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How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

184 points by mmhsieh 7y ago

bufferoverflow 7y ago
Korea's population followed strict quarantine, and they had testing at a massive scale, matched only by China to this day.
- Tepix 7y ago
  It's not the population that's in quarantine, it's just the few thousand affected people. There's another thing these countries have in common: Masks are worn by the majority of the people. They may work better than advertised.
- RaoulP 7y ago
  On a per-capita basis, other countries are now getting up there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing
angarg12 7y ago
I think comparing Singapore, a tiny, highly urbanized island nation, with the US, a continent size country with a vast number of points of entry, is a little bit apples to oranges. Don't get me wrong, I do think that some Asian countries took great measures to contain the virus, and some western countries failed to do so, but I doubt the same measures would be equally as effective everywhere. This is relevant because the spread of the virus is a multifaceted and complex issue, and reductionist explanations might take us down the wrong path if not careful.
- fit2rule 7y ago
  There is a great deal of fallacy to be gleaned by the comparison between the two states - but quite a bit of truth, though, too. The American cavalier "invincibility" attribute seems to be truly at play here - witness the kids in Florida - whereas in South Korea, a state composed, traditionally, of an enslaved population: the obedience bit has been key. It's an uncomfortable thought, but it is rugged American hubris which is propagating the virus right now throughout the country. And it was Korean humility and selflessness which brought it down to controllable levels. This article is a flowery way of pointing that out, imho ...
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- RVuRnvbM2e 7y ago
  American exceptionalism is a hell of a drug.
- Tepix 7y ago
  If anything, containing a pandemic in a large city is much harder than doing so in the countryside.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    Singapore is very dense but it is also very authoritarian. They can take measures that would be both legally and socially unthinkable in the United States.
    - logicchains 7y ago
      Yes, they just recently shut bars and clubs, and forced restaurants to allow one meter of spacing between patrons. I can't imagine American governments ever doing something so authoritarian.
    - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
      And what would those specific measures be, pray tell? If anything, Singapore's measures have been more moderate than what's happening today in the USA.
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- Zigurd 7y ago
  Arguments like this are a longstanding template to excuse everything from crappy broadband to poor health outcomes in general. Yes, America is big, but bits don't get tired in long fiber links, and health care outcomes are independent of distance. America needs to start examining why we lag in so many quality of life issues.
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    The real reason is just that the US is not as highly developed as the most highly developed countries in Western Europe or East Asia. I always thought it was weird when people say things like “the US is the worst in the developed world on so many measures!” A bit like someone saying “I’m one of the shortest people in the world who’s 180cm or taller”.
- bawolff 7y ago
  Why is it anytime usa screws up its because its a diverse nation that's different from all the other nations? Maybe sometimes the USA is just incompetent and usually it can get away with being incompetent without consequence because nobody wants to poke the 800lb gorilla, but sometimes consequences do happen.
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  - odshoifsdhfs 7y ago
    Because pretty much all of Europe did the same so it isn't exclusive to USA? NY did almost as many tests in a day as some european countries have done total. Of course they are going to have a spike in cases. No-one believe (in Europe at least) that the number of cases are the truth, and we pretty much know that a lot of people aren't being tests. Portugal until 2 days ago was rejecting tests still of people that had no 'known' chain of contagion. (Source, ex-wife works in the frontline of this crisis)
    - bawolff 7y ago
      I don't see how "other people screwed up too" is a counter argument to my argument that "usa is different from every country in the world and thus its impossible to do things right" is bullshit. They're two completely different claims. It is difficult to compare reported cases across countries, and certainly there are many countries that have dropped the ball (Iran especially comes to mind). At the risk of sounding unfeeling, a clearer picture will probably emerge once the deaths start rolling in, since dying is a very binary state and less subject to measurement bias due to gov (in)action.
      - odshoifsdhfs 7y ago
        I agree. But even with deaths will be tricky. Some countries define any death that tests positive as a COVID death, while others only mark it as so if no other more pressing co-morbilities are found.
ahmedalsudani 7y ago
S. Korea wasted no time and the population has shown great ability to cooperate with the state to control the outbreak. It’s too late for the rest of us. Extreme measures are now the only option.
dirtyid 7y ago
South Korea is basically an island, conducted serendipitous did large scale pandemic drill in December, has a compliant population with mandatory civil service and memory of recent authoritarian government, can mobilize techno-authoritarian surveillance. My question is, what is happening in Japan? Except wide spread mask usage, they have systemic undertesting at 1/6 capacity, no social distance measures, nothing shutdown, old population like Italy. Their hospitals should have been overwhelmed with dead by now. Are they just leaving the old to die at home? France and Italy aren't counting deaths at home as part of statistics. Maybe something similar? Which loops back to S.Korea, why so eager to trust their numbers. Their politics is fairly corrupt.
- tooltalk 7y ago
  I have no idea where this stereotype comes from, but South Korea is known for militant political movement (eg, labor unions, super right-wingers) and religious fanatics: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/27/coronavirus-south-korea-cults-conservatives-china/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/27/coronavirus-south-korea...
  - dirtyid 7y ago
    What stereotype are you referring to?
    - tooltalk 7y ago
      > ... compliant population with mandatory civil service and memory of recent authoritarian government, can mobilize techno-authoritarian surveillance. ...
      - dirtyid 7y ago
        Isn't it relative to western countries? S.Korea is like Israel, a large part of the population with civil service experience who can follow instructions, but also some religious fanatics / cults who don't give a fuck. The government has more accessible, non-emergency options to crackdown, last I heard Korean officials is trying to contain the cults via lawsuit and criminal charges. Can you imagine US suing a church, arresting a pastor for holding congregation? In Canada we have been trying to recall our citizens abroad and it wasn't until things got bad that 1million+ snow birds decided to return. Prior to that kids were going on spring break. No one took things seriously until last week after a month escalating warnings. And this is in a city with SARS experience. Down south is even more of a shit show. As for techno-authoritarian surveillance - health officials cross referencing CCTV footage, location data and cred card reports - that would not fly here as a "public" option which is why it's rarely mentioned in any of these TEST OFTEN and contact trace articles. The uninformed would attribute those techniques to China. The informed would immediately understand that wouldn't work in many western countries without massive legislative overhaul.
