Yes, that's my point - the outcome would have been better, less people would have died. Italy was there as a stark warning, to the point where it was obvious that provinces with stricter controls did better than those without.
The USA had the poorest performance. When a country can't attend to basic matters of engaging with reality and protecting its citizens, despite incredible resources, it is defunct.
I am going to rant here.
This virus is really an indictment on the state of the world. It seems inevitable now that it will be endemic, and due to the infectivity and presence of animal hosts, will not be eradicable. This is terribly disappointing. Consider that this is the year we gifted an entirely new disease to all the billions of people that will live in the future. We just increased by 1 the number of things that can make you sick and kill you. Think about HIV - if we could go back and stop HIV from spreading, with the benefit of 40 years of hindsight, we absolutely would have done that, no question, not for one minute. The economic saving alone is compellingly enormous, not accounting for the amount of suffering that would have been avoided. To me, all this calculus about economic activity and mental health versus stopping the virus is so short-sighted and missing the point entirely. It seems obvious to me that any degree of short term pain is a mere blip compared to how many people will suffer and die of the virus over the next 20 years because we let it out. We had one chance, one moment to stop this virus and we blew it. Everyone, every country, ever politician, blew it. I know it could have emerged in a few years, or there could be another virus next year but that doesn't change the fact that we could have stopped this one.
Yeah, I agree. I also sympathize with your rant and feel our politicians in the West, nearly without exception, let us all down and continue to do so. They failed to demonstrate any kind of preparation or logical science based response and continue to fail at that.
The USA had the poorest performance. When a country can't attend to basic matters of engaging with reality and protecting its citizens, despite incredible resources, it is defunct.
I am going to rant here. This virus is really an indictment on the state of the world. It seems inevitable now that it will be endemic, and due to the infectivity and presence of animal hosts, will not be eradicable. This is terribly disappointing. Consider that this is the year we gifted an entirely new disease to all the billions of people that will live in the future. We just increased by 1 the number of things that can make you sick and kill you. Think about HIV - if we could go back and stop HIV from spreading, with the benefit of 40 years of hindsight, we absolutely would have done that, no question, not for one minute. The economic saving alone is compellingly enormous, not accounting for the amount of suffering that would have been avoided. To me, all this calculus about economic activity and mental health versus stopping the virus is so short-sighted and missing the point entirely. It seems obvious to me that any degree of short term pain is a mere blip compared to how many people will suffer and die of the virus over the next 20 years because we let it out. We had one chance, one moment to stop this virus and we blew it. Everyone, every country, ever politician, blew it. I know it could have emerged in a few years, or there could be another virus next year but that doesn't change the fact that we could have stopped this one.