7 ms·

IMHO if you want to understand what an effective response looks like - don't look at North America or Europe. Think Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, and many p

by candu 5y ago

IMHO if you want to understand what an effective response looks like - don't look at North America or Europe. Think Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, and many parts of Africa, all of which had vastly better outcomes. Of course, I'm not an epidemiologist or public health expert, so while I have some guesses I'm not sure what exactly they did that was more effective - but there's no question that it was more effective. If I was going to look for case studies to understand what to do next time, I'd start there. If I was going to look for case studies to understand what not to do next time, well...

NicoJuicy 5y ago
Those places all have low population density or are literally islands, that's not comparable at all.
t8e56vd4ih 5y ago
> Of course, I'm not an epidemiologist and no geographer either apparently :D
- TheRealSteel 5y ago
  What do you mean?
  - danenania 5y ago
    It doesn't account for Africa, but many of best-performing countries have been island countries (Australia, NZ, Taiwan, Iceland, etc.). Islands have some fairly obvious advantages in fighting a pandemic, and it shows in the statistics. I believe Hawaii has also done much better than other US states. I'm not sure whether that's what the comment was referring to though.
    - octodog 5y ago
      None of Thailand, Vietnam and Mongolia are islands and their handling of covid is world class compared to parts of Europe and the US. These countries are also far poorer and in the case of Thailand especially that has been a major contributing factor, as they've been less able to afford closing their country to tourism.
      - jryle70 5y ago
        Both Thailand and Vietnam have been devastated economically, and even with various levels of lockdown both country is currently experiencing the highest number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Also, the vaccinated population in either country is at low single digit percentage, so no end in sight for the harsh measures. Compare that to the US or Europe where 50% of population is (partially) vaccinated and, as the result, gradually reopen.
        sellyme 5y ago
        > even with various levels of lockdown both country is currently experiencing the highest number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic. "highest number of cases" here meaning between 1 and 2 cases per million people per day. For context, the United States is currently at its lowest daily case count since June last year, which is slightly above 100 cases per million people per day. "Even with various levels of lockdown both countries have 1-2% of the case count of countries that didn't treat this seriously" isn't quite as dramatic of a statement though I guess. (all figures using the typical 7 day rolling average and data available from Mackuba)
    - droidist2 5y ago
      Yes, also South Korea is for all intents and purposes an island. It's surrounded by water, except on the North which is the most heavily militarized border in the world.
- cman1444 5y ago
  I don't think anything they said about countries/continents was incorrect was it?
orblivion 5y ago
In how many of the countries that did really well did the virus have the same head start that it had in the US and Europe before getting discovered?
- refurb 5y ago
  The real question - how many countries did well that were at the center of the prior SARS and bird flu outbreaks of the past?
  - orblivion 5y ago
    As I understand, SARS 1 and MERS are much less contagious than SARS 2.
    - refurb 5y ago
      But much more fatal. These countries had two rounds of practice in controlling a major epidemic.
- lethologica 5y ago
  How important is a head start though in these situations? If the response was poor in either case, the result would be poor, right?
  - orblivion 5y ago
    If the US had in reality on the order of 100 cases, there could be a credible effort to get rid of all of them and reopen. You wouldn't have to lock down hardcore for as long. In Australia from what I've seen fly across Twitter, they had the luxury of periodically locking down a city when they saw a single case, to make sure it didn't escape into the population. I agree that there could be a way for this to work in the US but it would be a long slog. South Korea seems like they could pull it off. So I'll grant you them for sure as being superior.
- Barrin92 5y ago
lostapathy 5y ago
I'd wait to draw any serious conclusions until after the pandemic is "over" in both countries you're comparing. It sure seems like this virus doesn't need much of a foothold to take off, and just because an island has been able to deny that so far doesn't mean they'll be able to deny the virus until they are fully vaccinated and out of the woods.
- cma 5y ago
  How about China itself?
  - lostapathy 5y ago
    I'm not sure it's fair to compare an authoritarian country to a western country that's nominally free. What western government could pull off welding doors shut the way they did in China? Even if the government had emergency powers that "allowed" it, would they have had willing workers to do it?
    - coldtea 5y ago
      >What western government could pull off welding doors shut the way they did in China? Western governments have pulled all kinds of restrictions themselves, from curfews, closed borders, and "let's close all retail businesses" restrictions, to mandatory movement monitoring. Heck, Italy might not have welded doors, but had the Army patrol to enforce strict lockdown, and citizens in northerns cities stay inside. Sometimes this even meant closing them in-house with the corpses of their dead (from covid) relatives for several days. There were several such reported cases, e.g.: https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/coronavirus-italy-woman-trapped-in-apartment-with-dead-husband-as-country-remains-in-lockdown-c-741018 https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/coronavirus-... https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/coronavirus-italy-family-trapped-in-house-with-infected-body-for-36-hours-in-naples-c-739169 https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/coronavirus-...
      - lostapathy 5y ago
greenwich26 5y ago
The average age in many African countries is in the mid teens, and we know that age is one of the strongest risk gradients. So Africa is not at all comparable with the aging West. Australia and NZ have the huge advantage of no land borders. Everything and everyone comes through a few ports and airports, which already had the infrastructure established to tightly control and monitor everything. Meanwhile most European or North American countries can't close their sprawling land borders without starving their populations. (And the U.S. couldn't close its land borders even if it wanted to.)
- vosper 5y ago
  > And the U.S. couldn't close its land borders even if it wanted to Maybe not perfectly, but surely the vast majority of traffic across land borders is at managed border crossings. The US could shut those down, put the army on any unmanaged roads/routes (don’t know if this is a thing) and stop 95% or more of land border traffic? Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference to Covid - I don’t know about that, but I do question the impossibility claim.
  - MaulingMonkey 5y ago
    The border is already closed (at least around here) to "non-essential travel". So, no crossing the border for vacationing. But "full" closure would mean blocking "essential" trade (food, oil/fuel, ...), and blocking "essential" workers that commute across the border. It could technically be done, but it'd be incredibly disruptive. Even with full legal closure, the borders are porous enough for a border wall to have been a talking point in some previous election debates. Build a mile-tall wall out of mithril, and you'd still be left with a ton of unsecured coastline, connected by some rather convenient oceans...
- rualca 5y ago
  >>And the U.S. couldn't close its land borders even if it wanted to. Given that until recently the US was quite militant in refusing to act upon the outbreak, and it's a country comprised of hundreds of million of people among which about a third showed themselves to be quite defiant towards even the most trivial emergency public health policies, I don't think it's fair to refer to border control as a relevant factor in the US's death toll.
bluekite2000 5y ago
I am here in Vietnam (and was in California a few months ago) and the difference is day and night. Lockdown is super strict here. Everyone wears mask (even when it is only a few cases out of millions). It is a 21 day mandatory quarantine (if you get approved to get in). The results speak for itself.
wunderforce 5y ago
Africa: Hot climate, poor testing, data likely not accurate Australia: Island, hot climate, pretty heavy travel/quarantine restrictions New Zealand: Island, rural with very dispersed population, heavily restricted international travel People may argue that the UK is also an island but fared much worse. To that I would say 1) Much colder climate 2) did not heavily restrict travel like AUS and NZ did.

