8 ms·

As an EU citizen, the US response to COVID-19 really is laughable. It's just that a lot of people die due to this ideological "but muh freedom" mentality.

jakeogh 6y ago
You can get fined for a dog trick, you dont have anything resembling freedom of speech, and your class system is easiest to see if you check who can defend themselves with useful tools. Lecturing us is pretty rich. https://video.foxnews.com/v/6157380317001/ https://video.foxnews.com/v/6157380317001/ CDC #'s (yes, yes 2 weeks old yawn) https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
TeMPOraL 6y ago
As a EU citizen, I agree in general, but I wouldn't be so quick to judge it in this context. I'm betting that by the time the dust settles, we'll have plenty of similar stories uncovered all across Europe. Cooking books for various $reasons seem to be standard practice of (almost?) every government in this pandemic.
- unishark 6y ago
  People like to define the US based on the worst thing any of the 50 states do, then compare to Europe by picking out what the most successful country there is doing.
nickpp 6y ago
As an EU citizen, I am still waiting for the EU response to COVID-19.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  There won't be any, because EU is by design and vote not meant to have any response. We're not United Federation of Europe; the EU explicitly doesn't dictate medical policy across member states.
  - bzb3 6y ago
    They dictate policies of all kinds that all members are meant to include in their local laws in a reasonable amount of time.
    - idrae 6y ago
      Yes, but the areas over which the EU has a say are clearly defined by the member states and healthcare isn't one of them. So the fact that the EU creates policies on other topics isn't relevant to the COVID-19 situation.
  - nickpp 6y ago
    I'm closing 3 popups on every website I visit due to those not-policies not-dictated by not-EU. Now I realize that cookies and IP-addresses gathered by Facebook are truly important things, unlike this tiny "flu-like" virus, but still...
    - idrae 6y ago
      You're not being genuine here. The grand parent clearly states medical policies, which are not up to the EU to determine. That the EU has the power to dictate policies in other areas is not relevant.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      You're closing 3 popups on every website because the authors of those websites are huge assholes. There is no need for a consent popup on a website unless the website is doing something shady. Perhaps the greatest failure of GDPR is that this point needs to be explained ad nauseam. Anyway, this is irrelevant. EU was explicitly not meant to rule on healthcare-related matters for its member nations, so it's not ruling. That's a fact of the matter. Perhaps after all of this, people will vote to include healthcare into the EU's purview - and only then we'll be able to criticize its response to the next crisis.
      - nickpp 6y ago
        No, those website authors are NOT assholes. They are providing awesome services I appreciate and take advantage of every day, otherwise I wouldn't visit them. I don't know what you think they are doing shady, but it never bothered me. Until some EU-asshole decided to protect me from myself, I guess. When everybody is breaking the law maybe it is the law that is broken, eh?
- idrae 6y ago
  It's well established within the EU that healthcare is a handled on a national level, so the EU won't respond to COVID-19 like the US does on a federal level. The countries within the EU all have responded to COVID-19 in some way or another.
  - rurban 6y ago
    More like the other. In the western states whistleblowers on cases like this are immediately punished and the documents are being put down. While in the more eastern states even some government agencies are independent enough to criticise wrong policies or coverups. The few German whistleblowers were immediately silenced, in Austria there are several, still open in the public. The best are internal documents about the government expert commission, which had to resign, as the chancellor mostly cared about publicity, not so about facts or expertise. I'm sure the same happened in Germany, here a high ranking interior ministry manager complained about media damage control of the culprit politicians, which would essentially cause more deaths than less. Doctors don't dare to speek out to keep their jobs. The government expert board is wholly incompentent coming up with fantasy projections every new week which is immediately proven wrong when the real data is coming out in the next week. The gathered raw data is not public, kept private, only the wrong models and projections are being published daily. There are exact and good models by competing universities, but they are not used. Institutes are playing politics, not science. Government offices are not independent.
