Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by foldr 2276 days ago
>I'd bet on the success of a Gates-sponsored healthcare solution over a government-sponsored one any day of the week.

So you'd bet that the US is going to deal with the pandemic more effectively than China has? That doesn't seem likely at the moment.
2 comments
godzulu 2275 days ago
Be effective, do you mean by imprisoning and silencing physicians, insisting they had things under control, allowing 11m people to continue with new year, mass celebrations, allowing out of country travel, silencing Taiwanese doctors complaints to the WHO and strong arming the WHO to declare, as late as January 14, 2020 that it is not passable thru human to human transmission?

“Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China,” the WHO tweeted.

link
foldr 2275 days ago
No, I just mean that China has had more success than, say, Italy in stopping the spread of the disease.
link
curiousgeorgio 2276 days ago
> So you'd bet that the US is going to deal with the pandemic more effectively than China has?

No, that's not what I said.

link
foldr 2276 days ago
So Gates is not actually going to do anything to help with this pandemic? If so, how is he an example of the effectiveness of private enterprise as compared to government?
link
curiousgeorgio 2276 days ago
> So Gates is not actually going to do anything to help with this pandemic?

Again, not what I said. Contributing resources and expertise is not an all-or-nothing scenario. Each dollar spent by Gates fighting COVID-19 will (in my opinion) be significantly more productive than each dollar spent by the US government. But that doesn't mean he's the only force participating in the fight, nor is his contribution insignificant.

If you have an argument to make, please make it, but I'd ask you politely to refrain from straw man arguments or insisting on false dichotomies.

link
foldr 2275 days ago
>I'd bet on the success of a Gates-sponsored healthcare solution over a government-sponsored one any day of the week.

This doesn't sound like you are talking about dollar-for-dollar effectiveness.

Nor does it make sense to suggest that people move to Communist countries, if that's what you meant.

link