Current Affairs Donald Trump POS: Judgement cometh and that right soon

[Tubey]

Wet markets are no doubt something that should be shuttered. But if that's the only lesson we take from this, and the only long term change we make, we've learned nothing at all. And I can almost guarantee in that scenario we will probably have another catastrophic even like this in my lifetime or my children's lifetime and it'll have nothing to do with China or wet markets. We have to take more away from this and we won't if we just blame China for it all.

Now I'm not sure if that's what you're saying but you sure do seem to bang on about China this and wet markets that a lot, and it makes me think that you actually do see this as a problem that starts and ends there. Starts there obviously is the truth but it can't end there when the outcomes around the world vary wildly based on the competence of the government response.

No it starts there, doesn't end there. By holding China properly to account you set a precedent to follow in the future, regardless of the country.

But it's a fact that China is the hub of recent virus development and there's no system in place to hold them accountable and make changes to prevent future catastrophes. Internationally funded investigative teams, in situ in identified trouble spots to ensure standards, automatic massive sanctions and/or reparations for negligence, the ability to impose travel bans unilaterally perhaps.

We have to blame China "for it all" because it is their fault. They were negligent. It is what it is. It's the old adage about "prevention being better than the cure" - you can blame the response of the USA/UK if you like but ultimately the response has nothing to do with preventing this happening again, because they played no role in it happening in the first instance. It's a separate issue - indeed, that's my problem with all this; there's too much focus on politicising the response and pretty much no focus on working on prevention except for Australia, and the international community have just sat by and watched them be slapped down by China for having the gall to correctly blame them for this.

My hope is that when the outbreak contains then we move to addressing China properly as an international community. Because currently it's surreal how much they're being let off the hook with this.

 

[TheBigIguana]

No it starts there, doesn't end there. By holding China properly to account you set a precedent to follow in the future, regardless of the country.

But it's a fact that China is the hub of recent virus development and there's no system in place to hold them accountable and make changes to prevent future catastrophes. Internationally funded investigative teams, in situ in identified trouble spots to ensure standards, automatic massive sanctions and/or reparations for negligence, the ability to impose travel bans unilaterally perhaps.

We have to blame China "for it all" because it is their fault. They were negligent. It is what it is. It's the old adage about "prevention being better than the cure" - you can blame the response of the USA/UK if you like but ultimately the response has nothing to do with preventing this happening again, because they played no role in it happening in the first instance. It's a separate issue - indeed, that's my problem with all this; there's too much focus on politicising the response and pretty much no focus on working on prevention except for Australia, and the international community have just sat by and watched them be slapped down by China for having the gall to correctly blame them for this.

My hope is that when the outbreak contains then we move to addressing China properly as an international community. Because currently it's surreal how much they're being let off the hook with this.

Preventing this isn't really possible. We can, and should, do things to try, but it was sheer dumb luck that the MERS outbreak wasn't a mutation that ended up having this kind of effect. At that point would we be running around trying to point the finger at someone for starting it or would we be attempting to figure out why we didn't handle it better when the start of it had no preventable cause? I know you're going to tell me that isn't what happened but there is nothing stopping it from happening next year or in two years or in two decades. So just hypothetically if that scenario comes to pass, where the cause can't be pinned to "so and so shouldn't have done this", do you think we should maybe put at least an equal focus on our response?

While I get it, we should do something about China and there recent record with this kind of issue, I think the far more important thing to do is figure out why some countries have done well and the US have not. You can only do so much to control China, they're a sovereign country with a degree of ability to do what they want, but we can control our response to things. It feels like you would be ok if we just hit China with a metaphorical economic bomb and forced them to bend to the will of the rest of the world. That does have some advantages, but I think it really does miss a lot of what we've witnessed recently and does a great job of letting incompetent leadership hide itself.

Australia are moving on to prevention mostly because they've already figured out the other parts that the US hasn't. Other countries will get there eventually. We were there under a certain President.

After all this is past we can then on to figuring out why our economic system and response was such a disaster on top of the pandemic. But that's another topic altogether really.

 

[Tubey]

Preventing this isn't really possible.

... the start of it had no preventable cause

Just find this utterly bonkers.

Of course preventing it was possible. Yes, you're not going to eradicate all risk due to bushmeat in poorer areas and so on, but that doesn't mean you don't do anything whatsoever. If China had not been negligent after SARS, this outbreak doesn't happen. "No preventable cause"? Are you mad??!

When you lead with something as odd as that it's hard to respond to the rest! There's this strange concerted effort to minimize what China have done and I simply don't get it, beyond the obvious desire to pin it all on politicians they don't like instead.

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

Just find this utterly bonkers.

Of course preventing it was possible. Yes, you're not going to eradicate all risk due to bushmeat in poorer areas and so on, but that doesn't mean you don't do anything whatsoever. If China had not been negligent after SARS, this outbreak doesn't happen. "No preventable cause"? Are you mad??!

When you lead with something as odd as that it's hard to respond to the rest! There's this strange concerted effort to minimize what China have done and I simply don't get it, beyond the obvious desire to pin it all on politicians they don't like instead.

I'm pretty sure he meant preventing the general concept of a pandemic starting from zoonoses. Yes, perhaps this specific incident could have been prevented, but that doesn't excuse the response.

I read something the other day that said an efficient, well drilled response could have limited US deaths to somewhere in the region of 20,000-40,000. So by that measure 20-40,000 deaths are "on China" if you want to look at it that way. 40-60,000 (and rising rapidly) are "on" the US response and preparedness.

Only one of those things can be changed right now, and it isn't the China part. THAT is why they're not the focus at this moment. There'll be plenty of timer for trying to change China's actions going forwards. At this moment there are bigger, more immediate fish to fry.

 

[Tubey]

I'm pretty sure he meant preventing the general concept of a pandemic starting from zoonoses. Yes, perhaps this specific incident could have been prevented, but that doesn't excuse the response.

I read something the other day that said an efficient, well drilled response could have limited US deaths to somewhere in the region of 20,000-40,000. So by that measure 20-40,000 deaths are "on China" if you want to look at it that way. 40-60,000 (and rising rapidly) are "on" the US response and preparedness.

Only one of those things can be changed right now, and it isn't the China part. THAT is why they're not the focus at this moment. There'll be plenty of timer for trying to change China's actions going forwards. At this moment there are bigger, more immediate fish to fry.

They're still on China. I get what you're saying but that's like swinging an axe at someones neck and blaming them for not ducking if they get hit by it.

It's easy to talk about an "efficient, well-drilled" response in hindsight but let's get real here; this whole thing completely blindsided us. Yes, the governments acted late, but we're talking a matter of weeks late instead of years here. There have been pandemic threats but it got to the "boy who cries wolf" stage and 99% of us thought this would fizzle out too until it became clear it wouldn't in February.

Your last paragraph - that's my hope in terms of the political response, but I just don't understand the media response. To my eyes, it's like they're trying to get that clickbait moment where Trump loses his rag or a Tory doesn't have a completely sombre face for two seconds.

This is what China is doing.

Coronavirus: China’s new army of tough-talking diplomats

How Beijing is mounting an aggressive campaign to defend its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

www.bbc.co.uk

Our media and politicians have sat back and allowed them to control the narrative. I genuinely find that abhorrent, as if it continues this way then we're opening ourselves up to something entirely preventable happening over and over again and threatening lives all over the world.

So just hypothetically if that scenario comes to pass, where the cause can't be pinned to "so and so shouldn't have done this", do you think we should maybe put at least an equal focus on our response?

Just regarding this bit. Again, I have to say I'm not defending the response - it's been clearly awful - but an equal focus on it? On this occasion, not for me no - it's an emergency situation that is unparalleled. There has to be context in mind for this. There should be criticism of what Trump/Johnson have done (or not done really), but the core of the blame has to go to China. That isn't really happening at the moment.

But for future pandemics if no lessons are learned and we're this bad again? Then sure - a terrible response is negligence in its' own right. But again, if the virus hasn't occurred by fluke in a one off environment with little or no state control, and instead has came about due to negligence on a national level, then the lion's share of the blame has to be place on who caused it, not on who failed to react to it.

If this had happened in China and they'd have taken reasonable measures to stop it, I wouldn't be commenting.

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

They're still on China. I get what you're saying but that's like swinging an axe at someones neck and blaming them for not ducking if they get hit by it.

No, it's more like hitting a golf shot, immediately yelling fore, but the person in the path of the ball is wearing headphones and loudly singing "la la la la" so they didn't hear the shout.

It's easy to talk about an "efficient, well-drilled" response in hindsight but let's get real here; this whole thing completely blindsided us.

Yeah but it didn't. See the post that I tagged you in the other day. Trump actively weakened the US's ability to respond to something like this, because of his massive inferiority complex when it comes to his predecessor driving him to indiscriminately undo anything with Obama's name on it.

They had a specific pandemic playbook.
They had a specific pandemic preparedness unit within (iirc) the CDC
They had CDC operatives in labs in Wuhan, looking out for signs of something exactly like this.

Trump either ignored or removed them ALL.

 

[Prevenger17]

No, it's more like hitting a golf shot, immediately yelling fore

It's defo not like that. It's like hitting a golf shot, watching it plunge all the way into someone's head, pretending it wasn't you until confronted by the 40 other people on the golf course that saw you do it. And then shouting fore

 

[Tubey]

No, it's more like hitting a golf shot, immediately yelling fore, but the person in the path of the ball is wearing headphones and loudly singing "la la la la" so they didn't hear the shout.


Yeah but it didn't. See the post that I tagged you in the other day. Trump actively weakened the US's ability to respond to something like this, because of his massive inferiority complex when it comes to his predecessor driving him to indiscriminately undo anything with Obama's name on it.

