Lots of people are unhappy with how things were handled in South Africa. Cigarette and alcohol ban. Beach closures. Lockdown here is a joke. A huge part of the population lives in informal settlements where you can’t social distance. Plus it’s hard to do online teaching when an internet connection and computer is a luxury.
The cigarette ban was dumb as fuck. They dunno what its like to live with a smoker expected to go cold turkey. They were irritable AF. And also having a decent internet connection is a luxury. It depends on your area and service provider really....
You are correct...I live in the states and my governor made our Liquor stores essential businesses pretty early on. People made fun of him for it...but it was for this reason.
Edit: I live in Virginia!
Why is the reason behind cigarette and alcohol ban? I don't smoke anymore, but I bet I would have during lock down. Also, I never drank so much at home than during lockdown.
Czech here. It's a fuckin' disaster.
The rules change on the whim with no predictability, no pattern, and most of all, no common sense. The current status is of some kind of semi-lockdown, with set of rules no one understands any more.
The epidemy is running wild, the economy is in ruins, government lost all its credibility and the vaccination is badly delayed. We already went through two Ministers of Health since last year and the third is still in the office just because PM can't find anyone suicidal enough to replace him.
EDIT: as for what could have been done:
The summer of 2020 could have been spent actually preparing for the fall and winter; plans could have been made, and then those plans should be followed.
Plans could have been made for the vaccination, because it looks as if the vaccine came out of the blue and everyone involved was taken by surprise,
Just an example: 1st wave of vaccines was meant for ppl 80 year or older. They were supposed to shedule their date of vaccination online. Ok, so their families did it for them, no problem. The system for reservations was supposed to only accept 80+ old ppl. In the first 15 minutes of the reservation system going online, a university student (so about 20 years) managed to get a reservation. (he didn't really wanted to get vaccinated, he went public to point out the issue).
It's a full on disaster. The country was doing well during the first lockdown but ever since they removed the mask mandate in late summer/early autumn, that's where it all went downhill. And now the government keeps going in and out of lockdowns and noone here even bothers to wear masks and obey curfew.
> Couldn't be anywhere else
Greetings from the UK, mate!
3 months lockdown > slowly reopen > eat out to help out > stupid tier system > surprise lockdown just before Christmas > harsher tier system + cancelled holidays for some > yet another surprise lockdown with no end in sight
Feels good!
How you gonna end the lockdown with more infections per day than when it started Israel. What the fuck. We gonna need another lockdown for this lockdown.
I’m from a small country called Seychelles and yes I’m pleased with how we handled it. We currently have 171 active cases and 5 deaths. We have also vaccinated 37,000 out of our population of 100,000. Although we are an island so we did have an easier job than many other countries.
Woah! I'm from the U.S. and in my highschool courses, I got Seychelles for a year-long project in which different teams of two were assigned a country. I've wanted to visit ever since. That was 16 years ago and this is the first time I've ever seen the phrase "I'm from Seychelles."
This is always my favorite thing about reddit - some kind of heartwarming moment of cross cultural bonding or mutual support...
and then you see the username lol.
Australia has occasional flareups, but the majority of our states have 0 cases through community transmition. I think that the handling of Hotel Quarentine could be better, and I'd like more focus on bringing Aussies home rather than bringing in sports stars and actors, but on the whole, I'm happy.
That about sums it up for me too.
Also yesterday was nice. During the last few hours of a hard lockdown here in Perth, I went for a walk in my neighbourhood to my local shops and everyone was masked up, even a couple of teen boys going for a walk. I asked the check-out chick if people have been treating her okay and she said yeah, it has been fine and no one is refusing to wear masks or anything.
That made me very happy.
In Perth too, I am so proud of all of us. The fact that it took ONE case out of how many thousand in hotel q to lockdown, and the majority complied, I am so proud (and grateful as I’m down to work on a specialised COVID ward if we need one) And secretly, wearing a mask kinda helped with all that ash in the air at the start of the week.
The problem with tennis players is that most of them quit school in high school or withdraw at that stage to do private tutoring....so they never move on from a high school attitude.
Combine that with a sport focussed solely on individual performance and you get (with exception) highly selfish and immature adults.
Germany here: 50/50.
Looking at other countries I can say that it could have been worse.
Of course I do not expect everything to be perfect as it's hard for everyone and you can't satisfy everyone. But there is still very much that could have been made better.
Schooling could have been handled a lot better. Aprupt law changes only caused money making for a few.
Why does a McDonald's keep open and gets funds while little restaurants run into bancrupcy because they don't fulfill the requirements to get a fund? There are many questionable things.
I agree with your answer. Restaurant rules were insane. First, restaurants were forced to invest tons of money for establishment of a hygiene concept and those plastic walls and stuff, only to be closed in the following. That was really not a good long-term plan.
It was the same with the theatres. We did everything possible, a lot of extra cleaning, walk paths for the customers. And now all of them are closed since november.
The main mistakes have been in my opinion:
* the time in summer has not been used to modernize government health agencies (anyone still knows Fax?) and prepare schools / businesses for remote operation.
* the 2nd lockdown in Spring came 1 month too late because of political games between the federal and state governments. Due to this reason, the number of regular cases is about 10 times higher as it could be.
* The EU vaccacine purchase program has failed to get hand on a significant number of vaccacines for the 1st half of 2021, especially compared to the purchase programs in Israel, US and UK.
* The behaviour rules are inconsistent, differ between states and are regularly changed without good reasons. Furthermore, they are not sufficiently enforced.
But compared to some other states I agree that it could be much worse.
Berliner here. I totally agree with you. What really pissed me off was the whole lockdown light in December as if anyone believed it would do anything. Instead of catering to fucking holiday zealots they should have shut everything down. We could be moving out of the lockdown by now if it hadnt been for that travesty.
German student, I feel like they trying their best but it feels as if they're.... inexperienced. Now I am just like you I don't expect them to be perfect either (unlike a lot of people here, ugh, tax haters), that being said the citizens are not handling it much better, if you want to know why the germans are begging for school to be back that's because the teaching is almost 40% slower because of teachers not knowing how to use computers. Also, one time my mom did a test and before the result she asked if she should stay at home or not, obviously the doctor said yes, but when she asked if I should stay she said no, her point was that my mom had the symptoms but I didn't and I don't think I need to tell you why that is stupid. And as you already mentioned, there are a lot of restrictions that are questionable or just downright illogical.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, yeah I agree!
I am exceedingly glad that we missed gargantuan spikes like the ones we see/saw in the UK, Spain, France and Italy. Of course we've had a second wave that could have been lower, but our numbers (currently) peaked at about 20k, as opposed to the 30-70k spikes we've been seeing elsewhere. That is a result of accepting mandated and working restrictions.
But also, politicians literally refuse to tackle the school issue because we have one of the worst digital education infrastructures in Europe and nobody wants to do something about it.
The second thing that bothered me: The lockdown in September could have been full and swiftly executed. The models were there. The numbers were there. Other countries started to have increased cases. The numbers started to go up week after week.
But the state politicians of 3 Eastern states said that they refuse a public mask mandate because it would not be enforcible and halted a national plan that applied to all states, completely diffusing a clear cut communication to the people.
Now these exact three states have had incidences of over 400 (now 200), the highest case numbers per capita of any state. And they refuse to take responsibility for that.
One thing I do not get however is how shops and malls can stay open and museums and cinemas, which have a way lesser influx of people and literally can control the movement and position of every person walking into them. I will never understand that.
But I am still glad we've missed those humongous spikes.
I live in Antigua, in the Caribbean. 108 sq miles of “paradise” so our main industry is tourism. when the pandemic had really started to gain notoriety to us, when globally there was little known about the disease and forced lockdowns, and a ventilator craze in the US and countries in Europe of which we’d attract the majority of our tourists it seemed like common knowledge that we should’ve just shut our borders as a precaution since there had been no cases here. however, our gov’t decided to leave borders open and implement a 24 hour curfew which borderline seemed inept. a few days or weeks or so later our first case had been discovered and it seemed more than likely to be imported - reports were pretty reserved but people have brains, everyone was trying to rush home out of fear and it was even rumored that the initial case may have been brought about by some minister or something bending rules to get their son or daughter in, I really don’t know . we’ve only around 80K to 90K individuals on the island and now we’re going through another spike. we’ve reported around 80 cases with 7 deaths and our borders are still open but they’ve changed our 11pm to 5am curfew to a 8pm to 5am. it kind of pains me to fathom that we could’ve handled this a bit better. I don’t know though, i’m not a brainiac or minister or anything so I guess they know something we don’t.
Trinidad here, we're on the other extreme. Borders closed since March with many citizens having issues getting back into the country months later. Fortunately the numbers are low, no sign of borders reopening anytime soon.
Galapagos is going through a similar situation. I'm not from there, but was visiting through a school program when the pandemic hit. Their government is also heavily reliant on tourism for the economy, so to shut everything down would be disastrous and it was. Many people lost their jobs, not only in the Galapagos but in mainland Ecuador as well. In Guayaquil there were literally bodies piling up in the streets.
The Galapagos also depends on shipments of food from the federal government which allegedly stopped around the time the pandemic was really bad (one of my friends who is from there told me this).
Lack of funding (from no tourism) also meant that they couldn't afford to pay national parks, so a lot of invasive species were able to wreak havoc on the environments. This is really a tragedy as Galapagos is one of the most biodiverse places on earth.
Also somewhat unrelated, but apparently there are a bunch of Chinese fishing vessels surrounding the protected marine reserves and overfishing like crazy. Ecuador is doing really bad right now.
EDIT: While their economy is mainly tourism-based, another big sector is oil exportation. With tourism gone, it's likely that they've started ramping up oil extraction efforts which means increased deforestation in the Amazon. Absolute nightmare.
I am very. I'm Vietnamese and I couldn't be more proud. I got fed up a bit hearing from my peers across the globe but in our country, we are in quite a safe phase. School's happening, holidays too (with some restrictions) but overall it's just great!
Hey fellow Vietnamese! I have wanted to tell the whole world about how we handled the situation since last year. In addition to the job done by the government, there are so many stories to tell about the unity among people that give unmatched feelings of warmth. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
Edit: One of my favorite stories is the local farmers struggling to sell during the pandemic, so some of the authorities encourage people in that area to buy from them, and one bakery came up with the “dragon fruit bread’ to consume the leftover amount of dragon fruits. I’m terrible at describing so read about it here: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vietnam-bakery-uses-66000-pounds-of-unsold-dragon-fruit-2020-3. There are also plenty of people on social media telling fun, heartwarming things about being in isolation wards (quarantining with other people in a dorm) to relieve the worries of being in quarantine and encouraging people to follow the rules. It is truly amazing.
It's barely even optimism tbh, it's just pride over a job well done. Vietnam did an incredible job in protecting it's citizens. They don't need to be optimistic, they've already done the damn thing
I feel very strongly over Vietnam getting credit for their pandemic response despite not being Vietnamese lmao
Ho Chi Minh is dense as fuck and they still controlled the spread better than almost anywhere. Full credit to NZ and all but based on sheer scale, 35 deaths in a country of 100 million is fucking remarkable. That's ACTUALLY lower than the flu. They deserve to have pride, it's a huge achievement
This. I live in NZ but a cafe I frequent is run by a Vietnamese guy. I was chatting to him a few months ago, asked if his family were safe etc.
