Western governments are criminally negligent over Coronavirus

[odie]

“Japan was one of the first countries outside of China hit by the coronavirus and now it’s one of the least-affected among developed nations. That’s puzzling health experts.

Unlike China’s draconian isolation measures, the mass quarantine in much of Europe and big U.S. cities ordering people to shelter in place, Japan has imposed no lockdown. While there have been disruptions caused by school closures, life continues as normal for much of the population. Tokyo rush hour trains are still packed and restaurants remain open.”

 

from Bloomberg article

[Henry Ciullo]

here in Italy politicians acted late and are still behind... 

we lack tests , its been 3 weeks with masks and hand lotion are to be found nowhere... trains across the country are still running and no control on who gets aboard, spreding the disease.

Then in italy, every death,even if the person had terminal cancer, but if tested positivi for c19, has been accounted for the virus, while in other countries they "hide" their deaths better..

this is going to hurt our economy badly, it was already crap..

I am stunned at how "civilized" countries are being caught off guard even if they have had lots of time to prepare for action,,

 

[alsoandrew]

The analysis of the response to COVID19 for Taiwan, HK, and SG is flwaed. In HK and Taiwan there was already a ton of political tension in the months leading up to the virus so the amnt of Chinese visitors is actually quite low. the monthly number of Chinese travellers to Taiwan for example went down 50% from 200k last year to around 90k this year. This is less thann most popular destinations in Europe. In HK its the entry rate from mainand China even lower due to the protests.

Monthly Chinese visitors to Japan is around 500k while in SK its around 700k.

SK is an example of what happens when you respond quickly to the threat. Japan will probably have a major outbreak soon. They just avoided the initial peak. 

Italy has a lot of critical cases as their population is more elderly and it is more common for households to be comprised of multiple generations.

In Germany this is the opposite with more people living alone. This is why the death rate isn't as bad, yet. 

 

 

[Andrew Reid]

5 minutes ago, Henry Ciullo said:

here in Italy politicians acted late and are still behind... 

we lack tests , its been 3 weeks with masks and hand lotion are to be found nowhere... trains across the country are still running and no control on who gets aboard, spreding the disease.

Yes exactly. 3 weeks and army is not urgently distributing supplies of basic cheap essentials in the fight agains the virus.

It's criminal negligence again.

And we as the citizens will make sure we hold these governments to account if our loved ones die.

We will not stay quiet on this.

And not just train carriages full of people spreading it but offices...

Vulnerable age groups or people with underlying lung conditions exposed to large groups of younger workers who don't give a shit.

Money first, all the fucking time.

The drugs companies racing to be the first to make mega profits from at-home testing kits, which if we all had NOW, would stop the virus in its tracks and isolate the right people, preventing a full on lock down and economic warfare.

Money first.

American first.

Boris, Cummings, Gove... criminal negligence.

It's all going to end in a shitshow.

You heard it here first.

[Andrew Reid]

3 minutes ago, alsoandrew said:

The analysis of the response to COVID19 for Taiwan, HK, and SG is flwaed. In HK and Taiwan there was already a ton of political tension in the months leading up to the virus so the amnt of Chinese visitors is actually quite low. the monthly number of Chinese travellers to Taiwan for example went down 50% from 200k last year to around 90k this year. This is less thann most popular destinations in Europe. In HK its the entry rate from mainand China even lower due to the protests.

Monthly Chinese visitors to Japan is around 500k while in SK its around 700k.

SK is an example of what happens when you respond quickly to the threat. Japan will probably have a major outbreak soon. They just avoided the initial peak. 

Italy has a lot of critical cases as their population is more elderly and it is more common for households to be comprised of multiple generations.

In Germany this is the opposite with more people living alone. This is why the death rate isn't as bad, yet. 

These are good points but it doesn't change the fact that governments are behaving in a criminally negligent way towards their public and health workers.

