Why government actions seem inconsistent.
To start with, before I get any further into this, as a person who is rather cynical in general about others, I find the response, globally and at virtually all levels of government to be nothing short of impressive. I'm also similarly impressed by the community response.
Despite this, there is an awful lot of complaints over response times and changing rules.
A common line of question is "I see the X government is locking down Y today, why didn't they do it earlier?"
Follow up questions will often be asking whichever politician involved as to whether or not they felt their earlier actions were a mistake now.
Ignore this. I get that the questions MAY be legitimate ones. But, the people asking them, should, in general know better. Bringing up such questions in a public forum is A) largely political, and B) more likely to stoke fears and panic.
What I think a lot of people are failing to understand is that there is a such thing as OVERREACTING, even in extreme situations such as this.
And easy target here is the closing of national borders.
Why not do it sooner? A lot of reasons as it turns out. Firstly, ANY border closure will heighten panic and have a drastic impact on the economy which also hurts survival of the people. That is a pretty big reason right there. Unnecessarily hurting the livelihood of your citizens can be just as harmful as any virus. The jobs lost due to the economic impacts will likely result in loss of life as well.
Another reason is that it makes the most sense to close borders only when you can justify closing to everyone, or almost everyone. If there are too many exception, people will simply lie, making it harder to quarantine and track infections. This is a big reason why the US was heavily criticized for their targeted travel restrictions while there has been no public condemnation of the Canadian travel bans. By the time the Canadian government shut down travel it was justifiable to do a near total ban.
Why not the US border? A harder question to answer. There may be some agreements between the two governments. It may be accepted that the border is itself, especially in a time of quarantine difficult to enforce. It may be for trade related reasons. Or, more likely, a combination of the above.
I don't pretend to have the answers. But, I also can't say that the decision isn't justifiable. Even in light of the rest of the travel restrictions.
Another example? Ontario shutting down schools for 2 weeks. I heard some people saying that completely closing schools should be considered an extreme measure as many health care providers may need to take leave to watch their children which puts increased strain on the healthcare industry while also having a negative impact on businesses for all of the others who now need to take time off work.
But, an angle I hadn't thought of, was March break. This closure is for the 2 weeks following March break. Which is the recommended minimum self-isolation period. With there being no restrictions of even recommendations to avoid travel until near the last minute it was reasonable to assume that many Canadian's would be out of the country with many in the US or Europe which are in the thick of this outbreak. If we assume that would have come back somewhere around the end of March break, these measures WILL stop a lot of the spread of the virus early on.
And you can really pick and choose. But, with just the slightest bit of open mindedness, I think in almost all cases you'll be able to agree that politicians and world leaders are actually acting rationally in general.
Also, YES, the situation will change. I'm sorry, but you CANNOT have consistent messaging on this. The situation is anything but consistent in and of itself.
The only way we'd be able to deliver an unchanging message would be if we simply implemented martial law and FORCED everyone into confinement, locked the borders, shut all businesses, refused to allow people entry into the country for any reason without verifiable evidence that they are infection free. In short, measures which would likely lead to riots.
But, such a tactic only makes sense if you plan on eradicating the virus entirely, which in turn only work if the same measures are implemented equally, globally and simultaneously.
We aren't even pretending that we are that coordinated or capable as a species. We are trying to CONTAIN the virus to ensure that the health system can keep pace with it. And that situation is the one which is evolving.
So yeah, expect restrictions to tighten, and slacken, and perhaps tighten again and repeat for the foreseeable future.
If the advice seems inconsistent, that is because that is not what these governments are attempting to be consistent about. They are consistently trying to make the best decisions they can in an evolving situation while juggling both the threat of the spreading number of cases and the threats the measures bring to the livelihood of Canadians.
Despite this, there is an awful lot of complaints over response times and changing rules.
A common line of question is "I see the X government is locking down Y today, why didn't they do it earlier?"
Follow up questions will often be asking whichever politician involved as to whether or not they felt their earlier actions were a mistake now.
Ignore this. I get that the questions MAY be legitimate ones. But, the people asking them, should, in general know better. Bringing up such questions in a public forum is A) largely political, and B) more likely to stoke fears and panic.
What I think a lot of people are failing to understand is that there is a such thing as OVERREACTING, even in extreme situations such as this.
And easy target here is the closing of national borders.
Why not do it sooner? A lot of reasons as it turns out. Firstly, ANY border closure will heighten panic and have a drastic impact on the economy which also hurts survival of the people. That is a pretty big reason right there. Unnecessarily hurting the livelihood of your citizens can be just as harmful as any virus. The jobs lost due to the economic impacts will likely result in loss of life as well.
Another reason is that it makes the most sense to close borders only when you can justify closing to everyone, or almost everyone. If there are too many exception, people will simply lie, making it harder to quarantine and track infections. This is a big reason why the US was heavily criticized for their targeted travel restrictions while there has been no public condemnation of the Canadian travel bans. By the time the Canadian government shut down travel it was justifiable to do a near total ban.
Why not the US border? A harder question to answer. There may be some agreements between the two governments. It may be accepted that the border is itself, especially in a time of quarantine difficult to enforce. It may be for trade related reasons. Or, more likely, a combination of the above.
I don't pretend to have the answers. But, I also can't say that the decision isn't justifiable. Even in light of the rest of the travel restrictions.
Another example? Ontario shutting down schools for 2 weeks. I heard some people saying that completely closing schools should be considered an extreme measure as many health care providers may need to take leave to watch their children which puts increased strain on the healthcare industry while also having a negative impact on businesses for all of the others who now need to take time off work.
But, an angle I hadn't thought of, was March break. This closure is for the 2 weeks following March break. Which is the recommended minimum self-isolation period. With there being no restrictions of even recommendations to avoid travel until near the last minute it was reasonable to assume that many Canadian's would be out of the country with many in the US or Europe which are in the thick of this outbreak. If we assume that would have come back somewhere around the end of March break, these measures WILL stop a lot of the spread of the virus early on.
And you can really pick and choose. But, with just the slightest bit of open mindedness, I think in almost all cases you'll be able to agree that politicians and world leaders are actually acting rationally in general.
Also, YES, the situation will change. I'm sorry, but you CANNOT have consistent messaging on this. The situation is anything but consistent in and of itself.
The only way we'd be able to deliver an unchanging message would be if we simply implemented martial law and FORCED everyone into confinement, locked the borders, shut all businesses, refused to allow people entry into the country for any reason without verifiable evidence that they are infection free. In short, measures which would likely lead to riots.
But, such a tactic only makes sense if you plan on eradicating the virus entirely, which in turn only work if the same measures are implemented equally, globally and simultaneously.
We aren't even pretending that we are that coordinated or capable as a species. We are trying to CONTAIN the virus to ensure that the health system can keep pace with it. And that situation is the one which is evolving.
So yeah, expect restrictions to tighten, and slacken, and perhaps tighten again and repeat for the foreseeable future.
If the advice seems inconsistent, that is because that is not what these governments are attempting to be consistent about. They are consistently trying to make the best decisions they can in an evolving situation while juggling both the threat of the spreading number of cases and the threats the measures bring to the livelihood of Canadians.
Comments
Post a Comment