http://www.protezionecivile.gov.it/risk-activities/health-risk/emergencies/coronavirus

Many governments have not paid attention to the threat of Corona Virus, so it has had a great impact on society and the economy

Dear Lucio Munoz, Yes, I agree with you.

Unfortunately many countries did not deal with the situation seriously and transparently. The reasons are many, however there is no disagreement on the political and economic aspects.

That is why I said goverments like to follow painful reactive thinking, under this thinking we are patching the problem as it comes, but the first patch is usually misplaced when reacting leading to a more serious crisis.

Proactive thinking aims at bypassing or reducing the negative impacts of the coming or existing crises at hand by targeting resources to the components in society that are key to the nature of the crisis, in this case the labour force or general population.

Proactive thinking is a sign of real lidership that see public resources as public resources, not private resources, resources that must be used to bail members of society out to avoid creating a socio-economic-environmental problem counpounding the healthcare crisis.

Proactive thinking such as stay at home policies for a period of time come in place before the crisis takes hold and involved providing the basic income needed to stay home for that period of time...

Thanks for your comments

It seems that now at least western goverments like Canada and the USA are considering to do as a reaction what a proactive policy would have done. Wish the lesson is learnt for the next time so a proactive policy is in place to act before problem takes hold,,,,

The virus is in change right now, and as humans, we always thought we were in charge for the last 10,000 years or so, ever since we invented agriculture and domestication of animals. However, the virus is showing the weaknesses of our political and economic systems, plus the lack of any rudimentary environmental consciousness.

So nature will invade our bodies, and add their RNA to us, and become our new teachers, until we learn our lessons, and we develop new consciousnesses and chose the correct path towards life, while we are at this crossroads?

I have posted two questions about the virus and society, on the potential political results of the virus on our societies at

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Coronavirus-Will_it_allow_us_to_reboot_our_societies and https://www.researchgate.net/post/Coronavirus-Will_it_highlight_failures_of_the_capitalist_system_and_force_all_countries_to_become_socialist

Plus commented at https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_are_the_Foreseen_political_implications_of_the_Coronavirus_pandemic_crisis_at_the_country_level_regional_level_and_world_power_countries_level

Dear Craig, thanks for your comment. You did not answer the question to base your comment on justifying that answer.

However, you seem to agree that we are in the current corona virus situation due to lack of proactive government responsibility.

The history of humanity after it got control of of most of nature and resources has been one where the control holds until controls are mishandled and then it takes control back until they are mishandled....this is the basis of the saying "we are humans, we sooner or later will make mistakes"...

With respect to the current situation and the basis of this question, we have to models of control in place to deal with the corona virus threat, one global and one local which can be extracted from a general control model, and so far both of them have been mishandled due to lack of proactive systematic thinking in our systems of government; which is made worse when you bring political factors and biases into the decision making....

1) A general control model can be stated as follows:

model BOX1-SCIENCE-BOX2

2) The global control model can be indicated as follows:

BOX1 = Country1 SCIENCE = WHO = World health organization

BOX2 = The rest of the world

model COUNTRY1-WHO-REST OF THE WORLD

3) The local control model can be stated as follows:

BOX1 = People SCIENCE = CHO = Country health authority

BOX2 = Government

model PEOPLE-CHO-GOVERNMENT

The global control failed because full proactive attention and resources were NOT focused on containing the virus in the source country1 once it was leak the corona virus was there.

The local control failed first because full proactive attention and resources were NOT placed on getting ready for the coming of the corona virus in terms of healthcare structure and planning knowing it was going to use globalization as the spreading tool; and they failed the second time when they did not provide direct economic support to each citizen to stay home for the recommended period of time to prevent the virus to peak as soon as the corona virus first was detected and therefore the labor force and general population were still healthy....Help is being given and healthcare action is being taking now the the horse has left the barn,,,,

Lack of proactive government thinking at global and local level has led to the current breakdown of controls humanity has, when the vaccine comes those remaining humans will have control again until the control is mishandled again...

