6 ms·

It's safe to say that the US will likely look worse than Italy or South Korea since additionally the US also has: - Inconvenient labour laws regarding sickness

It's safe to say that the US will likely look worse than Italy or South Korea since additionally the US also has: - Inconvenient labour laws regarding sickness, people are and will be afraid to take sick leave - A lack of public healthcare, the US system does not seem designed for a collective approach. - A higher rate of diabetes compared to the rest of the developed world which seems to be affecting quite a lot the impact of the virus.

DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago
Also a stronger aversion to control orders. Can you even imagine telling someone they cannot buy as many X as they want? Or locking down a city? I find it fascinating that authoritarian regimes have an advantage in that they can rapidly implement lockdown. Freedom has a price.
- realusername 7y ago
  I would not say that authoritarian regimes necessary have advantages, Taiwan and Japan seems to handle this crisis much better than Iran for example. Culture does play a big role into that indeed though, if you can manage to close off events & cities and having your citizens obey all the health precautions, it has a big impact on how it spread.
- TACIXAT 7y ago
  My local Costco is already telling people they can only buy 2 waters, paper towels, and disinfecting wipes. No one is rioting.
  - dnautics 7y ago
    Maybe Costco is an authoritarian regime!
    - pintxo 7y ago
      As almost all business, it is.
    - masonic 7y ago
      They already made you carry identity cards. "Show us your papers!"
  - dx034 7y ago
    It's a business, they're free to do whatever they want. I'm not sure how well people would react if the government tells them they're not allowed to leave the city anymore. In Italy, apart from riots in prisons, the population accepts that pretty well, I'm not sure it'd be the same in the US.
- rorykoehler 7y ago
  * rampant thoughtless individualism has a price.
nikofeyn 7y ago
the greatest weaknesses in the u.s. is a sense of self-entitlement, selfishness, and an inability to stay calm in any sort of "panic" situation. the u.s. government and general public have no idea how to sanely handle emergencies on its own soil.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  I’d argue that the greatest weakness in the US is the lack of ability of its political/administrative system. When either the authoritarian leader of China, or the elected government of Italy decide that the country needs to quarantine, they do it. Meanwhile nobody even believes it’s possible in the US because the system is set up not to allow any even mildly controversial law to pass without months of bickering (see Obamacare which would have been considered a relatively moderate reform in any European parliamentary system)
- refurb 7y ago
  I assume you haven’t had that much exposure to other countries? The US is no more prone to panic than any other country I’ve lived in.
  - nikofeyn 7y ago
    it's a wrong assumption. i've had enough exposure to know that the u.s. government is not equipped, logistically at a minimum, to deal with these things. and people are not equipped either.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar, regardless of which country it's about. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - nikofeyn 7y ago
    i didn't. i didn't mention a single other country. it's an historic fact that the u.s. has not dealt with the same level of disturbances other countries have dealt with. and the u.s. quite clearly struggles with these emotional issues. any "nationalistic flamewar" is an interpretation by others.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
On the other hand, the US has a lower population density and less use of mass transit. It's also not clear what advantage "public healthcare" is supposed to have in this context. The CDC has the authority to test and quarantine people. For the majority of people infected the "treatment" is to stay at home and recover. A minority of people will require hospitalization, but most of those people will have health insurance. The vast majority of those requiring hospitalization will be elderly and eligible for Medicare. The large majority of the remaining minority of a minority will have private insurance. And the remaining minority of a minority of a minority who require hospitalization, aren't eligible for Medicare and don't have private insurance will presumably still get treatment and then have a bad day when the bill comes, which is a financial problem rather than a medical one.
- a3n 7y ago
  > It's also not clear what advantage "public healthcare" is supposed to have in this context. In place and redeployable infrastructure.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    Is that a real difference or a hypothetical one? Private healthcare providers can lend each other staff and equipment if one is overwhelmed and another is idle. What you'd want from a government is to have a surplus of portable infrastructure able to be deployed in an emergency, but that's the CDC and FEMA.
- phs318u 7y ago
  > The CDC has the authority to test and quarantine people And what of that when the President doesn’t like the numbers he sees, stokes the many conspiracists among his supporters with distortions and outright falsehoods, and that segment of (likely well-armed) population that think the “deep state” is executing a coup, start resisting?
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    Actual militias living out in the woods are among the least likely to become infected (and thus quarantined). Milquetoast anti-vaxxers who live in cities and buy coffee at Starbucks are not going to try to take down the CDC in large numbers, and the four of them who do try will just get themselves arrested.
briandear 7y ago
> Inconvenient labour laws regarding sickness, people are and will be afraid to take sick leave Are you familiar with sick leave policies in Korea? > Higher rate of diabetes Korea has 8% with Type-2 diabetes and 23% are pre-diabetic. The US does have a higher rate, but not by much: 10.5% > lack of public healthcare Just 8.5% of Americans are uninsured. So about 9 people out of 100. There may be capacity concerns, but no more than most other countries. If a surge of British citizens suddenly went to the hospital, they’d be overwhelmed as well.
- hcknwscommenter 7y ago
  8% versus 10.5% of 325 million us residents is a difference of 8,125,000. The U.S. healthcare system is not equipped to treat that additional 8MM people because our citizenry is much sicker than other countries.
- dx034 7y ago
  I believe the concern about uninsured is not the numbers but who'd be affected. Office workers, which can quarantine rather easily, are likely to be insured. But those in contact with most people on a daily basis (e.g. fast food workers, retail employees) are more likely to be uninsured and also have a lower allowance for sick days or PTO. My concern would therefore be that the people that cannot afford health care or quarantine are also the ones most likely to act as multiplier as they come in contact with hundreds of people a day. That's not a purely US problem, e.g. delivery drivers or Uber drivers also tend to be low wage and self employed in Europe. But in the US the combination with the lack of health insurance could make this worse.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  Kaiser Family Foundation puts the rate at over 10% of people under 65 years old. They also don't discuss underinsured folks. This is becoming a thing again now that our idiot president relaxed regulations. https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/ https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/key-facts-about-th... https://khn.org/news/underinsured-explainer/ https://khn.org/news/underinsured-explainer/

DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago

Also a stronger aversion to control orders. Can you even imagine telling someone they cannot buy as many X as they want? Or locking down a city? I find it fascinating that authoritarian regimes have an advantage in that they can rapidly implement lockdown. Freedom has a price.

realusername 7y ago
I would not say that authoritarian regimes necessary have advantages, Taiwan and Japan seems to handle this crisis much better than Iran for example. Culture does play a big role into that indeed though, if you can manage to close off events & cities and having your citizens obey all the health precautions, it has a big impact on how it spread.
TACIXAT 7y ago
My local Costco is already telling people they can only buy 2 waters, paper towels, and disinfecting wipes. No one is rioting.
- dnautics 7y ago
  Maybe Costco is an authoritarian regime!
  - pintxo 7y ago
    As almost all business, it is.
  - masonic 7y ago
    They already made you carry identity cards. "Show us your papers!"
- dx034 7y ago
  It's a business, they're free to do whatever they want. I'm not sure how well people would react if the government tells them they're not allowed to leave the city anymore. In Italy, apart from riots in prisons, the population accepts that pretty well, I'm not sure it'd be the same in the US.
rorykoehler 7y ago
* rampant thoughtless individualism has a price.

nikofeyn 7y ago

the greatest weaknesses in the u.s. is a sense of self-entitlement, selfishness, and an inability to stay calm in any sort of "panic" situation. the u.s. government and general public have no idea how to sanely handle emergencies on its own soil.

