CDZ Do you think that when this crisis is over we will see a change in our societies ?

[iamwhatiseem]

The only change I hope - is Americans now see the high cost of a low price.
That is, an economy based off of economic slave labor in foreign countries. We stopped making things.

The flip side is we need to move these countries out of poverty. There are no easy answers.

Our own poverty should be first.
As to foreign poverty - most of it is due to corrupt despots. You can't improve the lives of those people unless you are willing to remove the despots. If you aren't... you are throwing a cup of water on a forest fire just to make yourself feel better.

I think that over simplifies a complex issue. Its part of the problem but not the whole.

It is the overwhelming reason there is poverty throughout the world.
At the same time, we cannot always measure "poverty" by our standards. Many people we may consider "poor"... are living pretty good, stress free lives, in remote areas.
They are not poor. They are, perhaps, better off than we are.

 

[Olde Europe]

When there was an actual war we had a government of national unity. that worked well. Any solutions should come out of a similar grouping. That would protect it somewhat from partisan politics.
Of course nothing is bomb proof if you get a lunatic holding the keys.

I think you are losing the track, Tom.

Uniting the country, even parties included, while facing a foreign threat is the easiest thing to do. Since everyone has a stake in it, the prevailing narrative thereafter will always be, "it worked well". I doubt there is a great deal of basis in fact for that narrative.

But, this thread was about learning lessons for the future, and adapting statutes and even attitudes thereafter. Not sure about Britons after the Nazi scourge was vanquished in that regard. Look at the U.S. after 9/11, when Bush's approval rating surged beyond 80%. I don't think anyone with at least the most tenuous relationship with reality would assert the country took a turn for the better thereafter. That is at least somewhat similar to Britain, with some gains (such as the NHS) after WWII, and still the country was heading into vicious divisions and a status of "Sick Man of Europe" over the fights centering around unions and nationalized industries.

There is probably a lesson to learn here, and it is that a nation doesn't in and of itself learn from a moment of unity. That has to be brought about (no idea how), and it's far, far harder and thus rarer than achieving unity in the face of an external threat.

 

[Corazon]

I'm not that optimistic. I don't think our societies will change for the better after this virus will be defeated.
Maybe all the countries will learn something more to fight viruses but nothing more (obviously this would be a good thing! )

 

[sartre play]

Nothing will change until we realize that our country is NOT run by the people for the people.

 

[Papageorgio]

I believe, working at home will be used more and more. Shopping online will by the way, for groceries and for dining out as well. Disappearing at an accelerated rate will be small businesses. Big box stores will get stronger. Tourism will be slow to return. Restaurants, will see a momentary increase in business but then will decline. The economy will take at least two years probably longer. Politics will be increasing polarized.

 

[harmonica]

It is a certainty that the world will change in some fundamental ways as a result of this crisis. It is also a certainty that it will be a mixed bag. The aftermath of this thing will be a golden age for political opportunists. It is my sincere hope that the honorable crusaders for justice will get more traction than the wannabe Hitlers.

hitler was ok--he just went a little too far

He went a lot too far. The thing about political opportunists is that they are hardly ever competent leaders. They get people all worked up with their big ideas but their gigantic egos get in the way of everything. Their inability to share glory makes them reject the brilliant people needed for great works. Their moral certitude makes them callous. Their inability to accept blame makes them surround themselves with yes-men. Their lack of humility makes them ignorant of their limitations. They hardly ever get to live to see anything of value their shenanigans produce.

....we are just lucky we have someone like Mr Trump who is not your standard politician who is more worried about votes than doing what is right
..and my original post is satire
hahahahhhahahaa

Interesting. I was about talking about why Hitler was a terribly flawed leader and you thought I was talking about Trump.

..you must have failed 4th grade since you are confused with a simple paragraph

 

[Tommy Tainant]

When there was an actual war we had a government of national unity. that worked well. Any solutions should come out of a similar grouping. That would protect it somewhat from partisan politics.
Of course nothing is bomb proof if you get a lunatic holding the keys.

I think you are losing the track, Tom.

Uniting the country, even parties included, while facing a foreign threat is the easiest thing to do. Since everyone has a stake in it, the prevailing narrative thereafter will always be, "it worked well". I doubt there is a great deal of basis in fact for that narrative.

But, this thread was about learning lessons for the future, and adapting statutes and even attitudes thereafter. Not sure about Britons after the Nazi scourge was vanquished in that regard. Look at the U.S. after 9/11, when Bush's approval rating surged beyond 80%. I don't think anyone with at least the most tenuous relationship with reality would assert the country took a turn for the better thereafter. That is at least somewhat similar to Britain, with some gains (such as the NHS) after WWII, and still the country was heading into vicious divisions and a status of "Sick Man of Europe" over the fights centering around unions and nationalized industries.