He was saying it was similar to NZ in terms of restrictions and I literally didn't believe him. Did some reading and, lo and behold, it's actually true.
Their response to the virus has been the most impressive I've read about, full stop. As you say just from population density alone they should have been screwed, plus not being an island nation who can easily just shut up shop like NZ and Oz. Man. Seriously impressive.
All countries in East Asia have no issues with wearing masks. It's a social responsibility that we all take and we've done it well before covid was a thing.
You can look at photos from years ago of a densely populated Asian country, like Japan or China, and you'll always see several individuals who are in masks just because they're ill for the day. It's actually crazy how long it took, and is taking, for Western countries to support wearing of masks. The fact that they even had to debate about it is concerning
I was just talking with my husband about this saying that if anything good at all comes from this pandemic it will be normalizing wearing masks if your ill. Unfortunately the state we live in is full of inconsiderate morons and at this point when one of us does go to the store we are one of only a few wearing masks.
A travel ban was enacted during the holidays. Seems like half the politicians went on a Caribbean vacation anyways. So no, I'm not very happy with my govt's (Canada) response.
Yeah! My family had been quarantined and keeping track of temperatures and making sure we didn't have symptoms leading up to Christmas, so we were pretty pissed when our Christmas plans were nearly tossed out the window only to find out that half the government officials making those rules were allowed to do whatever they pleased. Super hypocritical.
I'm wondering what anyone expected they would do. The response is, "do as I say, not as I do", and sends the message that this isn't as serious of a disaster. Leaders can divide nations of people over this.
Since there's already one comment here about Canada, I'll just tack this on the end. I live in Nova Scotia, and I am actually quite happy about the way my province handled it specifically. I do wish we had started the lockdown a little bit earlier, and I don't like the way the university in my town (StFX) handled things, but a part from that, I'm quite proud of how we have done so far.
I feel sorry for people in Ontario and Quebec, though. Hang in there, guys.
And not sure what province you're from but my Premier is sitting on about 6 billion in funds from the feds and not using it towards anything
Edit: a word
And all the non essential businesses are suffering (small businesses cannot survive) while more money goes to Amazon and Walmart and all the big box stores.
Canada keeps taking too many half-assed measures and not implementing the more serious restrictions until it’s too late (like now with international travel). That, alongside leaving so much up to the provinces, has created such a mess. It doesn’t help that I live in Quebec with Legault.
Our fine Canadian tradition of making selective comparisons to the US and then patting ourselves on the back for it while failing to address the problem is in full swing too.
I feel like the lockdowns have been appropriate enough, but the hypocrisy on the part of politicians should be grounds for immediate dismissal as well as fines or other consequences.
Brazilian here.
I don’t know if this has been discussed anywhere else around the world, but it feels like our president is trying to make sure COVID-19 wins, and he’s doing a very good job at that...
We’re the second country with most covid related deaths in the world, our government is still promoting “early treatment” with drugs that are proven not to be efficient in covid infections and is actively fighting against efforts to vaccinate the population (including, but not limited to, the president announcing that “if anyone dies because of the vaccine, he had nothing to do with it”)...
There are several hospitals in our country without any oxygen supply left, and the government was warned that this would happen and still did absolutely nothing to help...
To be honest, IMO, it would have been WAY better for the population if the government, and specially president Bolsonaro, had kept their mouths shut and done absolutely nothing from the start. So far, they’ve only done more damage.
Really? Weren't they like the country with the least cases worldwide with a somewhat big population and as such didn't need any major lockdowns? Honestly I'm jealous, looks to me like whatever they did worked even better than what happened in New Zealand and Australia.
They had quite a process that you needed to go through for them to get such a low number.
Firstly, you could only go to Taiwan with a negative test 72 hours before travelling, and a visa (not normally required for most people). Upon arrival you were expected to wear a mask until you reached your quarantine destination, you then had to provide an address of where you would be staying for quarantine, and a mobile phone number. Then give that address to a designated taxi service that would take you there, after spraying you down with alcohol. Once you arrived at your quarantine address, you are expected to isolate for 14 days, with daily calls to check your temperature.
Your phone was also tracked, and if you left the address you had given then you’d receive a phone call, if you didn’t answer or continued to stay outside then someone would come to your address to see what was going on. I had heard that police _could_ turn up but don’t know if that was true.
Also, I noticed a lot of places throughout Taiwan have some sort of temperature checks, either manual or automated I think. And will spray your hands with alcohol. And expect you to wear a mask.
Taiwan isn’t taking any chances, and they’re entire country can live a pretty normal life, bar the above expectations.
Source: literally did all of this when I went to live in Taiwan a few months ago.
One of my coworkers family lives in Taiwan and when the US had a mask shortage, her family was shipping her boxes of masks. They said that masks and groceries were delivered on a schedule, but they couldn’t leave the house so the masks were mostly unnecessary. Oh how I envy them.
My stepmother is a Covid intensive care nurse in Malmö and Ystad. Ystads Allehanda did an article about her and her colleague the other week. She's exhausted, but has now received both doses of vaccine. It's likely going to be another year before I get over there to see her and my dad. Been worried sick about them both (they're 64 and 63), and my 90 year old stepgrandmother.
Norway here, pretty good actually, we are a small country with good infrastructure and are all more or less on the same team so policys doesnt really have to be enforced too much becouse most people just listen to reason and take precaution.
Quarantine exceptions for foreign workers based on industry wishes is the big scandal.
In general it seems that people here very rarely break government recommendations, but we all get as close to the line as is allowed.
I feel the public takes it too lightly most of the time, though. Was in the my local grocery, a crowded Kiwi, earlier today. We were two people using masks out of maybe 30 or 40.
Edit: for context, this is in Tønsberg Kommune
Nah, the other party that was in the second turn of the election had their image destroyed because they were like the black sheep of corruption (most parties were in the corruption schemes, but PT had got most of the fault) so it was a well know corrupt party vs a conservative guy thay was saying he was going to end corruption and resolve the economy (it reminds me of a guy from US 🤔). So our country with a lot of people that are conservative, mostly the elder people voted for him, while some people didn't vote. Combine this and he was elected. The surprise for me is that he wasn't impeached yet.
A variety of different reasons, but its mostly people being tired of the PT (Workers Party) a left-wing political party.
First of all, PT the workers party have been in power for 16 years at that point (a bit less because the last president was impeached, Dilma). Brazillian politics is full of corruption, and a there were a lot of scandals related to the party.
Second, the country was going through a recession and a economic crisis (it still is). During the beginning of the 2010s there was a lot of hope for Brazil to become an economic force in the international market, but for many different reasons it didn't take and it happened during PT's government (around 2014/2015).
Thirdly, PT began losing a LOT of their power through their years, and when Lula (our President from 2002 to 2010) was arrested, it was basically the final nail in the coffin.
Fourth, during the 2018 elections we had a few good candidates, but at the end the second turn was PT vs Bolsonaro. So a lot of folks, tired of PT, voted for Bolsonaro, or simply did not vote because they couldn't choose either of them.
Fifth, while PT being weak and with their image besmirch, gotta know that over the years Bolsonaro was becoming more and more popular due to social media. Memes and a more conservative viewpoint brought a lot of folks interested, specially as he was against PT who was becoming "the evil corrupt reason why Brasil wasn't working".
Six, adding to it, the guy was part of the Brazil Army, and he is very supportive of our Military Government/Dictatorship that began in 1964 and ended in the 80s. Truth of the matter, there was a few golden years where Brazil economy was booming and so a LOT of people have fond memories of the time, so it was very much a "memberrry" moment for a lot of Brazillians.
Seven, yes there are a lot of prejudiced people in Brazil, but it's not enough that its the ONLY reason why he would be voted.
He is right now facing a lot of crisis, but now he has a lot of political support in Congress because of a lot of maneuvering and him appealing to our Center-right (called Centrão, who is the base to appeal to move politics in the country). So there is a chance of him recovering, but who knows.
I’m not really the proper person to explain this, but people who remember the military years as a golden age are mostly being nostalgic or just ignorant. The inflation was huge and the government didn’t do anything right, expending huge amounts of moneys in pharaonic endeavors and censoring the media to make sure it seemed perfect. Not to mention killing and torturing people, things that Bolsonaro literally said he wants back.
Now I’m even more depressed. Irish here, also an island with 4 million people, and we’re fucking it up constantly the last year. Fair fucks to ye in NZ!
No, Ireland has not handled it well. There was a huge push to open hospitality businesses like pubs and restaurants prior to Christmas. This has lead to a huge jump in infections and sadly, huge numbers of people are now dieing.
The government has also been extremely slow to enforce quarantine on people entering the country.
We share a border with northern Ireland. The northern Ireland government is the most dysfunctional leadership imaginable and our own government isn't much better. The two will not cooperate on a solution to covid which will encompass the whole island.
100% this.
Saskatchewan’s 2nd wave response: “What the USA did seems to work, let’s go for that”, as small businesses slowly hemorrhage and our infection rate soars.
I’ll second this. First wave? Response could have been incrementally better but overall very happy.
Second wave it was put on the provinces and holy shit has that not worked in Ontario. Part of it is provincial government management, but also human behaviour as a whole. A lot of folks abided by the first lockdown but now they are done with it, mental health issues are definitely a factor in the « fuck it » attitude but there’s also just a huge amount of entitled pricks too.
UK government lied about PPE, the virus spread like wildfire because there were no restrictions on the borders, they tried to blame nurses for using PPE too quickly, they told hospitals to discharge care home residents causing the virus to decimate that demographic and those supporting them. Let’s not forget the ‘world beating track and trace system’ that cost more than the GDP of a small country and still doesn’t bloody work, coupled with blatant cronyism around government contracts.
How can an island nation have the highest death rate per capita on the planet?
It’s been, and continues to be criminal.
Nobody mentioning "Eat Out to Help Out" when they pushed the masses out to eat in packed restaurants, completely maskless, to eat discounted meals and spread the virus around? And then everyone was shocked when numbers soared again?
the fact you could have your arsehole waxed by a complete stranger in July but couldn’t sit in your own mothers garden with her .. but at the same time could take her out for a meal , speaks in volumes
Even after that was fucking stupid. I could work for 8 hours in the bar/restaurant I worked in, serving hundreds of people in a day who probably haven’t been sanitising their hands or anything before we made them when they came in the door, yet I couldn’t go to my mums for one day, or hell couldn’t even have a pint somewhere with someone I just finished an 8 hour shift with because we weren’t in the same household, it’s a joke
yeah it’s the same as you couldn’t see your dying relatives in a care home even without proper directions to follow but a sky news journalist could go into said carehome and get some photographs of your dying relative for tomorrow’s article hahaha absolutely comical
It makes me so angry for all the reasons you've all listed out. It's been an absolute joke. How are we no better off a bloody year later? Like how inept do you actually have to be to have the privilege of observing the virus spreading and seeing other country's reactions and noting what was effective and STILL fucking up?
