism from everyone. A national quarantine
is needed now, and we need bold action to get it started. This is his moment
to make a difference.

~~~
bluGill
The US has already started mass quarantine.

Hospitals will only allow visitors if they are over 16 and a primary caregiver
(ie spouse), and even they are screened before being allowed in. Nursing homes
are limiting visitors, both who can come, and where they can go. Companies are
halting non-essential travel.

It isn't as drastic as you might think it should be, but it is significant at
limiting risk for the most vulnerable.

Most of the above is running plans that have been in place for a long time
(far longer than Trump), walking the line between overreacting and things
getting out of control.

------
drenginian
There just waiting for the death count to jump so they won’t be blamed for
taking radical action that will hurt the economy.

The deaths are the cover they need, so action will come in the next few weeks.

------
DonHopkins
How long is the pandemic expected to last? What are the furthest out
conferences that have been (or should be) canceled? How is the end of a
pandemic even defined?

------
hnarn
The headline of the actual post is:

> Why your government isn't acting on the Corona/COVID-19 threat

Maybe we could correct this weird Indian grammar seen in the current headline
on HN?

------
robertofmoria
Or government is acting according to the threat it poses. It has been three
months now since it has moved globally. Likely longer actually. This isn't a
plague killing everyone in its wake. It is the newest Y2k, 2012, Bird Flu, or
Global warming hysteria push by governments and the media. Look at news from
China, they are using it to be more in control except now with support. This
going to blow over with little interuptions due to the virus itself. I bet
more deaths arise from lack of service due to people inundating the ERs with
negative cases than the virus causes.

------
pingec
Well at least Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Austria are closing down the
borders, cancelling schools and kindergartens etc.

------
hidiegomariani
Nice analysis, although there is no evidence that the economic impact is as
described in the chart (#deaths/cost)

------
ginko
What's with the random question mark added to the title? At least reword it so
it's grammatically correct.

------
qaq
Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.

Sir Richard Wharton: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but
we should do nothing about it.

Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something
about it, but there's nothing we _can_ do.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could
have done, but it's too late now.

------
csomar
This is just one guy thinking that government know what they are doing and
that they are "fine". I have read other delusional thinking on Reddit along
the lines of "Trump seems to be so confidant, this must be a bio-attack on
China/Iran and somehow the virus is not going to spread in the USA". This was
before the virus spreading to Italy and Iran/China being the only countries
with breakouts.

This kind of delusional thinking is not very different from religion and
believing in God. People who believe in God, when they are found in hard
situations, will think that _somehow_ god (the savior) will come for their
rescue. Apparently, people who do not believe in God will think that somehow
the universe/government or whatever will come to their rescue.

The issue is that people holding power/government seems to be, eh, usual
folks. They are still operating with a normal brain which when confronted with
abnormal situations that it can't handle will just imagine that stuff is going
to return to normal.

Bill Gates has already warned about something close to the Coronavirus and
that we are very far from being ready. Nobody was listening and my guess is
the change is going to happen through natural selection.

------
collyw
They are in some places. In Spain gatherings of over 1000 people have been
banned.

------
Morgangeek
Finally actions are taken by the mentioned country (Belgium)

------
mensetmanusman
Halt air travel, reduce large gatherings, let people live their lives knowing
that:

1) Test kits are not helpful because of their high false positive rates.

2) The goal of these activities is to slow the spread, because it is not
possible to stop.

3) Slowing the spread gives vaccine developers more time

------
dustingetz
Game of Chicken

------
cletus
So I encourage people to go watch the Joe Rogan podcast on this [1]. A few
snippets:

\- He describes this as more like a "winter" than a "blizzard" in that this is
going to go on for months;

\- No one really knows what the mortality rate is but it's become clear there
are certain risk factors eg the fatality rate among people over 70 in China is
about 3x for men than women but men are much more likely to smoke than women
in China in this age group.

\- Keeping schools closed is a mixed bag. For one, kids below 9 or so don't
seem to get sick or die. In China only 2% of cases are under age 19. There are
other diseases like this (eg Hepatitis-A). If you keep kids home, some people
will lose their jobs or simply be unable to work as they take care of those
children. Some of those people will be health care professionals. The lack of
those will likely kill people;

\- It's unclear yet what other risk factors (other than age and smoking) there
are. Obesity in the developed world is a big cause for concern as this
unfolds. A stat quoted is that 45% of people in the US aged 45 and older are
obese or severely obese;

\- It's largely a question of when not if you'll get this;

\- It's a myth that we'll have a vaccine before ~18 months. You can't rush
this. It's like trying to rush a pregnancy.

\- Italy is a window to how most places will be in ~3 weeks;

\- We, as a society, have a short attention span. We could've developed a
vaccine for coronaviruses after previous outbreaks (SARS/MERS) but there
seemed to be no appetite for that when they faded;

\- Disruptions to the supply chain are likely to be the biggest problem. We
don't stockpile anything and we're dependent on China for a lot of medical
equipment (eg respirators) and a bunch of essential medicines, some of which
people will die if they don't receive.

The guest here (Michael Osterholm) is an expert on infectious diseases and the
author of _Deadliest Enemies_ [2].

I can't speak to the reaction of different governments. It's no surprise
there's variance. This probably comes down to just 1 or 2 personalities.

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw)

[2]: [https://www.amazon.com/Deadliest-Enemy-Against-Killer-
Germs-...](https://www.amazon.com/Deadliest-Enemy-Against-Killer-Germs-
ebook/dp/B01HZFB5EW/)

------
hoseja
>The deathtoll would be immense.

Would it though?

------
nextstep
I think HN should enact stronger Coronavirus-related moderation like Reddit
has. This is a bad post from a software engineer (not a health professional)
and it offers an amateur analysis without even providing a real suggestion.
What benefit does this provide in a crisis?

