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Being based in Europe, Germany specifically, it seems like the reaction to this situation is much more intense in the US than in Europe. I haven’t heard of any
by realityking 7y ago
Being based in Europe, Germany specifically, it seems like the reaction to this situation is much more intense in the US than in Europe. I haven’t heard of any employers going full WFH or universities closing outside of Italy.
And theories why the reaction in the US is or seems to be more intense?
- martin_balsam 7y agoAll universities in Austria are closed
- tigershark 7y agoI and almost all my friends are WFH in UK.
- phreeza 7y agoReaction in Switzerland has been quite intense. All public events above 150 people require cantonal approval, above 1000 are banned outright. The government is recommending wfh for everyone who can, and many employers are following this.
- CalRobert 7y agoIreland has seen a pretty strong shift to wfh.
- balazsbela 7y agoRomania has closed all the schools and banned gatherings with more than 1000 participants.
- jakub_g 7y agoReaction in Poland has been radical AFAICT (22 cases so far): Major universities decided to close today. Public events called off. Football games without spectators for next few weeks. In France, events >5000 and then >1000 people were cancelled.
- notimetorelax 7y agoDoes one need to wait for it to spread? Other countries serve as a good examples of what will happen if nothing is done
- jakub_g 7y agoYep I'm pretty sure the reaction is strong because of how it worked out in Italy. Better do it in advance than after the fact.
- cube2222 7y agoToday all educational institutions (primary schools, secondary schools, _all_ universities), cinemas, theatres etc. have been closed with an initial timespan of 2 weeks. A lot of employers are switching to wfh. Though with the exception that if you can't take care of your children, you can bring them to their primary school.
- al_james 7y agoA lot of companies in London are waiting for the 100 cases in London mark to trigger the WFH fallback. This will be breached tomorrow so expect London tech companies to be totally remote by end of week.
- muro 7y agoIt's Germany or your experience that is different. See other replies, plus also: - University in southern Switzerland is closed - all universities and middle schools are closed in Slovakia
- gizmo385 7y agoI think there is a lot more uncertainty in the US because of how slowly the testing has been progressing.
- killjoywashere 7y agoAlso, there is no confidence in our government to react swiftly these days. So we are forced to assume the government is non-functional, which generates a lot of speculative behaviors. We'll find out if any of it works, but it will be hard to unpack for a while.
- gwright 7y agoWe'll see, but I think this "lack of confidence" is much more an artifact of crappy reporting than crappy reactions by public health organizations. The test kit snafu seems like an unforced error though. It is going to be close, but it seems like test kit ramp up that is going on now will satisfy our needs. Fingers crossed.
- Florin_Andrei 7y agoThere's also the endemic distrust in this culture of centralized decision-making - a mechanism which, unfortunately, is irreplaceable in situations like this.
- markdown 7y ago> And theories why the reaction in the US is or seems to be more intense? Have you seen how much the tv news networks are loving this? The 24 hour "BREAKING NEWS" about COVID-19 is enough to send your average Joe into a panic.
- danans 7y agoLast night I saw on the news that Germany is implementing roadside symptom checks to keep people from overwhelming hospitals, so is definitely a strong reaction there, if somewhat different in its execution.
- dx034 7y agoIt's a system Korea trialed and that worked quite well. From what I've seen it's really just a container on a parking lot. Instead of potentially infected people walking through the hospital they administer tests in their car. It's very cheap and easy to set up, I believe American hospitals would also be quick in setting those up if they run out of capacity.
- P_I_Staker 7y agoIs it though? Google's a big company, but most others are plugging along as normal. A few events have been canceled, but isn't that true for Europe also? Of course, that's ignoring Italy, which has been severely burned.
- icebraining 7y agoMore than one Portuguese university has suspended in-person classes. Many events are cancelled too, and soccer games won't have spectators. They're also talking about moving the upcoming school calendar interruption (usually happens right before Easter) to this Friday, in order to close them.
- gerbal 7y agoUS public health infrastructure is less resilient than most of europe, capacity is lower and everything is >10x more expensive. Further the risk of transmission is higher from low wage workers who can neither afford to take time off nor afford health care. Sick days are not a guaranteed (California guarantees only 3) and many employers will fire employees who take even unpaid sick days.
- katzgrau 7y agoUh, citations needed.
- taurath 7y agoFor which part? All fall under common knowledge for me.
- Anon1096 7y ago> US public health infrastructure is less resilient than most of europe, capacity is lower these parts
- cmac2992 7y agoEurope, in general, has more hospital beds per capita than the US. Hospital beds per capita seems to be a reasonable heuristic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hospital_beds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hosp...
