brad465
Established Member
We've seen plenty of flooding today and likely to continue in the next few days while residing. It's well known floods are among many disaster types that aid disease spread, and Covid could easily be amongst that, especially as social distancing during an essential flood response is in places impossible (especially where evacuations take place).
The US Hurricane season response had to consider this, although from what I could see it's hard to comprehend where Covid may have spread in the aftermath of hurricanes: in the US the effective long wave of infections might mask any variations, while in developing countries in Central America like Honduras and Nicaragua, hit hard by Eta and Iota (yes it was so active they went that far through the Greek alphabet), their testing is not very extensive.
The current flooding from today (and tomorrow potentially) appears to be relatively minor, evident in the fact it's not major news at the moment. However Covid is far from over and with 2-3 more months of winter, the ground is saturated and there is plenty of time for more serious flooding to strike. From a political perspective it's not possible to truthfully fault anyone outside of Government for infection rises directly due to flooding, which won't help the government in it's divide and rule narrative (although no doubt some will try and throw blame around like that). The big challenge though I think will be with regards to perception/justification of restrictions, as flooding will be down to bad luck and they will be being imposed because of a spreading event out of anyone's control (although arguably we cannot actually control the virus properly either).
If infections do rise as a result of flooding, areas currently to watch are South Wales, which was also badly hit last week (although infections were/are already really high here before flooding came along), and potentially through the Midlands and the South West as well. These areas in particular will also be most vulnerable in later weeks given the impacts already seen.
What flooding will do though if it becomes more problematic is highlight that no matter how hard one tries to make Covid number one priority, something will always come along and change that, and there has to be give and take to respond accordingly across the board.
The US Hurricane season response had to consider this, although from what I could see it's hard to comprehend where Covid may have spread in the aftermath of hurricanes: in the US the effective long wave of infections might mask any variations, while in developing countries in Central America like Honduras and Nicaragua, hit hard by Eta and Iota (yes it was so active they went that far through the Greek alphabet), their testing is not very extensive.
The current flooding from today (and tomorrow potentially) appears to be relatively minor, evident in the fact it's not major news at the moment. However Covid is far from over and with 2-3 more months of winter, the ground is saturated and there is plenty of time for more serious flooding to strike. From a political perspective it's not possible to truthfully fault anyone outside of Government for infection rises directly due to flooding, which won't help the government in it's divide and rule narrative (although no doubt some will try and throw blame around like that). The big challenge though I think will be with regards to perception/justification of restrictions, as flooding will be down to bad luck and they will be being imposed because of a spreading event out of anyone's control (although arguably we cannot actually control the virus properly either).
If infections do rise as a result of flooding, areas currently to watch are South Wales, which was also badly hit last week (although infections were/are already really high here before flooding came along), and potentially through the Midlands and the South West as well. These areas in particular will also be most vulnerable in later weeks given the impacts already seen.
What flooding will do though if it becomes more problematic is highlight that no matter how hard one tries to make Covid number one priority, something will always come along and change that, and there has to be give and take to respond accordingly across the board.
