The politicians need to listen to the doctors who actually know how to handle an epidemic. They will also have a pretty good idea of the mortality rate unlike those making wild guesses that just frighten people.
We are seeing some limited panic buying in the UK, but there are not that many cases yet. I assume all the precautions will reduce the spread of other infections too. Some industries will suffer, but we need to minimise the deaths.
Yes, the key point there is "the doctors who actually know how to handle an epidemic". At least on US news sources, I've seen some doctors and health professionals giving bad advice or making bad comparisons of COVID-19 to the seasonal flu. Like the WHO head who said restricting flights to China was unnecessary, even as the entire city of Wuhan was being locked down. There's a fair number of doctors and health professionals that are mostly playing politics, either downplaying this in an attempt to 'manage perceptions' away from negativity ("keep that stock market humming!") or a few going to the other extreme and hyping it up for political ends (i.e. getting rid of Trump). I can certainly understand their motivations and I'm not saying they're evil, but they're not being helpful to our personal health & finances either.
BTW, it appears we got our first confirmed case in Mongolia. It was a French citizen who works at one of the mining companies south of here. He flew in via Moscow a week ago, and just recently started having symptoms. In the meantime officials are tracking down at least 120 recent contacts of his, closing roads out of the capital and between provinces, stopping all local flights, and talking about restricting in-city traffic & mass transit too. Pretty harsh and inconvenient, but as you say we need to minimize the deaths. Making a collective effort, which involves some inconvenience, has got to be a part of that.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I think there's more politicians, journalists and businessmen 'playing politics' whilst doctors get on with dealing with the real issues. Trump just makes stuff up as usual. There's been a few UK deaths and I think we'll see some impact on normal life on the next few weeks.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I definitely agree that there's far more journalists, businessmen, and politicians playing up political angles than there are doctors doing so. But the fact that even some doctors do so is disappointing. We expect them to hold to a higher standard, especially when compared to the average government hack... 😉
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit