NW-Bound
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2008
- Messages
- 35,712
+1
While it's fun to poke blame someplace other than ourselves, a clear lack of cooperation, defiance really, on the part of some citizens and a lack of clear leadership by many local gov't officials came into play. We locked down slowly and incompletely compared to many other countries. That would be part of our "independent and free" culture, which sometimes does not serve us well.
For example, I believe it was just yesterday that Mayor Lightfoot of Chicago came down hard on citizens blowing off the lockdown rules and now they have even made a few arrests. Part of the news coverage included a crowd of young people pumping fists in the air and chanting about their right to congregate however and wherever they wished......
I don't think S Korea had that much pushback from citizens. And when they did, I don't think their leaders hesitated to use appropriate force to quarantine and contain. Here we could test and attempt to isolate the infected and those they've been near, but would definitely meet resistance (here comes the ACLU!) from a significant percentage who didn't want to be forcefully isolated.
Not just Americans but Europeans too, up until recently, showed an attitude of "who's afraid of the bad virus".
While people in Milan were clogging up the ER and their PM instituted "social distancing" and allowed restaurants to stay open, people in southern Italy were totally oblivious of the danger, and jammed up restaurants. The PM ordered everything closed down after a day or two.
And while northern Italians were dying, Spain allowed a political demonstration of 120,000 people in Madrid. And that's where they are now using a skating ice rink to keep dead bodies, because crematoriums are running 24/7 and cannot keep up.
And more recently, Brit tourists held "corona parties" out on the streets of some Spanish tourist towns, despite the order from the local police to disperse.
All that despite the pleas from Italian doctors, and later also Italian citizens, that the world should learn from them, and not call this "just a flu".
No, people simply do not learn. They have to see death in their family, or themselves waiting in line for a hospital bed before they learn. Very sad!
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