m0xte 7y ago
So far. I suspect there is a lot of premature celebration when this is contained.
- quonn 7y ago
  Correct. South Korea had to trace only a very small number of chains/events. Now they have many cases and it will become very hard to trace all of them. They cannot be everywhere. Additionally they had more staff to do this, other countries cannot easily copy that strategy.
- Zigurd 7y ago
  Caution is certainly called for. There will probably be recurring outbreaks. But, the benefits of widespread testing are there for every nation, at any stage of the pandemic, to access if they have the will and competency in leadership to do it.
  - SiempreViernes 7y ago
    Widespread testing depends on infrastructure being in place, it's not something that appears simply by willing it.
adventured 7y ago
So have Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia (440 million people). They've all had fewer cases than Luxembourg so far. I've yet to see a good explanation for it, other than maybe the premise about seasonal temps and humidity (northern vs southern hemisphere). There's no evidence they're massively lying about their numbers (which would show up in the form of a demolished hospital system and thousands dead of pneumonia). Vietnam has also done incredibly well overall, showing no indications of being crushed by cases, despite their proximity to China. Mexico is also not being crushed at all by the virus, despite being right next to the US as Vietnam is right next to China. Mexico shares enormous trade and traffic with the US. They should be buried in pneumonia cases given their overall context (population size, economy, testing rate, healthcare system). They have just over half the cases of Finland (obviously Mexico isn't testing at a high rate, I'm sure it's more than just 600). If many thousands of people were dying of Covid in Mexico right now, it would be showing up blatantly. Latin America's case load has largely been low vs population sizes (with only a few exceptions), as with the rest of the southern hemisphere. Mexico is technically northern hemisphere, and I wonder if they don't have some of the southern hemisphere benefit (as perhaps India does), limiting the rate of infection vs nations that are further north. And will that flip at all in the coming months. https://i.imgur.com/EH8OkTd.png https://i.imgur.com/EH8OkTd.png It'd be very interesting to see a comparison of avg temps and humidity among nations most affected (or least) during the outbreak timeframe. Including looking at locations such as Italy, France, Germany, Spain, NYC, Texas, Southern California, Seattle, South Korea, parts of Mexico, Thailand, and so on. Basically, due to seasonal temps and humidity, is South Korea's task made far easier than Italy's task? Does that considerably alter the infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 in South Korea vs Italy? Is their equation half the effort they've put in (and credit on that), and half good luck of location. Mexico sure as hell isn't avoiding being overrun by it due to maximum testing. I spent many hours last night doing a deep dive on the latest research on the impact of humidity on viruses, infectiousness and the respiratory system. It's fascinating stuff.
- pmorici 7y ago
  At least initially I read that Philippines didn’t even have testing capability and had to send samples to Australia to be tested. You don’t find what you don’t look for.
robocat 7y ago
Another effing article that completely ignores Taiwan... I’m no taiwanophile, but why is it that a first-world democracy with a successful strategy against Covid is being completely ignored by media? https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 Taiwan has huge flows of Chinese people, yet no outbreak. Maybe it’s a good thing they are not recognised by the WHO?
- easytiger 7y ago
  Or maybe it tells you that a lot of the marketing around this has been total nonsense
- ddrmaxgt37 7y ago
  Just to be clear, Taiwan did not have huge flows of mainland Chinese soon after the outbreak though. They closed the border to all travelers with PRC passports in mid-February. They did take some drastic measures that have worked.
  - tasogare 7y ago
    Mid-February was already weeks after the epidemic starts to be on the news. They also repatriated businessmen from China. Given business and cultural ties between the two countries, I find hard to believe that less Chinese traveled between them than between China and Italia.
  - robocat 7y ago
    > They closed the border to all travelers with PRC passports in mid-February And before that they had plenty of people coming in from China with active Covid infections - returning from New Year including people from Hubei. The US enacted their travel ban to China on 31st Jan, yet that hasn’t helped the US... Now Taiwan is getting cases from other countries (returning citizens and foreign migrant workers) e.g. yesterday: “Meanwhile, the 15 patients deemed to have contracted COVID-19 overseas all returned to Taiwan in the period March 16-23. The countries they had visited were the U.S., the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Spain, Malaysia, Monaco and Mexico.” Taiwan is still allowing foreign migrant workers to enter the country, as they need them for their economy.
Freestyler_3 7y ago
They took proactive measurements when the rest of the world was still looking at how things would develop. Making tests well before they had their first case. When my country got its first cases they were still saying it isn't that contagious and everything is fine.
- netsharc 7y ago
  It's a bit of luck that the coutry had a private biotech company that makes tests for viruses, and the CEO of said company looked at Wuhan and decided to get samples from China. I suppose, just like every country has a military or people managing their transportation infrastructure, there should be a "pandemic watch". (Well the US had a good one until Trump/John Bolton defunded it)
  - _trampeltier 7y ago
    Europe and the US even had more time, there is no excuse. It was clear from the day one how to or not to act. Europe and the US did not act at all in the beginning until it was to late to check each single case.
    - mensetmanusman 7y ago
      It’s not clear what ‘day 1’ means in the context of China though. China has kicked out all western reporters, constantly lies like Russia even when the truth is visible in the background, and arrests citizens who try to get around this system. The west was never going to believe what was happening in China because it is impossible to know without invading them.
    - Freestyler_3 7y ago
      Now the focus is on bending the curve with minimal effort.
  - jussij 7y ago
    The US military provide plenty of early advice suggesting a pandemic was on it way, but that advice was mostly ignored: https://ktvz.com/politics/2020/03/21/washington-post-us-intelligence-warned-trump-in-january-and-february-as-he-dismissed-coronavirus-threat/ https://ktvz.com/politics/2020/03/21/washington-post-us-inte... Some of the politicians did heed the advice, at least when it came to managing their share portfolios, taking the opportunity to sell up while telling their constituents there was no imminent threat: https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-dumped-up-to-1-7-million-of-stock-after-reassuring-public-about-coronavirus-preparedness https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-dumped-up-to-1-7-...
mschuster91 7y ago
The thing is, South Korea (and many other Asian countries cited as having handled COVID19 relatively well, such as Taiwan, HK, Singapore, Japan) have all learned from the 2003 SARS epidemic and others, while the Western countries did not. This is not just in terms of politics/preparation to disasters, but also in the civilization - in Asia even the most radical and extreme measures are accepted by the population as everyone there knows what a pandemic can cause, while in Germany people are having "corona parties" and there have been numerous incidents of people spitting or coughing at other people. Additionally, in many Western countries healthcare systems have been wrecked by neoliberalism profit-first ideology (Germany, UK), by austerity following the 2008 financial crisis (Italy, Spain, Greece) or by decades of incompetency (USA), combined with the end of stockpiling of critical assets such as face masks, gloves and other PPE after the end of the Cold War. The key point of "shutting down" is to avoid overloading the healthcare systems, or at least to try to limit the overloading.
