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Governments really need to start getting their shit together and stop blaming each other for their own mishandling (this will never happen I know). There is no

Governments really need to start getting their shit together and stop blaming each other for their own mishandling (this will never happen I know). There is no point in trying to blame each other or cook up new regulations (enforcing regulation, particularly international regulation is just never going to happen). Quite frankly,most governments should seriously start considering how they will defend their citizens against biological threats. This means governments should do the following: 1. Build vaccine manufacturing capabilities. These are as important as other aspects of physical armed force defense. Every country should try to have their own facility given how vaccine supplies are being weaponised by certain powers. 2. Build up hospital capacity and make healthcare affordable. Train more doctors and nurses. In particular nurses are very important and generally require less training, so I would focus on building up a reserve of nurses. Pandemics will only get worse with our aging population. Our beds:human ratio is terrible even in the most advanced countries. 3. Invest in R&D towards breakthrough technologies in testing. There are currently tests like Breathonix's breathe based test that can detect a covid infection in 2 minutes with pretty decent sensitivity. 4. Build a medical reserves corps. This would be a group of citizens who voluntarily are trained in basic first aid. 5. Build more oxygen plants/equip hospitals and ambulances with oxygen concentrators. 6. Conduct drills like the Army does that simulate such an emergency. Practice emergency buying. Keep your medical corps on their toes. 7. Make sure every god damn citizen has a bank account so you can transfer emergency funds into the account in the event of a major economic disruption. 8. Estimate the financial impact and provide backup options for people who work in the service industry. If you were an air hostess for instance, you would have some basic training in medical emergency handling. In the event of a pandemic, your income source will be hurt. However, the government would definitely be scrambling for nurses and contact tracers. These are jobs that could be taken up temporarily during the duration of the pandemic. 9. Work on technolgies and training for deployment of field hospitals. None of these actions should change irregardless of whether the vaccine is a lab leak or not a lab leak.

morpheos137 5y ago
The biggest thing that made the pandemic so bad outside of china was large fractions of the population not taking it seriously. That said this pandemic was objectively not that bad by historical standards.
- accurrent 5y ago
  Actually, I would see this as a shifting of blame from the government's perspective. Anyone who runs a government should know that legislation will be broken. People will not comply with orders. Thus the government should implement extremely simple and transparent legislation - something that most governments tend not to do. This legislation should be possible to enforce. One of the best ways to gain empathy is to involve citizens in the process. Rather than blame the citizens, start by thanking those who do follow orders. Involve citizens in the process. I'm sure we could have used a lot more contact tracers and swabbers during the pandemic, how about training unemployed citizens and using them for this task? I live in Singapore where due to our size and wealth we have been able to manage the pandemic, arguably better than most countries. Its not only the fact that Singapore enforces legislation that helped us. There are many instances where legislation has been broken, and not all cases will be prosecuted. But one thing that worked well is the government treated us well. The moment they announced a "circuit breaker" (not lockdown cause that sounds scary) the government accompanied that with multiple payouts through the year to ensure people have basic sustenance. Further, the prime minister thanked us for complying with orders rather than picking on the few that did not comply with orders. Also we lived though SARS, and every now and then get scares from the Avian Flu so pandemic response is something we have lready been conditioned bu.
  - morpheos137 5y ago
    My point was not to assign blame but rather observe that the difference in the way the popuations reacted. Western populations likely did not take the pandemic as seriously as say China or Japan because of mixed messages from government, conspiratorial thinking, and exceptionalism. For conspiratorial thinking have a look at godlikeproductions.com countless threads about virus fake, virus harmless, masks don't work, vaccines kill. I am confident that godlikeproductions.com has killed far more people via covid than gab or parler did through "insurrection" or racism. And yet cloudflare continues to provide services to godlikeproductions.com It is almost as if they don't care as long as those dying are not san francisco elites.
    - accurrent 5y ago
AlgorithmicTime 5y ago
The big problem was GOVERNMENT, though. Seriously, the mRNA vaccines were created in a few days once the seriousness of the virus was realized. And then held up for 9 months of testing because the government wouldn't allow challenge trials. We could have been vaccinating people a few months into the pandemic and instead we waited nearly a year to roll out the vaccine at scale.

morpheos137 5y ago

The biggest thing that made the pandemic so bad outside of china was large fractions of the population not taking it seriously. That said this pandemic was objectively not that bad by historical standards.

accurrent 5y ago
Actually, I would see this as a shifting of blame from the government's perspective. Anyone who runs a government should know that legislation will be broken. People will not comply with orders. Thus the government should implement extremely simple and transparent legislation - something that most governments tend not to do. This legislation should be possible to enforce. One of the best ways to gain empathy is to involve citizens in the process. Rather than blame the citizens, start by thanking those who do follow orders. Involve citizens in the process. I'm sure we could have used a lot more contact tracers and swabbers during the pandemic, how about training unemployed citizens and using them for this task? I live in Singapore where due to our size and wealth we have been able to manage the pandemic, arguably better than most countries. Its not only the fact that Singapore enforces legislation that helped us. There are many instances where legislation has been broken, and not all cases will be prosecuted. But one thing that worked well is the government treated us well. The moment they announced a "circuit breaker" (not lockdown cause that sounds scary) the government accompanied that with multiple payouts through the year to ensure people have basic sustenance. Further, the prime minister thanked us for complying with orders rather than picking on the few that did not comply with orders. Also we lived though SARS, and every now and then get scares from the Avian Flu so pandemic response is something we have lready been conditioned bu.
- morpheos137 5y ago
  My point was not to assign blame but rather observe that the difference in the way the popuations reacted. Western populations likely did not take the pandemic as seriously as say China or Japan because of mixed messages from government, conspiratorial thinking, and exceptionalism. For conspiratorial thinking have a look at godlikeproductions.com countless threads about virus fake, virus harmless, masks don't work, vaccines kill. I am confident that godlikeproductions.com has killed far more people via covid than gab or parler did through "insurrection" or racism. And yet cloudflare continues to provide services to godlikeproductions.com It is almost as if they don't care as long as those dying are not san francisco elites.
  - accurrent 5y ago

AlgorithmicTime 5y ago

The big problem was GOVERNMENT, though. Seriously, the mRNA vaccines were created in a few days once the seriousness of the virus was realized. And then held up for 9 months of testing because the government wouldn't allow challenge trials. We could have been vaccinating people a few months into the pandemic and instead we waited nearly a year to roll out the vaccine at scale.