by candu 5y ago

NicoJuicy 5y ago

Those places all have low population density or are literally islands, that's not comparable at all.

t8e56vd4ih 5y ago

> Of course, I'm not an epidemiologist and no geographer either apparently :D

TheRealSteel 5y ago
What do you mean?
- danenania 5y ago
  It doesn't account for Africa, but many of best-performing countries have been island countries (Australia, NZ, Taiwan, Iceland, etc.). Islands have some fairly obvious advantages in fighting a pandemic, and it shows in the statistics. I believe Hawaii has also done much better than other US states. I'm not sure whether that's what the comment was referring to though.
  - octodog 5y ago
    None of Thailand, Vietnam and Mongolia are islands and their handling of covid is world class compared to parts of Europe and the US. These countries are also far poorer and in the case of Thailand especially that has been a major contributing factor, as they've been less able to afford closing their country to tourism.
    - jryle70 5y ago
      Both Thailand and Vietnam have been devastated economically, and even with various levels of lockdown both country is currently experiencing the highest number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Also, the vaccinated population in either country is at low single digit percentage, so no end in sight for the harsh measures. Compare that to the US or Europe where 50% of population is (partially) vaccinated and, as the result, gradually reopen.
      - sellyme 5y ago
        > even with various levels of lockdown both country is currently experiencing the highest number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic. "highest number of cases" here meaning between 1 and 2 cases per million people per day. For context, the United States is currently at its lowest daily case count since June last year, which is slightly above 100 cases per million people per day. "Even with various levels of lockdown both countries have 1-2% of the case count of countries that didn't treat this seriously" isn't quite as dramatic of a statement though I guess. (all figures using the typical 7 day rolling average and data available from Mackuba)
  - droidist2 5y ago
    Yes, also South Korea is for all intents and purposes an island. It's surrounded by water, except on the North which is the most heavily militarized border in the world.
cman1444 5y ago
I don't think anything they said about countries/continents was incorrect was it?

orblivion 5y ago

In how many of the countries that did really well did the virus have the same head start that it had in the US and Europe before getting discovered?

