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I am not a huge defender of China, but it is disingenuous to claim that not realizing the import of the virus in the first 10 days is anywhere near the magnitud

by MiroF 7y ago

I am not a huge defender of China, but it is disingenuous to claim that not realizing the import of the virus in the first 10 days is anywhere near the magnitude of the Italian government's failure.

bonzini 7y ago
The Italian government as the first Western country facing an outbreak was dealing with the prisoner's paradox. If you are the only one instituting strong lockdown measures you are the only one paying the economic price. It was wrong, but it's understandable that the government hoped that the infection could be contained to two clusters. The other European governments and the US on the other hand have absolutely no excuse.
- iforgotpassword 7y ago
  So you're arbitrarily suggesting that being the first western country is special. China's economy was already affected at that point. In our global world, why doesn't that count? By your logic, I could also say the US doesn't do enough for obvious reasons: They're the first western non-European country affected. They don't want to be the only ones (after China and Italy) paying the economic price.
  - bonzini 7y ago
    It's special in that the Western world and their economies are much more interconnected and fragile than China or Iran, and South Korea was considered special due to the sect. It's also special in that they didn't have any experience with SARS. Besides Italy did start to apply lockdown measures to specific towns, and closed schools when they had 20 cases. It was insufficient but at least it was an attempt. The US has had clusters out of control in Washington state for almost as long and the federal agencies were actually trying to silence them. And another in NYC, which is basically the economic powerhouse of the United States.
    - iforgotpassword 7y ago
      > It was insufficient but at least it was an attempt. And it should've been clear with all the data we had that it would be. Don't get me wrong, I don't think any of the other western countries does it right. Italy got unlucky because it was the first country where shit hit the fan. Might as well have been Germany if they wouldn't have gotten lucky in stopping the spread from their Bavaria case. But I fully stand by my point anyways that no country in the west did a good job, and points like yours are weak excuses at best, since it basically boils down to "well we're delaying taking down our economy a bit and make sure the rest of Europe suffers too, so we're not as ducked in comparison to them." There's certainly some logic to that, but it shows how shallow our advanced civilized world really is.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - bonzini 7y ago
        > But I fully stand by my point anyways that no country in the west did a good job FWIW I totally agree. > Might as well have been Germany if they wouldn't have gotten lucky in stopping the spread from their Bavaria case. Yes, that's what Italy was hoping to do. They didn't realize how contagious this thing is.
    - kerng 7y ago
      It's interesting that the encouragement for self isolation in Washington came from companies like Microsoft about 10 days ago. That raised awareness quite a bit.

by MiroF 7y ago

I am not a huge defender of China, but it is disingenuous to claim that not realizing the import of the virus in the first 10 days is anywhere near the magnitude of the Italian government's failure.

bonzini 7y ago

The Italian government as the first Western country facing an outbreak was dealing with the prisoner's paradox. If you are the only one instituting strong lockdown measures you are the only one paying the economic price. It was wrong, but it's understandable that the government hoped that the infection could be contained to two clusters. The other European governments and the US on the other hand have absolutely no excuse.

iforgotpassword 7y ago
So you're arbitrarily suggesting that being the first western country is special. China's economy was already affected at that point. In our global world, why doesn't that count? By your logic, I could also say the US doesn't do enough for obvious reasons: They're the first western non-European country affected. They don't want to be the only ones (after China and Italy) paying the economic price.
- bonzini 7y ago
  It's special in that the Western world and their economies are much more interconnected and fragile than China or Iran, and South Korea was considered special due to the sect. It's also special in that they didn't have any experience with SARS. Besides Italy did start to apply lockdown measures to specific towns, and closed schools when they had 20 cases. It was insufficient but at least it was an attempt. The US has had clusters out of control in Washington state for almost as long and the federal agencies were actually trying to silence them. And another in NYC, which is basically the economic powerhouse of the United States.
  - iforgotpassword 7y ago
    > It was insufficient but at least it was an attempt. And it should've been clear with all the data we had that it would be. Don't get me wrong, I don't think any of the other western countries does it right. Italy got unlucky because it was the first country where shit hit the fan. Might as well have been Germany if they wouldn't have gotten lucky in stopping the spread from their Bavaria case. But I fully stand by my point anyways that no country in the west did a good job, and points like yours are weak excuses at best, since it basically boils down to "well we're delaying taking down our economy a bit and make sure the rest of Europe suffers too, so we're not as ducked in comparison to them." There's certainly some logic to that, but it shows how shallow our advanced civilized world really is.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - bonzini 7y ago
      > But I fully stand by my point anyways that no country in the west did a good job FWIW I totally agree. > Might as well have been Germany if they wouldn't have gotten lucky in stopping the spread from their Bavaria case. Yes, that's what Italy was hoping to do. They didn't realize how contagious this thing is.
  - kerng 7y ago
    It's interesting that the encouragement for self isolation in Washington came from companies like Microsoft about 10 days ago. That raised awareness quite a bit.