3 ms·

> And Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, Iran, etc etc This assertion grossly misrepresents the facts. Italy and Spain were one of the first count

> And Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, Iran, etc etc This assertion grossly misrepresents the facts. Italy and Spain were one of the first countries after China to be massively affected by covid19. They endured a fast and entirely unexpected rise in infection rates during a period where WHO was still repeating the Chinese regime's claims that covid19 didn't spread among humans. Still, once they started to track the disease and register hundreds of of deaths in patients infected with the disease, they acted decisively. Not only regarding quarantine and social distancing but also putting up massive field hospitals like Madrid's IFEMA hospital. Spain and Italy's government did not overreacted or downplayed the threat. The UK, US, Brazil and Russia's government started by either pretending it did not existed, assumed they could ride the wave while doing nothing at all, or that everything would just kill off a bunch of people and vanish without any need to worry. Arguably, the government of Brazil is still in the denial stage. That approach to an epidemic is world's apart than the approach taken by either Spain or Italy or France or Portugal or Greece or Germany or any other country in the world whose government decided to act responsibly and looking after their citizens best interests.

geogra4 6y ago
>They endured a fast and entirely unexpected rise in infection rates during a period where WHO was still repeating the Chinese regime's claims that covid19 didn't spread among humans. Do you have any evidence from that? China locked down 11 million people in Wuhan on January 23[0] which was a whole week before the first cases showed up in Italy[1]. [0]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who-idUSKBN1ZM1G9 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who-idUSKBN1... [1]: https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_gennaio_30/coronavirus-italia-corona-9d6dc436-4343-11ea-bdc8-faf1f56f19b7.shtml https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_gennaio_30/coronavirus-i...
- morelisp 6y ago
  There is some current US right-wing propaganda that China was lying to (in some versions, paying off or running) the WHO to intentionally spread the virus. It's effective because most people don't know the difference between "no confirmed spread between humans" (which the WHO said early in the pandemic) and "confirmed no spread between humans" (which they did not, but is what the propaganda claims was said).
  - anewdirection 6y ago
    1. You yourself are muddling facts, and 2. the left wing seems to parrot it as well. The fact is, there was some some oddness between china and the WHO, be it influence, manipulated data or just the appearance of such, it is still not ignorant for the layperson to be suspicious. The problem lies where suspicions become vile forum fanfic, and others start taking it seriously. The answer is not to point at any side, but at ourselves for promoting the division of our humanity.
wolfhumble 6y ago
I agree about Italy, but I don't agree about Spain. By March 8th 2020 there were 366 deaths in Italy and over 7000 registered infected, according to: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ The same day the Spanish government let hundred of thousands take part in the 8th of March International Women's Day rallies all over Spain: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-womens-day-spain-idUSKBN20V0ZJ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-womens-day-spain-idUSKBN2... According to the Reuters article there were already 589 confirmed cases in Spain at that time, 202 of them in Madrid. Since Spain did not react earlier I don't think it is right to say the following about Spain (not referring to Italy here): "Spain and Italy's government did not overreacted or downplayed the threat".
- Fargren 6y ago
  Spain was following the indications of the OMS at that point. The pandemic was not declared until March 11th, three days after Woman's Day. By default, anyone can rally in Spain at any point. They don't seek authorization for the government, they have it by default. It can only be revoked and not granted. While there probably was some thought given to preventing the rallies, given what the OMS was saying at the time it looked like an over reaction. It was, of course, an error in hindsight, but I don't think it's indicative of a big failure of leadership.
  - narag 6y ago
    I'm afraid politics have been a big part of bad decisions. There were enough cues to stop the rally and they still encouraged people to go there. Not that the other side isn't being as idiotic now, asking for raising the restrictions immediately. But there's no excuse for March 8th. Different agencies had clearly warned what was happening and were ignored. Edit: for fargren, what I mean encouraging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Juy7YnqCTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Juy7YnqCTQ For extrangers: it's the vice-prime minister saying on tv that all women should go to the rallies because "it's a matter of live or death" to them. Indeed. There are many facts that have been arising later, like ministry of health forbidding doctors to attend conventions, police acquiring masks massively and several medical agencies and organizations advicing against the rallies. It was a typical case of management discarding what every technician under them was telling them for politics. Edit 2: please don't adopt the typical partisan position with "the opposition was also organizing rallies". No they weren't. There was one party that had its national convention around the same days. Still, it isn't comparable. The government had the direct access to the official sources of information and ignored and hid them. This isn't a right vs. left matter. More to the left is labour minister Ribera and she was correct to inform the public of how lockdown scenarios would affect workplaces. No good deed goes unpunished, everybody attacked her from all sides... until a few days later it became obvious that what she said was unavoidable. In the right wing, Ayuso was correctly willing to wait a couple of weeks more to open Madrid, when her coalition partner Aguado forced her to ask for immediate unlock. Central government didn't consent, so change of position was useless, but now there's a left for lockdown, right for unlock division, that's it. I won't go into the masks issue. It's too painful to just recall.
blackoil 6y ago
Italy had 79 total cases on 22nd Feb, a full month after China confirmed H2H and went into full lockdown. China had 10k+ cases by 31st Jan, confirming the exponential growth of the virus. Countries had ample time to come together and act. They were caught blind because they were actively looking away. Look at the entire South East Asia, Taiwan, South Korea to see what proactive measures look like.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Italy began engaging similar proactive measures on 23 Feb, including lockdowns of towns with confirmed spread. We just don't remember it that way because their proactive measures didn't work.