Proactive global action to contain at BOX1 and proactive local action to protect the people would have save lives and money as healthcare costs would be over all lower and care more effective.

Thank you for your comment

To answer your question directly, the current situation is much, much worse than a lack of a proactive government, because the USA ran the virus pandemic simulation only two years ago, and have not let the public know yet, what they found. Here are the details of that simulation:

In May 2018, the John Hopkins Center for Health Security ran a simulation called "Parainfluenza Clade X" to determine what the potential would be of a virus pandemic, and they concluded: "...twenty months 150 million people worldwide--two percent of the global population--have died."

"...The global economy has collapsed under the strain, with the Dow Jones average down 90 percent. U.S. GDP down 50 percent, and unemployment at 20 percent. Washington is barely functioning--the president and vice president are both ill, one one-third of Congress is dead or incapacitated."

People involved in that simulation were Tom Daschle (former leader of US Senate), Dr. Julie Gerberding (former head CDC), Jim Talen (former Missouri senator)--Why are all of these people keeping quiet right now, and not telling us what they saw in the global virus pandemic simulation only two years ago, and helping lead us out of this mess, with some new simulations???!!!

This simulation information is from pages 201-203 of the Bryan Walsh book, "END, A Brief Guide to the End of the World: Asteroids, Supervolcanoes, Rogue Robots, and more", published in 2019. The author also predicts on pages 192-194 the various reasons why, he believes that Trump "lacks the talent and the temperament to lead the United States through an outbreak..." plus, "...there are aspects about Trump that .."make him dangerous in the face of a new disease."

Craig, thank you for your comment....If proactive government responsilities were in place, we would not be in the current situation, that is the point, neither in the USA or any other country except China....Can you see that? The bad and worsening current situation are the consequences of lack of proactive goverment responsibility, which has led to the mishanling of the coming of the virus since the point when its existence had been leaked....proactive planning has a series of back up plans that are set in motion just in case the first plan fails keeping in mind that we now live under globalization...Including the corona virus issue.

A) General proactive action model

BOX1-SCIENCE-BOX2

B) Global proactive action model

Country1-WHO-Rest of the world

SCIENCE = WHO = World heath organization

BOX1 = Country1

BOX2 = The rest of the world

C) Country proactive action model

People-LHO-Government

SCIENCE = LHO = Local health organization

BOX1 = People

BOX2 = Government

For example

Plan A:

contain the virus at source and start work on vaccination making,..Global proactive model needs to be at work to protect the rest of the world

Plan B: In case plan A fails, the rest of the world needs/each country to set up the health infra-structure needed to deal with the worse case scenario of the spread as welll as putting together the economic package that will be needed to deal with the social/economic issue that will come with this worse case scenario and the stay home/national lockdown possibility needed to prevent any peak of the infection...while continuing working on vaccination making...Country proactive action model is set up...to protect People.

Plan C

When first case of corona virus infection appears, release the economic package to implement the stay at home directive and the national lockdown needed to keep the infection at the minimum ...and if not vaccine yet, continue working on vacination making...Country proactive action model is implemented when people are still healthy...to protect the rest of the population.

We know that science is not affected by prayers, if plan A works, you do not need to implement plan B and plan C. If you mishandle plan A, then plan B is in place to be activited when first sign of infection appear....

In your comment, it is clear that that the current situation in the USA that the coming of the corona virus has been mishandled locally, but keep in mind....all this has happened because attention and resources and policy by the rest of the world and WHO were not placed fully on making sure PLAN A was implemented properly. But the USA is not alone in the initial failure....to protect humanity....

Two issues are important here: what is government response, and when is government response? Theses questions lead to different empiric, evaluation and insights.

First, does government response means talk and publicity, which diverts attention from costly issues to economic performance issues. Many governments are locked in the idea that winning and signalling financial indicators represent real economic progress.

Second, natural disasters are inevitable. The question is not how much these governments have locked down cities and states, but instead, the question is which government has the foresight from the hindsight, and which one is prepared. The opportunity and luck strikes the prepared ones.