[alsoandrew]

6 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

These are good points but it doesn't change the fact that governments are behaving in a criminally negligent way towards their public and health workers.

Yes of course, Im just tryingt o point out how overplayed and inaccurate that talking point is. Here in the US we have Trump who almost certainly initially downplayed the Coronavirus because of the threat imposed to his reelection and fired the officials responsible for responding to events like these months prior. And we also have officials who were aware of the threat but did nothing except sell their stocks. And only on Friday was there a coordinated response to manufacture supplies. 

[Henry Ciullo]

10 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Yes exactly. 3 weeks and army is not urgently distributing supplies of basic cheap essentials in the fight agains the virus.

It's criminal negligence again.

 

only NOW they are starting to use the army... to  VERIFY why people are outside their homes... NOt for delivering food or goods, or giving away masks ... no way... as usual our politicians are good at blaming someone else, and concentrating on how to punish us instead of helping us.

[BTM_Pix]

1 hour ago, odie said:

 

Japan is back to work. Here is an article confirming that.

 

Can anyone  comment on this article?

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-19/a-coronavirus-explosion-was-expected-in-japan-where-is-it

 

I can only comment from when I was there but from the moment we stepped off the plane on the way in to the moment we got on the plane home ten days later, every single worker in every single establishment from the airport to restaurants to shops to the railways was wearing a mask.

As per the picture I took above, hand santiser was at the entrance/exit to almost every establishment we went to.

All events that we were set to go to in Tokyo (the primary one being the CP+ photo show) were cancelled from gigs to sporting events as well as exhibitions/museums and pretty much any place with large enclosed gatherings such as the Skytree etc were closed.

When we checked into the hotel, we had our temperature taken, the place was plastered with information in numerous languages and there were unlimited facemasks handed out at reception free of charge as well as the sanitiser outside and inside every elevator.

I'd estimate that easily 85-90% of the local population were wearing masks and this rose to more or less 100% on the subway.

When we initially arrived, I'd say that probably 75% of western visitors were wearing masks as well but about three days after we arrived this dropped very dramatically over a two day period and was more like 20% or even less by the time we left.

I don't think this was through 'concern fatigue' or whatever you want to classify it but was more linked to reports I'd seen in the western media including from the UK government pretty much saying that masks were useless which presumably were then made into concise little info pictures and circulated on social media. 

It was like every single one of these people had seen this pop up on their social media on the same evening and abandoned their masks immediately.

To say I was annoyed about it would be an understatement not least because even in the spirit of unity and support with the local people you'd think people would carry on wearing them but alas not.

So in terms of the sort of lockdowns we have in the west now, there was nothing like that at all but what there was in abundance was the government taking decisive action to limit communal gathering opportunities (and closing schools) and the whole population supporting the effort to maintain distance where possible without totally stopping day to day life and all taking responsibility to take the prescribed precautions to avoid contaminating themselves and others.

Companies also introduced home working but also slightly staggered shifts to ease the numbers travelling at peak periods.

The staggering thing is the low infection rate in Tokyo considering how this virus is spreading everywhere else.

Just the 8.5 million subway rides alone that are taken every day in Tokyo would lead you to predict a significantly higher number of cases than the 136 that they have, particularly considering how much longer they have been exposed to the virus there.

For context, a single church in a small town in the UK appears to have emerged as a hotspot with around 15% of the same number as the whole of Tokyo has.

By the way, the contrast when we arrived back at Madrid airport was stark and very, very frightening where absolutely NO ONE in the airport either official or member of the public was wearing a mask apart from us or employing any kind of distancing.

In point of fact up until the point we got locked down here in Spain over a week ago, the only people we saw wearing a mask was each other.

As odd as it may seem, that kind of gives me some hope in a way because it can explain the runaway nature of it here versus Japan and how it was contained there as either Japan is lying about its figures or that bouquet of measures and a public that bought into it from day one has proven to be a very effective balance between containment and total reactive lockdown.

