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I see a lot of articles about how government reactions were good or bad for COVID. I have seen nothing regarding how a country's environment and population dens

I see a lot of articles about how government reactions were good or bad for COVID. I have seen nothing regarding how a country's environment and population density affect COVID, I guess it is hard to push an agenda with that narrative. It seems the country's that "responded" the best all have low population density and/or are physically isolated from other countries. I see people praising leadership from places like New Zealand and South Korea, but maybe it is just easy to keep people out of these places.

lrgzdmn 5y ago
> I have seen nothing regarding how a country's environment and population density affect COVID This article does address that.
alliao 5y ago
South Korea/Taiwan don't have low population density. Best response comes from states with educated citizens with good basic hygiene and understanding of exponential so are able to accept early intervention. NZ have the benefit of citizens actually trust the government; bit of a wet dream for many politicians around the world.
- frankbreetz 5y ago
  It seems improbable that all the best responses were all effectively isolated island nations. I think they may have another advantage.
  - lmm 5y ago
    This article is coming from Britain which is also an island nation, yet had a significantly worse pandemic experience.
qayxc 5y ago
> I see people praising leadership from places like New Zealand and South Korea, but maybe it is just easy to keep people out of these places. There's two components to this. The first is indeed that both countries are relatively isolated islands. Yes, South Korea is technically a peninsula, but the part that connects it to the mainland is separated by the best guarded border in the world, so... But the second component is how the situation was (and still is) handled: instead of waiting for exponential growth of the rate of new infections, both countries went into full emergency mode immediately. South Korea in particular applied lessons learned during the SARS crisis about a decade earlier and invested heavily in automated testing equipment, etc. In Europe, one of the critical failures was the inability to quickly and cost-effectively ramp up testing due to the lack of automated lab equipment. Other critical aspects of disease control included traceability, which worked exceptionally well in South Korea due to the excellent cell coverage and prevalence of smartphone app usage (plus permissive and practical data protection laws) and willing participation and support of the population. New Zealand is quick to order measures even if a single case is being reported. This prevents exponential spreading and keeps measures such as lock-downs short and reduces the overall negative impact. So it's really not just the location, but a number of measures that most other countries simply failed to take. The geography helps a lot, though, no question.

lrgzdmn 5y ago

> I have seen nothing regarding how a country's environment and population density affect COVID This article does address that.

alliao 5y ago

South Korea/Taiwan don't have low population density. Best response comes from states with educated citizens with good basic hygiene and understanding of exponential so are able to accept early intervention. NZ have the benefit of citizens actually trust the government; bit of a wet dream for many politicians around the world.

frankbreetz 5y ago
It seems improbable that all the best responses were all effectively isolated island nations. I think they may have another advantage.
- lmm 5y ago
  This article is coming from Britain which is also an island nation, yet had a significantly worse pandemic experience.

qayxc 5y ago

> I see people praising leadership from places like New Zealand and South Korea, but maybe it is just easy to keep people out of these places. There's two components to this. The first is indeed that both countries are relatively isolated islands. Yes, South Korea is technically a peninsula, but the part that connects it to the mainland is separated by the best guarded border in the world, so... But the second component is how the situation was (and still is) handled: instead of waiting for exponential growth of the rate of new infections, both countries went into full emergency mode immediately. South Korea in particular applied lessons learned during the SARS crisis about a decade earlier and invested heavily in automated testing equipment, etc. In Europe, one of the critical failures was the inability to quickly and cost-effectively ramp up testing due to the lack of automated lab equipment. Other critical aspects of disease control included traceability, which worked exceptionally well in South Korea due to the excellent cell coverage and prevalence of smartphone app usage (plus permissive and practical data protection laws) and willing participation and support of the population. New Zealand is quick to order measures even if a single case is being reported. This prevents exponential spreading and keeps measures such as lock-downs short and reduces the overall negative impact. So it's really not just the location, but a number of measures that most other countries simply failed to take. The geography helps a lot, though, no question.