- dmoy 7y agoAlso more physicians per capita. US is around 25 per 10k, most Western European countries are around 35, some up to 50.
- bpodgursky 7y agoIn the US, "physicians" might be less numerous, but there are a lot of highly-skilled intermediary roles that fill the gap -- Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, etc, all perform routine treatment performed by "physicians" in other countries. US physician training is honestly excessively long, complicated, and expensive (although there are justifications for making it this way), but it's a simplification to point out that there aren't as many doctors, without noting all the other doctor-esque roles with significant overlap.
- rolltiide 7y agoMerkel just said she expects 70% of Germany to be infected "and the room fell silent". Maybe its just Germany efficiency and pragmatism of just acknowledging some people are going to die and some pension obligations will disappear. Whereas the rest of us are trying not to let those thoughts surface.
- xenonite 7y agoWell that’s math, and holds for the limit. A rate of 67% requires a R0 around 3 and requires immunity after curing, for those that remain alive.
- jamesrcole 7y ago> Whereas the rest of us are trying not to let those thoughts surface. If people in positions of power are trying to not let such thoughts surface, they’re being highly irresponsible.
- Florin_Andrei 7y agoOP literally said "the rest of us".
- mtberatwork 7y agoWho else is reporting that other than Bild? Bild is a tabloid. I wouldn't put too much stock into it.
- leethargo 7y agoThe source is supposedly a "respected virologist" from the Charite hospital in Berlin. He started a daily podcast related to COVID-19 [1], but I did not have a chance to find this quote yet. EDIT: That same virologist also warned about a "second wave" of cases starting this fall, after a reduction during summer, due to seasonal strength of the immune system. [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkKON9te6p3OpxqDskVsxXOmhfW0uPi1H https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkKON9te6p3OpxqDskVsx...
- bitL 7y agoGiven that Merkel today said that 60-70% of German population will likely contract Covid-19 within next 2 years, assuming the mortality rate is 1%, that would translate into half a million deaths; I am wondering why nobody over there is panicking already... Germany went from 20 diagnosed cases to 1600 in about a week.
- irq11 7y agoSo far there have been 902 infections in Germany (3rd highest in the EU), and 0 deaths. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases?fbclid=IwAR1Tyt8ZFjon-mHulUaW9VEoPeWDcoPGqqFJ_aWFEsKFAzdideinXTq6A7A https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019... I don’t know if Germany is magical or lucky, but assuming a 1% death rate may be a stretch. They seem to be doing far better than Italy.
- bitL 7y agoYour stats are old. Look over at zeit.de for a map or here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
- irq11 7y agoThe stats came from yesterday’s European daily status report, which were the most current as of the time I posted (and where all of these other trackers get their numbers). I see that the numbers on the same link have now updated to today’s stats, and there have been 2 deaths and 1139 cases in Germany. It doesn’t change the point I was making in the slightest, which is that Germany has a death rate far, far below 1%. Did you even bother to click the link?
- barkingcat 7y agoHealth care in the US is paid by the employer. There is no universal health care, and the fewer employees who get sick, the less money a company has to pay out in health expenditures/insurance plan premiums for the next billing cycle. Also, this means that if you are out of work, you could easily die from preventable illnesses and nobody would really care.
- hermitdev 7y agoNot always true. I have around $450/month taken out my paycheck for healthcare for my wife and I in the US.
- alpb 7y agoThat's not accurate. Most FAANG offices in EU are already in "recommended WFH" mode. If anything, US offices of those companies are currently not implementing "mandatory WFH".
- TulliusCicero 7y agoYeah, Google Europe offices are all in either recommended WFH or mandatory WFH.
- mxuribe 7y agoBecause while the U.S. may be "advanced" in a few areas, healthcare sure is not one of them. So, the powers-that-be in the U.S. are afraid that the rest of our American population will (finally) realize how bad healthcare is here. ;-)
- dx034 7y agoPeople like to complain about US health care but it's still one of the best in the world. If you look at survival rates, the US tends to score pretty well. The system is certainly expensive and not always available to everyone, but it still offers very high quality care to a large percentage of the population. Both research and care are also well funded and may be able to afford new treatments faster than other countries.
- engineeringwoke 7y agoFind me this survival rates statistic. Nothing I can find corroborates your claim. Here is some good data that shows off the poor U.S. healthcare system: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality-u-s-healthcare-system-compare-countries/ https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality...