geogra4 6y ago

>They endured a fast and entirely unexpected rise in infection rates during a period where WHO was still repeating the Chinese regime's claims that covid19 didn't spread among humans. Do you have any evidence from that? China locked down 11 million people in Wuhan on January 23[0] which was a whole week before the first cases showed up in Italy[1]. [0]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who-idUSKBN1ZM1G9 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who-idUSKBN1... [1]: https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_gennaio_30/coronavirus-italia-corona-9d6dc436-4343-11ea-bdc8-faf1f56f19b7.shtml https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_gennaio_30/coronavirus-i...

morelisp 6y ago
There is some current US right-wing propaganda that China was lying to (in some versions, paying off or running) the WHO to intentionally spread the virus. It's effective because most people don't know the difference between "no confirmed spread between humans" (which the WHO said early in the pandemic) and "confirmed no spread between humans" (which they did not, but is what the propaganda claims was said).
- anewdirection 6y ago
  1. You yourself are muddling facts, and 2. the left wing seems to parrot it as well. The fact is, there was some some oddness between china and the WHO, be it influence, manipulated data or just the appearance of such, it is still not ignorant for the layperson to be suspicious. The problem lies where suspicions become vile forum fanfic, and others start taking it seriously. The answer is not to point at any side, but at ourselves for promoting the division of our humanity.

wolfhumble 6y ago

I agree about Italy, but I don't agree about Spain. By March 8th 2020 there were 366 deaths in Italy and over 7000 registered infected, according to: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/ The same day the Spanish government let hundred of thousands take part in the 8th of March International Women's Day rallies all over Spain: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-womens-day-spain-idUSKBN20V0ZJ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-womens-day-spain-idUSKBN2... According to the Reuters article there were already 589 confirmed cases in Spain at that time, 202 of them in Madrid. Since Spain did not react earlier I don't think it is right to say the following about Spain (not referring to Italy here): "Spain and Italy's government did not overreacted or downplayed the threat".

Fargren 6y ago
Spain was following the indications of the OMS at that point. The pandemic was not declared until March 11th, three days after Woman's Day. By default, anyone can rally in Spain at any point. They don't seek authorization for the government, they have it by default. It can only be revoked and not granted. While there probably was some thought given to preventing the rallies, given what the OMS was saying at the time it looked like an over reaction. It was, of course, an error in hindsight, but I don't think it's indicative of a big failure of leadership.
- narag 6y ago
  I'm afraid politics have been a big part of bad decisions. There were enough cues to stop the rally and they still encouraged people to go there. Not that the other side isn't being as idiotic now, asking for raising the restrictions immediately. But there's no excuse for March 8th. Different agencies had clearly warned what was happening and were ignored. Edit: for fargren, what I mean encouraging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Juy7YnqCTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Juy7YnqCTQ For extrangers: it's the vice-prime minister saying on tv that all women should go to the rallies because "it's a matter of live or death" to them. Indeed. There are many facts that have been arising later, like ministry of health forbidding doctors to attend conventions, police acquiring masks massively and several medical agencies and organizations advicing against the rallies. It was a typical case of management discarding what every technician under them was telling them for politics. Edit 2: please don't adopt the typical partisan position with "the opposition was also organizing rallies". No they weren't. There was one party that had its national convention around the same days. Still, it isn't comparable. The government had the direct access to the official sources of information and ignored and hid them. This isn't a right vs. left matter. More to the left is labour minister Ribera and she was correct to inform the public of how lockdown scenarios would affect workplaces. No good deed goes unpunished, everybody attacked her from all sides... until a few days later it became obvious that what she said was unavoidable. In the right wing, Ayuso was correctly willing to wait a couple of weeks more to open Madrid, when her coalition partner Aguado forced her to ask for immediate unlock. Central government didn't consent, so change of position was useless, but now there's a left for lockdown, right for unlock division, that's it. I won't go into the masks issue. It's too painful to just recall.

blackoil 6y ago

Italy had 79 total cases on 22nd Feb, a full month after China confirmed H2H and went into full lockdown. China had 10k+ cases by 31st Jan, confirming the exponential growth of the virus. Countries had ample time to come together and act. They were caught blind because they were actively looking away. Look at the entire South East Asia, Taiwan, South Korea to see what proactive measures look like.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Italy began engaging similar proactive measures on 23 Feb, including lockdowns of towns with confirmed spread. We just don't remember it that way because their proactive measures didn't work.