One in Fifty

Which will be worse, the Corona Virus, or the effects of stampeding from it?

We’ve watched with interest at a distance, as China wielded its Government power to mobilise its people in a way no Western Government could hope for, closing off access to entire cities, imposing curfews, building new specialist hospitals in a matter of days.

And yet the illness appears relatively unfazed, it continues, and is now appearing amongst us, spreading throughout our countries in the West.

If we wish to know the difference between how a Government controlled country can respond to a National threat, compared with a market controlled country, we need only look at the effects of Hurricane Maria, on the countries of Puerto Rico, and Cuba, in 2017.

Three thousand people died in the US territory of market controlled Puerto Rico, mostly after the storm, from illnesses due to delays in repairing infrastructure, whilst various utility businesses failed to negotiate profit making deals to put things right. People went without basic utilities for many months. Many didn’t make it.

Cuba, the Castro Government controlled country, which bore the onslaught of the still force 5 storm, a few hours after Puerto Rico, sustained similar initial damage to Puerto Rico, with widespread loss of infrastructure. But in the days that followed, they mobilised the population in the way only a communist country can, to support those in need, fixing the infrastructure without…