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      Even if that were true - some evidence would be useful - you're still comparing a country which has handled Covid well with a country which is handling it very poorly, but is claiming to have handled it well as a poor substitute. While silencing critics. The US is now approaching Soviet levels of media manipulation, with critical facts being covered up, science being ignored or rewritten, and critics being demoted or fired for purely ideological reasons - specifically for questioning the incoherent whims of the Supreme Leader.
- DanBC 6y ago
  The EU response to covid-19 is in vaccine development (funded by the EU and helped by freedom of movement for scientists); temporary restrictions on travel into the EU for non-essential purposes; coordinated effort around reducing restrictions; joint procurement and provision of medical equipment and PPE; increased production of PPE; €160m for startups with innovative ideas to tackle covid-19; an EU wide data platform; support for businesses during and after lockdowns; support for education; relaxation of state aid rules to allow governments to support businesses; coordination of freight transport across Europe with priority for items in high need; etc etc. There's a bunch more stuff.
marvin 6y ago
As a Northern European, I wouldn't say that e.g. France's official response gives me the warm and fuzzies. With literal criminal prosecution for moving in a safe way 20 kilometers from your house in a car, or even being outside at all for longer than the prescribed short walk, 100 meters away from anyone, government-led propaganda discrediting legitimate medical research in Marseilles, largely state-affiliated media with ownership stakes in Gilead fuelling criticism at the same research (while family members of politicians receive the exact same treatment that's being vilified), PPE stocks shipped away to China in the early stages of the pandemic... Lockdown orders delayed in the face of all evidence in order to complete local elections, with the chief of police attributing the resulting spike in deaths afterwards to people violating the quarantine that was not yet in place, a police force that only shortly before the epidemic was beating up and tear-gassing nurses that were protesting their working conditions, a government that, as in the HIV/AIDS epidemic, takes the opportunity to pass laws protecting them against persecution even if it turns out they were objectively responsible for bad things that happened... The federal response in the US has been absolutely laughable, and there's plenty of stuff to criticise on a state level as well, but there's blood on the hands of the authorities in parts of Europe as well.
atemerev 6y ago
I am an epidemiologist working in Switzerland, and while I regret that Americans (and sometimes Europeans) ignore the quarantine, I wouldn't expect total submission to the government directives. Economy is important, the issue is not single sided, political freedom is the most important thing we have in the Western world. People are free to ignore what their doctors are telling them, for example. What is getting me sad is the idea that there is no medical reasoning to introduce the restrictions. There _are_ valid medical reasons. Ask any hospital worker.
dang 6y ago
Nationalistic flamewar is not welcome on HN regardless of which nation you are for or against. Please do not post like this here again. Edit: would you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments generally? You've unfortunately been doing that repeatedly, and we eventually ban such accounts. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

