Fine. I've asked about what we should do going forward? You guys keep wanting to go back to attack Trump.
Going forward:
1. Not all countries are on the same phase of the crisis. Those who were hit early are now slowly reopening and restarting some of their economic activity, namely some Asian countries and some European ones. They will have to implement immunity tests to evaluate who can go back to work or back to school, etc. They will have to monitor the situation very closely and be ready to reinstate quarantine as needed. It is going to be a start/stop process in terms of the public health problem.
2. Countries who are say 4 weeks late relative to China in terms of infection start, and who are now apparently past the peak- Spain, Italy, Austria, and others - will still have to live for weeks with many deaths (Spain, Italy) while slowly reopening. Spain is saying 26 April, Italy soon too. I mentioned Austria because it is a country about the same population of Portugal, and whose epidemic curves are similar. They will reopen slowly in 14 April.
3. Countries that are 8 weeks later than China, like Portugal, France, UK, etc, will reopen late and watch closely what is happening in the meantime in the countries that have opened by then. In Portugal, this slow reopening will probably happen mid-May. Already a lot of public events in the summer have been cancelled. This is good, because our health care service is fragile. Our government listens to specialists in health and economy very closely - there are numerous meetings that involve decision makers, scientists, economists, workers unions, company owners, everybody is working together with a common goal: survive this crisis as best as we can. Example: schools were only closed after measures were in place to pay 2/3 salary to the parents who needed to go home and stay with their kids. We did not want to send the kids home to stay with their grandparents - that was a time bomb in Italy. We could have closed schools 5 days earlier, but then the kids would have no one to take care of them, or would have to stay with their grandparents and risk infecting them.
4. Countries who reacted late regarding public health isolation measures, will have to live with a higher number of deaths - that is well known since 1918.
5. Countries in general will see a rise in unemployment rate and debt. They will tackle that differently.
6. Still going forward, countries need to prepare NOW for the second wave of the infection. The downside of flattening the curve now is that the level of immunity is very low. Some scientists estimate that level to be around 10% in Italy - this is still low compared to the required 60-70% - and that is a country that has suffered a lot. in Portugal, estimate is 0.1%. So of course all countries need to prepare for what will happen in a few months - testing for immunity, restricting movement and air traffic, and monitor very quickly. We have learned a lot by then, already did today, so there is a great opportunity for concerted efforts. For example, in the EU, countries will need to do integrated monitoring of the health situation, and have plans in place should the infection ramp up again in a second wave in counitres A, B, or C - coordinate border closing, reduce plane travel, etc, as required. These plans will have to include economic incentives and measures to help affected businesses and people.