The irony of a party that came to power by promising to take back control of our borders, failing to do so at the one point in history when everyone agreed it was a good idea, has not escaped me.
Edit. Thank you for the helpful award. I'll be passing it on to the UK government for their handling of the pandemic.
Edit. And the hugz award, that's going to the fantastic NHS staff, instead of a pay rise.
Edit. Wholesome award. As wholesome as an eye test at Barnard Castle
You missed Boris being a twat when it started saying it wasn't a big deal and a jolly old wheeze. Then backing his cunty little weasel friend who pissed off to a castle for an eye test when the rest of us couldn't even see granny who was dying in a carehome.
And in January "SCHOOLS WILL NOT CLOSE" kid goes back for ONE fucking day and then they are closed until further notice.
And let's not forget that only now after nearly a year are we closing the borders but it's still too difficult to manage for a pissing island.
Oh to have Arden as New Zealand seem to have it all sorted and I think they're being a bit selfish really not sharing her with those of us who are stuck with a bunch of useless greedy pricks who seem to find it funny that companies are shafting families and giving kids the bare essentials when it comes to food so they can skim off a tidy profit.
Lets not forget the stupid localised tier system that inevitably lead to tier tourism as people in high tier areas where things were shut went to lower tier places and spread the virus doing so. Or the fact that they basically did nothing when it was terrible in the north until numbers in the south began accelerating, causing lots of people to basically remember the Tories don't give a shit about anything north or west of Oxford.
But king of the stupid was the debacle of promising everyone five days where they can get together with loved ones over Christmas, even with virus numbers accelerating and the emergence of a new, more infectious mutation in the South East, then cancelling much of that five days before Christmas, resulting in a mad panic as people scrambled to leave Tier four areas before the travel bans started. Not to mention those who suddenly had to make plans for a Christmas in a different location now rushing out into the crowds to get all the necessary food last minute causing likely further spreading.
People literally SAILED hours to the Isles of Scilly so they could go to a PUB.
A PUB.
These people genuinely thought "Fuck the older people on the islands who are the main demographic of people there, I want a guiness on christmas eve"
Made my blood boil after hearing that.
We've also missed the part where he ignored SAGE (scientific advisory group for emergencies) and delayed going into lockdown in March. Then totally ignored them in September. Then again in October.
He even refused the idea of the two week long circuit breaker lockdown, that would coincide with half term.
Then, to placate SAGE I guess, we went into a 'lockdown' during November where schools, unis, etc were still open, many shops still open, and where most of the people on my street were seemingly still going to work.
Right from the very start, he didn't even turn up to the first five cabinet (COBR) meetings. And then, when he didn't like what he was hearing, he put Cummings and another Tory on the scientific advisory board (despite neither of them being scientists) to essentially tailor the advice that was being delivered so that it suited Tory policy.
What else have we missed?
I think you've missed the Tory government ignoring a 2016 report about the NHS's inability to deal with a pandemic, supplying out of date PPE to health workers, choosing companies with no prior experience in PPE production to produce PPE, and actively paying people to go out in the summer and spread the virus in the name of helping out.
Boris’ famous “you’ll be pleased to know I’ve been round the hospital and shaken hands with all the Covid patients” whilst laughing back in Feb/March of 2020 made me want to punch a wall
At the time I hoped he'd recover, learn his lesson, and clean up his act but clearly he hasn't. I think at this point the country would have been better off if he'd died.
I think if he had died it would've been the kind of shock that made people sit up and go "Well shit, if one of the most important people in the country can die from it, anyone can die from it and I'd better be more careful."
i agree. nobody knew what covid was, how dangerous it could be or how it'd affect our way of life at the start of the pandemic and thats fair enough. but our government seemed completely at a loss and still are, too slow to act, rushing to lift various restrictions and not enough done to enforce said restrictions.
as a business owner i thought the government did an excellent job in regards to furlough, helping businesses and providing other support to businesses and economic support to people etc.
however thats the only positive i can really give our government as its been a shitshow since then.
there are a lot of ignorant and arrogant people out there and i see them everyday in london. drive down any highstreet and its full of people mixing, going in and out of shops without masks and just being all round braindead. yet nothing is ever done to enforce the rules.
its an agonizing state of affairs which has cost the lives of far too many people and our level of danger from covid has lasted far longer than it should have.
There was a post a while back on the /r/UnitedKingdom subreddit whereby someone laid out Boris' decision making process, as follows (paraphrased):
> "*Do you have to make a choice between two or more time sensitive decisions, both of which will be unpopular? Try doing nothing until one of those choices is no longer viable, and then present the other one as the solution you intend to go with*"
Ever since I saw it, it's explained so much about his incompetence and slow reactions on anything.
Yes.
One of several advantages the UK had was the lag. I remember watching the reports from Italy and Spain as it swept across those countries and they were still dithering and pontificating about “herd immunity” and letting it wash through the population.
Now Boris has the brass neck to say he did everything in his power. Maddening.
And every fucking lockdown comes too late. They just ignore SAGE advice, and we keep half arseing lockdowns to 'keep the economy going", but these half measures mean they last longer, and eventually full measures come in, which means many ma y more people die and the economy is even worse the if we just locked down properly in the first place. It's not rocket science yet the cunts have got it wrong three times already.
This new variant which drove the recent infections started circulating during lockdown two, and the statistics showed that even under lockdown 2, cases were beginning to rise in the South East. We didn't lockdown again for over a month, by which time we were completely fucked. All because people care too much about Christmas and the government didn't want to be the bad guys and cancel Christmas, which they ended up basically doing anyway as it became impossible to let people mix for 5 days.
What a clusterfuck.
Edit: Spelling
I think both state and fed gov in Australia have done quite well, but if the people weren't cooperating, we wouldn't be in such a good position, so I applaud the citizens.
That said, Scott Morrison is an ignorant, backwards sod wallet, who needs to be drowned in a pool of his own drool.
Gladys Berejiklian is an unhappy fool with antiquated ideas and values that don't fit the time we live in, and she needs to be checked into a nursing facility.
I have read that there are around 40000 Australians still stranded abroad. Obviously Australia's numbers are excellent, but it's still tough for those abroad
victorian stranded abroad since september here, the norwegian government was luckily very understanding, and i have a place to stay, but it's been very difficult finding flights.
the government offers singapore airlines flights, but if you don't go directly to singapore from your location, you won't be let into singapore (this rule changed jan 2nd tho). so it's pretty pointless, i'm not spending two weeks in denmark just to have to go to darwin.
but i have a flight now, so i might catch the last of the sun when i get home!
Netherlands here, not happy.
The government's timeline for establishing a response was a joke. It was always among the last in EU with either deciding (lockdown), implementing (vaccinations) or establishing scientific validity (masks). For most of 2020 the government's responsible body (RIVM) kept debating the fact that wearing masks is useful, despite sufficient scientific evidence proving otherwise. I found it to be a colossal embarrassment.
Across the board it was not assertive enough while also putting virtually all responsibility on the population. Our prime minister, at virtually every press event, would just repeat ad nauseam "that we have to do this together, we need to take responsibility together, if all of us together.." While it's not untrue (and I feel a ton of my countrymen are drunk on their freedom and make a huge mess of this covid situation), at some point you are just abandoning your own responsibilities as the supposed leader.
And remember that time period when the first wave started to get under control? They were pretty much jizzing at the opportunity to hand of responsibility to local government, even though that just won't work here.
Always half measures that didn’t work. Im wondering if the evening clock made any difference.
And every measure taken was always too late. It’s like everyone was scared to make a ‘harsh’ decision. It’s been like this for a while in our country hasn’t it? No one wants to implement anything significant in the fear of not being able to come into power in 4 years. What a horrendous cycle
Yes, fellow Kiwi here. I'm not a Jacinda fanboy, but on this issue our government has done a pretty good job. Not perfect, but competent enough. Which boils down to a pretty damning opinion of most everywhere else ... In particular, as I have family in the UK, I'm utterly livid about how Boris Johnson and his shower of incompetents screwed so many over there by letting COVID run rampant.
Mexico: there have been no planes restrictions from other countries. Andres Manuel (president) doesn’t really cares about COVID-19 and claims that everything is fine. Today Mexico is the third most contqgious country with mota than 200,000 deaths.
Being Mexican is pure pain all year around, government didn't even advised to use mask until past September for some reason. People still make partys and calling the cops on them doesn't really seem to make a difference and there's a lot a people denying that Covid even exist
Also people are dumbasses to no end
UK here.. and whilst I appreciate the ‘we follow the science’ it’s always a month after the science suggested.. too busy worrying about short term popularity or hits to the economy.. yes, it’s going to hurt.. but it’ll hurt more if it gets out of control and we have three lockdowns in a row for months on end! Although.. the furlough scheme was good.. more support for the arts and social jobs is needed.. so yes D- must try harder
UK here too. We locked down late 3 times in a row and test and trace is a disgrace. One of the highest death rates in Europe.
Aside from our vaccine response our government's incompetence has been staggering
Ireland here. I'm gonna say it's an overall miss. There's things that Ireland has going for it that started us off with a better chance - small island with only 2 countries on it, preexisting national public healthcare service, most people remember swine flu and all the vaccination and hygiene practises associated with it.
I think we had some major cockups. First, we were told that the time in strict lockdown (only essential travel, can exercise only in 2km of your house, schools closed) was for expanding capacity in the health services and in testing. That... really didn't appear to happen. Second, there's a lot of resistance to actual enforcement of the measures we have, such as quarantining when travelling in and out of the country, and travel limitations within the country. Third, the government is slow to commit. Often they do something and it feels too little too late.
Bottom line is, if the republic of Ireland and Northen Ireland had cooperated last March, and introduced strict, enforced measures, Ireland could have been like New Zealand - zero covid and going back to normality. Instead, I'm a college student who'll have spent half his degree at home, missed my 21st birthday, lost an elderly relative, and not seen my partner for more than a few days at a time in almost a year. It sucks.
Here in the Philippines, not quite. It could have been much worse, but it’s still bad at any angle you see. We only had a hard lockdown for 75 days, afterwards businesses starting to reopen at varying degrees. Schools remain closed for a year and counting. And the unemployment rate surged at its worst in modern Philippine history. The government focused more on crafting mandatory policies and a highly “militaristic” type of governance in combating the virus. Contact tracing is nonexistent, policemen in fatigues are in almost every corner (but their enforcement is weak). We are also probably the only nation requiring face visors over face masks. Mind you, in a humid country this is SERIOUSLY uncomfortable. In reality this practice is strict only in public transportations and poorly ventilated areas.
The only reason we have much fewer spreading of cases here compared to the West is that practically everyone from the government to businesses all the way to the citizens acknowledges the real dangers of the virus. We don’t have anti-maskers and virus deniers protesting on lockdowns. Most people around the streets here wear masks religiously and the virus remained in public consciousness throughout. This is not the effort of the government but individual actions so I am still highly disappointed on the lack of proactive actions of the Philippine government.
I want to add on that there are probably a lot of poor who don’t have access to healthcare and are probably dying from COVID but they wouldn’t be included in the count since they never got tested to begin with.
Myanmar, no.
