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Originally Posted by the810
(Post 32901663)
It would be very surprising if the strain that supposedly spreads faster by 70% didn't spread elsewhere where it was imported. The first identified case is about three months old already. It even made its way to place as isolated as Australia. I can't imagine a scenario in which it somehow stopped spreading upon arriving to other European countries.
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Originally Posted by the810
(Post 32901663)
It would be very surprising if the strain that supposedly spreads faster by 70% didn't spread elsewhere where it was imported. The first identified case is about three months old already. It even made its way to place as isolated as Australia.
I can't imagine a scenario in which it somehow stopped spreading upon arriving to other European countries. The reason why only a few cases were identified is most likely that we simply weren't looking for them until now. Unfortunatelly, this "shut everything down just in case" culture is apparantely becoming popular. It's exactly what I feared since the pandemic began - in the future, every new dissease will cause knee jerk reactions like this, disrupting travel forever. Many criticise Boris Johnson in the UK for being excessively optimistic and that his reluctance to impose restrictions has resulted in him systematically waiting too long until he was forced by events and left with no choice but to impose restrictions which are tougher and longer than they would have been had he had the courage to impose them earlier on. You clearly are at the other end of the spectrum. Some would no doubt take the view that your rejection of precautionary approaches would lead to wait until it is too late to take appropriate measures. There will be disagreements on this. I personally feel more comfortable with a more precautionary approach. But let us not pretend that these are easy, straightforward issues on which there is only one easy answer. There is not and the precautionary approach taken by a number of governments restricting movements from the UK does not strike me as outlandish, at any rate as a way to buy some time to take a decision as to the best approach to take. What I would expect to happen in the next few weeks is for traffic with the UK to resume but more systematic checks to take place, such as systematic PCR tests, for instance. But I can understand that, in the very short term, some stricter measures are taken to buy some time do decide what to do. |
Let's put things in perspective: The reproduction rate of the coronavirus in general without any precautions (behaving as we were in February) is significantly higher than the reproduction rate of this new strain under UK/Europe-level restrictions. The first cases of the initial coronavirus were found in Europe in late January, but cases didn't blow up until mid-March (except Italy and Spain). In this sense, limiting travel from a high incidence area makes a lot of sense - catching this strain early gives Europe the chance to impose restrictive measures that hopefully stop or slow down the spread of this strain which is now prevalent in the UK.
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Originally Posted by NickB
(Post 32901780)
the precautionary approach taken by a number of governments restricting movements from the UK does not strike me as outlandish, at any rate as a way to buy some time to take a decision as to the best approach to take.
I can't help wondering what the response would have been if this mutation had instead reared its ugly head in, say, Germany. Would the neighboring countries immediately have mobilized their armed forces to hermetically seal all land borders by midnight, in addition to halting all air traffic etc? Or would EU solidarity have taken precedence over this horrible new threat to life and limb? Johan |
Originally Posted by mpkz
(Post 32901826)
gives Europe the chance to impose restrictive measures.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who wouldn't mind, the idea that Covid has to be defeated no matter what the cost seems to be quite popular, but I'm not one of them. Johan |
Originally Posted by Solevita
(Post 32899702)
Have you got a source for ferries being banned?
France is the exception here, they have banned truck drivers too. Pax of all stripes are free to travel on ferries from the EU to the UK. Johan |
Originally Posted by mfkne
(Post 32886963)
Except EU citizens can't be denied entry into the EU.
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Originally Posted by johan rebel
(Post 32902870)
How many more increasingly harsh and restrictive measures can be imposed before all of Europe (Sweden hopefully excepted) becomes one big Gulag Lite?
I'm sure there are plenty of people who wouldn't mind, the idea that Covid has to be defeated no matter what the cost seems to be quite popular, but I'm not one of them. Johan Now this is of course speculation because we do not know that much about the mutation, but the fact that it was growing at an exponential growth during a lockdown when all other strains saw big decreases is enough to get important people worried. Even laissez-faire Sweden considered a flight ban. |
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Originally Posted by johan rebel
(Post 32902842)
Given geographical realities, the UK makes an easy target.
I can't help wondering what the response would have been if this mutation had instead reared its ugly head in, say, Germany. Would the neighboring countries immediately have mobilized their armed forces to hermetically seal all land borders by midnight, in addition to halting all air traffic etc? Or would EU solidarity have taken precedence over this horrible new threat to life and limb? Johan Talking about the "new" UK strain, Belgian top virologist Marc van Ranst said that he "saw four cases in our lab [in Leuven, Belgium] in the past few months" (source - Dutch only) Turkey has banned flight traffic with the Netherlands given that the UK strain is already spotted there (source). The same counts for Denmark and Australia, which both received a Turkish flight ban too. Conclusion: The virus strain is hardly "new" and not solely limited to the UK. I would almost say that Britain's isolated location (and perhaps the ongoing Brexit negotiations too?) indeed play a role like Johan suggested above. Surely otherwise the EU would have quarantined Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark as well if it was really about stopping this new strain at all costs...? That said, even for Boris Johnson the strain is excellent news as he can at least blame that for his mismanagement of the virus and being all over the place politically, first promising a normal Christmas and then cancelling it. |
Originally Posted by Ditto
(Post 32903104)
Interestingly enough, this is now done in masses, EU citizens are being denied boarding from the UK and ZA on flights to NL
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Originally Posted by mfkne
(Post 32903449)
EU citizens still can travel to the EU from other countries other than the UK and South Africa, as long as they can travel to one of them.