There is probably a lesson to learn here, and it is that a nation doesn't in and of itself learn from a moment of unity. That has to be brought about (no idea how), and it's far, far harder and thus rarer than achieving unity in the face of an external threat.

Thats too cynical for an optimist like me.
One thing that will happen after this is becoming clearer. The NHS will never be sold off to US corporations. The realisation of its importance in our national life has been underlined. So that's a real positive.

 

[2aguy]

Maybe in attitudes or even in statute form ?

I am not confident that much will change but if I could wave a wand -

I would like to see the whole disaster analyzed and best practice adopted for future problems. Some countries have done really well but some of us have not.

I would like to see our government be mandated to hold a certain level of ppe in readiness.

I would like to see this audited every year by the NAO and the results published.

I would like to see a minister for disaster created and task them with sorting out protocols for lockdowns and supply issues.

I would like people to have more appreciation for our frontline workers, the ones who are keeping the country going.

I would like to see more companies adopt home working for staff.

Im sure there are a lot more things that could and should happen.

We have two government agencies responsible for preparing for pandemics....the CDC and the NIH......they spent 30 billion dollars out of 40 billion dollars studying drunk monkeys instead of

1) Studying the corona virus and working on a vaccine....which they knew about in 2003

2) Replacing the stockpile of protective masks and equipment......after they used it up on H1N1 during the obama administration....

Putting your faith in government stooges is a huge mistake........they can barely get the basics right...as we have seen in the failure to prepare for the corona virus....

 

[2aguy]

In terms of governments taking this stuff more seriously and increasing research and readiness, yes. Much like some of the changes made after the Meltdown. Hopefully these changes will be effective and efficient over time.

In terms of human nature and behavior, no. This time has demonstrated that we still have plenty of evolving to do.

They didn't work on a vaccine for corona in 2003....and they didn't restock the supply of masks after H1N1...............they waste or steal 30 billion out of the 40 billion dollars they get at the NIH........

 

[HenryBHough]

Unless we fight to get our liberties back we will live in authoritarian state where everyone is required to have a cell phone on their person at all times. For tracking. No, I don't subscribe to the idea that you'll have mandatory implants. A cell phone stuck in your ear will suffice. And, for most of the most recent generations, something entirely natural.

 

[2aguy]

Maybe in attitudes or even in statute form ?

I am not confident that much will change but if I could wave a wand -

I would like to see the whole disaster analyzed and best practice adopted for future problems. Some countries have done really well but some of us have not.

I would like to see our government be mandated to hold a certain level of ppe in readiness.

I would like to see this audited every year by the NAO and the results published.

I would like to see a minister for disaster created and task them with sorting out protocols for lockdowns and supply issues.

I would like people to have more appreciation for our frontline workers, the ones who are keeping the country going.

I would like to see more companies adopt home working for staff.

Im sure there are a lot more things that could and should happen.

This....

NIH failed to test coronavirus drugs, studied drunk monkeys, soap operas, and tailgating instead

Expert warned agency as much as 87.5 percent of biomedical research was wasteful.

justthenews.com

As much as 87.5% of biomedical research is wasted or inefficient, the respected Yale University epidemiologist declared in a sobering assessment for a federal research agency that spends about $40 billion a year on medical studies.

He backed his staggering statistic with these additional stats: 50 out of every 100 medical studies fail to produce published findings, and half of those that do publish have serious design flaws. And those that aren’t flawed and manage to publish are often needlessly redundant.
-------

Nearly four years later, Bracken’s sweeping indictment about the financial management, organization and conduct of federal medical research looms large over a series of “what if” questions about the deadly and ever-spreading COVID-19 pandemic:

• What if the research community hadn’t bet all its marbles on the next pandemic coming from a flu instead of a version of the coronavirus?
• What if NIH or other agencies had funded research into the efficacy of drugs like chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, and HIV cocktails that had shown promise against coronavirus dating back to 2003?
• What if more pressure had been applied by the medical governance world to develop vaccines aimed at coronavirus?
• What if the medical community had simply adjusted its outdated modeling that predicted coronavirus would spread slowly and could be contained to account for the massive growth in global air travel the last decade that transported this virus from China to the West in treacherously fast time?

Correspondent Christine Dolan laid bare in an article Thursday in Just the News how the major failures, miscalculations and bad bets that the official science world made on coronavirus are now coming back to haunt the current pandemic.

As Dr. Carlos Del Rio, the Emory University infectious disease specialist and former CDC disease hunter, aptly noted: “There are multiple faults. And in the end, we were woefully unprepared.”

 

[Olde Europe]

Thats too cynical for an optimist like me.

One thing that will happen after this is becoming clearer. The NHS will never be sold off to US corporations. The realisation of its importance in our national life has been underlined. So that's a real positive.

