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How could any society fail to recognize that big problems are looming up, and why doesn’t the society take measures to alert disaster?  It was surprise  at this question that caused the archaeologist Joseph Tainter, in his 1988 book The Collapse of Complex Societies, to dismiss out of hand the possibility that complex societies could collapse as a result of depleting environmental resources.  Tainter considered it implausible that complex “societies [would] sit by and watch the encroaching weakness without taking corrective actions.”  But that is precisely what has often happened in the past, and what is happening under our eyes today.  Hence my chapter draws up a roadmap of group decision-making, starting with failure to perceive a problem in its initial stages, and ending with refusal to address the problem because of conflicts of interest and other reasons. — Jared Diamond

France

The article can be accessed by typing the headline on google seach. Clashes break out in locked-down suburbs Related Rich of Saint-Tropez 'given coronavirus tests'
"Amid this unprecedented crisis, we face a unique opportunity to transition to a regenerative civilizational paradigm which no longer breaches environmental boundaries in ways that make pandemics like this inevitable." Will Covid-19 end the age of Big Oil?

U.S.

The same criminal state that bombed water treatment facilities and food-storage warehouses  in Iraq denies its citizens water during an epedemic. "I can't wash my hands—my water was cut off"

Russia

Doctors and activists face threats for reporting on coronavirus Take note though that according to WHO, Russia in 2013 had 8.2 hospital beds per 1,000 people. Germany had 8.3 me France 6.5. In 2016 Russia had 4 physicians per 1,000 people. Germany had 4.2 and France 3.2.

UK

Coronavirus deaths are more than double, according to a FT analysis

Guns, Germs and Steel

The  links  connecting  livestock  and  crops  to  germs  were  unforgettably illustrated  for  me  by  a  hospital  case  about  which  I  learned  through  a  physician  friend.  When  my  friend  was  an  inexperienced  young  doctor,  he  was called  into  a  hospital  room  to  deal  with  a  married  couple  stressed-out  by  a mysterious  illness.  It  did  not  help  that  the  couple  was  also  having  difficulty communicating  with  each  other,  and  with  my  friend.  The  husband  was  a small,  timid  man,  sick  with  pneumonia  caused  by  an  unidentified  microbe, and  with ...

Spain

British supermarkets have been making contingency plans to cope with bouts of panic buying and potential disruption to food supplies caused by the coronavirus pandemic.  One country that the UK depends on more than any other for fresh fruit and veg is Spain, where around a quarter of fresh produce sold in UK supermarkets comes from in the summer.  But there are questions over how some Spanish companies are treating their migrant workers, who mainly come from Africa. "If you want to work like a slave, then there is a lot of work," one labourer, who did not want to be named, told the BBC. "But if you ask for your rights, then you can't work." The conditions are miserable. Some are paid below the minimum wage, live in shanty towns and work without breaks in greenhouses that are 50C inside. Source: watch a BBC report here Related Authorities in the town of Buñol, in Spain's Valencia province, have postponed a festival where thousands gather to t...