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Comment by vkou | Hacker News Reader

China did it correctly, by announcing the quarantine an hour before it went into effect.

> About 5 million residents left Wuhan before the lockdown because of the deadly coronavirus epidemic and the Spring Festival holiday, mayor Zhou Xianwang revealed

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3047720/chin...

that's a terrible and harmful idea.

law makers and politicians would be well advised to give the public as much notice as possible and prepare them and educate them about what to expect mentally.

The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

For some reason, I feel that minimizing "fears, frustration, boredom" (as your paper says) is less important than minimizing infections and deaths.

of course it is less important and shouldn't be blocking the quarantine to be carried out.

But we had enough time in all the Western countries by now which most didn't use the opportunity to educate their public.

the effects / shock / stress from quarantine will be much higher than when you discuss it openly with people and educate them.

it's negligent to just force anyone into isolation without telling them about the effects of isolation and steps to avoid anxiety or panic.

imagine if you can't tell your environment about what happened to you or you get caught in another city. what if you have a pet waiting at home to be fed. etc ...

Sure for some all this can be sorted out as it unfolds, but it sure doesn't have to be done like this.

There have been weeks in fact where Italians, Europeans had time to discuss these scenarios, and educate their constituents.

What? The entire reason the subthread you’re participating in exists is because the person who started it believes that giving the public notice in advance is a mistake that fundamentally defeats the purpose of a quarantine. In other words, it’s a terrible and harmful idea. But I guess you’re saying it’s the quarantines themselves that are terrible and harmful because they hurt the precious feelings of individuals who want to be free to leave?

you utterly missed the point of what I was saying, as I just pointed out to sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22517206

Letting people escape a quarantine because you give a large heads-up on it defeats the whole purpose of quarantine.

I never suggested letting people go or getting rid of quarantine, that's ludicrous https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22517206

is a quarantine effective if you give rich people enough time to skip town beforehand?

Where did you get "rich people" from..?

substitute rich with power and you have exactly how it plays out in China. uniformed people being in charge of those not in uniform. it will be more civilized in the West, but never for one second assume that a filthy cop who is usually happy to abuse the system when it comes to making parking tickets disappear for friends and family, or who is using the system to stalk a prospective date, ... there will be plenty of situations where if you have power you get to wield it.

Please spare us this naivete-trolling.

The world - yes even in 2020 - mostly is greased by the lubricant of money.

You won't find this in HBS case studies or find mentions of the influence of money on epidemic responses in the Lancet.

This is how the world operates - the rich mostly get their way and have apparatuses in place to be notified first in times of emergency, whether its extra-legal or not.

Italy is notorious for facilitating the ways of the old money. There are various tiers of corruption management offered by PR agencies - with armies of career diplomats, executives, liaisons of non-profits and megacorps alike, other attaches working for them - based on your ability to pay for it; tinpot republics cant afford the PR of richer nations like Italy where its kept hush hush.

The former "Bunga Bunga" Prime Minister was ( and is ) a multi-billionaire and a close friend of Putin. Italy's oldest bank was embroiled in a huge scandal that in all likelihood you probably haven't heard a peep about. Not to mention the lengthy list of Italian wealth-hiders revealed in the Panama Papers.[1] [2] [3]

If we had a media that gave a fair shake to all dollar value scandals equally you would read and watch reports on these just as often as the ones that the media is preoccupied with.

Somehow the media doesn't care to shine enough light on the dealings of your average Berlusconis or Gerhard Schröders ( former Chancellor of Germany ) or Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. [4][5][6]

Perhaps we should stop putting certain countries on a pedestal because of how much we are enamored of, of their histories and our fondness for their culture in general.

You are making a value judgment that some seediness engaged in, by some countries is okay whereas others deserve the full glare of media exposure.

It's plainly wrong and history will find you culpable for it.

[1] Silvio Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin: the odd couple

https://www.ft.com/content/2d2a9afe-6829-11e5-97d0-1456a776a...

[2] Panama Papers: Italians Involved, from Trulli to Montezemolo

https://www.corriere.it/english/16_aprile_04/panama-papers-i...

[3] Why Deutsche Bank's Monte Paschi Scandal Still Matters

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-11/why-de...

[4] How a $450 Million Loss Was Hidden From Sight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtuRDmkm_7E

[5] Anger as German ex-chancellor Schroeder heads up Rosneft board

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41447603

[6] Why Putin's Pal, Germany's Ex-Chancellor Schroeder, Isn't On A Sanctions List

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/18/601825131/...

edit: changed naive to naivete

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