So those running our governments can be held accountable in the future for their reckless prioritising of profit over public interest re: #COVIDー19 I want to start a discussion about what action should have been taken to prevent the spread of this virus.
Bringing in people who have commented on this. @GreenRupertRead @GeorgeMonbiot @GretaThunberg @ExtinctionR @RogerHallamCS21
Below I will list some of the obvious action I think should have happened to stop the spread of #COVIDー19.
Below I will list some of the obvious action I think should have happened to stop the spread of #COVIDー19.
1) To me the most obvious immediate action should have been an international moratorium on international travel and flying until the situation had been brought under control in China. At least a structure for this should have been put in place.
2) Globally, a policy of international cooperation should have been immediately started to handle a possible pandemic which was warned of right at the very beginning.
3) A plan should have been worked out to suspend financial trading and commercial operations in the case of a global spread of the virus. In a large part to prevent public safety being sacrificed to maintain the pursuit of profit.
4) As soon as it was apparent this virus had spread around the world, every government should have created a policy to ban large social gatherings, such as sporting events, unnecessary travel, social distancing, to prevent the wider spread of this virus.
5) Plans should have been made to ensure the adequate supply of face masks, hand sanitizer and the supply of essential food supplies and goods to the populace. Not relying on market mechanisms.
6) Overall, the precautionary principle should have been applied. Right at the very beginning of the #COVIDー19 outbreak being reported, experts were warning about the possibility of a global pandemic. They were right.
7) Instead our leadership decided to take a huge gamble with public safety, in a vain hope that business as usual could continue i.e. vast profit for the wealthy few. Self-evidently this was a vain gamble as the lock downs in China and Italy illustrate.
8) It is now inevitable that the type of lock downs instituted in China and Italy are going to have to soon be implemented everywhere, because the spread of the virus and the paralysis it causes will happen everywhere.
9) So the question is why did our governments take this futile gamble, when they are going to have to take this action very shortly anyway? Whereas if they had done this right away this virus would not have spread like it has. So they have achieved nothing with this gamble.
10) The "economic" impacts of #COVIDー19 are now likely to be much greater than if our governments had just taken this rather obvious "precautionary principle" action just weeks earlier. So it makes no sense, even in terms of their objectives - utter incompetence.
11) All of this has profound implications for the way our governments have failed to address the climate and ecological crisis which they first pledged to address nearly 30 years ago. Their procrastination has meant far more radical action is needed now.
11a) This raises serious questions about the competence of our governance and whether it's fit for purpose. Ostensibly governments are there to protect the public interest, but in reality gamble with public safety to serve corporate interests and the interests of billionaires.
12) Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated in how governments have sacrificed the public interest as regards #COVIDー19 to maintain the money making profit machine. But this has as we see been a false gamble as it does not even serve this objective well.
13) This inability to act in an appropriate way, and to make things worse, even from the perspective of purely being focused on profit and wealth creation, says that this an irrational addiction, and not a sane enterprise.
14) As I say, even if the objective is purely profit and maintaining the status quo, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to only lock down our system after virus has spread globally and through our countries, and the long term economic impact will be far worse.
15) It's incredibly poor management strategy when governments take vain gambles with public safety, against expert advice, to maintain economic growth, whilst creating a situation where eventually the economic impacts will be far worse. Clearly irrational addictive behaviour.
@threadreaderapp please unroll.