That's just it though isn't it - China didn't do that. They covered it up. They created the conditions for this to occur. They effectively aimed that shot at the spectator.

There's legitimate criticism of Trump/the Tories and their rampant ideological destruction of the sciences and healthcare systems before this occurred, and yet again I have to stress I'm not defending them, but that's putting the cart before the horse in terms of the real underlying issue here. There's no point telling me how crap Trump and Johnson are because I'm acutely aware of it - I'm saying that it's not the core of this issue.

 

[Tubey]

It's defo not like that. It's like hitting a golf shot, watching it plunge all the way into someone's head, pretending it wasn't you until confronted by the 40 other people on the golf course that saw you do it. And then shouting fore

Hahaha exactly.

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

It's defo not like that. It's like hitting a golf shot, watching it plunge all the way into someone's head, pretending it wasn't you until confronted by the 40 other people on the golf course that saw you do it. And then shouting fore

I get the point that you're making (particularly with reference to the LOCAL response in China, rather than national), but we KNEW that a pandemic would happen at some point. We knew the (likely) sources, we had systems in place to warn us and systems/plans in place to deal with the fallout...

Turning round and saying "NO ONE COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING!" is disingenuous

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

That's just it though isn't it - China didn't do that. They covered it up.

If only the US had had public health officials working in Wuhan, such a coverup might have been more difficult eh?

They created the conditions for this to occur. They effectively aimed that shot at the spectator.

There's legitimate criticism of Trump/the Tories and their rampant ideological destruction of the sciences and healthcare systems before this occurred, and yet again I have to stress I'm not defending them, but that's putting the cart before the horse in terms of the real underlying issue here. There's no point telling me how crap Trump and Johnson are because I'm acutely aware of it - I'm saying that it's not the core of this issue.

Yeah but it is right now, while people are dying in numbers that were largely avoidable.

 

[Tubey]

I get the point that you're making (particularly with reference to the LOCAL response in China, rather than national), but we KNEW that a pandemic would happen at some point. We knew the (likely) sources, we had systems in place to warn us and systems/plans in place to deal with the fallout...

Turning round and saying "NO ONE COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING!" is disingenuous

Pretend for a minute all those systems were still in place and this happens.

Now imagine for a minute that in January/February we'd have gone "right, lock down, close the borders, furlough everyone for six months, keep the R down".

And then imagine if this "did a SARS", 10 people died and we'd sank the economy into a historically massive depression on a false alarm.

How many times do you think we'd do that before people would go "no, let's see how this goes".

It's not like a tornado siren that inconveniences people for an hour or so if it's a false alarm; once you trigger a pandemic protocol it basically obliterates the country for months.

That's basically what happened here - people underestimated it due to false dawns. No matter what, the pandemic would have taken hold across the world. Culturally the west would still have been unprepared for this, no matter what plans Obama had in place. Issues like PPE, testing capacity, ICU preparedness and so on is where improvements could and should have been made, but ultimately this pandemic would have gone by and large on the same broad trajectory regardless.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing - it's so easy to gloss over context.

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

Pretend for a minute all those systems were still in place and this happens.

Now imagine for a minute that in January/February we'd have gone "right, lock down, close the borders, furlough everyone for six months, keep the R down".

And then imagine if this "did a SARS", 10 people died and we'd sank the economy into a historically massive depression on a false alarm.

How many times do you think we'd do that before people would go "no, let's see how this goes".

It's not like a tornado siren that inconveniences people for an hour or so if it's a false alarm; once you trigger a pandemic protocol it basically obliterates the country for months.

That's basically what happened here - people underestimated it due to false dawns. No matter what, the pandemic would have taken hold across the world. Culturally the west would still have been unprepared for this, no matter what plans Obama had in place. Issues like PPE, testing capacity, ICU preparedness and so on is where improvements could and should have been made, but ultimately this pandemic would have gone by and large on the same broad trajectory regardless.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing - it's so easy to gloss over context.

If only there had been an expert team working within the CDC on issues specifically related to preparedness...

 

[Death]

New Zealand has no comparable population to the UK, in particular London.

South Korea habitually wear masks and are culturally ingrained into the idea of mass hygiene measures.

China started this pandemic. Johnson and Trump have been terrible but they didn't start this.

None of the above is nonsense.

Hmmm. It’s not too bad. There is a slight dig at Trump in there but all that other stuff may be seen as bigging him up indirectly. And that won’t fly in here. If you could edit out that other stuff and focus on Trump is terrible you will get the Tory Dems onside. Nice try though.

 

[Death]

It's defo not like that. It's like hitting a golf shot, watching it plunge all the way into someone's head, pretending it wasn't you until confronted by the 40 other people on the golf course that saw you do it. And then shouting fore

haha perfect ‘pitch’ (sorry) for a Curb your Enthusiasm episode.