- rfoo 7y ago
  Also there was MERS in South Korea (2015), people remember what happened 5 years ago much better than what happened 17 years ago (SARS).
- luckylion 7y ago
  It might have something to do with people remembering a previous disease outbreak, it might also be primarily a question of how collectivist vs individualist the societies are and how strongly the population follows government suggestions/orders. Considering that, you'd expect South Korea or Japan to do better than Germany, Germany to do better than the US or Italy. And even within Germany, you'd expect large cities to do worse, with Berlin leading the charge. Would Hamburg be affected as much if it wasn't for their holidays falling right into that time?
- tooltalk 7y ago
  > in Asia even the most radical and extreme measures are accepted by the population as everyone there knows what a pandemic can cause, Well, yes and no. They might have been more willing to accept that 30-40 years ago, but definitely not these days. They've been always known for militant labor unions, religious fanatics, and political extremism -- the last two attributed to the outbreak in South Korea this time around. There are still religious groups defying the gov't's plea not to hold mass services in South Korea today. > in many Western countries healthcare systems have been wrecked by neoliberalism profit-first ... South Korea suffered a much smaller coronavirus, MERS, not too long ago and they found out that they were awfully unprepared for a public health crisis of that scale (only 130+ were infected and 30+ death), so they spent the next several years preparing for the "next" crisis. Their gov't removed all potential legal/legislative barriers that had hindered their response last time around and private biotech companies started working on reagents and the medical infrastructure almost as soon as the outbreak in Wuhan became known.
blauditore 7y ago
Testing more thoroughly would also provide us with a better understanding of the virus' properties, like the distribution of symptoms, severities, and mortality rate. I think one of the main reason for general fear and panic has been the alleged high mortality rate, with numbers up to 5% being mentioned. But there's a strong selection bias in those statistics (people with severe cases get tested more often), so the actual number is likely much lower.
- iso1631 7y ago
  It's a small sample, but it's a comprehensive one as everyone was tested. On the Diamond Pricess, it only reached 20% of the people on board, and of those 60% had no medical symptoms. Overall 1% of people catching it died. As a cruise ship the passengers tend to be older, but the crew tend to be younger. Doesn't matter if you test 1 million people or 10,000 people, if you aren't doing statistically significant tests, it's meaningless to draw conclusions.
  - learnstats2 7y ago
    Statistics is not the only purpose of testing! If physical distancing is successful in reducing the reproduction number (R0), you will then want to track, trace and isolate every case to prevent further outbreaks when you relax the rules. That means a lot of testing.
    - iso1631 7y ago
      OP said "better understanding of the virus' properties, like the distribution of symptoms, severities, and mortality rate" Random and self-selecting testing doesn't seem to offer much in that. Imagine going to a Nics game and asking everyone there who they support, chances are you'll get a lot of Nics fans. How does that give you a better indication of mortality rate or severity if you have no idea how many people actually have it, because you only have a statistically insignificant tests. Sure, if you're in the stage where you want to lock down specific people (like South Korea) then random widespread testing works to increase the number of locked down people. But if you're in a country where you've locked down everyone already, then testing could well be increasing the risk. If the population assumes they've tested positive, and acts like they are, then what does testing add?
mcsb4 7y ago
Again another article that doesn't even mention the use of masks and hand sanitizer. The cost of the epidemic now goes into the trillions, self-made cotton masks are cheap compared to the economic damage. They can be disinfected in boiling water and if everybody uses them they will help to stop the spreading of the virus. In all the countries mentioned in the article people wear masks when in public, often just against pollution (i.e. Thailand). The moment we open our mouth we spread germs, even more so when we speak. And when we touch our nose or mouth, we have them on our hands. Thus entering a supermarket without a mask and without first disinfecting the hands should be forbidden. Social distancing is one thing, stopping the virus at the source is another and seemingly very effective measure.
- raaaaraaaa12 7y ago
  We have face mask mandatory now in Czech Republic, Italy scared us and goverment reacted quickly. Its not over yet but we are on the right track. https://news.expats.cz/health-medical/breaking-face-coverings-to-be-mandatory-in-all-public-spaces-across-the-czech-republic-as-of-midnight/ https://news.expats.cz/health-medical/breaking-face-covering...
  - aneutron 7y ago
    Can you please attest to the correctness of the news about the Czech government stealing a shipment of masks that was meant to be delivered to Italy [1] ? If so, is there something the "outsiders" are missing (e.g. some political bs between the two countries) ? Or is it just plain old theft ? [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-czech-italy/czechs-send-facemasks-to-italy-after-mix-up-over-chinese-gift-idUSKBN21A2AW https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-czech-...
    - raaaaraaaa12 7y ago
      https://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/why-chinese-masks-destined-for-italy-were-seized-not-stolen-by-czech-authorities https://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/why-chinese-masks-... Czech authorities during a customs raid last Tuesday mistakenly seized 101,600 facemasks gifted by a branch of the Red Cross in eastern China to a Chinese community in Italy. Although Czech officials apologized for the mix-up, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Sunday published a bogus article claiming the Czech state had “stolen” that shipment – and much more. Czechs would send 110,000 facemasks to Italy on Monday (March 23), dispatched along with an evacuation bus of 43 Italian nationals heading home, as agreed with the Italian Embassy in Prague. --- My comment is that our goverment officials or those policemans are probably stupid...
royroyroys 7y ago
A physician from Korea recently did an AMA on Reddit and said: 'It is hard for anyone to predict what will happen in the future in this volatile situation. However, South Korean experts think that if the situation doesn't get better within the month, it will last up to 6 months. If the situation exacerbates within 6 months, it's apparent that this will become a much more difficult scenario than previously imagined. There would be a high chance of economic repercussions of this outbreak. Moreover, the resources of medical personnel may be entirely exhausted in this situation, which would lead to more deaths. In South Korea alone, 300,000 deaths would be a fair prediction from such a scenario.'[0] Seems too early to conclude this has been contained yet. 0: https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fo4pj4/im_joong_sik_eom_md_a_physician_treating_covid19/fld8msm/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fo4pj4/im_joon...
- mlrtime 7y ago
