When the pandemic came to town

(Catching up on posts started a while ago. This one originally written around 5/15/20.)

Sometime after the first wave is done if we don't have a second wave too soon after, the US should set up a bipartisan committee to work at how we and other countries dealt with the arrival of the pandemic. Look at the preparedness and pandemic infrastructure and that kind of thing. Look at who did well and borrow the best of their ideas.

I've already started looking. Much of Asia did well, largely because they got blasted by the H1N1 pandemic, so they set up much more robust response infrastructure. Europe and the US, we were blind and dumb about it, so we're getting blasted by this pandemic.

But even in Europe, there's a contrast. I looked at Italy and Sweden. Italy was rather in denial, and more than a little angry that their tourist trade was dropping sharply. Wrong response and blind to what could happen. So there wasn't much of an official plan, not a lot of information, and the epidemic spread quietly until all hell broke loose in northern Italy. Then they had to shut down the entire country because no one knew how far it had spread. It was an object lesson to a lot of other countries, including the US.

Then there is Sweden.
 Public health measures 2/28
Workplace measures 3/4

Image: bbc.com

Extras. Great video from Italy.

Try this experiment with Google

I was thinking about our country after looking at a photo of a scene in Ferguson, Missouri, which was the site of a police shooting and subsequent protests for several weeks (and also some rioting and looting), It seems that Ferguson is pretty peaceful again.

The photograph was of a family walking with bags from the Family Dollar store, a store specializing in inexpensive merchandise.

Image: wpxi.com

I really liked this photo. To me, it looks like the family bought themselves some inexpensive goods, maybe including a few treats. These are regular, unpretentious folks. I like that we have diversity in this country--the rich, the middle class, the lower middle class, the working poor, the non-working poor. We have them all, and I'm not at all ashamed of that.

In that train of thought, I decided to find images of "poor people in Sweden." It's a very disappointing search. There are pictures of Swedish aid projects in climates where palm trees thrive. Are there any pictures of poor Swedes? No.

Not even Bloomberg Businessweek could find a picture. Here is their take on the gulf between rich and poor in Sweden:

Image: businessweek.com

The "poor" house on the left is a historic example of a house from over a century ago. I did find a few articles: about riots that involved the poor and immigrants, begging, and Roma shacks being demolished. Among native Swedes, poverty is gone, I guess.

I doubt that Sweden is a good exemplar that the US could follow, however. It's a much smaller country, and not the melting pot we are. We are who we are, a very mixed bunch. I'm ok with that.