i agree with this, but i don't agree that blanket banning flights to an entire country at the first sign of an outbreak was the right response.Dilbert_X wrote:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr … squanderedWe had a choice early on in the UK’s trajectory to go down the South Korean path of mass testing, isolating carriers of the virus (50% of whom are asymptomatic), tracing all contacts to ensure they isolate as well, and at the same time taking soft measures to delay the spread. Instead, we watched and waited, and whether it was academic navel-gazing, political infighting, a sense of British exceptionalism, or a deliberate choice to minimise economic disruption over saving lives, we have ended up in a position where we are now closer to the Italy scenario than anticipated, and are faced with taking more and more drastic measures.
how did it get from china to italy? italy did ban all flights. it still made it over there.
what about all the international workers, students, relatives? not to say the airlines themselves, who will come knocking for a bailout?
as i've said countless times in this thread, people react with the information they have in that moment. in a rapidly changing scenario such as a pandemic, of course hindsight becomes a very excellent tool. and what? who could have predicted that italy, germany and spain with have 10,000s dead back then? who would have even thought it? italy the worst of all, when it had the most stringent measures in place from the very get-go.
it's not as simple as you want to make it. which goes for almost every discussion here. funny that.