A few words re COVID-19 - We will get through this, Talossans!

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

New Zealand will be coming out of lockdown starting on Thursday. We have had around 20 deaths in total; there are 100 remaining cases, mainly in nursing homes. We seem to have broken the back of this monster, and hopefully our national wealth will not suffer.

Meanwhile, Australia, the UK and the US are suffering because the growth of conspiracy theory in those countries means that the social discipline required to enforce public health measures are lacking. That's what happens when you let your population get dumbed down.

[Sir Ian Plätschisch]

New Zealand will be coming out of lockdown starting on Thursday. We have had around 20 deaths in total; there are 100 remaining cases, mainly in nursing homes. We seem to have broken the back of this monster, and hopefully our national wealth will not suffer.

Meanwhile, Australia, the UK and the US are suffering because the growth of conspiracy theory in those countries means that the social discipline required to enforce public health measures are lacking. That's what happens when you let your population get dumbed down.

I'm quite happy to hear this.

However, if you think resistance to the lockdown is just because of conspiracy theories and a dumbed down population, you are giving a lot of people short shrift.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Oh, sorry, I forgot greed and racism. I do notice it's white middle-class people with guns on those anti-lockdown protests, not demanding that they should go back to work but that other people - the servant class - should be required to risk their lives so that they can have their hair cut and their lawns mowed.

EDIT: Sorry, that was quite rude and intemperate. I know that some people are legitimately worried about their livelihood. But again, that is due to government neglect going back generations, which has not given Americans the right to sick leave, and the current bunglefudge response. No-one should have to risk their lives for a paycheck.

The countries which have beaten COVID back are either those which locked down quickly and completely (eg NZ) and those who have adopted "track and trace" like South Korea or Singapore. The US won't or can't do either, especially because a large and well-armed minority won't adopt basic public health measures, either out of economic desperation, conspiracy theory or sheer orneriness. The first would be easiest to fix - if the US hadn't spent 40 years screaming SOCIALISM at such measures.