  "it's hard to predict" and "if this then that" doesn't really help and just adds to peoples anxiety and paranoia.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  honest question: why do we keep looking to physicians for guidance? They are highly trained in case by case treatment but not epidemiology. They are not taught to make population wide predictions about the future, they just diagnose and treat. They have access to some anecdata and that's about it. Professors, epidemiologists, and medical researchers have a lot more training and practice in the arena we care about.
  - tim333 7y ago
    In general they have some idea what they are on about re diseases. Also they tend to be fairly down to earth in that they deal with patients directly rather than abstractions.
lmilcin 7y ago
I think it is an interesting case. It seems that shutting everything down and locking everybody in their homes is still the fastest method. But if you look at the outcome and impact on entire country investing in aggressive testing and tracking cases seems better return on investment even with higher number of cases. One potential problem I see with this is locking everything is easier to implement and has less risk that it won't work at all. With a week delay between your actions and the results, not restraining your population and instead hunting cases might put you in a situation where you suddenly learn your actions had no effect and now it is too late for drastic lockdown to rein in the cases.
CommieDetector 7y ago
They do not have communists in there media hypeing the thread to hurt Tump.
onetimemanytime 7y ago
Great for them, so far, but let's hope that a vaccine is found and fast. This cannot be maintained for ages. The mask thing, even if not N95 makes sense, you don't touch your face. Go home wash etc etc.
- PeterisP 7y ago
  There's no possible hope of a vaccine that comes fast. We already have a 'found' (made) a bunch of candidate vaccines that might work, but there's a huge gap between having a candidate vaccine and something that's available to inject in nearly everyone. It takes a year or so of testing to see what it actually does and if it really makes things better and doesn't hurt healthy people. So we hope that there's a vaccine coming next year, but we're certain that there will be no vaccine this year. This will definitely be going on for many more months no matter if it "cannot be maintained".
pgrote 7y ago
"South Korea has used data from surveillance cameras, cellphones and credit card transactions to map the social connections of suspected cases. " None of these things are available to health departments in the United States unless someone voluntarily allows it. The United States has a weak federal containment strategy when it comes to pandemics since most of the decision making is left to Governors. Louisiana allowed Mardi Gras. Florida didn't issue guidance on their beaches until most of spring break was over. One state next to another such as Illinois and Missouri have vastly different mandates. The United States lost the battle of containment. The only thing left is the war to not overwhelm the medical system.
- sp332 7y ago
  Every cell phone user has to be tracked so the cell network knows how to route their calls. Result: https://twitter.com/TectonixGEO/status/1242628347034767361 https://twitter.com/TectonixGEO/status/1242628347034767361 (edited for better link)
  - rsync 7y ago
    Where did this researcher get the anonymized mobile phone location data points from ? Also, I think it's important to clarify that: "Every cell phone user has to be tracked so the cell network knows how to route their calls ..." ... would be more accurate if we said: "Every cell phone has to be tracked ..." Many pieces of the cellular network have no idea who the handset (or other device) is assigned to, or who is using it - they just know that that SIM card is up on the network, and needs to be routed appropriately ...
    - sp332 7y ago
      Good question. I updated the link to a more original source, which says the data is from X-Mode Social https://xmode.io/ https://xmode.io/
      - tastroder 7y ago
        Funny, same data source as this creepy submission from the US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22700652 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22700652
C19is20 7y ago
Italy, Veneto Region: our first delivery of masks for our family (3) just got volun-delivered. They are single-use and it is very emphasised on an accompanying sheet that they will not stop the virus, they are for when you have to absolutely go out, as we are still on lockdown: transgression of which has gone from €260 in fines up to €4000. Of course, when the masks were delivered a whole bunch of people immediately went to the communal post-boxes area to pick them up and talk about it.....oh, well.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  The lockdown hasn't been effective at slowing the spread (of known cases) in Italy. So perhaps increasing the fine will stop the virus. Brilliant.
billfruit 7y ago
Last few days though, more numbers are being reported of new infections in both China and South Korea. Yesterday more than 100+ in SK I think.
- theseadroid 7y ago
  For China many Chinese emigrants are returning home with the virus with them. as they don't trust their local healthcare systems. One example: https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/biogen-parts-way-employee-who-hid-coronavirus-symptoms-and-lied-her-way-back-to-china https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/biogen-parts-way-employe...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - magduf 7y ago
    Well she's probably right not to trust the American healthcare system. It was pretty bad before, and it's going to be a completely dysfunctional disaster pretty soon. Meanwhile, China is able to build an emergency pandemic hospital in 10 days.
- lunchables 7y ago
  Doesn't look like the trend there is really changing since it peaked around March 8th. Seems pretty consistently in the low hundreds of new confirmed a day. If you scroll down the page there's a graph that helps to visualize it: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-kore...
  - billfruit 7y ago
    Yes it isn't changing, but it does not seem to be tending towards falling to zero.
    - lunchables 7y ago
basilgohar 7y ago
The discussions in these threads are just so demonstrative of the erosion of trust that now exists between the lay people and the experts of society, and even amongst experts themselves. Fake news, profit motives, political expediency, political correctness, and so many other social factors have made this a real CF for anyone trying to make sense of this and genuinely do the right thing. I am sorry if I don't have anything positive to contribute, I'm just so disappointed in the state of affairs right now and how selfish forces have coopted the means of causing positive, effective action.
m23khan 7y ago
All countries which the rest of the World relies on production of masks, gloves, plastic items, electronics, medical equipment have done well. The rest of World which includes once capable nations (who have now outsourced everything and now don't have capacity to produce even bandages for their population) is now screwed. Lesson learnt: Self reliance is key.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
  > Self reliance is key. I'm not a student of politics, but I wonder if self-reliance also makes a country more willing to start unnecessary wars. If so, I'd wonder which strategy has a higher death count.
  - gdy 7y ago
    Economic and financial warfare that the US is waging on Russia clearly shows that a country has got to choose between self-reliance and obedience.
- jaynetics 7y ago
  Yeah, if only WW1 never ended, we'd all have plenty of masks!
rdlecler1 7y ago
Another factor is that schools remain closed. We know children are largely asymptomatic and their R0 is 2x - 8x greater than the general public. We’ll see how they fare when they reopen schools. That said we just need enough mitigating measures to push R0 < 1. If it’s 2 now, then two 30% measures will work, or three 20% measures, ...

