Allen53 wrote:
Where has your concern been about the 1.6 million/year that die each year in China due to air pollution?
Where has your concern been about nuclear arms which could wipe out humanity in the blink of an eye?
25,000 people lose their lives every day as a result of hunger- have you been working to alleviate and/or eliminate this or is that not on your radar?
An estimated 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation (more than 35% about 2,200 children are dying every day as a result of diarrheal diseases.) Nearly 1 million people die each year from water, sanitation and hygiene-related diseases which could be reduced with access to safe water or sanitation. What are you doing about this? Have you been getting worked up about this?
All of the above are very real and far more deadly and pervasive than what we are seeing with COVID. Some people are recognizing the hypocrisy and inconsistency of all of this and pointing it out. It appears you can't stomach that and want those people censored.
As an aside what do you think about the environmental conditions in the Po Valley and Northern China? How has this contributed to weakening the immune system of the residents in these two areas?
You're confusing things here: Yes, in developing countries too many people still go hungry and die of preventable diseases. This is a difficult problem and more foreign aid has sometimes shown to backfire (e.g. there are papers showing that foreign aid to African countries increase violence). I'm not downplaying it, but it's whataboutism right now.
The current crisis is different in that it poses a major threat to developed countries as well (not only). It is entirely rational for govts to impose drastic measures, given that all respected scientists in that area say that without doing anything, 1/2-2/3 of the population would be infected within months. The 0.6% death figure (S. Korea, best data) does not sound that bad, but the real issue is that 10%+ need hospitalization and ~5% ICU support. Clearly without mitigation/containment measures most people that would need ICU treatment would die. So obviously this is something we try to prevent at huge cost.
Now I'm not an expert myself but the smartest thing to do is to listen to experts on that domain. Compared to what to do about a financial crises, say, there is actually much more agreement on what to do about the Coronavirus.