~~~
mostafab
posts from health professionals can be even worse. this one was not too bad at
explaining the thinking of ruling elites (who think they can fine-tune an
epidemic)

~~~
endorphone
"this one was not too bad at explaining the thinking of ruling elites"

By inventing a completely unsupported rationalization/conspiracy theory?

"Ruling elites" are not omnipotent, and paradoxically most are in the most
vulnerable demographic. And as others said, it is a situation where one can be
damned regardless of which way they act.

In the case of strong containment/quarantines, unless you're willing to
completely close the borders indefinitely at this point it is futile doing
maximum containment: it's past the point where you can stop it, as the world
managed to do with SARS and MERS.

At this point every government is vulnerable to every other government, and
further vulnerable to the possibility that there are super-carriers spreading
it. And FWIW, a number of countries have a done a very good job of managing
it, but again it isn't a closed-loop.

~~~
mostafab
French President Macron seems to be doing what this post is writing: trying to
fine-tune the spread, and find a balance between economy and health, with
proportional measures

------
tasogare
They don’t act because they don’t care. It’s people dying, and their eyes are
focused on purely economic metrics, not the well-being of the population or
its survival. In the particular case of Europe, this is not the first thread
that is totally discarded by the ruling elite, it’s the usual way of acting.
It’s more visible with the virus because the timescale is shorter, but
fundamentally there is no difference with how some other important threats are
handled (for instance, see how the current acts of war from Turkey against
Greece are handled by France and Germany).

~~~
collyw
If its only economic factors, don't you think that having an active workforce
would make more sense to them?

------
fxtentacle
TLDR: It's cheapest to let old people die, so that the young can continue
working.

A very cruel view on humanity, but I would be surprised if these thoughts
hadn't crossed our politicians minds.

Also, many initiatives by young people (e.g. limiting climate change, re-
structuring society to be more equal-opportunity) are being blocked by old
people who wish to preserve the status quo. So there is a general dislike by
young people - those mostly unaffected by Covid - against the elderly - those
most likely to die from Covid.

And for many years, there have been heated discussions about whether it is
fair to force an ever smaller number of young people to pay for an ever
growing number of old people, even if those old people directly undermine the
young people's livelihood, for example by driving up rental prices or by
voting to stop free education (which they themselves benefited from, when
young).

So you could probably even win some young votes with a platform of "let's
sacrifice the unneeded grumpy grandmas for the greater good".

~~~
lm28469
If you do that in the US you'd lose 60% of politicians and 90% of presidential
candidates.

~~~
fxtentacle
Which, in the eyes of young people, might not be that bad.

