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posted by Fnord666 on Monday May 18 2020, @10:08AM   Printer-friendly

COVID-19 Has Blown Away the Myth About 'First' and 'Third' World Competence:

One of the planet's – and Africa's – deepest prejudices is being demolished by the way countries handle COVID-19.

For as long as any of us remember, everyone "knew" that "First World" countries – in effect, Western Europe and North America – were much better at providing their citizens with a good life than the poor and incapable states of the "Third World". "First World" has become shorthand for competence, sophistication and the highest political and economic standards.

[...] So we should have expected the state-of-the-art health systems of the "First World", spurred on by their aware and empowered citizens, to handle COVID-19 with relative ease, leaving the rest of the planet to endure the horror of buckling health systems and mass graves.

We have seen precisely the opposite.

[...] [Britain and the US] have ignored the threat. When they were forced to act, they sent mixed signals to citizens which encouraged many to act in ways which spread the infection. Neither did anything like the testing needed to control the virus. Both failed to equip their hospitals and health workers with the equipment they needed, triggering many avoidable deaths.

The failure was political. The US is the only rich country with no national health system. An attempt by former president Barack Obama to extend affordable care was watered down by right-wing resistance, then further gutted by the current president and his party. Britain's much-loved National Health Service has been weakened by spending cuts. Both governments failed to fight the virus in time because they had other priorities.

And yet, in Britain, the government's popularity ratings are sky high and it is expected to win the next election comfortably. The US president is behind in the polls but the contest is close enough to make his re-election a real possibility. Can there be anything more typically "Third World" than citizens supporting a government whose actions cost thousands of lives?


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @03:27PM (2 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday May 18 2020, @03:27PM (#995850) Journal

    And he tabled a patently false claim that the government is to blame (or praise) for how the coronavirus has spread and affected regions around the world. But you want to take the one, but not the other.

    In fact I don't blame Australia for how bad its brush fires were. They were worse than authorities there were prepared for. Yes, they could have said, "gosh, we're in a multi-year drought and could be looking at a really bad fire season, so we better triple our budgets for fire-fighting in preparation." But that's not how governments work in the real world. Occasionally they can prepare well, but mostly they're reactive. In Western America there are frequent droughts, so they're more prepared to handle them. It's not because they're more special or smarter than Australia is, but because it's within the range of what they expect and are used to it.

    Is that a shocking or particularly controversial thing to say?

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    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday May 18 2020, @03:35PM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2020, @03:35PM (#995860) Journal

    But you want to take the one, but not the other.

    Come on. You know well the handling of corona situation in US has been so sub-optimal it isn't very hard to do much better.

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:51AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:51AM (#996209) Journal
      Point is that it could be a lot more sub-optimal too. For example, I count at least eight [jhu.edu] European countries with higher covid deaths per capita.