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I do recall reading that South Korea does not kid around with it's contact tracing, which was the reason why it went from flareups with the night club patrons,

by calyth2018 5y ago

I do recall reading that South Korea does not kid around with it's contact tracing, which was the reason why it went from flareups with the night club patrons, to having things under control. In comparison, countries like Canada (which I'm in) and US, does a half-hearted job in contact tracing. We rolled out the COVID Alert app, which is supposed to balance privacy concerns with the need for contact tracing, but now with Omicron burning through all the provinces, most have shifted to only PCR testing people in high-risk groups. And having a PCR testing from public health is the only way to get the one time key to fire off the alerts. North America could barely get masks going, paid lip service to contact tracing...

nostrebored 5y ago
South Korea released propaganda, which you bought, and are still buying years after seeing empirically that it makes no sense. Australia implemented absolutely dystopian contact tracing decisions, countrywide lockdowns, left its citizens abroad, and it's still clear that every single person in that country is going to get COVID. It will be endemic, just like it is everywhere else. Even worse, the country has by-and-large taken a vaccine which gives them resistance to a spike protein that is not the most common in today's COVID cases. Recent (simian) experimentation has shown that the Omicron booster is not effective for previously vaccinated individuals. You will not see long term differences in outcomes between Canada, the US, and countries like South Korea or Australia. Our measures did not work, do not work, and are exclusively security theater. Countries which 'have things under control' are either extremely ruthless in their lockdown and travel approach, and have deferred pain, or are lying on the numbers.
- JSavageOne 5y ago
  I don't think it's fair to dismiss South Korea's results as propaganda. They do indeed have serious contact tracing. I'm not sure how it is now, but when I was in Korea in March-June 2020, there was a website where anyone could see literally every positive COVID case (anonymized), and everywhere they'd been over the last 2 weeks. They obtain this information via credit card transactions and such because they know that that is more reliable than personal testimony's. Although this would be a non-starter in the U.S due to privacy concerns, I don't deny that this was probably effective. At the same time I imagine cases were drastically underreported because testing positive would result in your whole office shutting down, potentially getting one fired. So there's no incentive to get tested unless you have no choice.
dhosek 5y ago
Apple and Google created a pretty amazing contact-tracing protocol which has gotten pretty much no uptake in the US. It aggravates me to no end.
- calyth2018 5y ago
  There's barely any uptake in Canada. Not that it matters, the only way you'd get a one-time key to trigger alerts for others is through a PCR test, which public health, as of this moment, will not do PCR test for symptomatic people unless they're in a high risk group. Went and donate blood mid Dec 2021, it's one of the things that I kept up, because people still need that stuff. 10 days later, I get a email from them saying that I may have been exposed. While it's nice that they notify me, it's not from public health's contact tracing. We've tried nothing and it doesn't work.

nostrebored 5y ago

South Korea released propaganda, which you bought, and are still buying years after seeing empirically that it makes no sense. Australia implemented absolutely dystopian contact tracing decisions, countrywide lockdowns, left its citizens abroad, and it's still clear that every single person in that country is going to get COVID. It will be endemic, just like it is everywhere else. Even worse, the country has by-and-large taken a vaccine which gives them resistance to a spike protein that is not the most common in today's COVID cases. Recent (simian) experimentation has shown that the Omicron booster is not effective for previously vaccinated individuals. You will not see long term differences in outcomes between Canada, the US, and countries like South Korea or Australia. Our measures did not work, do not work, and are exclusively security theater. Countries which 'have things under control' are either extremely ruthless in their lockdown and travel approach, and have deferred pain, or are lying on the numbers.

JSavageOne 5y ago
I don't think it's fair to dismiss South Korea's results as propaganda. They do indeed have serious contact tracing. I'm not sure how it is now, but when I was in Korea in March-June 2020, there was a website where anyone could see literally every positive COVID case (anonymized), and everywhere they'd been over the last 2 weeks. They obtain this information via credit card transactions and such because they know that that is more reliable than personal testimony's. Although this would be a non-starter in the U.S due to privacy concerns, I don't deny that this was probably effective. At the same time I imagine cases were drastically underreported because testing positive would result in your whole office shutting down, potentially getting one fired. So there's no incentive to get tested unless you have no choice.

dhosek 5y ago

Apple and Google created a pretty amazing contact-tracing protocol which has gotten pretty much no uptake in the US. It aggravates me to no end.

calyth2018 5y ago
There's barely any uptake in Canada. Not that it matters, the only way you'd get a one-time key to trigger alerts for others is through a PCR test, which public health, as of this moment, will not do PCR test for symptomatic people unless they're in a high risk group. Went and donate blood mid Dec 2021, it's one of the things that I kept up, because people still need that stuff. 10 days later, I get a email from them saying that I may have been exposed. While it's nice that they notify me, it's not from public health's contact tracing. We've tried nothing and it doesn't work.