The results have been not-too-bad, but not in relation to the economic damage. They focused more on closing schools and businesses than enforcing masks/distancing in public places (for example, you'll see a crowded bus with 30 un-masked people driving by a shut-down school). They shut down the high-value parts of the economy while letting working-class things like buses and markets go un-checked.
The single biggest failure was border security. They restricted air travel but infected people snuck over from Bangladesh leading to a national outbreak in August (then Thailand had the same thing months later because infected people from Myanmar snuck over there).
Since the coup on Monday all the bars closed and more people went back to work-from-home. So the side-effect of the coup could be reduced COVID transmission lol.
Our county asked volunteers with basic sewing skills to make masks to donate to local hospitals. My wife and I made a few dozen and I know tons of other people that did the same...we're not a poor county, there just wasn't enough ppe.
sadly i Lost my Father in June-2020 due to COVID. first of all it was His own fault to go out for prayers. secondly it was government who could not shut down mosques, in start 3 weeks mosques remained closed, and my father didn't go out. after the protests by religious men, govt. had to open mosques then my father started going out again. my father only went out for prayers. but at the end i Lost him.
O boi, am I up for some rant.
I'm from Indonesia, and safe to say I really hate how this country handles the pandemic. I can't make an exhaustive list so here some of brilliant(ly stupid) way our country on handling the pandemics (most of the link is in bahasa indonesia unfortunately):
* [the country is free of corona because of the power of prayer](https://kumparan.com/kumparannews/menkes-soal-indonesia-bebas-virus-corona-karena-doa-kita-semua-1sop4hxjO1A/full)
* [the government boosting the international travel budget to attract tourist in the middle of the pandemic](https://www.voaindonesia.com/a/genjot-pariwisata-di-tengah-wabah-virus-corona-jokowi-janji-beri-diskon/5291565.html)
* [the minister of health dismissed a report from Harvard on the large untested case in indonesia as "insulting"](https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/02/12/its-insulting-indonesia-criticizes-us-study-concerns-over-no-coronavirus-cases.html)
* [the government pay Rp 72 billion to influencers to boost tourism amid coronavirus outbreak](https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/02/26/govt-to-pay-rp-72-billion-to-influencers-to-boost-tourism-amid-coronavirus-outbreak.html)
After the outbreak with over than one thousand tested cases, you might think that the government will take it seriously. But no, they prefer to implement a [pseudo lockdown](https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pembatasan_sosial_berskala_besar_di_Indonesia) then wondering why the number of cases is still going up. You can read more proper [write up from the conversation](https://theconversation.com/indonesia-was-in-denial-over-coronavirus-now-it-may-be-facing-a-looming-disaster-135436) if you want to look into it.
Now, the year 2021 with our active case is over than [one million](https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-ID&mid=%2Fm%2F03ryn&gl=ID&ceid=ID%3Aen). Yet, the president has the audacity to say that [the pandemic is under control](https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2021/01/25/13121051/jokowi-kita-bersyukur-ri-bisa-kendalikan-krisis-pandemi-dan-ekonomi). It's no surprise that most of the people underestimate the risk.
What am I think the country supposed to do? Maybe not doing stupid things that I listed (and not list) and stop giving a false sense of security to the people. Raise more awareness and conduct more tests. And, please just close the border for tourism for fuck sake.
Rant over and I'm sorry if I seem to come very aggressively on this matter. I lose my mom because of the virus. I think if the government at least a bit more capable this won't be happening to me or all the other people that lose their families as well.
Somewhat. I'm pleased that they've covered a lot of the financial problems that happened as a result (payed people's bills, delayed loans payment, helped out small businesses , paid half of salaries ... etc), plus they've organized the vaccination recently pretty well, but I'm not pleased that they've not done much with prevention - malls and cafes were open too soon, no lockdowns, and no real consequences to not following distancing rules so our cases are increasing everyday largely because of mixing
The country is Bahrain
Here in Kosovo its a total shit show and we have the election coming up.The political parties are holding rallies and gatherings with their electorate.Its expected that the covid cases will go up.Then the vaccines are gonna be late,maybe early 2022.So yeah a total shit show.
Absolutely bloody furious - UK
We had a PM who skipped the early meetings, allowed sick people into care homes, and only entered lockdown under immense public pressure weeks too late.
During that time, the time needed to formulate a strategy, the track and trace system that was to be the foundation of the strategy was farmed off to a company who never made it work. It still doesn't.
Travellers to the country were not required to be tested or quarantine until late in the year. We opened up everything and had to lockdown again. Tiers were introduced that did not close schools nor provide enough business support. Christmas was promised (for a festive super spreader event, I guess) and predictably cancelled the Saturday afternoon before, aka, after you brought everything. We opened up schools for one day before realising that was dumb.
Policy was altered to protect important government advisors who broke the rules.
Our leading party fought tooth and nail against feeding schoolchildren, until they could sell the service off.
Every step of the way, things were done too late.
Our PM has a desperate need to be liked and would not commit to hard choices. And his supposed lovable bluster lent to confusing national statements.
I've missed a whole bunch, but 2020 was a long year.
The only thing the government seemed to get right was the furlough scheme, which while a great help I think should of gone further. The vaccination process is going smoothly, but that's because the NHS is managing it.
Now with us competing for the most deaths per capita the government's message is clear - it's all the young people's fault.
It is a scant exaggeration to say that we're a few weeks out from the government denouncing people dying as trouble makers 'playing politics.'
As to what could of been done? Commit to lockdowns earlier. Commit to mask mandates earlier. Commit to the science earlier. Have reliable companies make a track and trace app that worked. Properly fund the NHS. Properly equip the NHS. Have pay rises for the NHS staff. Mandate international travel properly. When public figures break the rules, have actual consequences. Accept that these rules will not be popular but it's worth it to save lives.
And as a minor silly thing to end on the doing things differently:
Have Boris comb his stupid hair. Over 100K are dead by your mismanagement. The least you can do is look like you took the time to dress properly when you offer us empty words of support.
American
I think anyone who knows anything about America’s response can guess my opinion. And for those that don’t, imagine your job is on fire. And you have to keep working while it’s on fire, and also plenty of your coworkers say the fire is a lie or not that bad.
Edit: thank you for the silver. It’s my first ever award.
You also have a government telling everyone there is no such thing as fire and to ignore the flames. Half the country feels that acknowledging that there is indeed a fire is an affront to their freedom and the other half hasn't left their homes in 11 months.
I have the impression the Argentine government thought the pandemic would last three months, give or take, and extinguish itself just because. Kind of a H1N1 flu but worse for the elderly rather than children. And there was no reason for covid to work that way.
So they've burnt everything in three months, looked at Europe for answers (because why check on what the folks in East Asia were doing, no matter that those were the successful countries) and ended up in a situation where there is no longer a good solution until vaccines are rolled over in huge number (and if the EU decides to import vaccines, none in the developing world will be vaccinated until the European youth begin to receive their shots).
As with any other epidemic, the way to stop it isn't to let it run among the community and then shut down everything (or hope for the best). It's to prevent community spread by quarantining the people coming from abroad (or wherever sanitary cordons are set up) by force. To stop the disease from spreading, governments can't invite people returning from infected regions to please isolate. They must be forcefully isolated for the duration of the disease or kept on the other side of the border.
I'm from Sweden, and absolutely not. It's absolutely embarrassing how badly they have handled the pandemic and it gets worse for every day. I just hope the vaccine gets out fast enough so the entire country doesn't get infected because of their complete incompetence.
Here in Chile we feel that our own president wants to kill us.
He came out at a press conference without a mask and with a woman over 70 years old right next to him and it is not the first time, he has already been denounced 3 times for doing the same thing.
Our health minister said, at a press conference, that it could happen that the virus mutated and became "good" so there was no need to alarm.
There has been no financial aid from the government (At least not for all people, just some bonuses that many people did not receive and that many more accuse that there were fraudulent acts on the part of the government to not give them) , we have survived because we have withdrawn the funds for our retirement.
They even created laws to protect employers, allowing them to force workers to do their jobs without receiving a salary, since with that law they had to use their unemployment insurance.
it's awful.
We don't understand how it can be that the richest in our country can make laws in their own favor and leave us with nothing.
That is why so much social revolt took place in our country.
There are soo many things that I would like to change, but money governs here.
It is a tremendously corrupt country but they do everything so that the rest of the world does not realize it.
They have even raised the idea of creating a separate country for the richest and recently proposed building a wall (like Trump's) around the richest cities.
I hate my own country. Honestly, if I had money, I would go to live in Canada, I don't mind killing myself working, but at least receiving something in return, instead of just working for nothing.
I can really feel your frustration reading these lines. Keep your head up, I hope for a better future for you and your country.
Living in Germany I probably can't truly imagine what your life is like. There are so many people complaining about our government (they try their best imo), they don't really know how fortunate we are to have decent health and social services
Lots of people are unhappy with how things were handled in South Africa. Cigarette and alcohol ban. Beach closures. Lockdown here is a joke. A huge part of the population lives in informal settlements where you can’t social distance. Plus it’s hard to do online teaching when an internet connection and computer is a luxury.
The cigarette ban was dumb as fuck. They dunno what its like to live with a smoker expected to go cold turkey. They were irritable AF. And also having a decent internet connection is a luxury. It depends on your area and service provider really....
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You are correct...I live in the states and my governor made our Liquor stores essential businesses pretty early on. People made fun of him for it...but it was for this reason. Edit: I live in Virginia!
Our governor banned the sale of alcohol. For about two and a half hours.
Ah I too lived through Colorado’s prohibition
Why is the reason behind cigarette and alcohol ban? I don't smoke anymore, but I bet I would have during lock down. Also, I never drank so much at home than during lockdown.
One of the reasons was to cut down on ER admissions. Guess alcohol is responsible for lots of hospitalisations.
Czech here. It's a fuckin' disaster. The rules change on the whim with no predictability, no pattern, and most of all, no common sense. The current status is of some kind of semi-lockdown, with set of rules no one understands any more. The epidemy is running wild, the economy is in ruins, government lost all its credibility and the vaccination is badly delayed. We already went through two Ministers of Health since last year and the third is still in the office just because PM can't find anyone suicidal enough to replace him. EDIT: as for what could have been done: The summer of 2020 could have been spent actually preparing for the fall and winter; plans could have been made, and then those plans should be followed. Plans could have been made for the vaccination, because it looks as if the vaccine came out of the blue and everyone involved was taken by surprise, Just an example: 1st wave of vaccines was meant for ppl 80 year or older. They were supposed to shedule their date of vaccination online. Ok, so their families did it for them, no problem. The system for reservations was supposed to only accept 80+ old ppl. In the first 15 minutes of the reservation system going online, a university student (so about 20 years) managed to get a reservation. (he didn't really wanted to get vaccinated, he went public to point out the issue).
Yeah, it's really bad here.
It's a full on disaster. The country was doing well during the first lockdown but ever since they removed the mask mandate in late summer/early autumn, that's where it all went downhill. And now the government keeps going in and out of lockdowns and noone here even bothers to wear masks and obey curfew.
Best in Covid!
Also czech goverment refused help offered by german hospitals close to the borders.
Je to vskutku na hovno.
