The Corona Crisis gets real | 89 comments (89 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

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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