- dx034 7y agoI was referring to the stats on this Wikipedia page[1]. But even the page you linked says that while life expectancy is lower and disease burden is higher, people admitted to hospital have an equal or even better chance of recovery compared to other countries, depending on the illness. So the US population is sicker but hospitals are probably not the problem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_of_healthcare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_o...
- mnm1 7y agoMaybe because our government isn't doing shit to speak of at almost any level and we have no idea how bad the spread is here given the lack of testing and information coming out. Last I checked, we had around a thousand confirmed cases but have only tested a few thousand. It's a disaster. Also wfh is much more acceptable here and common especially at tech companies.
- cavisne 7y agoI think it's just more private sector reaction than government reaction, which reflects differences between the regions in general. Ie Germany has banned mass gatherings in most states, which the US has not done. The situation is very fast moving though, I would expect similar reaction in Europe shortly.
- bsder 7y agoIn addition to other reasons, a lot of colleges are about to enter Spring Break. So, a bunch of college kids are going to all go party together, spread it to each other, and then all come home.
- ranit 7y agoWhat is the benefit of delaying until a country reaches Italy’s levels? If Italy’s measurements are considered proper at the current levels of the outbreak, why not be proactive and start earlier?
- newtoday 7y agoI'll bite, and try nicely to point out the elephant in the room that a large portion of US citizens have not given a fuck about this, or were not properly aware of the danger of a health crisis until a week ago.
- CydeWeys 7y agoGive it another month and then we'll regroup and see how much stuff is closing down and going WFH in Germany.
- m0zg 7y agoI think Germany is probably a lost cause and the majority of their population will get the virus. Higher population density, open borders / lack of geographic isolation, aging population - none of those things help them any. Sadly, I think the majority of (much larger) US population will get the virus, too. H1N1, for instance, affected 57 million people in the US and caused almost 12K deaths. And COVID19 is much deadlier than H1N1, so we're probably looking at a low six figure death toll at least, when all is said and done, no matter what we do. I'd be surprised if we manage to escape this outcome.
- dx034 7y ago> Higher population density, open borders / lack of geographic isolation, aging population That describes most EU countries. Germany is neither much older than the others nor more interconnected. Population density is high but that's the case for many countries in Western Europe.
- m0zg 7y agoUm, yes? The rest of Europe will be hit pretty hard as well. Likely harder than the US. Cursory googling shows that Germany has 21.46% of people 65 and older. France has ~1.5% fewer. Italy has about 1.34% more. The US, however, only has 16.03% of such people or 5.43% fewer than Germany. I'd say the US is looking at lower infection rate (because people are more spread out) and fewer deaths, too (because fewer people are in the 65+ group which has been dying primarily).
- dx034 7y agoI'm not sure about the lower infection rate, even rural communities are quite interconnected. But obviously death rates are likely proportional to the number of older people. So the US should fare better. However, hospital admissions in Italy are now at a median age of 65, so a younger population doesn't help hospitals, it just lowers mortality.
- dannyr 7y agoOutside of big tech companies, not many US companies are encouraging or requiring their employees to work from home.
- jcadam 7y ago> not many US companies are encouraging or requiring their employees to work from home My company does not do WFH at all. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to be 100% WFH (when there isn't a deadly plague going around, that is), but I think having one or two WFH days a week on a regular basis would be awesome for getting some dev tasks done. I have a nice home office, that mostly goes unused during the week :(
- kyriakos 7y agoIn Cyprus all universities and schools closed down today with only 2 confirmed cases. Again this I believe is because the health infrastructure is not adequate to treat people in case of a pandemic therefore precautions are more important.
- odiroot 7y agoI'm too in Germany and I'm shocked how laissez-faire people act about it. It seems we are not willing to learn anything from Italy.
- tallanvor 7y agoNorway has requested that large employers to have employees work from home so that they avoid the potential to contract/pass on the disease either in the office or in public transit.
- msh 7y agoI am in denmark, I work in finance IT and in my company all people who have the possibility to work from home have been ordered to do so. I hear similar things from my friends in other companies.
- RegBarclay 7y agoI know of at least one US college that has completely closed for the rest of the Spring semester: https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article241058621.html https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article2410586... There are several other colleges switching to remote learning and limiting on campus activity: https://www.ohio.edu/news/2020/03/president-nellis-provides-critical-update-about-ohios-response-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR0wfc5doPeJl0Hyi6g3uVIf-cfPhjvQoCpI3RF4-WzVjcqwrkSJheDazVs https://www.ohio.edu/news/2020/03/president-nellis-provides-...