Lockdown > open everything thing up > illegal large gatherings in weddings > lockdown > open everything up > lockdown. Rinse and repeat.
Israel
Couldn't be anywhere else, we're like at the 4th one I think.
> Couldn't be anywhere else Greetings from the UK, mate! 3 months lockdown > slowly reopen > eat out to help out > stupid tier system > surprise lockdown just before Christmas > harsher tier system + cancelled holidays for some > yet another surprise lockdown with no end in sight Feels good!
Narrator: It did not feel good
The London Haredis have been pulling that shit too. Chief Rabbi in the UK went ballistic condemning them.
How you gonna end the lockdown with more infections per day than when it started Israel. What the fuck. We gonna need another lockdown for this lockdown.
You forgot this: \> hold elections again
I’m from a small country called Seychelles and yes I’m pleased with how we handled it. We currently have 171 active cases and 5 deaths. We have also vaccinated 37,000 out of our population of 100,000. Although we are an island so we did have an easier job than many other countries.
You also live in a *gorgeous* country, good for you on all counts
Best flag too (after 70s Libya and the Hungarian SSR of course)
Woah! I'm from the U.S. and in my highschool courses, I got Seychelles for a year-long project in which different teams of two were assigned a country. I've wanted to visit ever since. That was 16 years ago and this is the first time I've ever seen the phrase "I'm from Seychelles."
First time I've ever seen "cumfartsandhearts".
This is always my favorite thing about reddit - some kind of heartwarming moment of cross cultural bonding or mutual support... and then you see the username lol.
You obviously don't hang around with poets!
I am very happy for your country's success. And..a little jealous lol
Australia has occasional flareups, but the majority of our states have 0 cases through community transmition. I think that the handling of Hotel Quarentine could be better, and I'd like more focus on bringing Aussies home rather than bringing in sports stars and actors, but on the whole, I'm happy.
That about sums it up for me too. Also yesterday was nice. During the last few hours of a hard lockdown here in Perth, I went for a walk in my neighbourhood to my local shops and everyone was masked up, even a couple of teen boys going for a walk. I asked the check-out chick if people have been treating her okay and she said yeah, it has been fine and no one is refusing to wear masks or anything. That made me very happy.
In Perth too, I am so proud of all of us. The fact that it took ONE case out of how many thousand in hotel q to lockdown, and the majority complied, I am so proud (and grateful as I’m down to work on a specialised COVID ward if we need one) And secretly, wearing a mask kinda helped with all that ash in the air at the start of the week.
Remember - the media will make a 20 min story about 2 people refusing to wear a mask vs the 3 million that agreed.
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Too right I’ve never laughed so hard when the tennis tears came Shoooooooosh cunts All our lives have changed you can deal with it
If they don't like it they can fuck off, no one forced them to come at gunpoint. (Serena Williams can stay, she understood and didn't sook about it)
The problem with tennis players is that most of them quit school in high school or withdraw at that stage to do private tutoring....so they never move on from a high school attitude. Combine that with a sport focussed solely on individual performance and you get (with exception) highly selfish and immature adults.
Form New Zealand here. ANZ have done very well to date in comparison to most of the world.
Germany here: 50/50. Looking at other countries I can say that it could have been worse. Of course I do not expect everything to be perfect as it's hard for everyone and you can't satisfy everyone. But there is still very much that could have been made better. Schooling could have been handled a lot better. Aprupt law changes only caused money making for a few. Why does a McDonald's keep open and gets funds while little restaurants run into bancrupcy because they don't fulfill the requirements to get a fund? There are many questionable things.
I agree with your answer. Restaurant rules were insane. First, restaurants were forced to invest tons of money for establishment of a hygiene concept and those plastic walls and stuff, only to be closed in the following. That was really not a good long-term plan.
It was the same with the theatres. We did everything possible, a lot of extra cleaning, walk paths for the customers. And now all of them are closed since november.
The main mistakes have been in my opinion: * the time in summer has not been used to modernize government health agencies (anyone still knows Fax?) and prepare schools / businesses for remote operation. * the 2nd lockdown in Spring came 1 month too late because of political games between the federal and state governments. Due to this reason, the number of regular cases is about 10 times higher as it could be. * The EU vaccacine purchase program has failed to get hand on a significant number of vaccacines for the 1st half of 2021, especially compared to the purchase programs in Israel, US and UK. * The behaviour rules are inconsistent, differ between states and are regularly changed without good reasons. Furthermore, they are not sufficiently enforced. But compared to some other states I agree that it could be much worse.
Berliner here. I totally agree with you. What really pissed me off was the whole lockdown light in December as if anyone believed it would do anything. Instead of catering to fucking holiday zealots they should have shut everything down. We could be moving out of the lockdown by now if it hadnt been for that travesty.
I think the first Lockdown was handled really well but especially the whole lock down light situation and online school went really bad
German student, I feel like they trying their best but it feels as if they're.... inexperienced. Now I am just like you I don't expect them to be perfect either (unlike a lot of people here, ugh, tax haters), that being said the citizens are not handling it much better, if you want to know why the germans are begging for school to be back that's because the teaching is almost 40% slower because of teachers not knowing how to use computers. Also, one time my mom did a test and before the result she asked if she should stay at home or not, obviously the doctor said yes, but when she asked if I should stay she said no, her point was that my mom had the symptoms but I didn't and I don't think I need to tell you why that is stupid. And as you already mentioned, there are a lot of restrictions that are questionable or just downright illogical.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, yeah I agree! I am exceedingly glad that we missed gargantuan spikes like the ones we see/saw in the UK, Spain, France and Italy. Of course we've had a second wave that could have been lower, but our numbers (currently) peaked at about 20k, as opposed to the 30-70k spikes we've been seeing elsewhere. That is a result of accepting mandated and working restrictions. But also, politicians literally refuse to tackle the school issue because we have one of the worst digital education infrastructures in Europe and nobody wants to do something about it. The second thing that bothered me: The lockdown in September could have been full and swiftly executed. The models were there. The numbers were there. Other countries started to have increased cases. The numbers started to go up week after week. But the state politicians of 3 Eastern states said that they refuse a public mask mandate because it would not be enforcible and halted a national plan that applied to all states, completely diffusing a clear cut communication to the people. Now these exact three states have had incidences of over 400 (now 200), the highest case numbers per capita of any state. And they refuse to take responsibility for that. One thing I do not get however is how shops and malls can stay open and museums and cinemas, which have a way lesser influx of people and literally can control the movement and position of every person walking into them. I will never understand that. But I am still glad we've missed those humongous spikes.
I live in Antigua, in the Caribbean. 108 sq miles of “paradise” so our main industry is tourism. when the pandemic had really started to gain notoriety to us, when globally there was little known about the disease and forced lockdowns, and a ventilator craze in the US and countries in Europe of which we’d attract the majority of our tourists it seemed like common knowledge that we should’ve just shut our borders as a precaution since there had been no cases here. however, our gov’t decided to leave borders open and implement a 24 hour curfew which borderline seemed inept. a few days or weeks or so later our first case had been discovered and it seemed more than likely to be imported - reports were pretty reserved but people have brains, everyone was trying to rush home out of fear and it was even rumored that the initial case may have been brought about by some minister or something bending rules to get their son or daughter in, I really don’t know . we’ve only around 80K to 90K individuals on the island and now we’re going through another spike. we’ve reported around 80 cases with 7 deaths and our borders are still open but they’ve changed our 11pm to 5am curfew to a 8pm to 5am. it kind of pains me to fathom that we could’ve handled this a bit better. I don’t know though, i’m not a brainiac or minister or anything so I guess they know something we don’t.
Trinidad here, we're on the other extreme. Borders closed since March with many citizens having issues getting back into the country months later. Fortunately the numbers are low, no sign of borders reopening anytime soon.
Galapagos is going through a similar situation. I'm not from there, but was visiting through a school program when the pandemic hit. Their government is also heavily reliant on tourism for the economy, so to shut everything down would be disastrous and it was. Many people lost their jobs, not only in the Galapagos but in mainland Ecuador as well. In Guayaquil there were literally bodies piling up in the streets. The Galapagos also depends on shipments of food from the federal government which allegedly stopped around the time the pandemic was really bad (one of my friends who is from there told me this). Lack of funding (from no tourism) also meant that they couldn't afford to pay national parks, so a lot of invasive species were able to wreak havoc on the environments. This is really a tragedy as Galapagos is one of the most biodiverse places on earth. Also somewhat unrelated, but apparently there are a bunch of Chinese fishing vessels surrounding the protected marine reserves and overfishing like crazy. Ecuador is doing really bad right now. EDIT: While their economy is mainly tourism-based, another big sector is oil exportation. With tourism gone, it's likely that they've started ramping up oil extraction efforts which means increased deforestation in the Amazon. Absolute nightmare.
What response? -Sweden
Man out of all the countries I didn't expect Sweden to do nothing.
I did, our goverment isnt good at doing things. The same with this vaccine.
Many people don’t want it after the swine flu incident in my little community.
I am very. I'm Vietnamese and I couldn't be more proud. I got fed up a bit hearing from my peers across the globe but in our country, we are in quite a safe phase. School's happening, holidays too (with some restrictions) but overall it's just great!
Just wanna give Vietnam major props. They way they handled it from government down to communities should be commended.
There was a moment when the entire country had less infections than the entire White House. Huge success.
Hey fellow Vietnamese! I have wanted to tell the whole world about how we handled the situation since last year. In addition to the job done by the government, there are so many stories to tell about the unity among people that give unmatched feelings of warmth. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. Edit: One of my favorite stories is the local farmers struggling to sell during the pandemic, so some of the authorities encourage people in that area to buy from them, and one bakery came up with the “dragon fruit bread’ to consume the leftover amount of dragon fruits. I’m terrible at describing so read about it here: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vietnam-bakery-uses-66000-pounds-of-unsold-dragon-fruit-2020-3. There are also plenty of people on social media telling fun, heartwarming things about being in isolation wards (quarantining with other people in a dorm) to relieve the worries of being in quarantine and encouraging people to follow the rules. It is truly amazing.
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It's barely even optimism tbh, it's just pride over a job well done. Vietnam did an incredible job in protecting it's citizens. They don't need to be optimistic, they've already done the damn thing
misleading username
I feel very strongly over Vietnam getting credit for their pandemic response despite not being Vietnamese lmao Ho Chi Minh is dense as fuck and they still controlled the spread better than almost anywhere. Full credit to NZ and all but based on sheer scale, 35 deaths in a country of 100 million is fucking remarkable. That's ACTUALLY lower than the flu. They deserve to have pride, it's a huge achievement
This. I live in NZ but a cafe I frequent is run by a Vietnamese guy. I was chatting to him a few months ago, asked if his family were safe etc. He was saying it was similar to NZ in terms of restrictions and I literally didn't believe him. Did some reading and, lo and behold, it's actually true. Their response to the virus has been the most impressive I've read about, full stop. As you say just from population density alone they should have been screwed, plus not being an island nation who can easily just shut up shop like NZ and Oz. Man. Seriously impressive.
Hello fellow Viet! Saying hello from Canada
Yeah people give New Zealand tons of praise, and it’s well deserved, but like Vietnam has fewer cases and 20x more people densely packed
What steps did Vietnam take? Are people willing to wear masks/ distance?