Therefore, the response need to be evaluated based on clarity: what do we want to know?

My Excel charts are not looking good, with all hell breaking loose in the next 30 days, just because the Lockdown was NOT put in place immediately when the first cases appeared in each country. And then, when the spread started, did not go from Lockdown to complete quarantine like China did for 2 months in Wuhan.

Everyone MUST immediately go into quarantine in each country, in order not to suffer to much--the curves are not changing fast enough.

Tariq, good day.

The question is about the issue of proactive planning VRS reactive planning

Proactive planning aims at preventing or minimizing human suffering and cost

If there is no proactive planning as in this case, chances of mishandling the situation are higher....

And when you base a mishandled situation as the corona virus situation on reactive planning as governments have done you maximize human suffering and cost as you are then a kind of chasing clouds...Is not that what you are seeing since the corona virus appear in BOX1?....

As Craig mentioned taking action.lockdowns/stay at home when the virus is already loose or after people are sick, that is reactive planning at its worse so we should see high human suffering and cost.

Thank you for your comment

GOOD NEWS from California and the USA on April 2! The days to doubling of total cases is lengthening. In California our total case numbers were doubling like clockwork, every 3-4 days between March 8 and March 29th.

We put on "Lockdown Lite" on the 16th. Then from March 30 to today, the numbers are now doubling every 12 days. Once every country ON THE PLANET goes on a severe-enough lockdown for at least a month, then the total number of cases and days to double, start stretching out after 2 weeks of Lockdown.

To answer the question here about the "lack of proactive action" by a government, instead we have in the USA, a president who unfortunately had a chronic infection of "Denier-Disease" whose symptoms are: "a person who refuses to accept the existence, truth, or validity of something despite scientific evidence."

Yesterday, President Trump was still refusing to do any lockdowns in any of the Republican states that support him, which means that a lot of his supporters will be too sick or dead, to be able to vote in November?

It is sad Craig, but I agree....

And the expectation should be that reactive action usually take place in extremer fashion as the consequence of lack of proactive action get worse and then the new reaction is even more extreme making the situation even worse....

it is what I call "the reaction nighmare' as it creates a cycle towards more social pain and more healthcare and economic costs since it leads to a free for all locally, regionally, nationally and globally, for the limited resources that are available in the market place as the central proactive planning does not exist....

All began to break loose when the rest of the world in BOX2 and WHO failed to keep corona virus inside BOX1 and defeat it there....we are in the current situation because the rest of the world put the opportunity cost of losing businesses with BOX1 higher than the opportunity cost of saving lives...When not implementing an internationally coordinated isolation of BOX1 to contain the problem there and prevent the spread outside, that meant.putting money over lives.....openning that way the globalization door to the corona virus to do its global work...Now we are facing in each country the consequences of not taking that proactive action....

April 5 - In California, after only 2-1/2 weeks of "Lockdown Lite" which means you can still travel from State to State or from County to County, the biggest issues are lack of income and restlessness.

Because others like to buy our US Treasury bonds, and $24 Trillion in debt, we are about to vacuum out a couple of more trillion from the rest of the world to save ourselves, to pay our workers while they are on lockdown for a month or two. How is each country going to keep paying their workers while on lockdown?

Then, there is restlessness?We are billions of primates, who over the last 5,000 years, have become used to living in hive-like colonies--going to and fro on a daily basis, and interacting with dozens of non-family members each day. That is the glue that keeps our hive structures intact on an hour-to-hour and day-by-day basis.

Agreements that you have with everyone around you,that keeps the hive functioning week-to-week and month-by-month, that the stores will have food on the shelves, and the farm workers will be out picking the produce you need to live, and the electricity will keep flowing through the wires?

Will that hive-structure start breaking down, when the interactions must cease for months, or will individuals get restless, and resume contact too soon, like Trump wants us to, and keep spreading the virus that way?

Dear Craig, good day.

