OldLady
Diamond Member
- Nov 16, 2015
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Travel and trade restrictions can lead to dire economic consequences for countries involved, creating a disincentive for them to quickly disclose potential outbreaks to the WHO or other nations. They can hinder the sharing of information, make it harder to track cases and their contacts, and disrupt the medical supply chain,Okay, that got wicked long. Sorry.
What do you think?
P.S. I'm a strong supporter of the UN and of WHO, but humans are fallible.
As you rightly quoted:
“There’s not only the financial toll on a country that is dealing with this outbreak, but this can discourage transparency, both in this outbreak and in the future,” Worsnop said.Travel and trade restrictions can lead to dire economic consequences for countries involved, creating a disincentive for them to quickly disclose potential outbreaks to the WHO or other nations. They can hinder the sharing of information, make it harder to track cases and their contacts, and disrupt the medical supply chain, potentially fueling shortages of drugs and medical supplies in the areas hit hardest by the outbreak. They also send a punitive message, which could contribute to discrimination and stigmatization against Chinese nationals, experts warned.
Moreover, it isn't as if travel restrictions couldn't be circumvented. Among the worst probably is the incentive to suppress information - and not just for those hit, but for pretty much everyone. While it may seem intuitively the right thing to do, travel restrictions do not work, particularly not if the reaper is already in the house. Finally, it creates a false sense of security, serves as an excuse for inaction, and that is exactly how it played out. Still, as of this very day, the entire country is not in lock-down, and thus the most promising measures to counter the spread are not universally in place, and that will prolong the lock-down for everybody else. But hey, there's travel restrictions in place, and the Dear Leader let himself be seen doing ... something.
But an international team was already there and China's cat was out of the bag, anyway. What need to "suppress" information did China have by that point? I dunno, maybe I'm too cynical, but I think China was looking at it's pocketbook, same as Trump was when he kept reassuring us the Virus was nothing to worry about. He had one eye on the stock market, I'm pretty darned sure.