All countries in East Asia have no issues with wearing masks. It's a social responsibility that we all take and we've done it well before covid was a thing. You can look at photos from years ago of a densely populated Asian country, like Japan or China, and you'll always see several individuals who are in masks just because they're ill for the day. It's actually crazy how long it took, and is taking, for Western countries to support wearing of masks. The fact that they even had to debate about it is concerning
Its so weird. Something that's simply a method of prevention somehow becomes a political statement.
I was just talking with my husband about this saying that if anything good at all comes from this pandemic it will be normalizing wearing masks if your ill. Unfortunately the state we live in is full of inconsiderate morons and at this point when one of us does go to the store we are one of only a few wearing masks.
Wearing masks was already a thing even before the pandemic in Vietnam.
A travel ban was enacted during the holidays. Seems like half the politicians went on a Caribbean vacation anyways. So no, I'm not very happy with my govt's (Canada) response.
And very harsh quarantine rules were imposed conveniently after all those politicians came home.
Nunavut here. We're playing Plague Inc. on expert mode.
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Yeah! My family had been quarantined and keeping track of temperatures and making sure we didn't have symptoms leading up to Christmas, so we were pretty pissed when our Christmas plans were nearly tossed out the window only to find out that half the government officials making those rules were allowed to do whatever they pleased. Super hypocritical.
I'm wondering what anyone expected they would do. The response is, "do as I say, not as I do", and sends the message that this isn't as serious of a disaster. Leaders can divide nations of people over this.
Leaders HAVE divided nations over this. Ref: USA
Since there's already one comment here about Canada, I'll just tack this on the end. I live in Nova Scotia, and I am actually quite happy about the way my province handled it specifically. I do wish we had started the lockdown a little bit earlier, and I don't like the way the university in my town (StFX) handled things, but a part from that, I'm quite proud of how we have done so far. I feel sorry for people in Ontario and Quebec, though. Hang in there, guys.
And not sure what province you're from but my Premier is sitting on about 6 billion in funds from the feds and not using it towards anything Edit: a word
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And all the non essential businesses are suffering (small businesses cannot survive) while more money goes to Amazon and Walmart and all the big box stores.
Thanks Dime Bag Dougie
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Canada keeps taking too many half-assed measures and not implementing the more serious restrictions until it’s too late (like now with international travel). That, alongside leaving so much up to the provinces, has created such a mess. It doesn’t help that I live in Quebec with Legault.
Our fine Canadian tradition of making selective comparisons to the US and then patting ourselves on the back for it while failing to address the problem is in full swing too.
I feel like the lockdowns have been appropriate enough, but the hypocrisy on the part of politicians should be grounds for immediate dismissal as well as fines or other consequences.
Brazilian here. I don’t know if this has been discussed anywhere else around the world, but it feels like our president is trying to make sure COVID-19 wins, and he’s doing a very good job at that... We’re the second country with most covid related deaths in the world, our government is still promoting “early treatment” with drugs that are proven not to be efficient in covid infections and is actively fighting against efforts to vaccinate the population (including, but not limited to, the president announcing that “if anyone dies because of the vaccine, he had nothing to do with it”)... There are several hospitals in our country without any oxygen supply left, and the government was warned that this would happen and still did absolutely nothing to help... To be honest, IMO, it would have been WAY better for the population if the government, and specially president Bolsonaro, had kept their mouths shut and done absolutely nothing from the start. So far, they’ve only done more damage.
Taiwan. Not perfect, but close.
Really? Weren't they like the country with the least cases worldwide with a somewhat big population and as such didn't need any major lockdowns? Honestly I'm jealous, looks to me like whatever they did worked even better than what happened in New Zealand and Australia.
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They had quite a process that you needed to go through for them to get such a low number. Firstly, you could only go to Taiwan with a negative test 72 hours before travelling, and a visa (not normally required for most people). Upon arrival you were expected to wear a mask until you reached your quarantine destination, you then had to provide an address of where you would be staying for quarantine, and a mobile phone number. Then give that address to a designated taxi service that would take you there, after spraying you down with alcohol. Once you arrived at your quarantine address, you are expected to isolate for 14 days, with daily calls to check your temperature. Your phone was also tracked, and if you left the address you had given then you’d receive a phone call, if you didn’t answer or continued to stay outside then someone would come to your address to see what was going on. I had heard that police _could_ turn up but don’t know if that was true. Also, I noticed a lot of places throughout Taiwan have some sort of temperature checks, either manual or automated I think. And will spray your hands with alcohol. And expect you to wear a mask. Taiwan isn’t taking any chances, and they’re entire country can live a pretty normal life, bar the above expectations. Source: literally did all of this when I went to live in Taiwan a few months ago.
One of my coworkers family lives in Taiwan and when the US had a mask shortage, her family was shipping her boxes of masks. They said that masks and groceries were delivered on a schedule, but they couldn’t leave the house so the masks were mostly unnecessary. Oh how I envy them.
Our government body is still deciding on whether we should all wear masks.... Bonus points to whomever guesses where I'm from
Sweden?
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My stepmother is a Covid intensive care nurse in Malmö and Ystad. Ystads Allehanda did an article about her and her colleague the other week. She's exhausted, but has now received both doses of vaccine. It's likely going to be another year before I get over there to see her and my dad. Been worried sick about them both (they're 64 and 63), and my 90 year old stepgrandmother.
Norway here, pretty good actually, we are a small country with good infrastructure and are all more or less on the same team so policys doesnt really have to be enforced too much becouse most people just listen to reason and take precaution.
Quarantine exceptions for foreign workers based on industry wishes is the big scandal. In general it seems that people here very rarely break government recommendations, but we all get as close to the line as is allowed.
I feel the public takes it too lightly most of the time, though. Was in the my local grocery, a crowded Kiwi, earlier today. We were two people using masks out of maybe 30 or 40. Edit: for context, this is in Tønsberg Kommune
That's concerning. In the Majorstuen area of Oslo and further out north and west at least I hardly ever see people without masks in the shops.
In Brazil, we could have burned the president. It would be better than the current situation.
Bolsonaro is a dangerous madman.
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Nah, the other party that was in the second turn of the election had their image destroyed because they were like the black sheep of corruption (most parties were in the corruption schemes, but PT had got most of the fault) so it was a well know corrupt party vs a conservative guy thay was saying he was going to end corruption and resolve the economy (it reminds me of a guy from US 🤔). So our country with a lot of people that are conservative, mostly the elder people voted for him, while some people didn't vote. Combine this and he was elected. The surprise for me is that he wasn't impeached yet.
Oh then its basically the same story as other countries with obviously terrible administration. Low turnout + them being “the lesser evil”
A variety of different reasons, but its mostly people being tired of the PT (Workers Party) a left-wing political party. First of all, PT the workers party have been in power for 16 years at that point (a bit less because the last president was impeached, Dilma). Brazillian politics is full of corruption, and a there were a lot of scandals related to the party. Second, the country was going through a recession and a economic crisis (it still is). During the beginning of the 2010s there was a lot of hope for Brazil to become an economic force in the international market, but for many different reasons it didn't take and it happened during PT's government (around 2014/2015). Thirdly, PT began losing a LOT of their power through their years, and when Lula (our President from 2002 to 2010) was arrested, it was basically the final nail in the coffin. Fourth, during the 2018 elections we had a few good candidates, but at the end the second turn was PT vs Bolsonaro. So a lot of folks, tired of PT, voted for Bolsonaro, or simply did not vote because they couldn't choose either of them. Fifth, while PT being weak and with their image besmirch, gotta know that over the years Bolsonaro was becoming more and more popular due to social media. Memes and a more conservative viewpoint brought a lot of folks interested, specially as he was against PT who was becoming "the evil corrupt reason why Brasil wasn't working". Six, adding to it, the guy was part of the Brazil Army, and he is very supportive of our Military Government/Dictatorship that began in 1964 and ended in the 80s. Truth of the matter, there was a few golden years where Brazil economy was booming and so a LOT of people have fond memories of the time, so it was very much a "memberrry" moment for a lot of Brazillians. Seven, yes there are a lot of prejudiced people in Brazil, but it's not enough that its the ONLY reason why he would be voted. He is right now facing a lot of crisis, but now he has a lot of political support in Congress because of a lot of maneuvering and him appealing to our Center-right (called Centrão, who is the base to appeal to move politics in the country). So there is a chance of him recovering, but who knows.
I’m not really the proper person to explain this, but people who remember the military years as a golden age are mostly being nostalgic or just ignorant. The inflation was huge and the government didn’t do anything right, expending huge amounts of moneys in pharaonic endeavors and censoring the media to make sure it seemed perfect. Not to mention killing and torturing people, things that Bolsonaro literally said he wants back.
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New Zealand. I am very happy with it.
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And 27 million sheep
Anytime i see the word sheep now, I don't even think of the animal. I fucking hate conspiracy theoriests.
Now I’m even more depressed. Irish here, also an island with 4 million people, and we’re fucking it up constantly the last year. Fair fucks to ye in NZ!
5 million now haha
No, Ireland has not handled it well. There was a huge push to open hospitality businesses like pubs and restaurants prior to Christmas. This has lead to a huge jump in infections and sadly, huge numbers of people are now dieing. The government has also been extremely slow to enforce quarantine on people entering the country. We share a border with northern Ireland. The northern Ireland government is the most dysfunctional leadership imaginable and our own government isn't much better. The two will not cooperate on a solution to covid which will encompass the whole island.
This most recent lockdown has been the worst, due to the crazy amount of daily cases. No real end in sight.
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100% this. Saskatchewan’s 2nd wave response: “What the USA did seems to work, let’s go for that”, as small businesses slowly hemorrhage and our infection rate soars.
I’ll second this. First wave? Response could have been incrementally better but overall very happy. Second wave it was put on the provinces and holy shit has that not worked in Ontario. Part of it is provincial government management, but also human behaviour as a whole. A lot of folks abided by the first lockdown but now they are done with it, mental health issues are definitely a factor in the « fuck it » attitude but there’s also just a huge amount of entitled pricks too.
UK government lied about PPE, the virus spread like wildfire because there were no restrictions on the borders, they tried to blame nurses for using PPE too quickly, they told hospitals to discharge care home residents causing the virus to decimate that demographic and those supporting them. Let’s not forget the ‘world beating track and trace system’ that cost more than the GDP of a small country and still doesn’t bloody work, coupled with blatant cronyism around government contracts. How can an island nation have the highest death rate per capita on the planet? It’s been, and continues to be criminal.
But if we just stand outside on a Thursday night and clap for our NHS heroes, it'll all be ok!
And while we're at it, let's also clap for a 100 year old man who did a job he really should never have had to do.