OK, it would mean that we have missed the boat in terms of doing it by consent if you like but it does offer hope that it can be contained.

Because if the reason it has been arrested in Japan isn't due to the actions they took then it throws up something that I don't want to even consider which is that the virus has mutated somehow when it has reached Europe and we are facing something different and, looking at the figures, far worse.

 

[OliKMIA]

42 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

 

Are you saying I need to have a background in virology to understand this? Even school kids know this.

On his Japan trip, @BTM_Pix noticed the Brit tourists suddenly abandon their masks after Boris said they were ineffectual.

That's what the Japanese and Taiwanese understand in their densely populated cities.

And yes, they failed to act or be prepared which makes them criminally negligent and responsible for the manslaughter of potentially 2 million people in the UK alone.
 

Hey, once again I agree with the situation in UK, the non-response from BoJo is insane...

All I'm saying is that these days, everyone is an expert on the matter... but when you read real experts opinion they are very very careful in their statements.

The truth is that no one really know why Japan hasn't been more impacted and I wouldn't bet my money that the situation won't get worse over there. I just don't know and the experts don't really know neither (however they point out the lack of testing). Pandemics have complex dynamic, this is only the beginning and you may actually have to update your post in a few weeks with "ALL governments are criminally negligent over Coronavirus".

As for preparedness, the health minister in France that acted in 2009 against the "harmless" H1N1 flu was dragged to court and ridiculed at the time for her actions.
I can only imagine the opposite scenario if Europe locked down late January, shut down the economy and cancel all the trade shows for nothing. We would have rage articles all over the place, people bitching about another EU failure etc.. This forum would be full of posts from people complaining about lost job opportunity and lack of common sense from the governments...

It's very easy and comfortable to criticize afterward. You' ll always find someone who said it was inevitable (sometime with very good reasons btw).

 

[fuzzynormal]

2 hours ago, mb6079 said:

every western country has had the attitude “it won’t be like that here”

For many of us here in the United States, it's been, "Oh man, it's going to be so much worse." 

Which is why the dismissal of the threat has been so frustrating.  Even the rhetorical push back, the cruel jokes, or the claim it was all some sort of hoax was, sad to say, completely expected.  

This is who we are.  Which makes things especially scary when one starts to think about the virus mutating and causing contagion wave#2.

[Emanuel]

2 hours ago, OliKMIA said:

I can only imagine the opposite scenario if Europe locked down late January, shut down the economy and cancel all the trade shows for nothing. We would have rage articles all over the place, people bitching about another EU failure etc.. This forum would be full of posts from people complaining about lost job opportunity and lack of common sense from the governments...

It's very easy and comfortable to criticize afterward. You' ll always find someone who said it was inevitable (sometime with very good reasons btw).

 

People have need to have guts to say what they think, the same way you're doing ; ) I never care of what people can say about me. Important is I say what I think I should, like exactly now : -)

[fuzzynormal]

9 minutes ago, Emanuel said:

People have need to have guts to say what they think

And the resolve to do what's just for the greater good.  It's a level of integrity that's in short supply when you build a society that often seems to shun it.  This is not going to be easy.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56

[Andrew Reid]

4 hours ago, alsoandrew said:

Yes of course, Im just tryingt o point out how overplayed and inaccurate that talking point is. Here in the US we have Trump who almost certainly initially downplayed the Coronavirus because of the threat imposed to his reelection and fired the officials responsible for responding to events like these months prior. And we also have officials who were aware of the threat but did nothing except sell their stocks. And only on Friday was there a coordinated response to manufacture supplies. 

The talking point of criminal negligence is inaccurate or something else, not sure I follow...

Anyway, you just gave your own great example of what criminal negligence in government looks like.

[IronFilm]

7 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Italy's terrifying unfolding tragedy is a glimpse into the future for all of us... Just 2-4 weeks into the future.