We know that in pure capitalism, the economy is first, and the society is last....

so directly or indirectly the economy will get the bail out first in fast track fashion; and society will get a bailed out in a slow and untimely fashion creating more social pain and more death as bail outs must be expected to follow the existing inequality divide.....

look at how the bail outs/stimulus have be rolled out so far and the next ones coming....easy for the rich to access, difficult for the poor to get though phone lines and crash sites....

.but this time, leaving society out means the virus will be around longer and its uneven economy/society impact will be visible to all when this all ends, making people think more and more about how to permanently fix the current economy/society disparity?

The fact that someone want to open an economy when a pandemic has not yet completed its work of economic and social disruption tells you that for that someone the economy is the only thing that matters, social pain does not matter....Pure capitalism at it best .....

One way to lower the number of new cases rate, is for everyone to know the coronavirus lifespan on different surfaces--cloth two days, paper money four days, and outside of masks the longest, at 7 days. Paper money might be a major "vector" for transmitting the virus, so perhaps banks should start "laundering" their currency and coins? ? SEE https://www.businessinsider.com/how-long-can-coronavirus-live-on-surfaces-how-to-disinfect-2020-3

Dear Craig, good day. As long as you do not touch your face or mouth or nose or eyes with dirty hands or dirty globes or dirty clothes/tissue/masks and you keep social distance to stay away from people, looking sick or not you are likely to be fine even if the virus is in your environment or in any of those vectors...as you are supposed to wash your hands often, specially if handling such vectors....

I personally have gone a little extra, by not just washing my hands when coming home from outside, but also my face and I place all the clothes I was wearing while out in the dryer high for 20 minutes... so far so good....

Have you noticed the big difference between the corona virus condition in Canada compared to the United States in terms of cases despite both countries using reactive planning? Undertanding these shades light to what went wide more wrong in the USA systematically than in Canada...Federal truthful, science based leadership, influenza plan updated for pandemic reaction, province coordination, universal healhtcare, national or provincial lower population densities, Voluntary isolation, stay at home guidelines...quick income/support/rent support program federally and provincially....

A lot of rethinking after the pandemic risk goes way down may lead this time to proactive thinking for next time around...

Stay healthy!

.

Have a nice day

Lucio

Coronavirus is very quickly stripping away... the facade that each country has erected, to pretend how much they really care about each individual's welfare, in terms of safe housing, a livable wage, clean water, free electricity via solar panels, free heath care, free higher education, equal rights for women, actions to reverse Global Warming, zero investment in militaries and warfare, no refugees, no "illegals" when everyone is a citizen ("Wherever you live, you are automatically a citizen") and the like?

Or, is the government really only interested in... maintaining the status quo for the wealthiest 2% and to maintain a plutocracy? The coronavirus is showing us where our government's hearts and minds really live, and where the adjustment must be made?-- So that in the near future, each country takes care of the welfare of ALL of its people living within its borders? .As spoken by the character Ruk in Star Trek episode "What are Little Girls Made of?:" that was first aired on Oct.20, 1966, "Survival! Existence! Must cancel out programming!"

The corona virus reactive response in different countries tell us that there is a human way/responsible way and an inhuman way/irresponsible way to make up for the lack of proactive government responsibility....

But all responses have something in coming THE NEED FOR DIRECT TRICKLEDOWNS THROUGH EXTREME GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION, which are welcome in this case by the supply side of the pro-rich growth market in all countries as they too need bail outs hoping to preserve the market structure/status quo after the pandemic passes...

A lot of economy soul searching will come out after the corona virus experience as this is the case of desirable extreme government intervention, but the implementation of the intervention via traditional market inequality routes will call for the elimination of those inequalities once and for all by fixing the pricing structure of markets to permanently generate direct trickle down effects.....probably bringing a new crop of leaders world wide moving in this direction....

Let's try to keep the discussion within the boundaries of the question

Have a nice day...

