I agree, it was fluffled off too long. Which drove the public to keep spreading false propaganda of “it’s just a flu.”
You’re also right that things should have been done ages ago. At minimum 2 weeks ago. It’s not too late to lower the numbers though, But measures are going to have to be increased.
If the borders closed in or out, to everyone a month ago, allowing citizens to come back and stay at a dedicated quarantine area for returning Canadian citizens only for 2 weeks for assessment and cleansing. Extra measures taken for operators of supply chains to import/export to keep shelves stocked, and a nationwide advisory of cleanliness and spreading viruses, there’s a chance we could have sports right now, could still shut it down for safety purposes, but I’d bet they could be launched back up a lot quicker.
For all that to work, you’d have to do all of that at a GLOBAL Effort Level.
Canada could have, for example, closed its borders “months ago.” Great. But we’d have to “wait out” the entire course of the virus throughout the rest of the World. That would require a virtual complete shutdown of the economy.
That shut down would cause a tremendous amount of additional strife that would also lead to countless loss of life.
The REALITY is very simple. These measures are not infinitely sustainable of we want to recover in more ways than simply not getting sick from this virus.
The measures being made now are not to “save lives” so much as to save resources and allow the capacity of the health care system to handle the additional illnesses related to this virus.
Make no mistake, this is not a Global Killer in any way. Not even close. It is lethal for only a very small fraction of vulnerable people. That is not to say those people are not important. It is to say that at some point the political machine will have to start rationalizing the loss of life vs bankruptcies, loss of income, spiralling economic issues, etc etc etc.
So, for those that suggest social distancing and quarantines will go on for months, I think that is very obtuse in overall analysis. Sure, in a vacuum with no other considerations, everyone staying home for two or three months would “help” but in fact it will not. It will cause immeasurable collateral damage that would far outweigh the damage to direct loss of life of the virus.
Even much of the measures put in place have not really been thoroughly thought through. Restaurants and bars are closed but Shopping Malls are open. You can still buy shoes and socks. People can’t go without new shoes for four weeks? IT is so ridiculous.
Domestic flights are still operating. Airports are open.
Really, mostly it is only the most obvious restrictions that are taking place.
Don’t get me wrong. It is not like I want people to die. However, I also don’t want people to have to work an entire 12 to 24 months trying to catch up financially either. I don’t want people losing their small businesses. I don’t want to Government to have to roll out a 20 Billion Dollar relief package either.
China was shut down for about 6 weeks or so and their numbers have started to reverse and they are beginning to start ramping back up. Over that time period something like 6000 deaths? That really is an insignificant total in the grand scheme of things.
As mentioned, I work in a hospital. I understand the situation. We don’t want to get overrun by Covid cases. The resources are critically low. However, I really do not think these measures would be happening if:
1> The media didn’t hype it so intensely
2> The existing capacity and resources were able to handle the potential cases
The purpose of these measures is to more competently handle the cases and not put undue strain on the health care system. Anyone that truly says this is primarily about “saving lives” is naive. That is a secondary concern. People die of preventable deaths every day in very large numbers across the Globe.