Italy has the second most elderly population in the world, behind Japan. They have a higher rate of smokers than the US. Italy has 5X the mortality from the seasonal flu as the US, it is not unreasonable to expect that from this virus. Reports now indicate over 90% of fatalities involved serious underlying health issues, chiefly heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. And they got a massive dose of infection, not one or two carriers, but thousands, from the imported Chinese labor that returned after the holiday shutdown. Plus, like the Chinese and Sub-Saharan Africans, their personal interaction space is much closer than many other countries. There are often 3 or more generations living together in an already densely populated country. They're a very social culture. And not one single European Union country answered their pleas for help (EU? What EU? I think Italy just delivered the killer blow to the experiment which was the Euro Dream). Perfect storm.

  

7 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Pretty much the only thing that gives me any kind of hope is the figures coming out of China.

Four days in a row now of zero cases. 

[Andrew Reid]

4 hours ago, OliKMIA said:

Hey, once again I agree with the situation in UK, the non-response from BoJo is insane...

All I'm saying is that these days, everyone is an expert on the matter... but when you read real experts opinion they are very very careful in their statements.

The truth is that no one really know why Japan hasn't been more impacted

No scientists can truly say but the common sense aspect is undeniable.

If 90%+ of the population are wearing masks and 100% of those with a cough, then you prevent the spread.

If you have hand sanitiser at every public space, again you prevent the spread.

Ask yourself why this isn't the situation in the US and Europe.

No preparedness, no plan, no clue.

Instead, a risk that millions could die and a brutal economic collapse.

There is no sugaring it. This MAY happen, and all because of our governments.

[Andrew Reid]

14 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Italy has the second most elderly population in the world, behind Japan.

Again shows the power of basic public hygiene in Japan and early preparedness for influenza epidemics.

Quote

They have a higher rate of smokers than the US. Italy has 5X the mortality from the seasonal flu as the US, it is not unreasonable to expect that from this virus. Reports now indicate over 90% of fatalities involved serious underlying health issues, chiefly heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

The reason Italy and Japan have such large elderly populations is that their health is superb, their diets and lifestyle are the healthiest in the world.

The best food and lovely weather, wealthy places. France and Spain are not far behind.

They are healthy and civilised countries.

Indeed smoking does seem higher in Italy, Spain and France than in other countries.

But a good majority... 30-40% I think... of Italians in hospital with serious CONVID19 illnesses are in their 20s,30s,40s and 50s.

Actually Germany has a very similar percentage of society to Italy who are 70+.... Only around 1% fewer.

But it's besides the point... The numbers of elderly aren't the main factor. It's that they were not protected.

Italy's government did not hand masks and sanitiser early enough, or in any coordinated way, and they still aren't.

But the biggest tragedy to come may be in the US where the health care sucks balls on thousands of levels. It leaves millions without any at all. It leaves far more underlying conditions untreated due to financial reasons which European systems don't. The USA is now seeing a 13,000 leap in coronavirus cases, in one day.

[OliKMIA]

8 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

No scientists can truly say but the common sense aspect is undeniable.

If 90%+ of the population are wearing masks and 100% of those with a cough, then you prevent the spread.

If you have hand sanitiser at every public space, again you prevent the spread.

Ask yourself why this isn't the situation in the US and Europe.

No preparedness, no plan, no clue.

Instead, a risk that millions could die and a brutal economic collapse.

There is no sugaring it. This MAY happen, and all because of our governments.

Common sense and science are two different things...

No preparedness, that's obviously true. But, this is very hard at this point to find gel, mask and ventilators because the demand from government and individual has been soaring and this is becoming a production and logistic nightmare: how do we produce100 or 1000x fold more masks and gel with crippled production capacity in China and a nearly paralyzed logistic chain? Every government right now is working like crazy to solve this question (ok, BoJo might not be ). In France, the perfume and cosmetic industry has been mobilized to manufacture gel. As for the mask, there is a need for special fiber to manufacture them which is not easy.