184 points by mmhsieh 7y ago

Korea's population followed strict quarantine, and they had testing at a massive scale, matched only by China to this day.

Tepix 7y ago
It's not the population that's in quarantine, it's just the few thousand affected people. There's another thing these countries have in common: Masks are worn by the majority of the people. They may work better than advertised.
RaoulP 7y ago
On a per-capita basis, other countries are now getting up there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_testing

angarg12 7y ago

I think comparing Singapore, a tiny, highly urbanized island nation, with the US, a continent size country with a vast number of points of entry, is a little bit apples to oranges. Don't get me wrong, I do think that some Asian countries took great measures to contain the virus, and some western countries failed to do so, but I doubt the same measures would be equally as effective everywhere. This is relevant because the spread of the virus is a multifaceted and complex issue, and reductionist explanations might take us down the wrong path if not careful.

fit2rule 7y ago
There is a great deal of fallacy to be gleaned by the comparison between the two states - but quite a bit of truth, though, too. The American cavalier "invincibility" attribute seems to be truly at play here - witness the kids in Florida - whereas in South Korea, a state composed, traditionally, of an enslaved population: the obedience bit has been key. It's an uncomfortable thought, but it is rugged American hubris which is propagating the virus right now throughout the country. And it was Korean humility and selflessness which brought it down to controllable levels. This article is a flowery way of pointing that out, imho ...
- deleted 7y ago
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RVuRnvbM2e 7y ago
American exceptionalism is a hell of a drug.
Tepix 7y ago
If anything, containing a pandemic in a large city is much harder than doing so in the countryside.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  Singapore is very dense but it is also very authoritarian. They can take measures that would be both legally and socially unthinkable in the United States.
  - logicchains 7y ago
    Yes, they just recently shut bars and clubs, and forced restaurants to allow one meter of spacing between patrons. I can't imagine American governments ever doing something so authoritarian.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
    And what would those specific measures be, pray tell? If anything, Singapore's measures have been more moderate than what's happening today in the USA.
- deleted 7y ago
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Zigurd 7y ago
Arguments like this are a longstanding template to excuse everything from crappy broadband to poor health outcomes in general. Yes, America is big, but bits don't get tired in long fiber links, and health care outcomes are independent of distance. America needs to start examining why we lag in so many quality of life issues.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  The real reason is just that the US is not as highly developed as the most highly developed countries in Western Europe or East Asia. I always thought it was weird when people say things like “the US is the worst in the developed world on so many measures!” A bit like someone saying “I’m one of the shortest people in the world who’s 180cm or taller”.
bawolff 7y ago
Why is it anytime usa screws up its because its a diverse nation that's different from all the other nations? Maybe sometimes the USA is just incompetent and usually it can get away with being incompetent without consequence because nobody wants to poke the 800lb gorilla, but sometimes consequences do happen.
- deleted 7y ago
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- odshoifsdhfs 7y ago
  Because pretty much all of Europe did the same so it isn't exclusive to USA? NY did almost as many tests in a day as some european countries have done total. Of course they are going to have a spike in cases. No-one believe (in Europe at least) that the number of cases are the truth, and we pretty much know that a lot of people aren't being tests. Portugal until 2 days ago was rejecting tests still of people that had no 'known' chain of contagion. (Source, ex-wife works in the frontline of this crisis)
  - bawolff 7y ago
    I don't see how "other people screwed up too" is a counter argument to my argument that "usa is different from every country in the world and thus its impossible to do things right" is bullshit. They're two completely different claims. It is difficult to compare reported cases across countries, and certainly there are many countries that have dropped the ball (Iran especially comes to mind). At the risk of sounding unfeeling, a clearer picture will probably emerge once the deaths start rolling in, since dying is a very binary state and less subject to measurement bias due to gov (in)action.
    - odshoifsdhfs 7y ago
      I agree. But even with deaths will be tricky. Some countries define any death that tests positive as a COVID death, while others only mark it as so if no other more pressing co-morbilities are found.

ahmedalsudani 7y ago

S. Korea wasted no time and the population has shown great ability to cooperate with the state to control the outbreak. It’s too late for the rest of us. Extreme measures are now the only option.

dirtyid 7y ago

South Korea is basically an island, conducted serendipitous did large scale pandemic drill in December, has a compliant population with mandatory civil service and memory of recent authoritarian government, can mobilize techno-authoritarian surveillance. My question is, what is happening in Japan? Except wide spread mask usage, they have systemic undertesting at 1/6 capacity, no social distance measures, nothing shutdown, old population like Italy. Their hospitals should have been overwhelmed with dead by now. Are they just leaving the old to die at home? France and Italy aren't counting deaths at home as part of statistics. Maybe something similar? Which loops back to S.Korea, why so eager to trust their numbers. Their politics is fairly corrupt.

tooltalk 7y ago
I have no idea where this stereotype comes from, but South Korea is known for militant political movement (eg, labor unions, super right-wingers) and religious fanatics: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/27/coronavirus-south-korea-cults-conservatives-china/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/27/coronavirus-south-korea...
- dirtyid 7y ago
  What stereotype are you referring to?
  - tooltalk 7y ago
    > ... compliant population with mandatory civil service and memory of recent authoritarian government, can mobilize techno-authoritarian surveillance. ...
    - dirtyid 7y ago
      Isn't it relative to western countries? S.Korea is like Israel, a large part of the population with civil service experience who can follow instructions, but also some religious fanatics / cults who don't give a fuck. The government has more accessible, non-emergency options to crackdown, last I heard Korean officials is trying to contain the cults via lawsuit and criminal charges. Can you imagine US suing a church, arresting a pastor for holding congregation? In Canada we have been trying to recall our citizens abroad and it wasn't until things got bad that 1million+ snow birds decided to return. Prior to that kids were going on spring break. No one took things seriously until last week after a month escalating warnings. And this is in a city with SARS experience. Down south is even more of a shit show. As for techno-authoritarian surveillance - health officials cross referencing CCTV footage, location data and cred card reports - that would not fly here as a "public" option which is why it's rarely mentioned in any of these TEST OFTEN and contact trace articles. The uninformed would attribute those techniques to China. The informed would immediately understand that wouldn't work in many western countries without massive legislative overhaul.

m0xte 7y ago

So far. I suspect there is a lot of premature celebration when this is contained.