The lockdowns introduced to specific industries and sectors of the economy, mainly to enterprises and companies operating in the tourist services sector, were aimed at slowing down the development of the pandemic, i.e. social transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) coronavirus, reducing the scale of the number of infections of citizens with Coronavirus and reducing the number of people seriously ill with Covid-19 disease. In this way, the risk of failure of health care institutions was reduced, i.e. the risk of a situation in which there would be a shortage of beds in hospitals, ventilators, oxygen, etc., was reduced. On the other hand, the lockdowns introduced significantly increased the scale of the recession in the economy, which occurred to the greatest extent in the 2nd quarter of 2020. In addition, as part of the nationwide quarantine and the implementation of various anti-pandemic measures and instruments, certain restrictions were imposed chaotically without thorough research and analysis of the impact of specific anti-pandemic security instruments on the scale of the pandemic development. For example, during the first wave of the pandemic, i.e. in April 2020, together with other anti-pandemic safety measures and instruments, as part of crisis management during the first national quarantine, a ban was also introduced to enter city parks and forests. Citizens very quickly criticized such a solution on social networks, pointing out that instead of improving the pandemic situation, such a solution may have the opposite effect, i.e. a decrease in the overall resistance of the body to various external factors in a situation of long-term stay at home without the possibility of active rest and / or physical activity outdoors, including in city parks and / or forests. Due to strong criticism of this type of government actions by citizens, such anti-pandemic restrictions were quickly lifted. Criticism from citizens appeared mainly on social networks. It was a substantive, sarcastic and mocking criticism, and consequently effective. However, on the other hand, the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) coronavirus pandemic on the scale of 2020 appeared for the first time. At the beginning of the 1st wave of the pandemic, it was not known what the scale of the global economy recession would be. The first forecasts of a decline in the economic growth rate, which appeared at that time, forecasted a recession of a dozen or so percent in the economy for 2020. Therefore, in the framework of the first such large-scale instruments of anti-pandemic security and crisis management, errors could occur, which were usually not repeated during subsequent anti-pandemic restrictions introduced during subsequent national quarantines introduced during subsequent pandemic waves.

Best regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Good day Dariusz, was the original response proactive or reactive? Yes or no and why

Proactive means plans are based on the science of knowing what to do in advance when the threat materializes to avoid in unnecessary social, economic, environmental and health pain associated with governing by guessing or making solutions up outside of science....leading to tragic catching up syndromes

What do you think, reactive or proactive?

Dear Lucio,

Of course, as part of the improvement of anti-pandemic safety systems, the improvement of anti-pandemic risk management and crisis management processes, the improvement of the organization of health care institutions, the implementation of anti-crisis, interventionist socio-economic policy programs, a strategy based on proactive concepts should be applied. However, not everything could be predicted and forecasted in advance. Therefore, the applied systemic, institutional and governmental anti-pandemic measures are not perfect and should be further improved.

Have a nice day, Stay healthy! Best wishes,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Dear Dariusz, thank you for additional comment... first the WHO failed to contain the problem in china, and then all governments failed to plan for the possibility it could come out of china...Bill Gates stated publicly before the virus hit china and later the rest of the world that the world was not ready for a pandemic hit as governments and WHO had no proactive plans on what to do, to contain the virus at source while developing vaccines, to contain the virus at the border while vaccinating people before they get sick, and to build the health system and economic system capacity to deal with the health and social and economic consequences of dealing with the pandemic right away...

Perhaps they did not want to invest in capacity that they may not need having to spend way more once they realised they actually needed to make that investment...

We know that pandemics will come and we knew this corona 19 virus was coming, did not we?, yet governments and the WHO failed the proactive responsability test...

Yes sir ( Lucio Muñoz ), corona response is a lack of proactive government responsibility and also government's vision.

Now, the countries (India, Brazil, Iran, Argentina, Nepal ... ) with highest corruption rate, irresponsible governments, no specific post-pandemic plans are suffering the most (both in new cases and new death rates).

As we know the political power is the supreme power, and so does apply for crises, pandemic and responsibility. The recent and real life example of political power, government responsibility and political vision is the USA, where covid pandemic / cases has shift dramatically after the change of power (i.e. president and political experience).

Dear Naresh, thanks for your comment.

Yes, that is one way of looking at it.

