3 ms·

I've been wondering when these chickens would come home to roost. There are a few countries who have heavily touted how many vaccines they've agreed to buy, but

by Exmoor 6y ago

I've been wondering when these chickens would come home to roost. There are a few countries who have heavily touted how many vaccines they've agreed to buy, but aren't being nearly as vocal about when they're going to actually have them in hand. Having contracts to vaccinate everyone in your country 4 times over doesn't do much good if you don't get those people any dose for another 9 months. It now seems plausible that countries like the US and and UK could have vaccinated everyone who wants to be by the beginning of summer. There are governments who have been fairly smug about their handling of the crisis who may be many months behind that schedule.

bluGill 6y ago
Only a few governments can be smug about how they handled Covid, and they are all in Asia (counting New Zealand and Australia as Asia, which is hand wavy). Even those who can make such a claim are still only one mistake from it all crashing down. Europe likes to think they are doing better than the US, but the truth is they are not very different.
- Gravityloss 6y ago
  There are very different countries within Europe.
  - corty 6y ago
    Mishandling of COVID is on the EU to a large part. Not only for the vaccine procurement. The EU also, for a very long time, actively prevented meaningful border inspections and border lockdowns that would have prevented a lot of spillover from hard-hit to not-so-hard-hit countries. E.g. in county-level charts you can see which ones border on high- and low-COVID neighbours.
    - simongray 6y ago
      What are you talking about? Countries have been closing borders left and right, the EU hasn't prevented this.
      - saiya-jin 6y ago
        That's a joke - even during the strictest lockdowns, you could travel easily across europe if wanted. Yes often you end up in quarantine at the destination, that is largely not enforced so just best hope. But if you cross 5 states while getting to your destination, they just let you through. Has been like that since... whole covid. We traveled from west to east and back 4x during 2020 through 4 countries, never any issue, mostly no border controls. The only exception was when French imposed strict lockdown and limited people to 1km around their house. That lasted couple of weeks. That's it. Even right now you can travel freely within EU.
        simongray 6y ago
        Whatever, sow your disinformation. Countries are free to impose border controls and impose any restrictions they wish. The same was the case five years ago during the migrant crisis. My country (Denmark) closed its borders both times, with no objections from the EU - probably because setting up temporary border controls is explicitly allowed in the Schengen Treaty. Maybe your country is laissez-faire about it, but in that case all the blame is on your shitty government, not some phantom EU shadow government.
        T-A 6y ago
        This is not correct. Travel restrictions, not only at borders between EU countries but even within countries have been common ever since the first lockdown in Italy (I remind you that the European chapter of the crisis started with a couple of counties in northern Italy getting cordoned off, before the whole country eventually locked down). See https://www.dw.com/en/european-travel-restrictions-non-essential-travel-curbed/a-56350272 https://www.dw.com/en/european-travel-restrictions-non-essen... for the current status.
  - tomgp 6y ago
    If you only look at European countries then there looks like there’sa lot of variance in outcome. Taking a broader view including the aforementioned Asian (plus Aus and NZ) countries Europe all looks pretty much equally bad in terms of results, even if their policy interventions have been quite different.
- vinay427 6y ago
  > Europe likes to think they are doing better than the US, but the truth is they are not very different. That's a bit of an understatement. It's just ignorant nationalism if the numbers are often independently audited and widely available online. The US will probably have a higher death rate than the European average, with some countries faring better and a few worse, but will probably maintain its head start in vaccinations given the later rollout and supply issues in the EU. Hopefully, both sides of the pond will be back to full working order this year.

by Exmoor 6y ago

bluGill 6y ago

Only a few governments can be smug about how they handled Covid, and they are all in Asia (counting New Zealand and Australia as Asia, which is hand wavy). Even those who can make such a claim are still only one mistake from it all crashing down. Europe likes to think they are doing better than the US, but the truth is they are not very different.

Gravityloss 6y ago
There are very different countries within Europe.
- corty 6y ago
  Mishandling of COVID is on the EU to a large part. Not only for the vaccine procurement. The EU also, for a very long time, actively prevented meaningful border inspections and border lockdowns that would have prevented a lot of spillover from hard-hit to not-so-hard-hit countries. E.g. in county-level charts you can see which ones border on high- and low-COVID neighbours.
  - simongray 6y ago
    What are you talking about? Countries have been closing borders left and right, the EU hasn't prevented this.
    - saiya-jin 6y ago
      That's a joke - even during the strictest lockdowns, you could travel easily across europe if wanted. Yes often you end up in quarantine at the destination, that is largely not enforced so just best hope. But if you cross 5 states while getting to your destination, they just let you through. Has been like that since... whole covid. We traveled from west to east and back 4x during 2020 through 4 countries, never any issue, mostly no border controls. The only exception was when French imposed strict lockdown and limited people to 1km around their house. That lasted couple of weeks. That's it. Even right now you can travel freely within EU.
      - simongray 6y ago
        Whatever, sow your disinformation. Countries are free to impose border controls and impose any restrictions they wish. The same was the case five years ago during the migrant crisis. My country (Denmark) closed its borders both times, with no objections from the EU - probably because setting up temporary border controls is explicitly allowed in the Schengen Treaty. Maybe your country is laissez-faire about it, but in that case all the blame is on your shitty government, not some phantom EU shadow government.
      - T-A 6y ago
        This is not correct. Travel restrictions, not only at borders between EU countries but even within countries have been common ever since the first lockdown in Italy (I remind you that the European chapter of the crisis started with a couple of counties in northern Italy getting cordoned off, before the whole country eventually locked down). See https://www.dw.com/en/european-travel-restrictions-non-essential-travel-curbed/a-56350272 https://www.dw.com/en/european-travel-restrictions-non-essen... for the current status.
- tomgp 6y ago
  If you only look at European countries then there looks like there’sa lot of variance in outcome. Taking a broader view including the aforementioned Asian (plus Aus and NZ) countries Europe all looks pretty much equally bad in terms of results, even if their policy interventions have been quite different.
vinay427 6y ago
> Europe likes to think they are doing better than the US, but the truth is they are not very different. That's a bit of an understatement. It's just ignorant nationalism if the numbers are often independently audited and widely available online. The US will probably have a higher death rate than the European average, with some countries faring better and a few worse, but will probably maintain its head start in vaccinations given the later rollout and supply issues in the EU. Hopefully, both sides of the pond will be back to full working order this year.