Tweet
Apologies I'd not actually got round to doing any checking over yet, but I'd honestly be very surprised if there was significant innaccuracies here... I'm not gonna claim specific expertise myself, in fact I was basically just a slightly precocious dogsbody at the time (many, many years ago) but I have worked in two seperate public health and epidemiology research departments, including a stint working under one of the current directors at NIHR... point being I know how this kinda epidemiological research is carried out and the kinda people involved and whilst no-one is perfect in general these are good and consciencious academics just doing the best job they can.
Course... politicians are another story, don't trust those mfers any further than I can throw 'em.
There is genuine room for debate though, COVID response absolutely ain't a size fits all thing, and the optimum response will depend on many different factors relating to the strength of a countries welfare system, the kinda savings or credit available to the population, how many people are living hand to mouth and significantly how much strain the healthcare services can take... add to that the it's worth remembering this whole affair has been in part folk figuring it out as they go along. It's easy to assume the authorities and academia to be some omniscent force who knew what they were doing right from the start but in fact it's been more a desperate scranmble to devise best policy based on severely incomplete information as well as pandering to public concerns and trying to keep economies going.
And of course there's a very real argument that resources devoted to treating COVID patients lead to more deaths elsewhere, and that taking away peoples opportunities to earn a living can lead to higher mortality too, most especially in the poorest countries so there's really no simple equation that can inform a particular country or region how best to tackle the crisis.
IDK whether the various world governments have done the best job they could - probably they've fallen signifcantly short - but I think it's likely most of them have genuinely tried even though it's very clear that opportunistic nepotism has reared it's head worldwide in the doling out of contracts for services and PPE to favoured friends and corporations... some shet never changes, man.
Course... politicians are another story, don't trust those mfers any further than I can throw 'em.
There is genuine room for debate though, COVID response absolutely ain't a size fits all thing, and the optimum response will depend on many different factors relating to the strength of a countries welfare system, the kinda savings or credit available to the population, how many people are living hand to mouth and significantly how much strain the healthcare services can take... add to that the it's worth remembering this whole affair has been in part folk figuring it out as they go along. It's easy to assume the authorities and academia to be some omniscent force who knew what they were doing right from the start but in fact it's been more a desperate scranmble to devise best policy based on severely incomplete information as well as pandering to public concerns and trying to keep economies going.
And of course there's a very real argument that resources devoted to treating COVID patients lead to more deaths elsewhere, and that taking away peoples opportunities to earn a living can lead to higher mortality too, most especially in the poorest countries so there's really no simple equation that can inform a particular country or region how best to tackle the crisis.
IDK whether the various world governments have done the best job they could - probably they've fallen signifcantly short - but I think it's likely most of them have genuinely tried even though it's very clear that opportunistic nepotism has reared it's head worldwide in the doling out of contracts for services and PPE to favoured friends and corporations... some shet never changes, man.
Comment