Easy to say when the stirring doesn’t concern you. I don’t want to have a fight, so I will not continue this discussion. I will only urge you to reconsider and not take it so lightly. People die in revolutions; by the time history reaches us the blood has dried, but it is no less real.
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I think you might have misread the comic. Here is the transcript from the second panel:
White Hat: So things will be bad?
Scientist 1 (with hair): Unless someone does something to stop it.
White Hat: Will anyone do that?
Scientist 1 (with hair): … We don’t know. That’s why we’re showing you this.
The “we don’t know” is referring to the question of whether someone will do something to stop it, and although the scientists state that things are headed toward a bad situation, their whole point is that it could possibly be averted with proper intervention and they are aiming to motivate that intervention.
This is further made clear by the continued conversation in the third panel:
White Hat (off-panel): So you don’t know, and the graph says things are not bad.
Scientist 2 (no hair): But if no one acts, they’ll become bad.
Broadly speaking, we shouldn’t blame science for the problems that we face. That would be a bit like shooting the messenger. Ultimately, I think the real issue lies in how society and its decision makers respond to the warnings raised by experts. Unfortunately, competing interests often have even louder voices and employ influential lobbyists.
It’s so disturbing to see that harmful anti-science movements (from those that work to actively undermine the warnings from experts to those that simply view science as “basically dumb”) are active around the globe. Humanity is gravely imperiled, by coronavirus in the short-term and climate change in the long-term. I do strongly believe that our best hope to persevere and avoid the worst outcomes is to follow the guidance of scientific experts and take drastic actions. Although our leaders bear the most burden of choosing the correct actions, the broader views/actions of society are important as well, and the anti-science movements threaten our chances of finding the best path.
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Yeah, good that we get away fro politics again here … I’m just imagining that everywhere their chosen vice-presidents, vice-chancellors or vice-prime-ministers (wouldn’t those be just secondary ministers? 
) would move up … <shudder> thanks but no thanks, and when it’s about bloodshed I’m also with Gia, that I prefer on the board.
So, now WHO has officially declared it a pandemy:
“In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled,” Tedros said.
“In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries climb even higher.”
The WHO is “deeply concerned, both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction” by world leaders in response to the outbreak, Tedros said.
“We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic,” he declared.
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Come on now, stating it like that it’s like you’re supposing that I would be a proponent of bloodshed. That’s not the case and I would consider myself a pacifist. War is never a good thing in itself, whenever it happens and for whatever reason. Most wars have nothing but losers.
However, it can’t be denied that some after a select few wars, the situation in certain countries improves, partly because of the war. That’s what happened during the revolution, it’s what happened after the second world war with both Germany and Japan. It’s a small silver lining on a pitch black thunder cloud.
In the end, what’s worrying is that a pandemic such as Covid-19 currently is way more capable of destabilising our planet than any war we’ve had or hopefully will ever have.
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Oh, sorry, NO, that would be the very last I’d want to suggest. We’re clearly on the same side.
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If only everyone on this planet was, we could abolish defence forces and put the money that has been freed into medical research.
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8 new infected in Russia, all recently returned from Italy they say. I feel there has to be more than that but since only people returning from abroad are tested only they’re discovered.
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Ecumenical Patriarchate (?) basically the top brass of Orthodox Churches everywhere released a statement that said “faith is beyond logic, not above logic”. Basically, telling people to have common sense and do whatever the doctors/ scientists say. Also our PM sided officially (although a bit meekly) with the ministry of health guidelines overriding the Greek church announcement.
I hope people more or less fall in line. Although it’s a bit sad that this is big news.
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Gia pointed out the problem with scientists in general though. This is the same problem that caused us to not have a $20bn accelerator in Texas, and instead we had to to settle for the LHC.
They should have said “unless you do something”.
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Just sharing some quality content
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Trump just announced that all travel from Europe to the US will be restricted for 30 days.
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If some company always worked mainly by internet, it will be prepared to quarantine.
While normal company will just stop doing anything and will only lose money.
Just recently today went grocery shopping and looked for toilet paper and most of the area is completely empty. I was really surprised my small town is also part of this Coronavirus stocking up issue.
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I think the most of leaders are scared about their popularity if they should take drastic decisions.
From this point of view, they are looking to Italy as an experiment (or a model, if it works) to understand how a modern democracy can be put on “off” gradually and avoiding panic, riots, and a huge economic impacts.
I think they will follow gradually all the steps implemented in Italy because otherwise the pandemic cannot be stopped. Now their population is more ready having seen what another western country has done.
I don’t know if this information reached media in other countries, but in Italy we had riots in 22 prisons and at the end we count 17 dead among the prisoners (most of them because they have ingested drugs in the jail’s clinics that have plundered). Taking apart this, at the moment population is answering more or less with order and civic sense.
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Today in local Auchan all cashiers were wearing face masks.
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xkcd continued its trend for the fifth comic in a row
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Might be good riddance…
Last night, the NBA (USA professional basketball league) announced that it is immediately suspending the remaining season until further notice, since a player (Rudy Gobert) from the Utah Jazz team tested positive.
Here is that same player poking fun at the pandemic situation a a few days ago:
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