Dead people have received stimulus cheques

So many things have gone wrong with the way the world has confronted the coronavirus pandemic. Before it arrived we all thought we lived in a globalised world where every country was linked together and big big decisions could be made to benefit or not benefit the planet. But not any longer. There has been little sign of worldwide coordination and collaberation. Rather, it has been a free-for-all. The UK government, for example, can't get hold of enough personal protection equipment (PPE) for our National Health Service frontline doctors and nurses, so it contracts some company in Turkey to deliver a mountain of gowns etc. But does it get delivered all nice and quick? No it doesn't. It takes days until eventually an RAF transport plane has to fly to Turkey to pick it all up. Then it has to be checked on return to make sure they are the right gowns etc, and meanwhile doctors and nurses are wrapping themselves in plastic bin bags to try and protect themselves from the deadly virus. Then there's China's contribution. They kindly agreed to send three million virus test kits to the UK for a few million quid but none of the kit works properly. Governments are trying to buy PPE and virus testing kits from all around the world. Yet here in UK and probably in other countries, literally a thousand or so British companies have offered to design and produce this kit on a huge scale but got no answer from the government. NO REPLY! What the hell is going on? Then there's the unbelievable story about the so-called EU PPE programme. The UK may have left the EU but was still invited to join the prgramme. But the offer sent by email went to an email address that doesn't exist any longer. Well that was the UK government's explanation and it dismissed the statement made by Sir Simon McDonald, the top diplomat at the Foreign Office who told a Commons select committee that the decision not to join the EU programme was "political". He was forced to correct himself by an outraged Foreign Secretary and deputising prime minister Dominic Raab who insisted it was all an email error. Oh my God that is straight out of Yes Minister, the classic comdey series on television which if you haven't ever seen you should start now. Now we hear another classic in the United States. Trump promised to send $1,200 dollars to everyone to cheer them up in this terrible time. The job was handed to the Inland Revenue Service, which in double-quick time drew up all the bank account details it had online and started transferring said sum to people's bank accounts. But of course the IRS didn't take into account the fact that thousands of people had died from coronavirus. Nearly 47,000 so far. Subsequently thousands of payments have been sent to people who have died. Mind you, the same thing happened when President Obama sent $250 to all senior citizens and veterans to cushion against the 2008 financial crisis - 71,000 payments went to dead people. None of this is laughable. All of it shows that we cannot cope with a disaster of this proportion. We and our governments are flailing around like flappy geese taking off from a lake. There are some exceptions, such as New Zealand which seems to have done everything right. But most countries, and certainly the UK and US, have had virus decision-making nightmares.