Replies to post #344063 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Other countries, many in Australia’s region, face a far more challenging battle than Australia does. The virus carries the potential of immense suffering.

One final, to the end, excerpt from
"The Covid-19 exit strategy: when will Australia know the coronavirus battle is over?"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/the-covid-19-exit-strategy-when-will-australia-know-the-coronavirus-battle-is-over

The last two sentences apply to the U.S.A. too.

Many nations in the Asia-Pacific are densely populated, with developing economies and healthcare systems ill-prepared for the Covid-19 wave to wash over them.

The physical distancing enforced by countries around the world, in reality, is a privilege of the rich. Developing nations face the far grimmer choices in choosing to lock its populations down to keep them alive or allowing them to work in order to survive.

Hundreds of millions of daily wage labourers in India – a country under total lockdown – don’t eat if they don’t work.

Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, has warned his country cannot enact the distancing measures it needs to without people starving.

There are other challenges too.


Firefighters spray disinfectant in Jakarta where strict new social restrictions have come into force. Photograph: Bay Ismoyo/AFP via Getty Images

Indonesia, late to the fight against Covid-19, now finds itself battling the virus blind, because it doesn’t have adequate testing. And Pacific nations are braced for the potential devastation of a virus sweeping through small close-knit communities, isolated from tertiary health care.

Vanuatu, already on high alert for a Covid-19 outbreak, bore the brunt of yet another category 5 cyclone this week, a reminder that climate-influenced catastrophes remain ever-present in Australia’s region.

Humanity’s other grave challenges have not been eradicated, only momentarily obscured, by the Covid-19 crisis.

Even if Australia succeeds in bending its Covid-19 infection curve to its will – which is at this point unusual for an Anglophone country – there will be more to do internationally before restrictions such as travel bans can be lifted.

Australia’s success in defeating Covid-19 will depend on its willingness to help other countries less able to defeat it too.

You can never be safe from a virus if you are surrounded by it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/the-covid-19-exit-strategy-when-will-australia-know-the-coronavirus-battle-is-over