4 ms·

All countries that did well during the pandemic did a few steps: - immediately recognize the risk and call on domestic producers to increase mask production -

All countries that did well during the pandemic did a few steps: - immediately recognize the risk and call on domestic producers to increase mask production - freely, easily and regularly distribute masks to everyone, either for free or subsidize - rigorous regulation (not necessarily lockdown) of mask usage in places with either centralized(china) or decentralized(taiwan) contract tracing in every building. - a leadership that publicized and communicated the risks regularly - a leadership that led by example by wearing masks themselves - and a population that had some sort of sense of unity(common enemy) ALL countries that downplayed the pandemic ended up with second or third waves. I don't understand why you think it's bad luck.

euthuxnetux 6y ago
I hate to be that guy, but these are all measurable claims and it would benefit the discussion here if you provided references.
- natenthe 6y ago
  100% agreed. However, these anecdotal tales have no science and research behind them so references cannot be produced.
throwawaysea 6y ago
I think "did well" is a spectrum. Some countries chose to enact very authoritarian lockdowns, and achieved success that way. Others balanced between freedoms and restrictions. Still others have to work within the bounds of their political system - what their laws permit and don't permit. From some quick web searches, it seems to me that India did many of the things you mentioned. I'm not sure if they did all of them, or to what extent they did each one - understanding that precisely is probably not possible without being involved in those particular actions. But it doesn't seem to me like they did nothing. > ALL countries that downplayed the pandemic ended up with second or third waves. Do you think India downplayed the pandemic? I don't get the sense given that they did building by building lockdowns and have police patrols ushering people back into their homes. We should keep in mind that each country is different - they have different population sizes, city densities, wealth levels, infrastructure quality, Internet access, cultural priorities, and so on. China is not India - it has an authoritarian governmental system. Taiwan is not India - it's small and rich and is an island. I'm not sure these comparisons are fair.
- vkou 6y ago
  > I think "did well" is a spectrum. Some countries chose to enact very authoritarian lockdowns, and achieved success that way And other countries had fourteen months of rolling half-assed lockdowns, and have achieved a few million sick, with tens-to-hundreds of thousands dead. At this point, I can't imagine who in their right mind would prefer what we got, compared to one hard lockdown that solved the problem, requiring only minimal follow-up measures.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    Not everyone with mental health issues or depression agrees with lockdown regardless of suicide statistics.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > Not everyone with mental health issues or depression agrees with lockdown regardless of suicide statistics I don't understand this argument against public health measures. People should die because we have an unchecked mental health problem?
      - ketamine__ 6y ago
        Because getting one disease doesn't mean you get to condemn the rest of the public to misery? Look at what makes people vulnerable to Covid and you'll understand.
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      The early data suggests suicide rates dropped, so however these people feel, the fact is that fewer died from suicide. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00091-2/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...
      - ketamine__ 6y ago
        Ah, so fuck depressed people as long as they didn't die? Also, I said "regardless of suicide statistics." Did you miss that part?
Gustomaximus 6y ago
Am in Australia a country that did quite well. You answer seems very mask focused. Masks are good but my unexpert opinion of why things went well here include more; - We had strict lockdown early. - We has free and fast readily available testing. Generally fast both for walk in and get swabbed plus results back in less than 24hr both times I had a cold so got tested. - There was restricted travel, so states locked themself off from other states. This I feel had a double effect as some state leaders were US style 'cant hurt the economy' and trying to keep things open. The lockdown states essentially erraticated covid and went back to normal while keeping the other states with covid locked out. This put pressure on less strict states to deal with covid more effectively + stopped them spreading across the country via their lack of containment. - Keeping covid levels low allows contact tracing teams to work effectively on mini outbreaks and be effective. Essentially once overwhelmed govt can't deal with the issue well. - We have fast and short lockdowns as soon as there are any cases to restrict spread, these lockdowns tend to be regional or state so only parts of the country are effected. - Our population has largely supported government. Recently my state of QLD had a lockdown and people distanced in shops and wore masks without question or complaint for about 2 weeks even though there was only a handful of cases. Now it's gone and life is normal. These people online that scream about govt trying to control you seem so stupid... Deal with it quickly and you are more free. Anyway, loads more detail and while I agree masks are great tool for COVID, I think the lockdowns, testing, keeping it under control initally and fast reactions are worth recognising as key components.
- rrevo 6y ago
  You're right on the benefits of a combined strategy right from the government to personal responsibility by citizens. Indians complied with most of these in the early phases of the pandemic but got complacent later on. I wrote about some of this in my visit late March - https://rahulrevo.substack.com/p/indias-covid-conundrum https://rahulrevo.substack.com/p/indias-covid-conundrum. India is also very complex because of the diversity and scale. After this second wave is done, people will be more compliant again towards covid-safe behavior at least for a short term. Ultimately a large section of the population will need to be vaccinated to meaningfully end the pandemic.
- choward 6y ago
graeme 6y ago
Honestly I don’t think masks have been the key to success in those places that did get down to zero. Instead, the key seems to have been: * Border controls. Including internal borders in large countries. * Tests * Lockdowns implemented when needed and kept till cases zero, then lifted. These can be really short if you do it with small caseloads * Acting fast with whatever action they take. No wait and see. Masks are a great complematary tool, and they help limit the damage of reintroductions when they do happen. But if everyone wore masks but travel were open and testing was insufficient, you’d have plenty of covid.
cameldrv 6y ago
Also strict border controls with supervised hotel quarantine. The formula is: 1. Implement border controls so few/no cases get in 2. If you already have an outbreak, do a lockdown (possibly targeted to a city or province) 3. Once you have few cases, aggressively test/trace. This is not possible with lots of cases. If you have an open border though, this won't work, because you're going to import lots of cases, and those people, by the nature of being travelers, are going to be staying in hotels, eating in restaurants, taking public transit, exposing lots of people. They then leave the country and so are hard to contact trace. If you look at the countries that have the fewest per capita deaths, they essentially universally implemented early border controls with supervised quarantine for arrivals. Everyone talks about SK, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand, but there are lower income countries that succeeded with this too like Vietnam. Rwanda has also done very well with a requirement that arrivals test on arrival and undergo supervised quarantine for 24 hours while waiting for test results.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> All countries that did well during the pandemic did a few steps: - be an island. I seriously don't see how masks helped, aside from the psychological effect of "doing something."

