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Didn't the EU leaders botch the most recent global crisis, the Covid pandemic? Downplaying the virus at the beginning, then failing to secure masks and lying ab

by blub 4y ago

Didn't the EU leaders botch the most recent global crisis, the Covid pandemic? Downplaying the virus at the beginning, then failing to secure masks and lying about their benefits and discouraging their use, failing to secure enough vaccine fast enough. My concern is that in EU math, 2 + 2 could very well equal 5. In any case, presenting this as a fight between Russia and the EU/US/etc is a bit of a red herring. In the end, it doesn't matter that Russia "loses" or is hurt worse, if the EU economy's in shambles and governments are voted out and replaced with more extremist political parties for example.

sydd 4y ago
> Didn't the EU leaders botch the most recent global crisis, the Covid pandemic? I would not say so. Compared to most other countries the EU did very well: - Got the best vaccines with the 2nd fastest (USA was better because the EU did not mandate Pfizer to build a factory in the EU, thus Trump could block most of the vaccine exports for a few months until the USA was mostly vaccinated). Compare this to e.g. China where they still have to do lockdowns, likely because of their subpar vaccine that is ineffective in the elderly. Or to Japan where like 2% of the population was vaccinated by the time of the olympics. - Was among the best for keeping the virus under control until it was not necessary with the right amount of lockdowns. For bad examples see Russia where lockdowns were not enforced/declared too late or Brazil where they declared it a hoax. So who did better? - Israel with securing the very first batch for a price of playing guinea pigs, which was a big gamble. - Island states like New Zealand or Australia because they can just lock down airports and ports to prevent spread. EU could not do this, too many land borders. Compared to some ideal world where we would have a global lockdown for 2 weeks and the virus is gone everyone was doing pretty shitty of course. But compared to other countries EU was among the best.

by blub 4y ago

sydd 4y ago

> Didn't the EU leaders botch the most recent global crisis, the Covid pandemic? I would not say so. Compared to most other countries the EU did very well: - Got the best vaccines with the 2nd fastest (USA was better because the EU did not mandate Pfizer to build a factory in the EU, thus Trump could block most of the vaccine exports for a few months until the USA was mostly vaccinated). Compare this to e.g. China where they still have to do lockdowns, likely because of their subpar vaccine that is ineffective in the elderly. Or to Japan where like 2% of the population was vaccinated by the time of the olympics. - Was among the best for keeping the virus under control until it was not necessary with the right amount of lockdowns. For bad examples see Russia where lockdowns were not enforced/declared too late or Brazil where they declared it a hoax. So who did better? - Israel with securing the very first batch for a price of playing guinea pigs, which was a big gamble. - Island states like New Zealand or Australia because they can just lock down airports and ports to prevent spread. EU could not do this, too many land borders. Compared to some ideal world where we would have a global lockdown for 2 weeks and the virus is gone everyone was doing pretty shitty of course. But compared to other countries EU was among the best.