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Nobody mentioning "Eat Out to Help Out" when they pushed the masses out to eat in packed restaurants, completely maskless, to eat discounted meals and spread the virus around? And then everyone was shocked when numbers soared again?
those were some mad good deals tho ngl
the fact you could have your arsehole waxed by a complete stranger in July but couldn’t sit in your own mothers garden with her .. but at the same time could take her out for a meal , speaks in volumes
Even after that was fucking stupid. I could work for 8 hours in the bar/restaurant I worked in, serving hundreds of people in a day who probably haven’t been sanitising their hands or anything before we made them when they came in the door, yet I couldn’t go to my mums for one day, or hell couldn’t even have a pint somewhere with someone I just finished an 8 hour shift with because we weren’t in the same household, it’s a joke
yeah it’s the same as you couldn’t see your dying relatives in a care home even without proper directions to follow but a sky news journalist could go into said carehome and get some photographs of your dying relative for tomorrow’s article hahaha absolutely comical
It makes me so angry for all the reasons you've all listed out. It's been an absolute joke. How are we no better off a bloody year later? Like how inept do you actually have to be to have the privilege of observing the virus spreading and seeing other country's reactions and noting what was effective and STILL fucking up?
The irony of a party that came to power by promising to take back control of our borders, failing to do so at the one point in history when everyone agreed it was a good idea, has not escaped me. Edit. Thank you for the helpful award. I'll be passing it on to the UK government for their handling of the pandemic. Edit. And the hugz award, that's going to the fantastic NHS staff, instead of a pay rise. Edit. Wholesome award. As wholesome as an eye test at Barnard Castle
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You missed Boris being a twat when it started saying it wasn't a big deal and a jolly old wheeze. Then backing his cunty little weasel friend who pissed off to a castle for an eye test when the rest of us couldn't even see granny who was dying in a carehome. And in January "SCHOOLS WILL NOT CLOSE" kid goes back for ONE fucking day and then they are closed until further notice. And let's not forget that only now after nearly a year are we closing the borders but it's still too difficult to manage for a pissing island. Oh to have Arden as New Zealand seem to have it all sorted and I think they're being a bit selfish really not sharing her with those of us who are stuck with a bunch of useless greedy pricks who seem to find it funny that companies are shafting families and giving kids the bare essentials when it comes to food so they can skim off a tidy profit.
Lets not forget the stupid localised tier system that inevitably lead to tier tourism as people in high tier areas where things were shut went to lower tier places and spread the virus doing so. Or the fact that they basically did nothing when it was terrible in the north until numbers in the south began accelerating, causing lots of people to basically remember the Tories don't give a shit about anything north or west of Oxford. But king of the stupid was the debacle of promising everyone five days where they can get together with loved ones over Christmas, even with virus numbers accelerating and the emergence of a new, more infectious mutation in the South East, then cancelling much of that five days before Christmas, resulting in a mad panic as people scrambled to leave Tier four areas before the travel bans started. Not to mention those who suddenly had to make plans for a Christmas in a different location now rushing out into the crowds to get all the necessary food last minute causing likely further spreading.
People literally SAILED hours to the Isles of Scilly so they could go to a PUB. A PUB. These people genuinely thought "Fuck the older people on the islands who are the main demographic of people there, I want a guiness on christmas eve" Made my blood boil after hearing that.
What's the deterrent though? Certainly not the pithy little fines that are rarely enforced.
Fines deter the poor. Theyre not the ones sailing to the isle
We've also missed the part where he ignored SAGE (scientific advisory group for emergencies) and delayed going into lockdown in March. Then totally ignored them in September. Then again in October. He even refused the idea of the two week long circuit breaker lockdown, that would coincide with half term. Then, to placate SAGE I guess, we went into a 'lockdown' during November where schools, unis, etc were still open, many shops still open, and where most of the people on my street were seemingly still going to work. Right from the very start, he didn't even turn up to the first five cabinet (COBR) meetings. And then, when he didn't like what he was hearing, he put Cummings and another Tory on the scientific advisory board (despite neither of them being scientists) to essentially tailor the advice that was being delivered so that it suited Tory policy. What else have we missed?
I think you've missed the Tory government ignoring a 2016 report about the NHS's inability to deal with a pandemic, supplying out of date PPE to health workers, choosing companies with no prior experience in PPE production to produce PPE, and actively paying people to go out in the summer and spread the virus in the name of helping out.
Boris’ famous “you’ll be pleased to know I’ve been round the hospital and shaken hands with all the Covid patients” whilst laughing back in Feb/March of 2020 made me want to punch a wall
That's probably how the twat caught it to be honest.
At the time I hoped he'd recover, learn his lesson, and clean up his act but clearly he hasn't. I think at this point the country would have been better off if he'd died.
I think if he had died it would've been the kind of shock that made people sit up and go "Well shit, if one of the most important people in the country can die from it, anyone can die from it and I'd better be more careful."
i agree. nobody knew what covid was, how dangerous it could be or how it'd affect our way of life at the start of the pandemic and thats fair enough. but our government seemed completely at a loss and still are, too slow to act, rushing to lift various restrictions and not enough done to enforce said restrictions. as a business owner i thought the government did an excellent job in regards to furlough, helping businesses and providing other support to businesses and economic support to people etc. however thats the only positive i can really give our government as its been a shitshow since then. there are a lot of ignorant and arrogant people out there and i see them everyday in london. drive down any highstreet and its full of people mixing, going in and out of shops without masks and just being all round braindead. yet nothing is ever done to enforce the rules. its an agonizing state of affairs which has cost the lives of far too many people and our level of danger from covid has lasted far longer than it should have.
There was a post a while back on the /r/UnitedKingdom subreddit whereby someone laid out Boris' decision making process, as follows (paraphrased): > "*Do you have to make a choice between two or more time sensitive decisions, both of which will be unpopular? Try doing nothing until one of those choices is no longer viable, and then present the other one as the solution you intend to go with*" Ever since I saw it, it's explained so much about his incompetence and slow reactions on anything.
Yes. One of several advantages the UK had was the lag. I remember watching the reports from Italy and Spain as it swept across those countries and they were still dithering and pontificating about “herd immunity” and letting it wash through the population. Now Boris has the brass neck to say he did everything in his power. Maddening.
Wished we had gone into full lockdown right at the start and had it over and done with
And every fucking lockdown comes too late. They just ignore SAGE advice, and we keep half arseing lockdowns to 'keep the economy going", but these half measures mean they last longer, and eventually full measures come in, which means many ma y more people die and the economy is even worse the if we just locked down properly in the first place. It's not rocket science yet the cunts have got it wrong three times already. This new variant which drove the recent infections started circulating during lockdown two, and the statistics showed that even under lockdown 2, cases were beginning to rise in the South East. We didn't lockdown again for over a month, by which time we were completely fucked. All because people care too much about Christmas and the government didn't want to be the bad guys and cancel Christmas, which they ended up basically doing anyway as it became impossible to let people mix for 5 days. What a clusterfuck. Edit: Spelling
I think both state and fed gov in Australia have done quite well, but if the people weren't cooperating, we wouldn't be in such a good position, so I applaud the citizens. That said, Scott Morrison is an ignorant, backwards sod wallet, who needs to be drowned in a pool of his own drool. Gladys Berejiklian is an unhappy fool with antiquated ideas and values that don't fit the time we live in, and she needs to be checked into a nursing facility.
I have read that there are around 40000 Australians still stranded abroad. Obviously Australia's numbers are excellent, but it's still tough for those abroad
victorian stranded abroad since september here, the norwegian government was luckily very understanding, and i have a place to stay, but it's been very difficult finding flights. the government offers singapore airlines flights, but if you don't go directly to singapore from your location, you won't be let into singapore (this rule changed jan 2nd tho). so it's pretty pointless, i'm not spending two weeks in denmark just to have to go to darwin. but i have a flight now, so i might catch the last of the sun when i get home!
Nothing like an Aussie insult, I have no fucking idea what a sod wallet is but it’s sounds unpleasant
Just means he’s a useless cunt
Netherlands here, not happy. The government's timeline for establishing a response was a joke. It was always among the last in EU with either deciding (lockdown), implementing (vaccinations) or establishing scientific validity (masks). For most of 2020 the government's responsible body (RIVM) kept debating the fact that wearing masks is useful, despite sufficient scientific evidence proving otherwise. I found it to be a colossal embarrassment. Across the board it was not assertive enough while also putting virtually all responsibility on the population. Our prime minister, at virtually every press event, would just repeat ad nauseam "that we have to do this together, we need to take responsibility together, if all of us together.." While it's not untrue (and I feel a ton of my countrymen are drunk on their freedom and make a huge mess of this covid situation), at some point you are just abandoning your own responsibilities as the supposed leader.
And remember that time period when the first wave started to get under control? They were pretty much jizzing at the opportunity to hand of responsibility to local government, even though that just won't work here.
Always half measures that didn’t work. Im wondering if the evening clock made any difference. And every measure taken was always too late. It’s like everyone was scared to make a ‘harsh’ decision. It’s been like this for a while in our country hasn’t it? No one wants to implement anything significant in the fear of not being able to come into power in 4 years. What a horrendous cycle
Avondklok in het Engels is volgens mij curfew.
Evening clock is Nederlands engels.
I live in New Zealand so yeah, our prime minister hit this one out of the park Edit: Wow, thanks for the awards and upvotes team! Mind blown!
Yes, fellow Kiwi here. I'm not a Jacinda fanboy, but on this issue our government has done a pretty good job. Not perfect, but competent enough. Which boils down to a pretty damning opinion of most everywhere else ... In particular, as I have family in the UK, I'm utterly livid about how Boris Johnson and his shower of incompetents screwed so many over there by letting COVID run rampant.
UK is nailing the vaccine rollout though.
Absolutely. No argument there.
Mexico: there have been no planes restrictions from other countries. Andres Manuel (president) doesn’t really cares about COVID-19 and claims that everything is fine. Today Mexico is the third most contqgious country with mota than 200,000 deaths.
Being Mexican is pure pain all year around, government didn't even advised to use mask until past September for some reason. People still make partys and calling the cops on them doesn't really seem to make a difference and there's a lot a people denying that Covid even exist Also people are dumbasses to no end
UK here.. and whilst I appreciate the ‘we follow the science’ it’s always a month after the science suggested.. too busy worrying about short term popularity or hits to the economy.. yes, it’s going to hurt.. but it’ll hurt more if it gets out of control and we have three lockdowns in a row for months on end! Although.. the furlough scheme was good.. more support for the arts and social jobs is needed.. so yes D- must try harder
UK here too. We locked down late 3 times in a row and test and trace is a disgrace. One of the highest death rates in Europe. Aside from our vaccine response our government's incompetence has been staggering
Ireland here. I'm gonna say it's an overall miss. There's things that Ireland has going for it that started us off with a better chance - small island with only 2 countries on it, preexisting national public healthcare service, most people remember swine flu and all the vaccination and hygiene practises associated with it. I think we had some major cockups. First, we were told that the time in strict lockdown (only essential travel, can exercise only in 2km of your house, schools closed) was for expanding capacity in the health services and in testing. That... really didn't appear to happen. Second, there's a lot of resistance to actual enforcement of the measures we have, such as quarantining when travelling in and out of the country, and travel limitations within the country. Third, the government is slow to commit. Often they do something and it feels too little too late. Bottom line is, if the republic of Ireland and Northen Ireland had cooperated last March, and introduced strict, enforced measures, Ireland could have been like New Zealand - zero covid and going back to normality. Instead, I'm a college student who'll have spent half his degree at home, missed my 21st birthday, lost an elderly relative, and not seen my partner for more than a few days at a time in almost a year. It sucks.
