Maoraigh wrote:
“The answer is every country that wishes must sign up to a new agreement that they undertake to make immediate disclosure should this occur again (as it will) and the WHO will send in independent inspectors (the same principle as weapons of mass destruction)”
I’d be surprised if all? UN countries hadn’t signed something like this many decades ago.
The problem isn’t signed agreements. The problem is humans. They will lie to try to protect themselves.
I had thought of that.
It would only require the States and Europe. A few other countries (Australia) would be great.
No incoming flights, no ships, borders locked to the errant country – I dont think it would be long before they comply.
.. .. and if they didnt, well probably as well to leave them to their own devices, as the cost should the consequence be the same would be far more than the loss of trade until they had sorted themselves out.
I think Trump will do something like this when it is all over.
What are you proposing?
I am not “proposing” anything. Things will just happen.
Take the absolutely blindingly obvious. You are a skier (as I am, sort of 
).
Go back to Jan 2020. I was at Cervinia. Not much going on, but I remember having enough awareness to avoid touching door handles, and avoiding getting into crowded ski lifts. Lots of skiers are obviously sick; they paid too much to go so they aren’t going to cancel. The experts would have seen this coming. Germany moved first and bought up a load of test kits.
Now go back to Feb 2020. Everybody knew of the impending disaster. I was not doing another airline flight, but would have done a TB20 flight + taxi + apartment with direct access out. In the end I didn’t because the wx was crap, and since the whole ski scene was desperate to squeeze in a ski trip before the scene got shut down, there was no accommodation anywhere (except far away places where you sit on a ski bus for ages).
Now go back to Mar 2020. Still the whole ski scene was desperate to squeeze in a ski trip before the scene got shut down. Literally right up to the very day the lifts got shut. And many of them got stuck out there.
And almost none of those returning (many of whom were infected) were tested, quarantined, or anything.
If I could see this, anybody “in the business” definitely could. This will have to never happen again, because just the ski scene will be found to have killed so many people and rendered the epidemic uncontrollable rapidly.
Another big social thing is that it has always been perfectly normal for sick people to go to work, go to keep fit classes, hobby classes, etc. Sick kids go to school, because the parents go to work. I am sure that will change – it won’t be socially acceptable.
Other things are more speculative.
Peter – good post. However it is also interesting that the last major pandemic (back in only 1967/8) killed well over a million world wide. There was a lot of under reporting. I have seen considered predictions of 10 million with current measures (and course a lot more and a lot less).
The 67 pandemic clearly resulted in very few changes. This is likely to be of a different order, but we shall see. I hope you are right.
Peter wrote:
Take the absolutely blindingly obvious. You are a skier (as I am, sort of ).
I am not sure I buy the ski scene as a major vector of this illness. It seems more likely that it is international travellers from Asia. This thing has grown significantly around the world with few other markets affected by skiers. Time will tell whether the response has been appropriate. Sweden has now created a useful test case to see whether lockdown makes a difference.
Actually, the one other place where there was clearly some skiing related infection is Colorado. It does seem the infections there are related to ski trips.
I believe 69 doctors have already died in Italy.
According to this contrarian blog: https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ the number includes anyone who has ever been a doctor (since technically they still are), even if they’re in their 90s and were about to die of something else anyway. And of course given the well-known accuracy of journos and their desire to produce a panic inducing story, it probably includes PhDs and DDs as well.
Your link gives an archived list with dates of birth. A few people are notably old but most are in their 50s to 70s. I believe many retired doctors came back to work during the crisis, though I don’t know for certain that all doctors on the list were working.
The list is now 77 long, but no longer provides dates of birth.
And of course given the well-known accuracy of journos and their desire to produce a panic inducing story, it probably includes PhDs and DDs as well.
The link you gave is compiled by the national federation of doctors, surgeons and dentists.
JasonC wrote:
I am not sure I buy the ski scene as a major vector of this illness.
That is indeed blindingly obvious. Sure, some came back from other countries, Iran for instance, and this would also have started the spread, although slower. In Norway about 3/4 of the sick came from Austria, 673 contaminated person at the latest count. They spread it all over the country in a short amount of time, 2-3 weeks.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
This is likely to be of a different order, but we shall see
I think one of the largest changes has already happened. Norway “closed down” more than 3 weeks ago. Within that time, analysts say we have speeded up internet/digital use by 3-4 years at least, probably much more. Work related meetings will never be the same. What people experience is not social distancing, but physical distancing and digital socializing. Lots of this stuff has been around for many years, but now everybody use it for everything, while only 3 weeks only some people used it.
It seems more likely that it is international travellers from Asia
Yes; they came in the 1-2 months before the returning skiers redistributed it.
BTW I spoke to a local in Italy about the reports that a lot of Chinese are working in the Italian clothing industry, and their travel to and from China is what initially brought it over. This is the reply, from 29th March:
The Chinese are working in fabrics near Florence in a town called Prato, here in Milan we have Chinatown but there haven’t been any cases there…for us it did started in Codogno (a little town tht nobody ever had heard about) it’s near Piacenza
The blog posted above is interesting. I certainly agree that the “number infected” is meaningless because it related directly to how many are tested. Only hospital admissions and deaths are meaningful numbers for any purpose.
LeSving wrote:
That is indeed blindingly obvious. Sure, some came back from other countries, Iran for instance, and this would also have started the spread, although slower. In Norway about 3/4 of the sick came from Austria, 673 contaminated person at the latest count. They spread it all over the country in a short amount of time, 2-3 weeks.
I agree. Sweden has a one week school break in February which is an important travel opportunity for families. The break is at different times for different parts of the country to prevent overloading of winter sport resorts. The Stockholm area — which has been hardest hit by the epidemic — had its break last, in the last week of February which is when the big spread in the Alps had begun. The Gothenburg area (Sweden’s 2nd largest city) had its break two weeks earlier and has not been hit nearly as hard.
This (yellow highlight) bit of data shows this is definitely not like the normal flu.
This is a useful data point, which addresses widespread assertions (which in general are hard to disprove, due to lack of data) that this is just a normal flu, almost everybody has got it, and the WHO and big corporations are positioning, with the govts in their pockets, to make money out of it
In the meantime, from a pilot friend of mine
which may explain the (anecdotal, AFAIK) reports that Italy was seeing a much higher %.