Responsible governments use power to govern, so they have a common good based vision as they are a reflection of the true majority view. They are more likely to act based on the proactive responsibility principle aimed at minimizing negative impacts to the common good/the true majority, in the present and in the future.

Governments, who get to power without having any interest in governing for the common good, especially if corruption is spread, will do worse both proactively and reactively.

Responsibility for proactivity and reactivity in planning starts at the top.

As you mentioned, contrast President Trump performance and results with the pandemic and Presiden Biden, it is like night and day.

Have a nice day

Yes I totally agree with Lucio Muñoz . Losses of life would be less if government had reacted proactively.

This proactive responsibility is success when government take the crises seriously. One such case was seen in USA when government did took it lightly stating a 'Chinese virus' . But in case of Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and others, the government took it seriously and all the government bodies were actively engaged to fight with pandemic and the result is seen positive.

Once government takes it seriously, the proactive plans triggers automatically.

Good day

Thank you for commenting Chandra!

You are right, governments that took the threat seriously did better than does who did not.

But apparently, no government had proactive plans in place even though they knew in advance they needed proactive plan B if the WHO could not contain the virus inside China leaving proactive plan A mute.

So the virus was met with reactive plans since it left China.

Perhaps for the next pandemic there will be some proactive planning based on lessons learnt.

Have a nice day!

No!

It is the responsibility of cultural mechanisms.

a) In the USA and Brazil, some leaders and their followers support the hoax of virus and climate change.

b) In India, the support of political leaders is still more important than the loss of life.

c) Some religious leaders in many countries in Temples, churches, and mosques promote divine intervention more than prevention and cure.

d) The cultural wars rage on between countries on the reputation ranking.

So, if the leaders are the product of their followers, then what is driving those followers? Did you see any protests in India against the government or leaders who lied to the people? The same goes elsewhere.

In the West, the arrest of a journalist, restrictions on socializing during pandemics, and the flow of immigrants attract all kinds of protests. What drives that?

Culture comes to my mind!

Good day Tiriq, you said No!, but to what?

The question is :Is Corona virus response a classic case of lack of proactive government responsibility?

Are you saying that culture is responsible for the lack of proactive government responsibility?

Can you please explain?

I imagined your question as follows: are leaders of cities, states, and countries responsible for the....?

My response to that translated question is: No. We are responsible to place them there--the leadership roles.

Tariq, the question is "Is Corona virus response a classic case of lack of proactive government responsibility?", and the answer is YES...., all leaders, all countries, under dictatorship or not, they did not plan proactively against an external threat that SCIENCE under globalization said it was coming; and hence they were not ready....

Without a proactive plan, with the help of culture or alternative facts or both, things should be expected to go wild, and it becomes unclear then where the responsibility buck stops....

That is true in India, in Brazil, in the UK, in Canada, in the USA,,,, and so on... But those countries who reacted in a very serious science based way and kept the focus on it through time have done better....

Governments had a good time to step up preventive measures when COVID-19 appeared in China

Have a nice time

Dear Heider, yes, there was time, but also it was known a pandemic could cause such damage to lives and economies, remember Bill Gates calls to be ready, but governments still were not ready....

When the Covid crisis is finally over, we will still have Tooth Decay, still our most common and costly disease where acid demineralisation of teeth exceeds remineralisation, affecting almost everyone, increasing with age to involve 24 teeth in a lifetime.

Over 80% of cavities in children and young adults start deep inside pit and fissure faults in back teeth where food is trapped and brushing can’t reach to clean and aid remineralisation.

Dentists can prevent these cavities by placing costly sealants over chewing surfaces to block food being trapped there but can’t protect all children or everyone globally.

Simple When sealant technology like chewing foods with sealant qualities like cheese or sugar free gummy confection before eating acid forming food like chocolate, also blocks more food being trapped as in attachment, and can reach whole populations as part of all oral health promotion and STEM education with glass models of a fissure and development of a national database of oral heath records as in www.supertooth.org where you can register for updates.

Thank you Maurice for your comment....

As it is not directly related to the question I will leave it as it is.