[ExI] the science might be wrong

spike at rainier66.com spike at rainier66.com
Sun Jan 24 03:46:42 UTC 2021


 

 

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat



>…That’s the case fir New Zealand, but not Australia. Australia is a federation, with the states coming together in 1901, based roughly on the US model. The states have responsibility for such things as health care and the criminal law; what is a crime in one state might not be a crime in another state. There is normally free movement between states, but when there were COVID-19 cases in some states but not others the various state governments set up border restrictions, enforced by police. Apparently this is all allowed by the Australian constitution, though it came as a surprise to me. Currently, the only cases in Australia are in overseas visitors, who are in hotel quarantine. It might still all fall apart since about once a month there seems to breach in the quarantine system, though only once, in Victoria, has this led to a significant outbreak.

-- 

Stathis Papaioannou

 

 

Ja.  In the US, there can be no legal impediment for crossing state lines.  It has been tried, back during the Great Depression of the 1930s, where economic refugees from the dust bowl states such as Oklahoma came to California.  You might have heard of the desperately poor Okies, coming to havest in California, so hungry they would eat the fruit they were being hired to pick.  

 

The Californians tried to stop them at the state line.  The Feds showed up and gently informed the Californians at eager gunpoint that they can’t do that.  In came the Okies.  Some are still here to this day.  I once had a supervisor at Lockheed who was a descendant of the 1930s Okies.  They were a hardy no-bullshit bunch of people.

 

In the US, we can never close the borders.  The penalties for manufacturing dope in Mexico is lower than it is here (or it is easier to get away with it) so there is always profit in making it there and bringing it here.  Covid comes along for the ride.  

 

Every country which has a lot of airplane traffic will have a lot of covid.  Poster child example: Belgium, with a covid death per million third worst in the world, with the first and second worst being San Marino and Gibraltar, each with a mere 33 thousand citizens, which one might argue challenges statistical significance.  But Belgium has over 11 million.  Their deaths per million are nearly 1800 so far.  UK is at about 1400, USA a bit under 1300.  All three of those guys have a lotta planes in and out every day, and that cannot change: many in those countries make their living in ways that involve international travel.

 

New Zealand can’t keep it out forever: they can’t get by without tourist money.

 

spike

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