Article on why the West did so much worse than Asia with Covid

[cdemundo]

On 3/17/2021 at 8:00 PM, Lacessit said:

Muscle is heavier than fat.

Really?  If you are going to hold forth on scientific subjects you should at least demonstrate a grasp of middle school physical science.  Understanding basic concepts is the basis for understanding complex ones.  Is lead heavier than feathers?  Mass per unit volume is the definition of density.  No doubt you will consider this nitpicking, it is not, because understanding basic concepts is ... Nevermind.

[Surelynot]

4 minutes ago, cdemundo said:

Really?  If you are going to hold forth on scientific subjects you should at least demonstrate a grasp of middle school physical science.  Understanding basic concepts is the basis for understanding complex ones.  Is lead heavier than feathers?  Mass per unit volume is the definition of density.  No doubt you will consider this nitpicking, it is not, because understanding basic concepts is ... Nevermind.

Common misconception that weight is a property of a body ........which leads directly into misunderstandings of density.........to be fair to him........few people understand the difference between mass and weight.

I guess you could extend that further and state that only 'rest' mass could be consider a property of a body......but that then leads into a whole new world of pain.

[cmarshall]

4 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

If one were inclined you might think some in the 'West' saw an opportunity to kill off the old, the weak and the sick, make a quick buck selling stock early, buying back in as the Republicans did, backing the right companies, starting 'medical' companies (as some Tories did) and generally make hay.......all we need now is a war and their fortunes are made. 

My opinion is that the pure con man leaders, including Johnson, Bolsonaro, and Trump simply never considered for a moment working to help any one but themselves and their wealthy backers and so just continued their customary grift.  In doing so, someone like Trump failed even to pursue his own self-interest.  Had Trump simply left the management of the Covid  crisis to the public health officials, in the way that Prayut did, for example, he would still be president.  

But as Wallace-Wells points out, the failure of the West cannot be entirely due to the psychopathy of some leaders, however outstanding their contribution.  Merkel is no Trump, but Germany also failed spectacularly even if it looks good by comparison to the US.  With a few exceptions (Scandinavia, but also Greece, etc,) the West failed uniformly.  Part of the explanation for that spectacular failure seems tied to the fact that no one has written this article until now.  The performance of the West was never compared to the successful Asian countries.  While there were a few articles recounting how the Vietnamese, for example, uniquely defeated the virus, those articles never screamed out why are our own governments not doing the same?  But mostly they just ignored Asia as though it had nothing to do with us.

[Surelynot]

1 minute ago, cmarshall said:

My opinion is that the pure con man leaders, including Johnson, Bolsonaro, and Trump simply never considered for a moment working to help any one but themselves and their wealthy backers and so just continued their customary grift.  In doing so, someone like Trump failed even to pursue his own self-interest. 

Spot on........

[simon43]

53 minutes ago, huangnon said:

Great. And when do you think those rights will be reinstated?

When the pandemic is over, which currently I'd hazard to be several years at least.  But IMHO, many people living in countries with so-called free speech brought this pandemic on themselves by refusing to follow health recommendations etc.

Here in Laos, there were no recommendations - there were orders, simple as that!  People had to do as they were told and lockdown etc.

Maybe that's why Laos has had zero deaths from Covid-19 and just a few dozen cases.

With free speech comes responsibilities...

[Walker88]

The issue is much more complex than the article suggests. A host of factors account for the differences, not all of which will be clear until sufficient research is completed.

Among the many factors include, but are not limited to:

1) Slow response by many Western govts, including willful denial and obfuscation by, inter alia, the former POTUS

2) Lack of consistent behavior by populations, e.g., shunning masks because they 'are against freedom'

3) Different viral strains, some being not only more infectious, but able to deliver a more powerful infection

4) Obesity and Type II Diabetes, much more prevalent in the West (but could be obviated by quick response, as Aussie's are kind of obese but they suffered less because the govt response was faster and more strict)

5) Previous exposure to similar viruses, much more common in Asia, as many viruses of a similar nature emerged in China and spread in SE Asia; a certain immunity seems to have been selected in via evolution

6) A genetic component based on human evolution and migration over 100,000 years (the Denisovan DNA, common to Asia, seems to provide some immunity, while some Neanderthal DNA, still present in Caucasians, seems to carry greater risk; while pure African DNA, present in those whose ancestors never had relations with Neanderthals or Denisovans, seems to offer more support than those with Neanderthal DNA)

7) Climate: more sunlight (UVA) and greater humidity are natural threats to the virus, also, colder weather forces more contact among people who remain indoors with windows shut

All of those combined, though not all equally, likely will make up the final story on Covid. It is kind of a sad parlor game trying to guess how many Americans would have avoided death if the authorities had been more honest and taken the virus as seriously as experts demanded. The Covid experience also should---but likely will not---tell Americans that being obese carries all sorts of risks.