refurb 5y ago
The real question - how many countries did well that were at the center of the prior SARS and bird flu outbreaks of the past?
- orblivion 5y ago
  As I understand, SARS 1 and MERS are much less contagious than SARS 2.
  - refurb 5y ago
    But much more fatal. These countries had two rounds of practice in controlling a major epidemic.
lethologica 5y ago
How important is a head start though in these situations? If the response was poor in either case, the result would be poor, right?
- orblivion 5y ago
  If the US had in reality on the order of 100 cases, there could be a credible effort to get rid of all of them and reopen. You wouldn't have to lock down hardcore for as long. In Australia from what I've seen fly across Twitter, they had the luxury of periodically locking down a city when they saw a single case, to make sure it didn't escape into the population. I agree that there could be a way for this to work in the US but it would be a long slog. South Korea seems like they could pull it off. So I'll grant you them for sure as being superior.
Barrin92 5y ago

lostapathy 5y ago

I'd wait to draw any serious conclusions until after the pandemic is "over" in both countries you're comparing. It sure seems like this virus doesn't need much of a foothold to take off, and just because an island has been able to deny that so far doesn't mean they'll be able to deny the virus until they are fully vaccinated and out of the woods.

cma 5y ago
How about China itself?
- lostapathy 5y ago
  I'm not sure it's fair to compare an authoritarian country to a western country that's nominally free. What western government could pull off welding doors shut the way they did in China? Even if the government had emergency powers that "allowed" it, would they have had willing workers to do it?
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >What western government could pull off welding doors shut the way they did in China? Western governments have pulled all kinds of restrictions themselves, from curfews, closed borders, and "let's close all retail businesses" restrictions, to mandatory movement monitoring. Heck, Italy might not have welded doors, but had the Army patrol to enforce strict lockdown, and citizens in northerns cities stay inside. Sometimes this even meant closing them in-house with the corpses of their dead (from covid) relatives for several days. There were several such reported cases, e.g.: https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/coronavirus-italy-woman-trapped-in-apartment-with-dead-husband-as-country-remains-in-lockdown-c-741018 https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/coronavirus-... https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/coronavirus-italy-family-trapped-in-house-with-infected-body-for-36-hours-in-naples-c-739169 https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/coronavirus-...
    - lostapathy 5y ago

greenwich26 5y ago

The average age in many African countries is in the mid teens, and we know that age is one of the strongest risk gradients. So Africa is not at all comparable with the aging West. Australia and NZ have the huge advantage of no land borders. Everything and everyone comes through a few ports and airports, which already had the infrastructure established to tightly control and monitor everything. Meanwhile most European or North American countries can't close their sprawling land borders without starving their populations. (And the U.S. couldn't close its land borders even if it wanted to.)

vosper 5y ago
> And the U.S. couldn't close its land borders even if it wanted to Maybe not perfectly, but surely the vast majority of traffic across land borders is at managed border crossings. The US could shut those down, put the army on any unmanaged roads/routes (don’t know if this is a thing) and stop 95% or more of land border traffic? Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference to Covid - I don’t know about that, but I do question the impossibility claim.
- MaulingMonkey 5y ago
  The border is already closed (at least around here) to "non-essential travel". So, no crossing the border for vacationing. But "full" closure would mean blocking "essential" trade (food, oil/fuel, ...), and blocking "essential" workers that commute across the border. It could technically be done, but it'd be incredibly disruptive. Even with full legal closure, the borders are porous enough for a border wall to have been a talking point in some previous election debates. Build a mile-tall wall out of mithril, and you'd still be left with a ton of unsecured coastline, connected by some rather convenient oceans...
rualca 5y ago
>>And the U.S. couldn't close its land borders even if it wanted to. Given that until recently the US was quite militant in refusing to act upon the outbreak, and it's a country comprised of hundreds of million of people among which about a third showed themselves to be quite defiant towards even the most trivial emergency public health policies, I don't think it's fair to refer to border control as a relevant factor in the US's death toll.

bluekite2000 5y ago

I am here in Vietnam (and was in California a few months ago) and the difference is day and night. Lockdown is super strict here. Everyone wears mask (even when it is only a few cases out of millions). It is a 21 day mandatory quarantine (if you get approved to get in). The results speak for itself.

wunderforce 5y ago

Africa: Hot climate, poor testing, data likely not accurate Australia: Island, hot climate, pretty heavy travel/quarantine restrictions New Zealand: Island, rural with very dispersed population, heavily restricted international travel People may argue that the UK is also an island but fared much worse. To that I would say 1) Much colder climate 2) did not heavily restrict travel like AUS and NZ did.