Originally Posted by Heinz
It would be very, very sad if the pandemic would put the common spirit of helping in the background. And instead, blame and isolation happens where joint action and transparency would be more helpful. Here the example of Italy vs. Germany, on the media level.
Blaming does not help in a situation of common need and common fate. What does it change today if it was a German who should have already introduced the virus in Italy on 21.01.? Did he do it on purpose? Or secretly? Of course, it is unfair of the Germans to accuse the Italians of not testing enough people...when they could not know that the virus was there much earlier than first known. Only...none of that helps now. In addition, I have the impression that there is not enough testing going on here in Germany. Especially not in hospitals among the medical staff. For fear they can no longer work when the truth is known.

Heinz. I think there are two issues here that cross over.

The first is that it is important to try and understand how the virus is spread. To my mind they understand part, but not all, of the mechanism. If a person is coughing and sneezing it is obvious that it can be spread by air droplets however it seems that otherwise healthy people who have not, or perhaps will never develop, symptoms have spread the virus. It is therefore important to track the virus for two reasons. One is to try and understand the mechanism of transmission and the other it to isolate any person who may be spreading contagion.

The second issue is that the press and many people pick up this information and unconsciously attribute blame, without even touching on the many conspiracy theories. This expands into questioning whether or not enough testing and/or restrictions are being put in place to limit the spread of the virus and even questions as to whether or not the figures released are accurate. This desire to attribute fault is part of human nature in any simple incident or, even more so, for a major disaster.

In reality China, or Germany, or Italy, is no more to blame than Australia was to blame for the so called "Australian Flu" or Spain was at fault for "Spanish Flu" (both incorrectly attributed, by the way).

However it may be viewed we are all in the same boat and it would be better if we rowed together.

As an interesting aside you can read about the Chinese specialists that arrived in Italy at the link below. It should be possible to translate it sufficiently with Chrome or Google Translator.

I medici cinesi arrivati in Italia per aiutarci

Peter

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