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Comment by shalmanese | Hacker News Reader

It's not just the US though, you have other countries in Europe handling this abysmally like The Netherlands. Indonesia is still in the "pray to make it go away" stage despite multiple cases in Singapore being traced back to Indonesian travel (including one rich Indonesian who couldn't find anyone to treat them in Indonesia so deliberately flew to Singapore on a private plane to get healthcare).

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To be clear, I don't believe the following (Hanlon's razor, etc), but it would make a good dystopian/thriller:

As some point one might consider if governments see COVID-19 as an opportunity to "cull the herd". Japan and Italy have the two largest aging populations of any countries. The US has a large number of citizens with COVID-19 comorbidities.

I'm not sure if the long term savings on entitlements and health care costs would outweigh the short term economic damage, though.

Pretty much by definition in countries with large populations of old people, the current governments largely rely on the vote of those old people to stay in power. This makes the cull-the-herd theory rather unlikely in my opinion. I think simple incompetence is a sufficient explanation.

Also, many of the politician are old themselves. Being in public all the same, the are really vulnerable.

I'll give you a different basis for a conspiracy theory:

China got COVID-19 first. And got over it first. US and Europe are going to be devastated by it. I'm guessing Russia will fare no better. In the aftermath, who's going to be on top on the global scene?

What's the conspiracy?

China didn't get over COVID-19. They're still seeing double-digit deaths daily and new infections. They're going to see recurring new networks and pockets appear repeatedly. Endlessly if the virus has endured in other countries. They aren't coming out on top of this, especially given the absolutely enormous GDP damage they've already endured.

It’s extremely far-fetched, but I think the implication is either China engineered the virus or at least allowed it to spread, either because they already have a vaccine/treatment, or at least know they can control spread among their population better than other superpowers. Not to mention the power they wield by being the world’s supply chain.

In the tabletop exercise performed at Johns Hopkins just a few months ago, the world didn't fare so well. Even though some countries initially control it, it continues to spread and be reintroduced, ultimately leading to 65 million deaths worldwide: http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/scenario.htm...

A chilling, and somewhat likely simulation.

Chilling indeed - but we do have a weapon against that new virus: global lockdown for n weeks to fully eradicate it.

The possible death of nn millions of people is way worse than a global lockdown for a couple of weeks/months.

What makes you assume that the economic output of these old people, on total, is negative? They might be holding/running investments, collected massive knowledge along their careers or have enough savings and are making money for the private healthcare system.

If they go away, we might lose on the knowledge or their investments might stop working and the new youth might not manage it any better. So a total loss of society.

Holding/running investments -- investments would be passed to beneficiaries, who should have longer time horizons

Massive knowledge -- retired and not using it

Making money for the healthcare system -- fundamental life science advances could be lost or slowed down, but most healthcare spending is pure consumption, the labor could be better deployed to something more productive

Going with the abysmal handing theory. What concrete steps should, in your regard, be taken to contain the virus from spreading? How would these steps contribute to contain the virus and how would the be implemented without causing disproportional damage elsewhere?

Just saying the situation is handled badly is easy. Just like being a better football coach after a big game. There is a german saying that everytime the national soccer team looses Germany has 81 million national soccer trainers. Providing better solutions is the hrd part, almost as hard a judging why exactly current solutions are not sufficiet.

Quarantine a whole neighbourhood when a case is found, keep it locked down until everyone has tested negative for two weeks.

Drive-through testing where everybody with any symptoms can get themselves tested.

A good public education campaign with calm TV documentaries that show the facts of what was going on in Wuhan and is now going on in Italy, and explains why these actions need to be taken.

So basically a measured, fact based response to it. Sounds good if you ask me! Especially the education campaign is thoroughly missed at the moment.

I'm hoping TV crews get into Lombardy hospitals and show the West what is happening there, it might get people to take this seriously. But then someone needs to also give them clear instructions or it will just be panic.

That brings me back to my core question. What are people not taking serious about it? I get it that some people a scred and feel better when other share tht feeling, and they get external confirmation from th outside. But does this actually do any good? I don't think so.

We know what is happening there, no TV crew needed.

Report by an italien doctor from Bergamo: https://www.ecodibergamo.it/stories/bergamo-citta/con-le-nos...

Translated to english: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1236933818654896129.html

I know that. But a TV documentary would reach far more people, especially in the demographic most at risk.

Just letting you know that the measured, fact based response has been abandonned in some european countries as it simply does not scale/is not feasible after widespread community spreading is happening.

The only next step is large scale lock downs.

>Indonesia is still in the "pray to make it go away" stage

This is true until last Thursday, but now the government had acknowledged at least 19 confirmed cases. Still super late though.

Yeah, but if multiple Singaporeans who are spending just a few days in Indonesia are coming back with COVID, it's obviously not 19 cases. Indonesia is where Iran was just a few weeks ago.

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