A private decision could be as simple as the color of the shirt should I wear. Can a government outlaw the RED shirt? Another private decision could be what rent should I charge from my tenant or who should I rent to.
There are the basic norms of the society that has to be preserved. For example. Stealing is wrong, morally as well as in any other way. One cannot legislate it (or through a prop) to make stealing right, directly or indirectly.
Props are becoming ineffective because they are voted by the people who do not understand the consequences. A case in point is recent prop to raise taxes on Gasoline. Cannot believe people voted it pass.
Props also allow politicians to disown a position publicly. I see the USA needing a major reset and return to basic civics.
The wording of most props is intentionally meant to mislead people and lead to more tax revenue.
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If governments are so bad, how come a number of countries have managed this just fine (Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Korea, …)
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Pakistan is managing fine too. They are doing nothing. No lockdown. No hysteria.
A Nurse Shared A Harrowing Photo Of COVID-19 Victims To Show How Horrifying The Outbreak Is
2nd wave. Beware the second wave! Washington state has flattened the curve already. New York will peak end of next week and ride the downward curve after that. But a whole set of states like Michigan Louisiana and Florida are just coming out to bat. We will zoom past 1M cases for sure now.
One likely reason for these Asian countries are wide usage of face mask in their population, which largely prevented asymptomatic virus carriers from spreading the virus.
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Well except Singapore. Their prime minister followed the Western guidelines and told citizens not to wear masks.
China enforced a nationwide mask requirement. I saw many video where citizens got reprimanded and sometimes taken away by police for not wearing masks. People couldn’t go out without masks.
The author seems unhappy why Pakistan admin is not part of “Sky is Falling” theme that many western and Asian countries are in. No surprising given that she is writing for Bookings Institution. She has not really presented any hard data either way. It will be interesting to see what happens in next few months because the numbers from Pakistan could be an object of comparison between two approaches - a lock down approach, or do your best without lock down approach.
Exactly like in Wuhan a month ago.
People starting to question the western consensus. Too late for this round of outbreak. May not even be fast enough for the round in Fall if we got hit again this year.
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There is no trial or error method. Prevention is better than cure !
Lock down helps the people, no doubt. It is an extraordinary step each government has taken as the expense of economy, but saves lot of life and controlling the spread.
Whatever we hear now, about statistics, would have started Pre-lock down in USA.
Even though we see USA is No 1 now, the controls (and research on medications) bring down the normalcy faster than other worlds.
We will cross this recession period and bring up the economy back to normal in 3 to 5 years.
Unfortunate part is Asian continent countries, such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh…etc where no real controls on people, will suffer most by its population and spread of virus. We will see those before Dec 2021.
I do not want this to be political. Let me stop here.
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India is in lockdown. Pakistan is not in lockdown.
Others I do not know. I do not know it is a good thing or a bad thing.
We will know when we come out of it and we have data to compare the outcome with hopefully the real number among countries that locked down and that did not lockdown.
People are giving all kinds of color to this lockdown. On another forum, someone argued
the decision to lock down is based on science (???). Really? Science arises from
control, experimentation, and measurement. All three are missing. So, even if we call it a giant scientific experiment, we have a long way to go. Till then calling it scientific or anything is just a wild use of imagination.
Personally, I do not think it will take 5 years for the economy to recover. Historically recessions last 6-18 months. I am not seeing anything to make me think it will take much longer than that considering there is an administration that is not coming in the way of demand working its way out. The two factors that drive the economy are demand and supply. If demands dies for good, I can see the GDP getting lock at the lower level. I am not seeing that either. I am expecting it to be a sharp recovery. Like a road back up clearing up after an accident.
A few min later: California governed Newsom just has ordered forbearance on evictions and mortgage payment. Such actions, though seem to help public, do not help. These things can be better taken care of by private parties who are part of such transactions. A wide government fiat like these only distorts economy and make eventual recovery slower.
Germans can’t deal with deficit spending.
India has bigger problems than Coronavirus. Ascariasishttps, hookworm, trichuriasis, dengue fever, lymphatic filariasis, cysticercosis, leprosy, echinococcosis, visceral leishmaniasis and even rabies.
Oh and 50,000 deaths a year from venomous snakes.
Somehow I doubt Coronavirus will effect overall mortality that much.
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You have permission to feel better, before @harriet reminds you of that darn pending test number again.