quonn 7y ago
Correct. South Korea had to trace only a very small number of chains/events. Now they have many cases and it will become very hard to trace all of them. They cannot be everywhere. Additionally they had more staff to do this, other countries cannot easily copy that strategy.
Zigurd 7y ago
Caution is certainly called for. There will probably be recurring outbreaks. But, the benefits of widespread testing are there for every nation, at any stage of the pandemic, to access if they have the will and competency in leadership to do it.
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  Widespread testing depends on infrastructure being in place, it's not something that appears simply by willing it.

adventured 7y ago

So have Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia (440 million people). They've all had fewer cases than Luxembourg so far. I've yet to see a good explanation for it, other than maybe the premise about seasonal temps and humidity (northern vs southern hemisphere). There's no evidence they're massively lying about their numbers (which would show up in the form of a demolished hospital system and thousands dead of pneumonia). Vietnam has also done incredibly well overall, showing no indications of being crushed by cases, despite their proximity to China. Mexico is also not being crushed at all by the virus, despite being right next to the US as Vietnam is right next to China. Mexico shares enormous trade and traffic with the US. They should be buried in pneumonia cases given their overall context (population size, economy, testing rate, healthcare system). They have just over half the cases of Finland (obviously Mexico isn't testing at a high rate, I'm sure it's more than just 600). If many thousands of people were dying of Covid in Mexico right now, it would be showing up blatantly. Latin America's case load has largely been low vs population sizes (with only a few exceptions), as with the rest of the southern hemisphere. Mexico is technically northern hemisphere, and I wonder if they don't have some of the southern hemisphere benefit (as perhaps India does), limiting the rate of infection vs nations that are further north. And will that flip at all in the coming months. https://i.imgur.com/EH8OkTd.png https://i.imgur.com/EH8OkTd.png It'd be very interesting to see a comparison of avg temps and humidity among nations most affected (or least) during the outbreak timeframe. Including looking at locations such as Italy, France, Germany, Spain, NYC, Texas, Southern California, Seattle, South Korea, parts of Mexico, Thailand, and so on. Basically, due to seasonal temps and humidity, is South Korea's task made far easier than Italy's task? Does that considerably alter the infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 in South Korea vs Italy? Is their equation half the effort they've put in (and credit on that), and half good luck of location. Mexico sure as hell isn't avoiding being overrun by it due to maximum testing. I spent many hours last night doing a deep dive on the latest research on the impact of humidity on viruses, infectiousness and the respiratory system. It's fascinating stuff.

pmorici 7y ago
At least initially I read that Philippines didn’t even have testing capability and had to send samples to Australia to be tested. You don’t find what you don’t look for.

robocat 7y ago

Another effing article that completely ignores Taiwan... I’m no taiwanophile, but why is it that a first-world democracy with a successful strategy against Covid is being completely ignored by media? https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 Taiwan has huge flows of Chinese people, yet no outbreak. Maybe it’s a good thing they are not recognised by the WHO?

easytiger 7y ago
Or maybe it tells you that a lot of the marketing around this has been total nonsense
ddrmaxgt37 7y ago
Just to be clear, Taiwan did not have huge flows of mainland Chinese soon after the outbreak though. They closed the border to all travelers with PRC passports in mid-February. They did take some drastic measures that have worked.
- tasogare 7y ago
  Mid-February was already weeks after the epidemic starts to be on the news. They also repatriated businessmen from China. Given business and cultural ties between the two countries, I find hard to believe that less Chinese traveled between them than between China and Italia.
- robocat 7y ago
  > They closed the border to all travelers with PRC passports in mid-February And before that they had plenty of people coming in from China with active Covid infections - returning from New Year including people from Hubei. The US enacted their travel ban to China on 31st Jan, yet that hasn’t helped the US... Now Taiwan is getting cases from other countries (returning citizens and foreign migrant workers) e.g. yesterday: “Meanwhile, the 15 patients deemed to have contracted COVID-19 overseas all returned to Taiwan in the period March 16-23. The countries they had visited were the U.S., the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Spain, Malaysia, Monaco and Mexico.” Taiwan is still allowing foreign migrant workers to enter the country, as they need them for their economy.

Freestyler_3 7y ago

They took proactive measurements when the rest of the world was still looking at how things would develop. Making tests well before they had their first case. When my country got its first cases they were still saying it isn't that contagious and everything is fine.

netsharc 7y ago
It's a bit of luck that the coutry had a private biotech company that makes tests for viruses, and the CEO of said company looked at Wuhan and decided to get samples from China. I suppose, just like every country has a military or people managing their transportation infrastructure, there should be a "pandemic watch". (Well the US had a good one until Trump/John Bolton defunded it)
- _trampeltier 7y ago
  Europe and the US even had more time, there is no excuse. It was clear from the day one how to or not to act. Europe and the US did not act at all in the beginning until it was to late to check each single case.
  - mensetmanusman 7y ago
    It’s not clear what ‘day 1’ means in the context of China though. China has kicked out all western reporters, constantly lies like Russia even when the truth is visible in the background, and arrests citizens who try to get around this system. The west was never going to believe what was happening in China because it is impossible to know without invading them.
  - Freestyler_3 7y ago
    Now the focus is on bending the curve with minimal effort.
- jussij 7y ago
  The US military provide plenty of early advice suggesting a pandemic was on it way, but that advice was mostly ignored: https://ktvz.com/politics/2020/03/21/washington-post-us-intelligence-warned-trump-in-january-and-february-as-he-dismissed-coronavirus-threat/ https://ktvz.com/politics/2020/03/21/washington-post-us-inte... Some of the politicians did heed the advice, at least when it came to managing their share portfolios, taking the opportunity to sell up while telling their constituents there was no imminent threat: https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-dumped-up-to-1-7-million-of-stock-after-reassuring-public-about-coronavirus-preparedness https://www.propublica.org/article/senator-dumped-up-to-1-7-...

mschuster91 7y ago

The thing is, South Korea (and many other Asian countries cited as having handled COVID19 relatively well, such as Taiwan, HK, Singapore, Japan) have all learned from the 2003 SARS epidemic and others, while the Western countries did not. This is not just in terms of politics/preparation to disasters, but also in the civilization - in Asia even the most radical and extreme measures are accepted by the population as everyone there knows what a pandemic can cause, while in Germany people are having "corona parties" and there have been numerous incidents of people spitting or coughing at other people. Additionally, in many Western countries healthcare systems have been wrecked by neoliberalism profit-first ideology (Germany, UK), by austerity following the 2008 financial crisis (Italy, Spain, Greece) or by decades of incompetency (USA), combined with the end of stockpiling of critical assets such as face masks, gloves and other PPE after the end of the Cold War. The key point of "shutting down" is to avoid overloading the healthcare systems, or at least to try to limit the overloading.

