Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

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> COVID19 was not a surprise; that is, it was known to exist in China some time before the first cases appeared in the US. It is not unreasonable for a government to assemble a team to respond to something like a pandemic as needed, as opposed to having people dedicated solely to the purpose and nothing else.

The USA have alerted NATO allies and Israel in mid-November (!) about coronavirus: https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-alerted-israel-nato-to-dise...

The ban on China travel came two months later. Two months of inaction that have cost a lot of lives. If it's any solace, us other NATO countries haven't been better, but at least our leaders were not as stubborn as to claim "corona was under control" until Feb. 24 or "[the Democrat's] new hoax" (Feb. 28) as Trump did.

The ones who did not waste any time and who actually do have a standing pandemic response team are Asian countries like Taiwan - Taiwan is directly adjacent to China, has a shitload of travel to China under normal circumstances, got sidelined from the WHO thanks to Chinese pressure, yet only 422 cases with 6 deaths IN TOTAL.

That's what happens when a competent government is in action: they locked down travels on end of december and put actual experts in charge.

What does Trump do, in contrast? Infection rates are nowhere near "under control", and he appoints his daughter and son-in-law on a "council to re-open America": https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/4/14/21220755/t...

>The USA have alerted NATO allies and Israel in mid-November (!) about coronavirus:

Yes, the US alerted allied nations of a new disease that ought to be watched. Similar warnings went out for SARS, MERS, and Ebola, as well as (for example) the 1968 Hong Kong flu.

>The ban on China travel came two months later. Two months of inaction that have cost a lot of lives.

"Patient Zero" arrived in Seattle from Wuhan on January 15. At that point

* The WHO was still denying that COVID19 could be spread by person-to-person contact.

* Trump was still impeached by the House of Representatives and awaiting trial in the Senate.

What would have happened if on January 1 Trump announced the only thing that would have prevented COVID19 from arriving in the US: A complete and indefinite shutdown of all land, sea, and air borders?[1] Trump would have been denounced by the entire world as a racist sexist fascistNaziKKK preparing to seize unlimited power to avoid being removed from office, using the thin pretext of a disease that seemed only China's problem.

>"[the Democrat's] new hoax"

No. Trump called the Democrats' response to what the administration was doing about COVID19 a hoax, consistent with his describing what led to his impeachment as a hoax a few sentences before the above words.

[1] And before you say that that wasn't necessary, that a 14-day quarantine would have been sufficient, a) That time period wasn't known for sure then. Very, very little was known about the disease or SARS-CoV-2, partly because China wasn't saying anything and WHO wasn't inclined to get China to talk. b) A 14-day quarantine for all visitors is effectively a shutdown of the border. Very, very few people are willing to visit any country that mandates such a thing at entrance.

I dont think he would have been called sexist for that. Be accurate and dont flame, especially when you get the big picture right.

>I dont think he would have been called sexist for that.

CNN on January 30: "Coronavirus task force another example of Trump administration's lack of diversity" https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/30/politics/donald-trump-coronav...

The point is, this is a problem. When the task forces all end up dominated with rich, white, old men, then the problems that specific groups of the society face end up ignored/overlooked.

We have a similar issue in Germany at the moment - while we do have Ms. Merkel as chancellor, the advisor group (Leopoldina) only has two women in it and no representatives of e.g. disabled people - leading to the problem that issues of childcare or care for disabled persons, or poor people, or people locked down in totally inadequate cramped conditions completely lacked representation in their latest recommendations.

In France, it's similar but worse - there have been violent explosions last night as people literally cannot endure the enormous stress that a really strict lockdown in cramped housing causes.

A lack of diversity in advisory groups and task forces has real, quantifiable and sometimes deadly consequences.

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