euthuxnetux 6y ago

I hate to be that guy, but these are all measurable claims and it would benefit the discussion here if you provided references.

natenthe 6y ago
100% agreed. However, these anecdotal tales have no science and research behind them so references cannot be produced.

throwawaysea 6y ago

I think "did well" is a spectrum. Some countries chose to enact very authoritarian lockdowns, and achieved success that way. Others balanced between freedoms and restrictions. Still others have to work within the bounds of their political system - what their laws permit and don't permit. From some quick web searches, it seems to me that India did many of the things you mentioned. I'm not sure if they did all of them, or to what extent they did each one - understanding that precisely is probably not possible without being involved in those particular actions. But it doesn't seem to me like they did nothing. > ALL countries that downplayed the pandemic ended up with second or third waves. Do you think India downplayed the pandemic? I don't get the sense given that they did building by building lockdowns and have police patrols ushering people back into their homes. We should keep in mind that each country is different - they have different population sizes, city densities, wealth levels, infrastructure quality, Internet access, cultural priorities, and so on. China is not India - it has an authoritarian governmental system. Taiwan is not India - it's small and rich and is an island. I'm not sure these comparisons are fair.

vkou 6y ago
> I think "did well" is a spectrum. Some countries chose to enact very authoritarian lockdowns, and achieved success that way And other countries had fourteen months of rolling half-assed lockdowns, and have achieved a few million sick, with tens-to-hundreds of thousands dead. At this point, I can't imagine who in their right mind would prefer what we got, compared to one hard lockdown that solved the problem, requiring only minimal follow-up measures.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  Not everyone with mental health issues or depression agrees with lockdown regardless of suicide statistics.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > Not everyone with mental health issues or depression agrees with lockdown regardless of suicide statistics I don't understand this argument against public health measures. People should die because we have an unchecked mental health problem?
    - ketamine__ 6y ago
      Because getting one disease doesn't mean you get to condemn the rest of the public to misery? Look at what makes people vulnerable to Covid and you'll understand.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    The early data suggests suicide rates dropped, so however these people feel, the fact is that fewer died from suicide. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00091-2/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...
    - ketamine__ 6y ago
      Ah, so fuck depressed people as long as they didn't die? Also, I said "regardless of suicide statistics." Did you miss that part?

