4 ms·

What bothers me the most is that the comparison is always against a hypothetical "do nothing" strategy, ignoring the fact that different countries have employed

What bothers me the most is that the comparison is always against a hypothetical "do nothing" strategy, ignoring the fact that different countries have employed different strategies, some of them have been highly successful in containing the disease without any lock down (Korea, Taiwan, and Australia) come to mind.

ridaj 7y ago
Aren't the techniques that Taiwan and Korea have employed (testing, isolation of known cases, contact tracing) irrelevant at this stage of contagion? I doubt of the efficacy of contact tracing when you have enough of a percentage of population infected that a single visit to Costco or any other supermarket would mean a very high chance of being there at the same time as an infectious person...
- tomerico 7y ago
  I think that the answer is that we don't know what's the effect of each measure. The fact that Japan & Australia did not employ contact tracing, but also managed to contain the spread shows that there are other factors at play. It might be face masks use, or temperature (for Australia), but it does show that there are potential alternatives that could be viable.
prawn 7y ago
"some of them have been highly successful in containing the disease without any lock down (Korea, Taiwan, and Australia) come to mind." How are you defining lock down here? I live in Australia and most people I know have been working from home for weeks and have had kids out of school during that time. All restaurants have been closed for a while now. There are stops/checks at border entry points between states, even at points 1-2 hours in from the border, enforced quarantine for anyone arriving interstate. Weddings restricted to 5 people, funerals to 10. People are getting fined $1k+ for non-essential travel (group of kids this week copped big fines for getting up and congregating to see the sunrise). At almost every "essential" business I've visited, there have been spacing markers on the floor. Supermarkets have plastic shields between the checkout operator and shopper. Gloves, hand-washing, etc at any food pick-up place I've seen. I don't favour our current leaders at either state or national level, but since Morrison's Hillsong weekend, he's barely put a foot wrong. Senior politicians have been serious and escalated restrictions as appropriate (ignoring Ruby Princess). I'm sure there are more serious levels of lock down, but it's been part of the response in Australia.
- tomerico 7y ago
  I wish this was the situation here. The limitations in most of Europe and united states are much much harsher, including no schools and mandatory closure of all non-essential business.
  - morsch 7y ago
    Most of Europe hasn't closed all non-essential businesses. Has anyone, aside from Italy and Spain? Non-essential public venues (gyms, museums, some stores, etc) are closed, but that's true in Australia, too.
  - prawn 7y ago
    Schools have closed in one Australian state at least. More than half of children are at home in my home state, from what I can tell, where schools are not closed. They've polled for the coming term and suggest that two-thirds will be at home. One serious loss in productivity comes in overseeing homeschooling while trying to work from home. Can't imagine many non-essential businesses are running anywhere near 100%.

ridaj 7y ago

Aren't the techniques that Taiwan and Korea have employed (testing, isolation of known cases, contact tracing) irrelevant at this stage of contagion? I doubt of the efficacy of contact tracing when you have enough of a percentage of population infected that a single visit to Costco or any other supermarket would mean a very high chance of being there at the same time as an infectious person...

tomerico 7y ago
I think that the answer is that we don't know what's the effect of each measure. The fact that Japan & Australia did not employ contact tracing, but also managed to contain the spread shows that there are other factors at play. It might be face masks use, or temperature (for Australia), but it does show that there are potential alternatives that could be viable.

prawn 7y ago

"some of them have been highly successful in containing the disease without any lock down (Korea, Taiwan, and Australia) come to mind." How are you defining lock down here? I live in Australia and most people I know have been working from home for weeks and have had kids out of school during that time. All restaurants have been closed for a while now. There are stops/checks at border entry points between states, even at points 1-2 hours in from the border, enforced quarantine for anyone arriving interstate. Weddings restricted to 5 people, funerals to 10. People are getting fined $1k+ for non-essential travel (group of kids this week copped big fines for getting up and congregating to see the sunrise). At almost every "essential" business I've visited, there have been spacing markers on the floor. Supermarkets have plastic shields between the checkout operator and shopper. Gloves, hand-washing, etc at any food pick-up place I've seen. I don't favour our current leaders at either state or national level, but since Morrison's Hillsong weekend, he's barely put a foot wrong. Senior politicians have been serious and escalated restrictions as appropriate (ignoring Ruby Princess). I'm sure there are more serious levels of lock down, but it's been part of the response in Australia.

tomerico 7y ago
I wish this was the situation here. The limitations in most of Europe and united states are much much harsher, including no schools and mandatory closure of all non-essential business.
- morsch 7y ago
  Most of Europe hasn't closed all non-essential businesses. Has anyone, aside from Italy and Spain? Non-essential public venues (gyms, museums, some stores, etc) are closed, but that's true in Australia, too.
- prawn 7y ago
  Schools have closed in one Australian state at least. More than half of children are at home in my home state, from what I can tell, where schools are not closed. They've polled for the coming term and suggest that two-thirds will be at home. One serious loss in productivity comes in overseeing homeschooling while trying to work from home. Can't imagine many non-essential businesses are running anywhere near 100%.