How do we feel the whole issue is being managed – in whatever country you are?
the japanese approach is interesting – https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/japans-winning-its-quiet-fight-against-covid-19/
Cobalt wrote:
What is the price we are willing to pay to give those over 65 around one extra year of life on average?
II isn’t this an odd question in a forum of people used to overregulated and overpriced stuff just to save few lives of middle age\old guys ?
Fuji_Abound wrote:
How do we feel the whole issue is being managed – in whatever country you are?
I’m feel like our (German / Lower Saxon) government is actually managing this rather well overall. Testing and contract tracing worked comparably well overall. The restrictions on public life were reasonably swift and reasonably strong. The economic measures were almost sensationally powerful for a government that planned to not take on any new national debt just two or three weeks prior…now they take on an extra 156 billion Euro in debt to unleash an unprecedented economic support and stimulus package.
What is apparent though is that not enough was done over the last years to improve the healthcare system. On the contrary, budget shortfalls, most of them actually illegal under current law (i.e. the German states are violating German federal law for many years now!) led to staff and equipment shortages in hospitals. I still think we have one of the best healthcare systems of the world, but that is despite, not due to, the way the system is managed by the government. It mostly hinges on the dedication of the health workers. And especially nurses were not treated too kindly over the last 15 years, so now we lack several tens of thousands of them!
So no matter how proactive and sensible the government acts now, it has a hard time catching up with its own deficiencies over the last 15 to 20 years!
My thoughts from the UK are similar. I think the sheer scale, means anything done now, other than the lock down provisions, will make little difference. The outcome in the UK was largely set in stone when we decided to ignore the findings of the NHS stress test undertaken three years ago, and which has never been declassified. Ever since the first case we have played catch up, and there is no chance of catching up until the first peak has been reached. If there are subsequent peaks what is being done now, might just help.
Reading UK News online, an ex-minister is blaming China, and there is mention of threats a year ago to send UK aircraft carriers to the Far East.
I fear the media handling is leading to a greater disaster to the economy than the virus should cause. There is now a warning of electricity failure.
SCPI* worries me more than Covid-19.
*Severe Chronic Politician Insanity.
Projected hospital resource use by US state based on COVID-19 deaths. Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections
^^grim.
Not long ago the fatality predictions I read were higher by 50% than these University of Washington numbers that are getting a lot of publicity today. I personally think trend predictions are interesting in terms of driving my personal behavior, but specific numerical predictions that vastly extend current trends are not particularly interesting. YMMV.
I’m working in the office and so is my wife, both in ‘critical’ industries (there are a lot of them) without a lot of human interaction at work right now. My wife’s employer’s business is booming – its basically take-out catering for people that would otherwise eat out, so well suited for the times and they did some good advertising. Highway traffic under our local US state shelter-in-place ‘direction’ is reduced by perhaps a third on my commute. Flying is no problem so far, my base is active. Driving to the airport is ‘an issue’ but the roads are being used, police here does not enforce non-law and my exposure to others when driving, at my hangar and when flying is also zero. So not a lot of current interaction with friends and strangers (happy now to be married) but I’m still basically ‘doing my thing’. I’m not taking weekend motorcycle rides since blazing down twisty roads on two wheels is provocative at the best of times and I don’t like roadside conversations with strangers in uniform.
@Maoraigh, re “SCPI” and the press, hereabouts it’s the post office that will “shut down any moment”, short of money with no interest in contracting their mainly advertising distribution business. I will say that if these numbers are realized, China is in deep deep trouble politically and by extension economically.
Maoraigh wrote:
There is now a warning of electricity failure
UK peak demand is actually down by about 7GW compared to a typical Monday before the crisis hit.
