Thread by @gbponz

Lockdown thread: Albert is a friend with a knack for goading me into thinking. Disclaimer: i am not a data scientist, this is a contentious issue.(/) @jeuasommenulle @petunianelsole @DonChisciotte_P @nglinsman @chigrl

https://twitter.com/amlivemon/status/1378480674127147012

So, I want to explore the political issue about lockdowns, since COVID is a POLITICAL crisis more than an economic one. There have been many, many decisions along the way which fit reality only if politicians prefer power above citizen's lives(/)

I already said that i have my indicators, which are parts of the apparatus which are, by the Elite's own admission, idiotic use of citizen's miney, yet they are surviving the worst crisis in two generations.(/)

So, whenever this ends, people might do the pilgrimage to Santiago, but I think I will go to the #EU in Strasbourg, if at all possible flying #Alitalia. They are both a testament to how feeble is logic when politics intervenes.(/)

Also, there may be others, but those two are enough to alert people to unfettered political idiocy. But where logic fails, coherence may help. So, Lockdowns. Why will they last longer than anyone predicts, in countries where they have been enacted?(/)

Because pundits are using the wrong logic. Politicians are inclined to waste human lives and money in pursuit of their own goals... the first being political survival, hence the two cases above.(/)

So, what's the political risk of renouncing lockdown in a country where they have been enacted? Of course, letting COVID rear its head, but at this point winners and losers are quite visible, rapid deployment of vaccines separating the wheat from the chaff.(/)

No, the political risks are two. The minor one is having a COVID relapse, but the population coping and resisting attempts at reinstating.
The big Kahuna is seeing that they did not work. That, pardon my French, would make shit hit the fan.(/)

We see that the US administration is aware of that: unless they force mask mandates and Cali measures, people will start looking at Florida (no mandate) and Texas (END of mask mandate) and check if the difference with stricter blue states is appreciable.(/)

We see this in Europe, where I goad my daughter, who's graduating at the Stockholm School of Economics, saying that she has a degree from "a Country formerly known as #Sweden". They misteriously disappeared.(/)

ALL the sectors who suffered most are of course in the private economy. Many are mostly composed of small businesses, shops, self employed. What if these people start thinking that under the covid smokescreen they have been done in like Stalin did the Kulaks in?(/)

That's why there will be imho NO attempts or experimentation at opening early: these are the politicians's breadbasket, we are for the first time in my life saying words best left unsaid. Like "revolt". So, between salvaging the economy or keeping stability, it's the latter.(/)

Covid has illustrated to many more people how daft thepolitical class is. ANY emergency measure will be used to buy enough time so that the masses go back to their slumber.

Update:

https://twitter.com/DavidRamsdenWo/status/1378701225240064004?s=19