Gustomaximus 6y ago

Am in Australia a country that did quite well. You answer seems very mask focused. Masks are good but my unexpert opinion of why things went well here include more; - We had strict lockdown early. - We has free and fast readily available testing. Generally fast both for walk in and get swabbed plus results back in less than 24hr both times I had a cold so got tested. - There was restricted travel, so states locked themself off from other states. This I feel had a double effect as some state leaders were US style 'cant hurt the economy' and trying to keep things open. The lockdown states essentially erraticated covid and went back to normal while keeping the other states with covid locked out. This put pressure on less strict states to deal with covid more effectively + stopped them spreading across the country via their lack of containment. - Keeping covid levels low allows contact tracing teams to work effectively on mini outbreaks and be effective. Essentially once overwhelmed govt can't deal with the issue well. - We have fast and short lockdowns as soon as there are any cases to restrict spread, these lockdowns tend to be regional or state so only parts of the country are effected. - Our population has largely supported government. Recently my state of QLD had a lockdown and people distanced in shops and wore masks without question or complaint for about 2 weeks even though there was only a handful of cases. Now it's gone and life is normal. These people online that scream about govt trying to control you seem so stupid... Deal with it quickly and you are more free. Anyway, loads more detail and while I agree masks are great tool for COVID, I think the lockdowns, testing, keeping it under control initally and fast reactions are worth recognising as key components.

rrevo 6y ago
You're right on the benefits of a combined strategy right from the government to personal responsibility by citizens. Indians complied with most of these in the early phases of the pandemic but got complacent later on. I wrote about some of this in my visit late March - https://rahulrevo.substack.com/p/indias-covid-conundrum https://rahulrevo.substack.com/p/indias-covid-conundrum. India is also very complex because of the diversity and scale. After this second wave is done, people will be more compliant again towards covid-safe behavior at least for a short term. Ultimately a large section of the population will need to be vaccinated to meaningfully end the pandemic.
choward 6y ago

graeme 6y ago

Honestly I don’t think masks have been the key to success in those places that did get down to zero. Instead, the key seems to have been: * Border controls. Including internal borders in large countries. * Tests * Lockdowns implemented when needed and kept till cases zero, then lifted. These can be really short if you do it with small caseloads * Acting fast with whatever action they take. No wait and see. Masks are a great complematary tool, and they help limit the damage of reintroductions when they do happen. But if everyone wore masks but travel were open and testing was insufficient, you’d have plenty of covid.

cameldrv 6y ago

Also strict border controls with supervised hotel quarantine. The formula is: 1. Implement border controls so few/no cases get in 2. If you already have an outbreak, do a lockdown (possibly targeted to a city or province) 3. Once you have few cases, aggressively test/trace. This is not possible with lots of cases. If you have an open border though, this won't work, because you're going to import lots of cases, and those people, by the nature of being travelers, are going to be staying in hotels, eating in restaurants, taking public transit, exposing lots of people. They then leave the country and so are hard to contact trace. If you look at the countries that have the fewest per capita deaths, they essentially universally implemented early border controls with supervised quarantine for arrivals. Everyone talks about SK, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand, but there are lower income countries that succeeded with this too like Vietnam. Rwanda has also done very well with a requirement that arrivals test on arrival and undergo supervised quarantine for 24 hours while waiting for test results.

redis_mlc 6y ago

> All countries that did well during the pandemic did a few steps: - be an island. I seriously don't see how masks helped, aside from the psychological effect of "doing something."