I don't think I am cynical at all. Just trying to learn from history. Maybe... let's look at India's unity of purpose in the process of getting rid of the colonial occupiers. What happened to that? What ensued was vicious, mass-murderous, and in many ways it hasn't ended yet. As I said, moments of unity do not last, and preserving them and the lessons learned from them needs active involvement to bring this about. It doesn't happen sort of "naturally". That's not cynical; just realistic. What would be needed for that? How about Tories, Labour, LibDems, SNF, Sinn Fein getting together, gathering one or two dozens of the brightest political (etc.) minds, charting a post-Brexit, post-Covid-19 course for the nation? Thinking about how to meet the political demands posed by globalization (including international pandemics), automation, an aging society, and climate change? There's still going to be haggling over all of that, how best to implement it in the future, but there might be some guardrails guiding the nation and its policy-making. That's what I meant, stating, there has to be active involvement - folks working together, focused facts, figuring out future needs and demands - to preserve moments of unity and the lessons learned.

As to the NHS, I don't think selling it off was ever a serious contention. Just opening up supply of medication, equipment, services to international consortiums siphoning off funds was. Probably still is. It's old style crony capitalism. The American negotiators haggling over the coming trade deal will have a lot of voices, many of them with megaphones, to consider while taking their negotiating positions. Rest assured, pharmaceutical industries have a very large megaphone, and they are irate that Britons aren't fleeced nearly as much for their healthcare as, say, Americans are. There are gobs of money to be made off the sick and the increasing number of elderly, and they sure are going to get their grabby hands into that pot. I think you can count on that.

 

[Corazon]

Nothing will change until we realize that our country is NOT run by the people for the people.

Unfortunately every country has the same problem

 

[whitehall]

If we could get people to observe that six foot social distance we might cut down on the birth rate.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

What shapes the society of both the U.K. and the United states is our media. Good grief, how else does one explain why Brits offer up their children to Muslim rape gangs as willingly as they do, eh? They have been conditioned by their media to do so.

If anything, this crisis only strengthens the grip the media has on our societies. When our media sees themselves as the architects of civilization rather than servants to it, the only possible change is towards increased control.

 

[Cecilie1200]

A more realistic approach to healthcare is the most likely single outcome.

Such as?

 

[Cecilie1200]

Maybe in attitudes or even in statute form ?

I am not confident that much will change but if I could wave a wand -

I would like to see the whole disaster analyzed and best practice adopted for future problems. Some countries have done really well but some of us have not.

I would like to see our government be mandated to hold a certain level of ppe in readiness.

I would like to see this audited every year by the NAO and the results published.

I would like to see a minister for disaster created and task them with sorting out protocols for lockdowns and supply issues.

I would like people to have more appreciation for our frontline workers, the ones who are keeping the country going.

I would like to see more companies adopt home working for staff.

Im sure there are a lot more things that could and should happen.

A start would be for the Chinese and Africans to stop eating anything that moves.

Another start would be for us to take a harder line toward China, and to stop flattering them that they're anything like equivalent to first-world nations.

 

[Polishprince]

Maybe in attitudes or even in statute form ?

I am not confident that much will change but if I could wave a wand -

I would like to see the whole disaster analyzed and best practice adopted for future problems. Some countries have done really well but some of us have not.

I would like to see our government be mandated to hold a certain level of ppe in readiness.

I would like to see this audited every year by the NAO and the results published.

I would like to see a minister for disaster created and task them with sorting out protocols for lockdowns and supply issues.

I would like people to have more appreciation for our frontline workers, the ones who are keeping the country going.

I would like to see more companies adopt home working for staff.

Im sure there are a lot more things that could and should happen.

There is a possibility that some good things will arise out of this. I'd love to see public schools replaced with online instruction, from 1st grade through the university level. I think this is also a nail in the coffin of many retail businesses. It will be all deliveries all the time, ditto with a lot more telemedicine.

This will also help corporate entities in taking over things like restaurants, bars, haircutting and other personal services. It will be too risky for banks to loan money for this kind of venture to an individual, the possibility of new pestilences and future lockdowns causing financial ruin will be too much.

Here in America, we are looking at high unemployment, and if Sleepy Joe gets in, that will be aggravated and we will be looking at a New Great Depression.

 

[Jitss617]

Democrats will have to deregulate to get the economy going again.. the infrastructure plan they want will ADD JOB KILLING REGULATIONS. They will lose again

 

[Polishprince]

Democrats will have to deregulate to get the economy going again.. the infrastructure plan they want will ADD JOB KILLING REGULATIONS. They will lose again

Dems aren't interested in "deregulating". What they are interested in is to bring Big Labor into as many workplaces as possible. If they win in November, the nation's Italian Clubs will be doing a booming business as the Union Rackets will be going full blast and the business agents will be looking to blow off steam after a long day of shaking people down.