Quote:
Originally Posted by joe6pack
It's got nothing to do with the size of my brain. It's just basic common sense.
From extremely early on, experts predicted overreaction.
Xi gave what amounts to an imperial edict to snuff the virus out. Scientists and experts said genie is out the bottle, cat’s out the bag, and you can’t really (probably) snuff the virus out. This puts health officials and other officials in an impossible situation.
Under these circumstances, political self preservation demands action, at least the appearance of it, even if you know it’s not going to work or it’s going to be counterproductive. In other words, the officials, Xi himself included, went in ass covering mode.
When you have an entire country trying to shut down 1/10 of the global population, it’s inevitable rest of the world will overreact even if every expert recommends otherwise. Nobody wants to be accused of inaction when some people inevitably die.