So Joe Public sees things in the round. So how come they often disagree about what is to be done. Even a club of pilots can’t agree what plane to buy even with all information available.
In the case of Covid I fear that what we have learnt will not be relevant, next time.
Graham, at the start of covid in the UK if you had owned a restaurant or pub what action would you have wanted the governement to take?
Graham wrote:
I don’t think most governments needed any help in undermining their credibility.
There is a huge difference between the general idea about government and how credible they are and the basic trust a population has in it’s institutions and the day to day running of the country.
Looking at the deplorable goings on in many of the governments and particularly parliaments right now, trust in such people certainly is on a very low point. On the other hand, people still do trust their institutions they need for daily life. Once that trust is destroyed, things can get very ugly indeed.
In any civilized society, it has to be possible to enact a certain amount of force in situations where the population is under a clear and present danger. This function depends on the credibility of the institutions more than government itself.
Graham wrote:
If something started going round that caused a random 1 in 10 to drop dead you’d see very different behaviour, since the instinct of self-preservation is strong.
Looking at the way science, institutions and enforcement were discredited, I think this would happen with a massive delay, which then would cause it to be useless, exactly as it was in the Covid case.
Had the lockdowns been started when there were still very few incidents, Covid would have been largely history after a few weeks. This way, it took 2 years to assimilate it and cost millions of lifes which could have been saved.
I am afraid I concur with esteban’s estimate that were this to happen with a deadly disease, we’d see exactly the same behaviour patterns if not worse, i.e. that lockdowns would simply be ignored. With a disease such as modified Ebola virus or with biowarfare, the results could very well be catastrophic.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Had the lockdowns been started when there were still very few incidents, Covid would have been largely history after a few weeks.
Not true. It’s extremely contagious. The only way to make it history is to completely eliminate it, and that’s not realistically possible because there will be an undetected case somewhere and it takes no time at all for that to then spread like wildfire.
All lockdowns did was smooth demand on healthcare.
gallois wrote:
So Joe Public sees things in the round. So how come they often disagree about what is to be done. Even a club of pilots can’t agree what plane to buy even with all information available.
In the case of Covid I fear that what we have learnt will not be relevant, next time.
Graham, at the start of covid in the UK if you had owned a restaurant or pub what action would you have wanted the governement to take?
Seeing things in the round doesn’t mean they all come to the same conclusion, I don’t know how you’ve extrapolated that. The point was that governments, and particularly public health bodies, tend to see things one-dimensionally. Health at all costs, control at all costs, etc.
I would want them to publish the best information they had, offer advice on which courses of action might suit particular individual aims (e.g. if you’re immunocompromised it might be a good idea to limit your contact with others) but otherwise not place any restrictions on individual behaviours or interfere with people’s lives.
All lockdowns did was smooth demand on healthcare.
That seems to be the final conclusion, yes. And since almost all countries have health care at best only just big enough for normal demand, the same lockdowns will happen again, because no govt wants to see 10k dead per day in the media.
Ebola (I read the same Tom Clancy books) would be much worse.
in the round
What is that?
Graham wrote:
All lockdowns did was smooth demand on healthcare.
At the time they were implemented that is all they could do.
Peter wrote:
Ebola (I read the same Tom Clancy books) would be much worse.
Then you know how the plan they had (which was to my knowledge right out of the CDC’s planbook) called for IMMEDIATE lockdown the moment a biowar agent is discovered. That is NOT what happened with Covid, but it took politicians way too long to decide to finally lock down, when the only thing they could achieve is to keep healthcare overloads from happening.
Had they acted on the very first indications, which turned up in January 2020, a lot less lockdowns would have been necessary and it would have been possible to eradicate it until summer 2020. Apart, it was almost eradicated when foolishly governments went weak and reopened things about a month too early on public pressure.
Peter wrote:
What is that?
Just means looking at the whole situation, considering from multiple perspectives. “Looking at the situation in the round”, etc.
I thought you had more English-isms than any English speaker, I found one that escaped you!
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Had they acted on the very first indications, which turned up in January 2020, a lot less lockdowns would have been necessary and it would have been possible to eradicate it until summer 2020.
No it wouldn’t.
I asked particularly about Pubs, restaurants but perhaps I.should have asked about all centres of hospitality.
Seeing things in the round is just politician speak for “we haven’t a clue what to do so we will keep it under review”.
gallois wrote:
Seeing things in the round is just politician speak for “we haven’t a clue what to do so we will keep it under review”.
Generally I would much prefer they did that as opposed to taking some drastic and ill-advised action because they feel they need to be seen to be doing something (or more likely they wet themselves at the thought of exerting power).
The ‘do nothing’ option is under-rated, in many situations.
