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We all intrinsically knew what to expect from and how to react to a pandemic. I honestly believe intentional misinformation from the Trump administration caused

We all intrinsically knew what to expect from and how to react to a pandemic. I honestly believe intentional misinformation from the Trump administration caused the massive bifurcation in dealing with this problem with a united front. Asian countries did not have this problem, and look at how much better they are faring.

sn41 6y ago
That was due to the lessons from SARS-Cov1 in 2003. Asian countries that did not suffer from SARS-Cov1 did very badly with covid-19. e.g. India. In India the misinformation was uniquely Indian - first they said that vegetarians will not get Covid, it came from bushmeat (ignoring the fact that human-to-human transmission was through cough droplets), then they said that Yoga fights Covid, then they blamed it on a minority gathering (ignoring the fact that people were streaming in unchecked through international airports through all of January and February 2020). One of the lessons taught in "crisis management", it seems, is to downplay an emergency so that the people do not panic. Death due to ignorance is much preferable?
- trianglem 6y ago
  India did badly for the same reason the US and Brazil did so badly. Authoritarian, right wing, populist governments that relied on misinformation and half truths, had no plan and basically shifted blame and tried to save face. India actually probably did the best out of all three considering Modi at least isn’t a science denialist.
  - sn41 6y ago
    True, the last part did surprise me. He went against the base of his party, and espoused science.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    My long term observation of humanity is most people try to solve every problem with whatever strategy that's been working for them. Vs anything practical and appropriate. Authoritarian, right wing, populist governments tried bullshitting and gaslighting to combat the virus. Me I'm an introverted hermit. Been working well so far.
  - ngc248 6y ago
    Woah there!!! The first Authoritarian government which peddled misinformation was China. Why is China getting a free pass here? If the WHO had't parroted china's lies, then there would have been no situation like this. Looking at worldometer, the number of deaths in china is 4,636. This is unbelievable. No one can believe this number. This is the reason why no one wants the chinese vaccine. You cant believe anythn coming out of china. Again I am talkin about the chinese government not the chinese people.
  - njanirudh 6y ago
    You are the one spreading misinformation here. India is in no way an auth govt. Give took amazing steps asking with all the front like workers involved. Countries with 1/20 the population and poverty didn't handle it better.
- jbritton 6y ago
  Looking at WorldOMeters covid data shows India ranks 105th in deaths per million(lower ranking is worse). India has one wave peaking in September and now relatively low cases.
  - sn41 6y ago
    Let's not get into the testing data debate here. To say that a country with 0.53 hospital beds per 1000 persons can successfully handle any medical emergency is unrealistic[1]. India is also highly populated, so the sheer number of people without access to healthcare is enormous. Access to testing is non-uniform. Very strangely, only places with relatively better access to healthcare seem to have more cases - Delhi, Bombay, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, the state of Kerala, etc. Kind of like how 80 percent of dinosaurs are from the US and Europe - you only find things if you look. Ignorance is bliss. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_...
    - njanirudh 6y ago
      Then look at death per million data. You are starting to sound like the deranged people who say India and govt is wrong no matter what. Let's face it, India did a lot better despite the population, poverty and external elements trying to sabotage.
    - legolas2412 6y ago
      > Let's not get into the testing data debate here. Let's not spread misinformation either. India did enough testing. India's positivity rate was almost always below 10%. Now it's even less than 1%. India has made testing fast, cheap, and easy to access. Also, it doesn't matter if india has fewer hospital beds, if those beds are empty. Hospitals beds are empty, and our morgues aren't overflowing (like how milan or nyc in March did). It is a free country with open media. Nobody is suppressing covid cases. There are many reasons it could happen like this. Cross immunity. Younger demographics. Smaller groups (most indians live in rural villages). Diet. Weather. Etc. It's not strange that delhi and bangalore have more cases. They are also denser cities with more people. It's just like how nyc and Los Angeles have more cases than say indianapolis or santa Cruz.
- ngc248 6y ago
  India did way better than a lot of other countries, Lot of people expected it to do way worse. >>>> first they said that vegetarians will not get Covid, it came from bushmeat (ignoring the fact that human-to-human transmission was through cough droplets) This was at the point when WHO was saying there was no Human to Human transfmission. >>> then they blamed it on a minority gathering Well obviously since even during lockdown, they conducted that gathering which had people coming from almost all states, then after the gathering went back to their home states. This was during the height of lockdown. The problem was that people though t rules did not apply to them. There was even a riot in Bangalore by these people when lockdown was being imposed.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - qwerty1234599 6y ago
    India just doesn't have the giant 70+ yo vulnerable male population that western countries have. If they did, the numbers would be horrifying. But since they have a young population, herd immunity was reached. (Serology tests show over 50% of india had covid, and the case stats show a classic epidemical curve) Same goes for Russia btw, theres no 50+ males for covid to kill as they die to alcohol abuse. So they peaked at "only" 600 deaths / day.
mikem170 6y ago
Everybody thought it would fizzle out, like sars-cov1 years before. Nobody in North America or Europe wanted to shut down the economy on a possible threat they were not sure would happen. The only countries that were ready for covid19 were the ones who got hit significantly by sars-cov1. 1 in 750 people have died, mostly elderly and./or with comorbidities. 0.13%. Hardly a social catastrophe. A lot of people think the world has grossly overreacted. These are in democracies so their opinions count, too.
sampo 6y ago
> I honestly believe intentional misinformation from the Trump administration caused the massive bifurcation in dealing with this problem with a united front. Not everything is about America, you know? We in Europe made our mistakes on our own. Also the epidemic hit parts of Europe before it arrived to USA.