jakeogh 6y ago

You can get fined for a dog trick, you dont have anything resembling freedom of speech, and your class system is easiest to see if you check who can defend themselves with useful tools. Lecturing us is pretty rich. https://video.foxnews.com/v/6157380317001/ https://video.foxnews.com/v/6157380317001/ CDC #'s (yes, yes 2 weeks old yawn) https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

TeMPOraL 6y ago

As a EU citizen, I agree in general, but I wouldn't be so quick to judge it in this context. I'm betting that by the time the dust settles, we'll have plenty of similar stories uncovered all across Europe. Cooking books for various $reasons seem to be standard practice of (almost?) every government in this pandemic.

unishark 6y ago
People like to define the US based on the worst thing any of the 50 states do, then compare to Europe by picking out what the most successful country there is doing.

nickpp 6y ago

As an EU citizen, I am still waiting for the EU response to COVID-19.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
There won't be any, because EU is by design and vote not meant to have any response. We're not United Federation of Europe; the EU explicitly doesn't dictate medical policy across member states.
- bzb3 6y ago
  They dictate policies of all kinds that all members are meant to include in their local laws in a reasonable amount of time.
  - idrae 6y ago
    Yes, but the areas over which the EU has a say are clearly defined by the member states and healthcare isn't one of them. So the fact that the EU creates policies on other topics isn't relevant to the COVID-19 situation.
- nickpp 6y ago
  I'm closing 3 popups on every website I visit due to those not-policies not-dictated by not-EU. Now I realize that cookies and IP-addresses gathered by Facebook are truly important things, unlike this tiny "flu-like" virus, but still...
  - idrae 6y ago
    You're not being genuine here. The grand parent clearly states medical policies, which are not up to the EU to determine. That the EU has the power to dictate policies in other areas is not relevant.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    You're closing 3 popups on every website because the authors of those websites are huge assholes. There is no need for a consent popup on a website unless the website is doing something shady. Perhaps the greatest failure of GDPR is that this point needs to be explained ad nauseam. Anyway, this is irrelevant. EU was explicitly not meant to rule on healthcare-related matters for its member nations, so it's not ruling. That's a fact of the matter. Perhaps after all of this, people will vote to include healthcare into the EU's purview - and only then we'll be able to criticize its response to the next crisis.
    - nickpp 6y ago
      No, those website authors are NOT assholes. They are providing awesome services I appreciate and take advantage of every day, otherwise I wouldn't visit them. I don't know what you think they are doing shady, but it never bothered me. Until some EU-asshole decided to protect me from myself, I guess. When everybody is breaking the law maybe it is the law that is broken, eh?
idrae 6y ago
It's well established within the EU that healthcare is a handled on a national level, so the EU won't respond to COVID-19 like the US does on a federal level. The countries within the EU all have responded to COVID-19 in some way or another.
- rurban 6y ago
  More like the other. In the western states whistleblowers on cases like this are immediately punished and the documents are being put down. While in the more eastern states even some government agencies are independent enough to criticise wrong policies or coverups. The few German whistleblowers were immediately silenced, in Austria there are several, still open in the public. The best are internal documents about the government expert commission, which had to resign, as the chancellor mostly cared about publicity, not so about facts or expertise. I'm sure the same happened in Germany, here a high ranking interior ministry manager complained about media damage control of the culprit politicians, which would essentially cause more deaths than less. Doctors don't dare to speek out to keep their jobs. The government expert board is wholly incompentent coming up with fantasy projections every new week which is immediately proven wrong when the real data is coming out in the next week. The gathered raw data is not public, kept private, only the wrong models and projections are being published daily. There are exact and good models by competing universities, but they are not used. Institutes are playing politics, not science. Government offices are not independent.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Even if that were true - some evidence would be useful - you're still comparing a country which has handled Covid well with a country which is handling it very poorly, but is claiming to have handled it well as a poor substitute. While silencing critics. The US is now approaching Soviet levels of media manipulation, with critical facts being covered up, science being ignored or rewritten, and critics being demoted or fired for purely ideological reasons - specifically for questioning the incoherent whims of the Supreme Leader.
DanBC 6y ago
The EU response to covid-19 is in vaccine development (funded by the EU and helped by freedom of movement for scientists); temporary restrictions on travel into the EU for non-essential purposes; coordinated effort around reducing restrictions; joint procurement and provision of medical equipment and PPE; increased production of PPE; €160m for startups with innovative ideas to tackle covid-19; an EU wide data platform; support for businesses during and after lockdowns; support for education; relaxation of state aid rules to allow governments to support businesses; coordination of freight transport across Europe with priority for items in high need; etc etc. There's a bunch more stuff.

marvin 6y ago

As a Northern European, I wouldn't say that e.g. France's official response gives me the warm and fuzzies. With literal criminal prosecution for moving in a safe way 20 kilometers from your house in a car, or even being outside at all for longer than the prescribed short walk, 100 meters away from anyone, government-led propaganda discrediting legitimate medical research in Marseilles, largely state-affiliated media with ownership stakes in Gilead fuelling criticism at the same research (while family members of politicians receive the exact same treatment that's being vilified), PPE stocks shipped away to China in the early stages of the pandemic... Lockdown orders delayed in the face of all evidence in order to complete local elections, with the chief of police attributing the resulting spike in deaths afterwards to people violating the quarantine that was not yet in place, a police force that only shortly before the epidemic was beating up and tear-gassing nurses that were protesting their working conditions, a government that, as in the HIV/AIDS epidemic, takes the opportunity to pass laws protecting them against persecution even if it turns out they were objectively responsible for bad things that happened... The federal response in the US has been absolutely laughable, and there's plenty of stuff to criticise on a state level as well, but there's blood on the hands of the authorities in parts of Europe as well.

atemerev 6y ago

I am an epidemiologist working in Switzerland, and while I regret that Americans (and sometimes Europeans) ignore the quarantine, I wouldn't expect total submission to the government directives. Economy is important, the issue is not single sided, political freedom is the most important thing we have in the Western world. People are free to ignore what their doctors are telling them, for example. What is getting me sad is the idea that there is no medical reasoning to introduce the restrictions. There _are_ valid medical reasons. Ask any hospital worker.

dang 6y ago

Nationalistic flamewar is not welcome on HN regardless of which nation you are for or against. Please do not post like this here again. Edit: would you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments generally? You've unfortunately been doing that repeatedly, and we eventually ban such accounts. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.