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Covid 19 virus

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Siwastaja:
The political situation in Finland is critical. Suddenly, the government has practically claimed victory, and the prime minister Sanna Marin is giving political interviews aimed at their voters, the main content is how well they handled (yes, in past tense!) the situation. She especially highlights how the actions have happened (again, in past tense) at correct times, because the epidemic "was" here later compared to many other countries, such as Italy, it's OK to react later, as well. What she completely misses is that you should react comparatively earlier than Italy did. Yes, the government not only thinks it's OK to repeat the process seen in Italy; they don't fear saying it out loud!

The government has started talking about the whole crisis in past tense, and are mostly concerned about helping the economy to recover.

The schools have been partially reopened (for all 1st to 3rd graders); the teachers are terrified of such change. Despite starting the actions too late, last three days have been all about stopping the gradual increase of actions, and actually lifting some.

Being paralyzed by fear and not being able to do the decisions is understandable; doing the opposite and lifting the restrictions against all expert advice, OTOH, is an active choice.

There is a report from a high-level chief of diagnostics at Helsinki University Hospital, the most affected area, that the border restrictions prevent maintenance parts and personnel of critical medical equipment. At the same time, the borders are still fully open to (mostly illegal) immigration (not that it's actually a significant problem right now, but it's symbolically very interesting).

Basically, the situation has been made highly political. Politicians of the "wrong" opinion tweeting actual news verifiable from the official mass media (for example, news about single-use medical equipment being reused) are welcomed with large-scale hate campaings.

The highly political mainstream media is not too afraid about the virus itself; it's afraid of the possibility that once we get into the mindset of declaring state of emergency "too easily", we might do it, for example, in case of large-scale terrorist attack. Media thinks being able to prevent terrorism is the threat. I guess at least 80% of the people would like terrorism to be taken seriously, as well.

The trade union leader has hinted blackmailing for a pay increase of 10% in order to keep the nurses working. Of course, at such a time, such blackmailing is not tolerated anywhere; apparently we Finns are so forgiving that everybody just decided not to react to such comment at all. We hope she gets into her senses before it's too late. In such war-like conditions, blackmailing your owns and working against the health of the others easily costs your life.

The only thing helping us is that we are naturally, on average, quite less social than, for example, Italians. Many individuals and companies are taking this seriously, which helps a lot. But I'm afraid luck has too big of a role here. It may work out better than in Italy... Or it won't.

In any case, now we are in the role of just hoping for the best, and documenting the atrocities of our government for the future reference.

flyte:

--- Quote from: Siwastaja on March 22, 2020, 12:51:31 pm ---The political situation in Finland is critical. Suddenly, the government has practically claimed victory, and the prime minister Sanna Marin is giving political interviews aimed at their voters, the main content is how well they handled (yes, in past tense!) the situation.

--- End quote ---

It's disgusting how many politicians worldwide are trying to monetize this by putting themselves into the spotlights. As always they think science and action is secondary to ideology, demagoguery and words. Maintaining their political existence is the primary concern, always.

Here they were quick to reassure in the media that "much economical help" is on its way. Billions of "relief" will give "air to everyone", "we're so busy with it, just thank us" ! If you listen carefully, it boils down to postponing payment deadlines and debt emission, more credits. So, regardless of the economical tsunami which will be coming, we'll happily lend you more money and just make sure you work triple shifts the next years to pay it all back, one day.

Some politician here even said a week ago there was a breakthrough. You'd now think of a vaccine, masks arriving for all, infection numbers going down, etc. No, he was talking about how he managed to find budgetary space to fit in another billion somewhere. They're on a different planet, but they count on scientists, doctors and engineers to clean up the mess.

coppice:

--- Quote from: blueskull on March 22, 2020, 07:44:22 am ---Bad news. After 3 days of zero domestic cases in China mainland, today Chinese CDC reported one new case related to an imported case in Guangzhou. It's still too early to see whether there will be a new wave of infection, but let's hope not.

--- End quote ---
The HK students who fled home from Europe's schools and universities before HK's 17th March deadline for new arrivals to need quarantine have brought new cases to HK. We have a friend's son staying with us right now because his school was shut by the UK government last Friday, but he isn't flying home to HK until next Friday. He'll have to undergo some form of quarantine when he gets home.

iMo:

--- Quote from: flyte on March 22, 2020, 01:12:35 pm ---
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on March 22, 2020, 12:51:31 pm ---The political situation in Finland is critical. Suddenly, the government has practically claimed victory, and the prime minister Sanna Marin is giving political interviews aimed at their voters, the main content is how well they handled (yes, in past tense!) the situation.

--- End quote ---
It's disgusting how many politicians worldwide are trying to monetize this by putting themselves into the spotlights. As always they think science and action is secondary to ideology, demagoguery and words. Maintaining their political existence is the primary concern, always.

--- End quote ---
Yesterday I saw NY governor M. Cuomo during the briefing (CNN). His speech was fantastic. No cheap  :bullshit: or political marketing. If I were citizen of NY I would be happy to have him there.

engrguy42:
Yeah, honestly I'm kinda shocked at how politicians around the world have been behaving in the last 5-10 years. It's like they are so incredibly hypersensitive to viral social media that they do whatever "looks good" and that people will give an instantaneous "like" to or "thumbs up".  :-+

Whether those things are at all relevant or useful to society are not on their radar. It's whether the average person on social media, who often knows nothing about anything, and only knows about likes and dislikes and cares about cats playing piano, will approve and share with their friends in an unconscious, knee-jerk emotional reaction.

I think a lot of us boomers recall when our parents (who lived thru the major depression of the 1930's and the horror of World War II, and learned an incredible amount of rationality and wisdom from those experiences), were the "adults in the room" and kept stuff on track. Unfortunately, the adults have left the room. And we'll start learning the same lessons all over again.

And maybe someday we'll even learn how deeply destructive this whole social media and internet connectivity thing is.

Oh wait, who am I kidding.   

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