rfoo 7y ago
Also there was MERS in South Korea (2015), people remember what happened 5 years ago much better than what happened 17 years ago (SARS).
luckylion 7y ago
It might have something to do with people remembering a previous disease outbreak, it might also be primarily a question of how collectivist vs individualist the societies are and how strongly the population follows government suggestions/orders. Considering that, you'd expect South Korea or Japan to do better than Germany, Germany to do better than the US or Italy. And even within Germany, you'd expect large cities to do worse, with Berlin leading the charge. Would Hamburg be affected as much if it wasn't for their holidays falling right into that time?
tooltalk 7y ago
> in Asia even the most radical and extreme measures are accepted by the population as everyone there knows what a pandemic can cause, Well, yes and no. They might have been more willing to accept that 30-40 years ago, but definitely not these days. They've been always known for militant labor unions, religious fanatics, and political extremism -- the last two attributed to the outbreak in South Korea this time around. There are still religious groups defying the gov't's plea not to hold mass services in South Korea today. > in many Western countries healthcare systems have been wrecked by neoliberalism profit-first ... South Korea suffered a much smaller coronavirus, MERS, not too long ago and they found out that they were awfully unprepared for a public health crisis of that scale (only 130+ were infected and 30+ death), so they spent the next several years preparing for the "next" crisis. Their gov't removed all potential legal/legislative barriers that had hindered their response last time around and private biotech companies started working on reagents and the medical infrastructure almost as soon as the outbreak in Wuhan became known.

blauditore 7y ago

Testing more thoroughly would also provide us with a better understanding of the virus' properties, like the distribution of symptoms, severities, and mortality rate. I think one of the main reason for general fear and panic has been the alleged high mortality rate, with numbers up to 5% being mentioned. But there's a strong selection bias in those statistics (people with severe cases get tested more often), so the actual number is likely much lower.

iso1631 7y ago
It's a small sample, but it's a comprehensive one as everyone was tested. On the Diamond Pricess, it only reached 20% of the people on board, and of those 60% had no medical symptoms. Overall 1% of people catching it died. As a cruise ship the passengers tend to be older, but the crew tend to be younger. Doesn't matter if you test 1 million people or 10,000 people, if you aren't doing statistically significant tests, it's meaningless to draw conclusions.
- learnstats2 7y ago
  Statistics is not the only purpose of testing! If physical distancing is successful in reducing the reproduction number (R0), you will then want to track, trace and isolate every case to prevent further outbreaks when you relax the rules. That means a lot of testing.
  - iso1631 7y ago
    OP said "better understanding of the virus' properties, like the distribution of symptoms, severities, and mortality rate" Random and self-selecting testing doesn't seem to offer much in that. Imagine going to a Nics game and asking everyone there who they support, chances are you'll get a lot of Nics fans. How does that give you a better indication of mortality rate or severity if you have no idea how many people actually have it, because you only have a statistically insignificant tests. Sure, if you're in the stage where you want to lock down specific people (like South Korea) then random widespread testing works to increase the number of locked down people. But if you're in a country where you've locked down everyone already, then testing could well be increasing the risk. If the population assumes they've tested positive, and acts like they are, then what does testing add?

mcsb4 7y ago

Again another article that doesn't even mention the use of masks and hand sanitizer. The cost of the epidemic now goes into the trillions, self-made cotton masks are cheap compared to the economic damage. They can be disinfected in boiling water and if everybody uses them they will help to stop the spreading of the virus. In all the countries mentioned in the article people wear masks when in public, often just against pollution (i.e. Thailand). The moment we open our mouth we spread germs, even more so when we speak. And when we touch our nose or mouth, we have them on our hands. Thus entering a supermarket without a mask and without first disinfecting the hands should be forbidden. Social distancing is one thing, stopping the virus at the source is another and seemingly very effective measure.

raaaaraaaa12 7y ago
We have face mask mandatory now in Czech Republic, Italy scared us and goverment reacted quickly. Its not over yet but we are on the right track. https://news.expats.cz/health-medical/breaking-face-coverings-to-be-mandatory-in-all-public-spaces-across-the-czech-republic-as-of-midnight/ https://news.expats.cz/health-medical/breaking-face-covering...
- aneutron 7y ago
  Can you please attest to the correctness of the news about the Czech government stealing a shipment of masks that was meant to be delivered to Italy [1] ? If so, is there something the "outsiders" are missing (e.g. some political bs between the two countries) ? Or is it just plain old theft ? [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-czech-italy/czechs-send-facemasks-to-italy-after-mix-up-over-chinese-gift-idUSKBN21A2AW https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-czech-...
  - raaaaraaaa12 7y ago
    https://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/why-chinese-masks-destined-for-italy-were-seized-not-stolen-by-czech-authorities https://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/why-chinese-masks-... Czech authorities during a customs raid last Tuesday mistakenly seized 101,600 facemasks gifted by a branch of the Red Cross in eastern China to a Chinese community in Italy. Although Czech officials apologized for the mix-up, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Sunday published a bogus article claiming the Czech state had “stolen” that shipment – and much more. Czechs would send 110,000 facemasks to Italy on Monday (March 23), dispatched along with an evacuation bus of 43 Italian nationals heading home, as agreed with the Italian Embassy in Prague. --- My comment is that our goverment officials or those policemans are probably stupid...

royroyroys 7y ago

A physician from Korea recently did an AMA on Reddit and said: 'It is hard for anyone to predict what will happen in the future in this volatile situation. However, South Korean experts think that if the situation doesn't get better within the month, it will last up to 6 months. If the situation exacerbates within 6 months, it's apparent that this will become a much more difficult scenario than previously imagined. There would be a high chance of economic repercussions of this outbreak. Moreover, the resources of medical personnel may be entirely exhausted in this situation, which would lead to more deaths. In South Korea alone, 300,000 deaths would be a fair prediction from such a scenario.'[0] Seems too early to conclude this has been contained yet. 0: https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fo4pj4/im_joong_sik_eom_md_a_physician_treating_covid19/fld8msm/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fo4pj4/im_joon...