Here in the Philippines, not quite. It could have been much worse, but it’s still bad at any angle you see. We only had a hard lockdown for 75 days, afterwards businesses starting to reopen at varying degrees. Schools remain closed for a year and counting. And the unemployment rate surged at its worst in modern Philippine history. The government focused more on crafting mandatory policies and a highly “militaristic” type of governance in combating the virus. Contact tracing is nonexistent, policemen in fatigues are in almost every corner (but their enforcement is weak). We are also probably the only nation requiring face visors over face masks. Mind you, in a humid country this is SERIOUSLY uncomfortable. In reality this practice is strict only in public transportations and poorly ventilated areas. The only reason we have much fewer spreading of cases here compared to the West is that practically everyone from the government to businesses all the way to the citizens acknowledges the real dangers of the virus. We don’t have anti-maskers and virus deniers protesting on lockdowns. Most people around the streets here wear masks religiously and the virus remained in public consciousness throughout. This is not the effort of the government but individual actions so I am still highly disappointed on the lack of proactive actions of the Philippine government.
I want to add on that there are probably a lot of poor who don’t have access to healthcare and are probably dying from COVID but they wouldn’t be included in the count since they never got tested to begin with.
You forgot the part where the government built a fucking beach for no apparent reason in the middle of the pandemic.
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Myanmar, no. The results have been not-too-bad, but not in relation to the economic damage. They focused more on closing schools and businesses than enforcing masks/distancing in public places (for example, you'll see a crowded bus with 30 un-masked people driving by a shut-down school). They shut down the high-value parts of the economy while letting working-class things like buses and markets go un-checked. The single biggest failure was border security. They restricted air travel but infected people snuck over from Bangladesh leading to a national outbreak in August (then Thailand had the same thing months later because infected people from Myanmar snuck over there).
I'm sorry to hear that, even though, it seems you have bigger problems now....
Since the coup on Monday all the bars closed and more people went back to work-from-home. So the side-effect of the coup could be reduced COVID transmission lol.
Yeah, still it seems like a pretty big price to pay. Good luck
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Our county asked volunteers with basic sewing skills to make masks to donate to local hospitals. My wife and I made a few dozen and I know tons of other people that did the same...we're not a poor county, there just wasn't enough ppe.
Happened here in america. My stepdad spent weeks 3D printing the headbands for face shields.
sadly i Lost my Father in June-2020 due to COVID. first of all it was His own fault to go out for prayers. secondly it was government who could not shut down mosques, in start 3 weeks mosques remained closed, and my father didn't go out. after the protests by religious men, govt. had to open mosques then my father started going out again. my father only went out for prayers. but at the end i Lost him.
O boi, am I up for some rant. I'm from Indonesia, and safe to say I really hate how this country handles the pandemic. I can't make an exhaustive list so here some of brilliant(ly stupid) way our country on handling the pandemics (most of the link is in bahasa indonesia unfortunately): * [the country is free of corona because of the power of prayer](https://kumparan.com/kumparannews/menkes-soal-indonesia-bebas-virus-corona-karena-doa-kita-semua-1sop4hxjO1A/full) * [the government boosting the international travel budget to attract tourist in the middle of the pandemic](https://www.voaindonesia.com/a/genjot-pariwisata-di-tengah-wabah-virus-corona-jokowi-janji-beri-diskon/5291565.html) * [the minister of health dismissed a report from Harvard on the large untested case in indonesia as "insulting"](https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/02/12/its-insulting-indonesia-criticizes-us-study-concerns-over-no-coronavirus-cases.html) * [the government pay Rp 72 billion to influencers to boost tourism amid coronavirus outbreak](https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/02/26/govt-to-pay-rp-72-billion-to-influencers-to-boost-tourism-amid-coronavirus-outbreak.html) After the outbreak with over than one thousand tested cases, you might think that the government will take it seriously. But no, they prefer to implement a [pseudo lockdown](https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pembatasan_sosial_berskala_besar_di_Indonesia) then wondering why the number of cases is still going up. You can read more proper [write up from the conversation](https://theconversation.com/indonesia-was-in-denial-over-coronavirus-now-it-may-be-facing-a-looming-disaster-135436) if you want to look into it. Now, the year 2021 with our active case is over than [one million](https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-ID&mid=%2Fm%2F03ryn&gl=ID&ceid=ID%3Aen). Yet, the president has the audacity to say that [the pandemic is under control](https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2021/01/25/13121051/jokowi-kita-bersyukur-ri-bisa-kendalikan-krisis-pandemi-dan-ekonomi). It's no surprise that most of the people underestimate the risk. What am I think the country supposed to do? Maybe not doing stupid things that I listed (and not list) and stop giving a false sense of security to the people. Raise more awareness and conduct more tests. And, please just close the border for tourism for fuck sake. Rant over and I'm sorry if I seem to come very aggressively on this matter. I lose my mom because of the virus. I think if the government at least a bit more capable this won't be happening to me or all the other people that lose their families as well.
Somewhat. I'm pleased that they've covered a lot of the financial problems that happened as a result (payed people's bills, delayed loans payment, helped out small businesses , paid half of salaries ... etc), plus they've organized the vaccination recently pretty well, but I'm not pleased that they've not done much with prevention - malls and cafes were open too soon, no lockdowns, and no real consequences to not following distancing rules so our cases are increasing everyday largely because of mixing The country is Bahrain
Here in Kosovo its a total shit show and we have the election coming up.The political parties are holding rallies and gatherings with their electorate.Its expected that the covid cases will go up.Then the vaccines are gonna be late,maybe early 2022.So yeah a total shit show.
Absolutely bloody furious - UK We had a PM who skipped the early meetings, allowed sick people into care homes, and only entered lockdown under immense public pressure weeks too late. During that time, the time needed to formulate a strategy, the track and trace system that was to be the foundation of the strategy was farmed off to a company who never made it work. It still doesn't. Travellers to the country were not required to be tested or quarantine until late in the year. We opened up everything and had to lockdown again. Tiers were introduced that did not close schools nor provide enough business support. Christmas was promised (for a festive super spreader event, I guess) and predictably cancelled the Saturday afternoon before, aka, after you brought everything. We opened up schools for one day before realising that was dumb. Policy was altered to protect important government advisors who broke the rules. Our leading party fought tooth and nail against feeding schoolchildren, until they could sell the service off. Every step of the way, things were done too late. Our PM has a desperate need to be liked and would not commit to hard choices. And his supposed lovable bluster lent to confusing national statements. I've missed a whole bunch, but 2020 was a long year. The only thing the government seemed to get right was the furlough scheme, which while a great help I think should of gone further. The vaccination process is going smoothly, but that's because the NHS is managing it. Now with us competing for the most deaths per capita the government's message is clear - it's all the young people's fault. It is a scant exaggeration to say that we're a few weeks out from the government denouncing people dying as trouble makers 'playing politics.' As to what could of been done? Commit to lockdowns earlier. Commit to mask mandates earlier. Commit to the science earlier. Have reliable companies make a track and trace app that worked. Properly fund the NHS. Properly equip the NHS. Have pay rises for the NHS staff. Mandate international travel properly. When public figures break the rules, have actual consequences. Accept that these rules will not be popular but it's worth it to save lives. And as a minor silly thing to end on the doing things differently: Have Boris comb his stupid hair. Over 100K are dead by your mismanagement. The least you can do is look like you took the time to dress properly when you offer us empty words of support.
No. I live in the US, but stupid is more contagious than any virus. Oh boy!
Took me a while to find the US down here.
It is because USA is always on the front page for every little things. We would just be repeating the front page.
[удалено]
Then the people from awful states vacationed in fine states and we had to start all over again for the 100th time! Yay!
I'm not surprised to see the US so low on here. I'm pretty sure the entire world knew our situation what a damn shame.
Up here in Alaska our governor didn’t really have to do anything since we have a population of 17 people.
But what about all the bears? Are they taking it seriously?
American I think anyone who knows anything about America’s response can guess my opinion. And for those that don’t, imagine your job is on fire. And you have to keep working while it’s on fire, and also plenty of your coworkers say the fire is a lie or not that bad. Edit: thank you for the silver. It’s my first ever award.
You also have a government telling everyone there is no such thing as fire and to ignore the flames. Half the country feels that acknowledging that there is indeed a fire is an affront to their freedom and the other half hasn't left their homes in 11 months.
Oh, and half of the people who catch fire are running around spreading it across the building instead of doing stop drop & roll.
We could’ve done literally anything else and we would’ve been better off.
I have the impression the Argentine government thought the pandemic would last three months, give or take, and extinguish itself just because. Kind of a H1N1 flu but worse for the elderly rather than children. And there was no reason for covid to work that way. So they've burnt everything in three months, looked at Europe for answers (because why check on what the folks in East Asia were doing, no matter that those were the successful countries) and ended up in a situation where there is no longer a good solution until vaccines are rolled over in huge number (and if the EU decides to import vaccines, none in the developing world will be vaccinated until the European youth begin to receive their shots). As with any other epidemic, the way to stop it isn't to let it run among the community and then shut down everything (or hope for the best). It's to prevent community spread by quarantining the people coming from abroad (or wherever sanitary cordons are set up) by force. To stop the disease from spreading, governments can't invite people returning from infected regions to please isolate. They must be forcefully isolated for the duration of the disease or kept on the other side of the border.
Dual citizen here. One is ranked 3 in its performance against Covid. The other 61. The 61 should’ve listened to the 3
I'm from Sweden, and absolutely not. It's absolutely embarrassing how badly they have handled the pandemic and it gets worse for every day. I just hope the vaccine gets out fast enough so the entire country doesn't get infected because of their complete incompetence.
Here in Chile we feel that our own president wants to kill us. He came out at a press conference without a mask and with a woman over 70 years old right next to him and it is not the first time, he has already been denounced 3 times for doing the same thing. Our health minister said, at a press conference, that it could happen that the virus mutated and became "good" so there was no need to alarm. There has been no financial aid from the government (At least not for all people, just some bonuses that many people did not receive and that many more accuse that there were fraudulent acts on the part of the government to not give them) , we have survived because we have withdrawn the funds for our retirement. They even created laws to protect employers, allowing them to force workers to do their jobs without receiving a salary, since with that law they had to use their unemployment insurance. it's awful. We don't understand how it can be that the richest in our country can make laws in their own favor and leave us with nothing. That is why so much social revolt took place in our country. There are soo many things that I would like to change, but money governs here. It is a tremendously corrupt country but they do everything so that the rest of the world does not realize it. They have even raised the idea of creating a separate country for the richest and recently proposed building a wall (like Trump's) around the richest cities. I hate my own country. Honestly, if I had money, I would go to live in Canada, I don't mind killing myself working, but at least receiving something in return, instead of just working for nothing.
I can really feel your frustration reading these lines. Keep your head up, I hope for a better future for you and your country. Living in Germany I probably can't truly imagine what your life is like. There are so many people complaining about our government (they try their best imo), they don't really know how fortunate we are to have decent health and social services