And what do we do next? Where do we place the cursor? Should we also store thousands of Leval A suits, complete CBRN capacities, a load of machines for ICUs? All that has a price, how prepared should we be? This question is valid for the taxpayers because they'll have to pay the price.

9 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Again shows the power of basic public hygiene in Japan and early preparedness for influenza epidemics.

The reason Italy and Japan have such large elderly populations is that their health is superb, their diets and lifestyle are the healthiest in the world.

The best food and lovely weather, wealthy places. France and Spain are not far behind.

They are healthy and civilised countries.

Indeed smoking does seem higher in Italy, Spain and France than in other countries.

But a good majority... 30-40% I think... of Italians in hospital with serious CONVID19 illnesses are in their 20s,30s,40s and 50s.

Actually Germany has a very similar percentage of society to Italy who are 70+.... Only around 1% fewer.

But it's besides the point... The numbers of elderly aren't the main factor. It's that they were not protected.

Italy's government did not hand masks and sanitiser early enough, or in any coordinated way, and they still aren't.

But the biggest tragedy to come may be in the US where the health care sucks balls on thousands of levels. It leaves millions without any at all. It leaves far more underlying conditions untreated due to financial reasons which European systems don't. The USA is now seeing a 13,000 leap in coronavirus cases, in one day.

The reason Italy and Japan have such large elderly population is because they don't reproduce. Their birth rate is among the lowest in the world. Japan also doesn't allow much immigration which is one of the reason they are actively developing domestic robots to assist with regular tasks. Their diets and lifestyle only helps to increase lifespan  which generate additional issue with the pension system.

And yeah, the US health "care" system (business) sucks ball, and I also think that it's going to hit us hard over here now that we are conducting proper testing.

Stay safe mate!
 

[barefoot_dp]

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

You just need eyes and to be able to logically deduce more than 1 step ahead (which rules out at least 50% of the British public)

 

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

So yes, the government had all this info, like the lay man did, like the bloke who runs EOSHD did, it's not even hard to understand...

If it was so obvious, even to the bloke who runs EOSHD, and so easy to logically deduce 1 step ahead, how did he manage to get stranded in Barcelona? Hindsight is a wonderful thing, after all. 

I think the problem in the western countries is not so much a lack a decisive leadership, but a lack of personal responsibility. Everyone thinks they are the exception to the rule. Everyone thinks that they'll still be ok to go to the pub, or on their holiday. Businesses think they won't possibly be a danger to anyone and refuse to take precautionary measures. And yes, that selfishness extends to the politicians and executives who make decisions based more on their stock holdings or poll ratings than on overall public benefit. 

It is not a leadership problem, it is a cultural problem. We've seen that here in Australia where thousands of people swarmed Bondi Beach despite government warnings. People are equally culpable at all levels of society, not just in leadership.

[Andrew Reid]

14 minutes ago, barefoot_dp said:

If it was so obvious, even to the bloke who runs EOSHD, and so easy to logically deduce 1 step ahead, how did he manage to get stranded in Barcelona? Hindsight is a wonderful thing, after all.

No need to be insulting or personal. I am not a government. I don't need to have pandemic readiness!

My government does, however.

I got out of Barcelona last Thursday. Back in the UK now. There were no rescue flights for those still there, to repatriate people. Most airlines gave up and grounded their fleets, while governments sat on their hands over that too.

[User]

53 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

I don't need to have pandemic readiness!

My government does, however.

In a perfect world, I largely agree. However, it could be reasoned that the uncomfortable side of such thinking is that if vast number of people leave it to government to look vital needs, they may become less resilient in times of crisis. On the same token, if lazy incompetent people - who would normally perish through shortsighted thinking and practice, regardless of pandemics like this - are kept alive and allowed to procreate, they perpetuate the cycle... giving rise to a exploitable vote bank that will be lulled into thinking they will be looked after. Unfortunately - though not always - the people get the government they deserve.

Edit. Of course I realize that in the context of your comment, you were away from the English roses.