sn41 6y ago

That was due to the lessons from SARS-Cov1 in 2003. Asian countries that did not suffer from SARS-Cov1 did very badly with covid-19. e.g. India. In India the misinformation was uniquely Indian - first they said that vegetarians will not get Covid, it came from bushmeat (ignoring the fact that human-to-human transmission was through cough droplets), then they said that Yoga fights Covid, then they blamed it on a minority gathering (ignoring the fact that people were streaming in unchecked through international airports through all of January and February 2020). One of the lessons taught in "crisis management", it seems, is to downplay an emergency so that the people do not panic. Death due to ignorance is much preferable?

trianglem 6y ago
India did badly for the same reason the US and Brazil did so badly. Authoritarian, right wing, populist governments that relied on misinformation and half truths, had no plan and basically shifted blame and tried to save face. India actually probably did the best out of all three considering Modi at least isn’t a science denialist.
- sn41 6y ago
  True, the last part did surprise me. He went against the base of his party, and espoused science.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  My long term observation of humanity is most people try to solve every problem with whatever strategy that's been working for them. Vs anything practical and appropriate. Authoritarian, right wing, populist governments tried bullshitting and gaslighting to combat the virus. Me I'm an introverted hermit. Been working well so far.
- ngc248 6y ago
  Woah there!!! The first Authoritarian government which peddled misinformation was China. Why is China getting a free pass here? If the WHO had't parroted china's lies, then there would have been no situation like this. Looking at worldometer, the number of deaths in china is 4,636. This is unbelievable. No one can believe this number. This is the reason why no one wants the chinese vaccine. You cant believe anythn coming out of china. Again I am talkin about the chinese government not the chinese people.
- njanirudh 6y ago
  You are the one spreading misinformation here. India is in no way an auth govt. Give took amazing steps asking with all the front like workers involved. Countries with 1/20 the population and poverty didn't handle it better.
jbritton 6y ago
Looking at WorldOMeters covid data shows India ranks 105th in deaths per million(lower ranking is worse). India has one wave peaking in September and now relatively low cases.
- sn41 6y ago
  Let's not get into the testing data debate here. To say that a country with 0.53 hospital beds per 1000 persons can successfully handle any medical emergency is unrealistic[1]. India is also highly populated, so the sheer number of people without access to healthcare is enormous. Access to testing is non-uniform. Very strangely, only places with relatively better access to healthcare seem to have more cases - Delhi, Bombay, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, the state of Kerala, etc. Kind of like how 80 percent of dinosaurs are from the US and Europe - you only find things if you look. Ignorance is bliss. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_...
  - njanirudh 6y ago
    Then look at death per million data. You are starting to sound like the deranged people who say India and govt is wrong no matter what. Let's face it, India did a lot better despite the population, poverty and external elements trying to sabotage.
  - legolas2412 6y ago
    > Let's not get into the testing data debate here. Let's not spread misinformation either. India did enough testing. India's positivity rate was almost always below 10%. Now it's even less than 1%. India has made testing fast, cheap, and easy to access. Also, it doesn't matter if india has fewer hospital beds, if those beds are empty. Hospitals beds are empty, and our morgues aren't overflowing (like how milan or nyc in March did). It is a free country with open media. Nobody is suppressing covid cases. There are many reasons it could happen like this. Cross immunity. Younger demographics. Smaller groups (most indians live in rural villages). Diet. Weather. Etc. It's not strange that delhi and bangalore have more cases. They are also denser cities with more people. It's just like how nyc and Los Angeles have more cases than say indianapolis or santa Cruz.
ngc248 6y ago
India did way better than a lot of other countries, Lot of people expected it to do way worse. >>>> first they said that vegetarians will not get Covid, it came from bushmeat (ignoring the fact that human-to-human transmission was through cough droplets) This was at the point when WHO was saying there was no Human to Human transfmission. >>> then they blamed it on a minority gathering Well obviously since even during lockdown, they conducted that gathering which had people coming from almost all states, then after the gathering went back to their home states. This was during the height of lockdown. The problem was that people though t rules did not apply to them. There was even a riot in Bangalore by these people when lockdown was being imposed.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- qwerty1234599 6y ago
  India just doesn't have the giant 70+ yo vulnerable male population that western countries have. If they did, the numbers would be horrifying. But since they have a young population, herd immunity was reached. (Serology tests show over 50% of india had covid, and the case stats show a classic epidemical curve) Same goes for Russia btw, theres no 50+ males for covid to kill as they die to alcohol abuse. So they peaked at "only" 600 deaths / day.

mikem170 6y ago

Everybody thought it would fizzle out, like sars-cov1 years before. Nobody in North America or Europe wanted to shut down the economy on a possible threat they were not sure would happen. The only countries that were ready for covid19 were the ones who got hit significantly by sars-cov1. 1 in 750 people have died, mostly elderly and./or with comorbidities. 0.13%. Hardly a social catastrophe. A lot of people think the world has grossly overreacted. These are in democracies so their opinions count, too.

sampo 6y ago

> I honestly believe intentional misinformation from the Trump administration caused the massive bifurcation in dealing with this problem with a united front. Not everything is about America, you know? We in Europe made our mistakes on our own. Also the epidemic hit parts of Europe before it arrived to USA.