It goes to show how pointless this ban is, but at the same time it shows NL can implement entry restrictions when they suddenly think it's important enough. |
Originally Posted by mpkz
(Post 32903242)
There is no tradeoff between health and the economy.
Given how far apart our perspectives and viewpoints are, I shall leave it at that. Some discussions are not worth the time and effort. I figure we should just agree to disagree. Johan |
Economy Nobel Prizes, top economist of Switzerland, economist at various banks all disagree with you: this is a false tradeoff. Control of the pandemic must be first order of business to have economic recovery, as New Zealand and Vietnam demonstrate
Vietnam boasts faster V-shaped recovery in Southeast Asian: Maybank https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/123...has%20reported. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0896-8 Countries have sought to stop the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by severely restricting travel and in-person commercial activities. Here, we analyse the supply-chain effects of a set of idealized lockdown scenarios, using the latest global trade modelling framework. We find that supply-chain losses that are related to initial COVID-19 lockdowns are largely dependent on the number of countries imposing restrictions and that losses are more sensitive to the duration of a lockdown than its strictness. However, a longer containment that can eradicate the disease imposes a smaller loss than shorter ones. Earlier, stricter and shorter lockdowns can minimize overall losses. A ‘go-slow’ approach to lifting restrictions may reduce overall damages if it avoids the need for further lockdowns. Regardless of the strategy, the complexity of global supply chains will magnify losses beyond the direct effects of COVID-19. Thus, pandemic control is a public good that requires collective efforts and support to lower-capacity countries. After at least three months of furious debate over the rival merits of fighting the pandemic and keeping the economy alive, it looks ever more as though this was a false dichotomy. The disease needs to be beaten. Even if it is not as terrifying as some made it seem a few months ago, the economy cannot function on full throttle until the virus has been bottled up and defeated. For countries that missed the best implementation period of the policy, the number of infected people is higher. It is often necessary to make a painful choice between the number of infected people and economic contraction. If the virus containment policy is strong it is less likely that the number of infected people will be large, but the cost is a greater economic contraction, at least in the short run. Those countries that try to postpone the policy and limit policy strength have suffered a high number of infections and deaths, but whether they can control the extent of economic losses in the long run is still unclear. The Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate has published a new paper, shared exclusively with Vox, outlining the risks currently facing the economy amid the Covid-19 pandemic and laying out a potential path back toward an economy that is prosperous and fair.In it, Stiglitz warns of the risks of vicious cycles and downward spirals that generally accompany economic downturns and explores how this time is different: What’s happening in the economy right now is driven by a pandemic, and addressing the health crisis must be the first order of business. The longer the country fails to do that, an economic problem that was initially thought to be short-term liquidity turns into one of long-term solvency for businesses and households. A temporary eviction moratorium only goes so far if, when it’s lifted, people are thousands of dollars in debt. But keeping businesses open and holding the purse strings tight may not only be bad health policy but also bad economics. As the fear of contagion starts to creep in, the Swiss are reducing their social life anyway, mobility data shows—leaving restaurants open but without clients. There is no trade-off between health and the economy, the Swiss are learning. Exploding case numbers have not prevented a steep rise in business insolvencies. In this crisis, one may have to pause life and parts of the economy for a while in order to bounce back stronger and healthier later. In an open letter, 50 economics professors have pleaded with the Swiss government to finally introduce a soft lockdown. The government still dithers. Oscar Wilde observed: “To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world.” That’s an even steeper challenge for a country that loves to work. Some scientists gathered economic data (GDP, Import/Export volumes, Foot retail) for 45 countries and log them with death. As expected, there is a negative trend visible showing that economy worsens with less control of the virus (US, most of Europe bar Finland/Norway/Baltics). The standard economic indicators reviewed here show, overall, countries that have contained the virus also tend to have had less severe economic impacts than those that haven’t. No one should be misled into believing there is zero-sum choice between saving lives and saving the economy. That is a false dichotomy. If there is anything to be learned regarding how to deal with future pandemics, it is that rapidly containing the pandemic may well lessen its economic impact. |
Originally Posted by fransknorge
(Post 32904931)
Economy Nobel Prizes, top economist of Switzerland, economist at various banks all disagree with you: this is a false tradeoff. Control of the pandemic must be first order of business to have economic recovery, as New Zealand and Vietnam demonstrate
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