Page 13 - The Economist USA

UPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws
Letters
Diseased meat
I read your article on the trade
in African bush meat (“A croco-
dile hunter’s tears”, March
21st). hiv may have been trans-
mitted from chimpanzees to
people as a result of bush meat.
The sars epidemic probably
jumped from an animal to
people in a shop selling tradi-
tional Chinese medicines in
Guangdong province. These
shops often have cages with
live animals, such as civet cats
and ant-eating pangolins. A
million pangolins may have
been exported from Africa to
China in the past decade, and
the pangolin is a possible
origin of covid-19.
The Chinese government
has closed traditional-medi-
cine shops in Wuhan and
elsewhere. They did the same
after sars, but then allowed
them to reopen as the number
of cases fell. We need an inter-
national effort to abolish all
trade in exotic mammals and
to push back in every way
possible against the bush-meat
market. Chinese traditional-
medicine shops and bush meat
expose all of us to lethal animal to 2023 is set at around $50bn.
viruses capable of killing
millions, destroying the world
economy and threatening the
extinction of some species. It
needs only a tiny step to stop
pandemics before they start.
I was once taken to an Afri-
can restaurant in Gabon and
given roast civet cat and fricas- European Union, which has
see of pangolin, and yes, you
are expected to eat the scales.
malcolm potts
School of Public Health
University of California,
Berkeley
It is only fair to make those
responsible for the outbreak of
covid-19 share in the costs.
That should motivate a change
in attitude that reduces the risk abortions around the world
of similar events in the future.
One possibility is to tax exports order”, March 7th). As you
from countries that allow wet
markets that trade in wild or
exotic animals. Such a tax can
be easily avoided if a country
can prove that it has closed
those markets.
This is not a populist or
nationalist proposal. The
world must simply change its
attitude towards this trade and
not let it revert to how it was
before the outbreak, which is
what happened after sars.
torben jung laursen
Flensburg, Germany
Thailand’s economy
Regarding your article on
Thailand’s handling of covid-19
(“Sigh-am”, April 4th), the Thai
authorities have been praised
for their comprehensive
response. Johns Hopkins
University ranked Thailand as
the sixth-most prepared coun-
try in the world for pandemics.
Thailand’s economic funda-
mentals remain strong and
should propel further growth
after the crisis eases. The gov-
ernment has responded with
stimulus packages and relief
measures equal to12% of gdp.
Moreover, it is not correct to depend primarily on the quali-
say that measures such as the
Eastern Economic Corridor
(eec) have been ineffective.
Since its launch, the value of
investment applications in the
eec has nearly quadrupled, to
$22bn in 2018. The total
planned investment from 2019
Finally, Thailand’s interna-
tional standing has become
stronger after last year’s elec-
tions and our chairmanship of
asean. As far as free-trade
agreements are concerned,
Thailand is pursuing talks with
many partners, including the
announced its readiness to
resume negotiations.
pisanu suvanajata
Ambassador of Thailand
London
Reinforce the right to choose
I was encouraged to see The
Economist report on the
increasing access to safe
(“From backstreet to mail-
noted, “in America abortion is
a battleground”. In Australia,
however, the issue of providing
access to safe abortions is
rarely discussed, least of all in Britain’s welfare state, symbol-
Parliament, despite general
public support. The issue is
particularly relevant as the
legislature in Western Austra-
lia is currently discussing
legislation that would create
150-metre safe-access zones
around reproductive-health
clinics, making it the second-
last Australian state to do so
(Tasmania first introduced
safe-access zones in 2013).
My hope is that these
shielded areas, along with
increased access to clinics and
work to reduce the stigma of
the procedure, will help secure
a future where girls (I am16)
and women in my community
truly have unimpeded access
to safe abortions.
mia fraser
Perth, Australia
An awkward truth
I know of no evidence to sup-
port your contention that “the
fatality rate in any country will stay in so imminent a point of
ty of care it can provide” in
treating covid-19 (“Where will
it be the worst?”, March 14th).
Rather, it will depend primari-
ly on the immunological resil-
ience of the populations affect-
ed, whether weakened by age,
chronic disease or malnutri-
tion, and whether or not criti-
cal public-health interventions
have been adopted. Without
virucidal drugs, respiratory
support will alter the course of
infection in fewer people than
we doctors care to admit.
The reality, seldom appreci-
ated by the public, is that
health care will play a relative- High Entropy.
ly small part in reducing over-
all mortality in this as in previ- Worcester
ous pandemics. Vaccines will
in time help damp down the
incidence of disease but only
long after the first waves have
abated. Dismal scientists,
using models as fantastical as
those of epidemiologists, will
attempt to weigh the health
benefits of lockdown against
its costs in terms of reduced
economic productivity, lost
public-sector investment and
quality of lost life years in a
multitude of ways.
The National Health
Service, the central pillar of
ises collective endeavour. All
health systems form part of the
fabric of civic life. They rein-
force societal norms through
The Economist April 25th 2020 13
the personal experiences of
providers and users. This
strengthening of communal
bonds and mutual responsibil-
ity may, for all we know, be as
salutogenic as the biomedical
interventions that health
services have to offer.
dr stephen gillam
Holt, Norfolk
Looking at covid hotspots
reminds me of a dialogue from
Daniel Defoe’s “A Journal of the
Plague Year”, in which the
narrator’s brother tries to
persuade him to flee plague-
stricken London, over his
objections that his business
would suffer. “Is it not as
reasonable,” the brother asks,
“that you should trust God with
the chance or risque of losing
your trade, as that you should
danger, and trust him with
your life?”
augustus haney
New York
Dun namin’
Just to add to readers’ letters on
naming houses in Britain
(March 28th), arriving in St
Andrews to take up a post at the
university in the 1960s, and
being informed by the town
council that it would not
supply his house with a num-
ber, but require him to choose
a name for it, a young don
erected the following sign:
andrew dawson
Painful options
The “Hard choices” (April 4th)
being made because of the
pandemic, and the methods
used to assess the likely path of
the disease, sound like an
adage familiar to any risk
manager: all models are wrong,
but some are useful.
chris matten
London
Letters are welcome and should be
addressed to the Editor at
The Economist, The Adelphi Building,
1-11John Adam Street, London WC2N 6HT
Email: letters@economist.com
More letters are available at:
Economist.com/letters