umanwizard 7y ago
I’d argue that the greatest weakness in the US is the lack of ability of its political/administrative system. When either the authoritarian leader of China, or the elected government of Italy decide that the country needs to quarantine, they do it. Meanwhile nobody even believes it’s possible in the US because the system is set up not to allow any even mildly controversial law to pass without months of bickering (see Obamacare which would have been considered a relatively moderate reform in any European parliamentary system)
refurb 7y ago
I assume you haven’t had that much exposure to other countries? The US is no more prone to panic than any other country I’ve lived in.
- nikofeyn 7y ago
  it's a wrong assumption. i've had enough exposure to know that the u.s. government is not equipped, logistically at a minimum, to deal with these things. and people are not equipped either.
dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar, regardless of which country it's about. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nikofeyn 7y ago
  i didn't. i didn't mention a single other country. it's an historic fact that the u.s. has not dealt with the same level of disturbances other countries have dealt with. and the u.s. quite clearly struggles with these emotional issues. any "nationalistic flamewar" is an interpretation by others.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

On the other hand, the US has a lower population density and less use of mass transit. It's also not clear what advantage "public healthcare" is supposed to have in this context. The CDC has the authority to test and quarantine people. For the majority of people infected the "treatment" is to stay at home and recover. A minority of people will require hospitalization, but most of those people will have health insurance. The vast majority of those requiring hospitalization will be elderly and eligible for Medicare. The large majority of the remaining minority of a minority will have private insurance. And the remaining minority of a minority of a minority who require hospitalization, aren't eligible for Medicare and don't have private insurance will presumably still get treatment and then have a bad day when the bill comes, which is a financial problem rather than a medical one.

a3n 7y ago
> It's also not clear what advantage "public healthcare" is supposed to have in this context. In place and redeployable infrastructure.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  Is that a real difference or a hypothetical one? Private healthcare providers can lend each other staff and equipment if one is overwhelmed and another is idle. What you'd want from a government is to have a surplus of portable infrastructure able to be deployed in an emergency, but that's the CDC and FEMA.
phs318u 7y ago
> The CDC has the authority to test and quarantine people And what of that when the President doesn’t like the numbers he sees, stokes the many conspiracists among his supporters with distortions and outright falsehoods, and that segment of (likely well-armed) population that think the “deep state” is executing a coup, start resisting?
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  Actual militias living out in the woods are among the least likely to become infected (and thus quarantined). Milquetoast anti-vaxxers who live in cities and buy coffee at Starbucks are not going to try to take down the CDC in large numbers, and the four of them who do try will just get themselves arrested.

briandear 7y ago

> Inconvenient labour laws regarding sickness, people are and will be afraid to take sick leave Are you familiar with sick leave policies in Korea? > Higher rate of diabetes Korea has 8% with Type-2 diabetes and 23% are pre-diabetic. The US does have a higher rate, but not by much: 10.5% > lack of public healthcare Just 8.5% of Americans are uninsured. So about 9 people out of 100. There may be capacity concerns, but no more than most other countries. If a surge of British citizens suddenly went to the hospital, they’d be overwhelmed as well.

hcknwscommenter 7y ago
8% versus 10.5% of 325 million us residents is a difference of 8,125,000. The U.S. healthcare system is not equipped to treat that additional 8MM people because our citizenry is much sicker than other countries.
dx034 7y ago
I believe the concern about uninsured is not the numbers but who'd be affected. Office workers, which can quarantine rather easily, are likely to be insured. But those in contact with most people on a daily basis (e.g. fast food workers, retail employees) are more likely to be uninsured and also have a lower allowance for sick days or PTO. My concern would therefore be that the people that cannot afford health care or quarantine are also the ones most likely to act as multiplier as they come in contact with hundreds of people a day. That's not a purely US problem, e.g. delivery drivers or Uber drivers also tend to be low wage and self employed in Europe. But in the US the combination with the lack of health insurance could make this worse.
inferiorhuman 7y ago
Kaiser Family Foundation puts the rate at over 10% of people under 65 years old. They also don't discuss underinsured folks. This is becoming a thing again now that our idiot president relaxed regulations. https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/ https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/key-facts-about-th... https://khn.org/news/underinsured-explainer/ https://khn.org/news/underinsured-explainer/