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The Corona Crisis gets real | 89 comments (89 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Ursula got some splainin to do in coming weeks. (4.00 / 2)
The thing is the EU has relatively little competency in health matters - beyond the European Medicines agency and a role as a research/coordination centre on health and food safety matters.

Basically European health care systems and policies are within the purview of national governments which pursue quite variable policies. I have long argued that this should change as bugs don't do borders and as some services - such as drug procurement- could benefit from the economies of scale and bargaining heft the EU could  bring to the table.

If the Cov-19 crisis does anything positive, it could be to provide the impetus for a common European Health Policy where more aspects of healthcare are managed at an EU level. With the UK gone, there should be less opposition to this.

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Fri Mar 13th, 2020 at 09:28:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Ursula talks a lot (4.00 / 3)
Things that could be tabled in an after-action phase:

  • All those Asian countries that are currently doing a relatively good job containing the spread had been burned by SARS and MERS before (Pain makes learning easier). For instance either Taiwan or Singapore (I don't remember which) started checking all passengers from Hubei the very next day after reports came out of China. Aggressive quarantining, early school closings like in Hongkong, advanced contact tracing, border closings etc. are other examples.

    Notice how Taiwan, Korea, Hongkong, Singapore are islands or at least geographically easy to close off and small. If a single EU country had restricted travel from China or put strong monitoring on those flights it wouldn't have been very useful. But if all EU countries did the same it wouldn't be so leaky and certainly much easier than monitoring all external and internal borders.

  • Shortage of equipment. The German government put out an order for 10,000 ventilators this week. Masks are in short supply everywhere (some of them were sold off at the beginning of the crisis to China for private use). Even before the crisis hundreds of drugs have been unavailable because the global manufacturing chain basically ends in just two countries, India and China. A repatriation of the full chain onto EU soil will have to be on the agenda. Also major mandatory stockpiles for preparedness.
  • Decision making where everybody waits for everybody else to move won't be enough anymore. Maybe there will be an EU coordinating body for infectious disease control. Certainly more than that disease monitoring tool that the UK refuses to stay a part of.


Schengen is toast!
by epochepoque on Sat Mar 14th, 2020 at 12:12:10 AM EST
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Re: Ursula talks a lot (4.00 / 2)
The USA SHOULD be ordering 100,000 ventilators and IV monitors on an expedited basis.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sat Mar 14th, 2020 at 04:05:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Ursula talks a lot (4.00 / 2)
Medical supplies are on a Just In Time inventory cycle.  Can't ramp-up production to meet a sudden demand because the "Financial Engineers" (sic) ripped all the slack out of the system in order to increase profits.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Sat Mar 14th, 2020 at 04:12:33 PM EST
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The Corona Crisis gets real | 89 comments (89 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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