Teachers around the world had to come with homework ideas for the sudden change from present to distant study. Naturally, one of the topics to write about would be the one that caused this change. In my view, it was not as much the virus, as the governments. The school I study (now) has economics in its name, so quite consistently I argue that the unemployment and general economic havoc caused by the government orders will ultimately (in the long term) lead to much greater damages than the supposed vigintimation of the overbred immunodeficient humankind. But still, I like the better air quality and almost absent traffic.
*********************************************************************************
The government is here to provide public services, defense, law framework, and diplomatic representation. These aren't free so the government must collect taxes or find another way of funding them. The goverment is not here to regualte every aspect of personal life from cradle to grave, nor to suppress economic initiatives from it's citizens, upholing monopolies in certain markets. That's called totalitarianism and it kills people.
During the current crisis and pandemic the government should mainly not prevent economic activity in certain areas by outright closing businesses or banning sales of medical material, enforcing monopoly. What the goverment should do is boost the support for all its public health facilites and leave the private ones alone. There may and should be additional hygienic requirements and limited amount of people at 1 place simultaneously, but shutdowns are going to be more impactful than the pandemic itself, especially if there are bills and invoices still running. The virus has indeed popped a good amount of market bubbles, and swift recovery shouldn't be prevented. Some goverments can abuse this situation to increase their power and implement totalitarianism. However, during these shutdowns the air quality has increased, indicating that suddenly with the virus amongst us, governments are for once willing to do something ultimately good for the environment.
*********************************************************************************
Report on Behavior-Changing Measures During the COVID-19 Pandemic
===================================================================
Submitted 2020-04-20
Introduction
--------------
This report is written at the request of the Rector of the University of Economics in Prague. It's purpose is to consider the impact of various behavior changes and undertaken measures during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, a major respiratory illnes, likes of which arise every few years. Afterwards, actions to be performed are then recommended both for students as well as employees.
Background
------------
The illness COVID-19 is caused by a coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2, with the reference to similarity with earlier SARS virus. It originally emerged in a Chinese city Wuhan around December 2019, most probably by transmission to a human from a bat or flying fox. It's symptoms are similar to other illnesses caused by coronaviri, with the most severe one being pneumonia. Likewise it's also transmitted by droplets, therefore is highly contagious. While these viruses have no permanent effect in most healthy people, they can be lethal to the elderly, immunodeficient, or frequent smokers.
Findings
----------
Due to high contagiousness the medical facilities can get overloaded. This means certain measures limiting the spread are needed, so while a majority gets infected eventually, there will be less people infected at a given time, as seen in Figure 1.
A measure on top of the mind is social distancing. That means people avoid socializing with others. Introverts don't need to make any change, therefore it will impact only half of the population. It's highly effective because this is the main way the virus spreads, and the spread is exponential in nature, as seen in Figure 2. Moreover, contact-less forms of greeting provide significantly less opportunities for the virus to spread.
Increasing hygiene standards is also advisable, but this can lead to frequent inavailability of sanitizers. The main problem lies in the lack of hygiene in certain places, such as the Wuhan marketplace where the initial tranmission occured.
Another measure is travel bans and associated border closure. This is a reminder why open borders are not the greatest idea. Also such measure will lead to the rise of high-speed trains in lieu of airplanes. Mandatory quarantines for travellers returning with the virus are by far the most effective option because it localizes the problem and affects only individuals.
Many governments have chosen to close businesses and schools. While certainly applaudable by younglings looking forward to lenghty gaming sessions, from the adult perspective this measure causes many more problems than the virus itself. It's certain the education quality will suffer unless the rest of the semester is pushed back in its entirety and the summer break is shrunk, therefore significantly prolonging the spring break.
In addition, the fear from the virus has popped multiple market bubbles. Many people's financial problems are going to be augmented by the decission to close even more businesses than the crisis would have forced to by itself. Last financial crisis a decade ago a spike in suicides was observable. With the living standard decreasing, people become vulnarable to another illnesses. The fact that governments change rules every few days and bail out large corporations instead of providing support for smaller ones isn't helping at all.
Cancellation of public gatherings is amongst the most sensible measures, even if the freedom to gather is violated. On the International Women Day (March 8th), large demonstrations were held in Spain. As a result, there are most COVID-19 cases per capita as of April 2020, even more than in Italy. Many organizers have already cancelled such happenings before governments told them to do so.
It's important to distinguish face masks and respirators. Face masks are for already infected people, so they spread the virus less likely. Whereas respirators are for healthy people who want to be less likely to get infected. Both are highly needed in treatment and require special care to be effective, therefore ordinary civilists should leave them to those who really need it and cover their face with something similar found in their wardrobe.
Public transport is the location where people typically get most of the respiratory diseases, if not from the blooming flowers emitting pollen all over the place. Therefore making it defunct for a month and encourage individual transport is highly beneficial. In that time, the vehicles can be repaired, disinfected, checked, and thoroughly tested for failures. Empty streets from people staying in their neighborhood, or at least being supposed to, provide similar opportunity for long needed repairs.
A measure not at the top of the mind is performing many free tests, like South Korea does. While potentially costly, it greatly helps to find which exact people to put in quarantine, so that the entire state or city doesn't have to be.
Conclusions
-------------
To conclude the previous section, effective measures have been found to include the following:
* Social distancing and contact-less greeting
* Travel bans and border closure
* Mandatory quarantines for returning travellers
* Cancellation of public gatherings
* Halting public transport
* Performing as many tests as possible
Whereas, counter-effective measures have been found to include:
* School and business closure
* Mandatory face mask wearing for ordinary people
* Hasty inconsiderate government programs
* Not using this opportunity to repair roads
Recommendations
-----------------
As for employees of the University of Economics, since the government decided to close all schools, it is hereby recommended to push the entire rest of the semester back, proclaiming an unplanned extension to Easter holiday, and restore operation once the schools are reopened. All presentations from all classes should be posted on-line in advance, so the students can choose which seminars or lectures to attend thereafter, and attendance shouldn't be mandatory nor encouraged, since such policies only incentivize spreading viruses.
As for students, there is no better time to selectively miss classes than now, especially if returning from Erasmus. It's also recommended to use individual instead of public transport, the most obvious choice being the bicycle in various degrees of motorization. A wise thing to do would be to drink beer alone rather than with other students.
Relevant to both, shaking hands as a form of greeting should be abolished and replaced with contact-less forms, such as the Vulcan salute, originally used in Judaism, which is internationally recognizable.