mlrtime 7y ago
"it's hard to predict" and "if this then that" doesn't really help and just adds to peoples anxiety and paranoia.
bagacrap 7y ago
honest question: why do we keep looking to physicians for guidance? They are highly trained in case by case treatment but not epidemiology. They are not taught to make population wide predictions about the future, they just diagnose and treat. They have access to some anecdata and that's about it. Professors, epidemiologists, and medical researchers have a lot more training and practice in the arena we care about.
- tim333 7y ago
  In general they have some idea what they are on about re diseases. Also they tend to be fairly down to earth in that they deal with patients directly rather than abstractions.

lmilcin 7y ago

I think it is an interesting case. It seems that shutting everything down and locking everybody in their homes is still the fastest method. But if you look at the outcome and impact on entire country investing in aggressive testing and tracking cases seems better return on investment even with higher number of cases. One potential problem I see with this is locking everything is easier to implement and has less risk that it won't work at all. With a week delay between your actions and the results, not restraining your population and instead hunting cases might put you in a situation where you suddenly learn your actions had no effect and now it is too late for drastic lockdown to rein in the cases.

CommieDetector 7y ago

They do not have communists in there media hypeing the thread to hurt Tump.

onetimemanytime 7y ago

Great for them, so far, but let's hope that a vaccine is found and fast. This cannot be maintained for ages. The mask thing, even if not N95 makes sense, you don't touch your face. Go home wash etc etc.

PeterisP 7y ago
There's no possible hope of a vaccine that comes fast. We already have a 'found' (made) a bunch of candidate vaccines that might work, but there's a huge gap between having a candidate vaccine and something that's available to inject in nearly everyone. It takes a year or so of testing to see what it actually does and if it really makes things better and doesn't hurt healthy people. So we hope that there's a vaccine coming next year, but we're certain that there will be no vaccine this year. This will definitely be going on for many more months no matter if it "cannot be maintained".

pgrote 7y ago

"South Korea has used data from surveillance cameras, cellphones and credit card transactions to map the social connections of suspected cases. " None of these things are available to health departments in the United States unless someone voluntarily allows it. The United States has a weak federal containment strategy when it comes to pandemics since most of the decision making is left to Governors. Louisiana allowed Mardi Gras. Florida didn't issue guidance on their beaches until most of spring break was over. One state next to another such as Illinois and Missouri have vastly different mandates. The United States lost the battle of containment. The only thing left is the war to not overwhelm the medical system.

sp332 7y ago
Every cell phone user has to be tracked so the cell network knows how to route their calls. Result: https://twitter.com/TectonixGEO/status/1242628347034767361 https://twitter.com/TectonixGEO/status/1242628347034767361 (edited for better link)
- rsync 7y ago
  Where did this researcher get the anonymized mobile phone location data points from ? Also, I think it's important to clarify that: "Every cell phone user has to be tracked so the cell network knows how to route their calls ..." ... would be more accurate if we said: "Every cell phone has to be tracked ..." Many pieces of the cellular network have no idea who the handset (or other device) is assigned to, or who is using it - they just know that that SIM card is up on the network, and needs to be routed appropriately ...
  - sp332 7y ago
    Good question. I updated the link to a more original source, which says the data is from X-Mode Social https://xmode.io/ https://xmode.io/
    - tastroder 7y ago
      Funny, same data source as this creepy submission from the US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22700652 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22700652

C19is20 7y ago

Italy, Veneto Region: our first delivery of masks for our family (3) just got volun-delivered. They are single-use and it is very emphasised on an accompanying sheet that they will not stop the virus, they are for when you have to absolutely go out, as we are still on lockdown: transgression of which has gone from €260 in fines up to €4000. Of course, when the masks were delivered a whole bunch of people immediately went to the communal post-boxes area to pick them up and talk about it.....oh, well.

bagacrap 7y ago
The lockdown hasn't been effective at slowing the spread (of known cases) in Italy. So perhaps increasing the fine will stop the virus. Brilliant.

billfruit 7y ago

Last few days though, more numbers are being reported of new infections in both China and South Korea. Yesterday more than 100+ in SK I think.

theseadroid 7y ago
For China many Chinese emigrants are returning home with the virus with them. as they don't trust their local healthcare systems. One example: https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/biogen-parts-way-employee-who-hid-coronavirus-symptoms-and-lied-her-way-back-to-china https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/biogen-parts-way-employe...
- deleted 7y ago
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- magduf 7y ago
  Well she's probably right not to trust the American healthcare system. It was pretty bad before, and it's going to be a completely dysfunctional disaster pretty soon. Meanwhile, China is able to build an emergency pandemic hospital in 10 days.
lunchables 7y ago
Doesn't look like the trend there is really changing since it peaked around March 8th. Seems pretty consistently in the low hundreds of new confirmed a day. If you scroll down the page there's a graph that helps to visualize it: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-kore...
- billfruit 7y ago
  Yes it isn't changing, but it does not seem to be tending towards falling to zero.
  - lunchables 7y ago

basilgohar 7y ago

The discussions in these threads are just so demonstrative of the erosion of trust that now exists between the lay people and the experts of society, and even amongst experts themselves. Fake news, profit motives, political expediency, political correctness, and so many other social factors have made this a real CF for anyone trying to make sense of this and genuinely do the right thing. I am sorry if I don't have anything positive to contribute, I'm just so disappointed in the state of affairs right now and how selfish forces have coopted the means of causing positive, effective action.

m23khan 7y ago

All countries which the rest of the World relies on production of masks, gloves, plastic items, electronics, medical equipment have done well. The rest of World which includes once capable nations (who have now outsourced everything and now don't have capacity to produce even bandages for their population) is now screwed. Lesson learnt: Self reliance is key.

DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
> Self reliance is key. I'm not a student of politics, but I wonder if self-reliance also makes a country more willing to start unnecessary wars. If so, I'd wonder which strategy has a higher death count.
- gdy 7y ago
  Economic and financial warfare that the US is waging on Russia clearly shows that a country has got to choose between self-reliance and obedience.
jaynetics 7y ago
Yeah, if only WW1 never ended, we'd all have plenty of masks!

rdlecler1 7y ago

Another factor is that schools remain closed. We know children are largely asymptomatic and their R0 is 2x - 8x greater than the general public. We’ll see how they fare when they reopen schools. That said we just need enough mitigating measures to push R0 < 1. If it’s 2 now, then two 30% measures will work, or three 20% measures, ...