There is an irony, too, in that one of the things that contributed to American's poor experience with Covid---obesity---has actually gotten worse since the pandemic began. A recent survey found that 42% of Americans have gained an average of 29 lbs (13 kgs) since the pandemic began, and 10% of Americans have gained an astonishing 50 lbs (22.7 kgs). That is ridiculous. The rate of obesity in the US is now close to 50% of the population.

[Surelynot]

4 minutes ago, simon43 said:

When the pandemic is over, which currently I'd hazard to be several years at least.  But IMHO, many people living in countries with so-called free speech brought this pandemic on themselves by refusing to follow health recommendations etc.

Here in Laos, there were no recommendations - there were orders, simple as that!  People had to do as they were told and lockdown etc.

Maybe that's why Laos has had zero deaths from Covid-19 and just a few dozen cases.

With free speech comes responsibilities...

Bang on.......everyone demanding their rights never say anything about their responsibilities........

I want the right not to wear a mask.......what about your responsibility to protect others health?????

Edited March 19, 2021 by Surelynot

[cmarshall]

1 hour ago, Walker88 said:

The issue is much more complex than the article suggests. A host of factors account for the differences, not all of which will be clear until sufficient research is completed.

Among the many factors include, but are not limited to:

1) Slow response by many Western govts, including willful denial and obfuscation by, inter alia, the former POTUS

2) Lack of consistent behavior by populations, e.g., shunning masks because they 'are against freedom'

3) Different viral strains, some being not only more infectious, but able to deliver a more powerful infection

4) Obesity and Type II Diabetes, much more prevalent in the West (but could be obviated by quick response, as Aussie's are kind of obese but they suffered less because the govt response was faster and more strict)

5) Previous exposure to similar viruses, much more common in Asia, as many viruses of a similar nature emerged in China and spread in SE Asia; a certain immunity seems to have been selected in via evolution

6) A genetic component based on human evolution and migration over 100,000 years (the Denisovan DNA, common to Asia, seems to provide some immunity, while some Neanderthal DNA, still present in Caucasians, seems to carry greater risk; while pure African DNA, present in those whose ancestors never had relations with Neanderthals or Denisovans, seems to offer more support than those with Neanderthal DNA)

7) Climate: more sunlight (UVA) and greater humidity are natural threats to the virus, also, colder weather forces more contact among people who remain indoors with windows shut

All of those combined, though not all equally, likely will make up the final story on Covid. It is kind of a sad parlor game trying to guess how many Americans would have avoided death if the authorities had been more honest and taken the virus as seriously as experts demanded. The Covid experience also should---but likely will not---tell Americans that being obese carries all sorts of risks.

There is an irony, too, in that one of the things that contributed to American's poor experience with Covid---obesity---has actually gotten worse since the pandemic began. A recent survey found that 42% of Americans have gained an average of 29 lbs (13 kgs) since the pandemic began, and 10% of Americans have gained an astonishing 50 lbs (22.7 kgs). That is ridiculous. The rate of obesity in the US is now close to 50% of the population.

This approach may sound reasonable, but is really rather silly.  It is more likely than not that the outcomes were dominated by a single factor. 

I can illustrate this with an example from the 14th century.  The overall die off rate from the Black Death in Europe was between one third and one half of the population, but die off rates varied considerably from place to place.  Milan, however, was spared by the plague.  The reason wasn't because of climate, elevation, genetic makeup of the population, density, or any other likely sounding reason.  Milan was spared because the first two families that contracted the plague were bricked up in their houses and allowed to die within while the city gates were locked.  

Similarly, the Chinese government snuffed out Covid in Wuhan and elsewhere so promptly by the effective methods of testing, isolation, and contact tracing applied more rigorously than anywhere else that none of the other variables came into play.  

Here is my estimate of how the various factors influenced the Covid outcomes around the world:

                                                                                         accounts for variance

Effective public health measures by govt                     90% - 95%

Differential R rates of Covid strains                                    2% - 4%

obesity rate of population                                                      < 1%

Neanderthal, Denison, or Homo Erectus genes                  < 1%

weather                                                                                        < 1%

immunity from exposure to other coronaviruses               < .1%

all other factors                                                                          < 1%

 

[huangnon]

10 hours ago, simon43 said:

When the pandemic is over, which currently I'd hazard to be several years at least.  But IMHO, many people living in countries with so-called free speech brought this pandemic on themselves by refusing to follow health recommendations etc.

Here in Laos, there were no recommendations - there were orders, simple as that!  People had to do as they were told and lockdown etc.

Maybe that's why Laos has had zero deaths from Covid-19 and just a few dozen cases.

With free speech comes responsibilities...

Do you actually think that the freedoms reined in under the auspice of this pandemic will be reinstated?

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by onthedarkside
unsourced / unsubstantiated info deleted

[OswaldBastable]

2 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

I can illustrate this with an example from the 14th century.  The overall die off rate from the Black Death in Europe was between one third and one half of the population, but die off rates varied considerably from place to place.  Milan, however, was spared by the plague.  The reason wasn't because of climate, elevation, genetic makeup of the population, density, or any other likely sounding reason.  Milan was spared because the first two families that contracted the plague were bricked up in their houses and allowed to die within while the city gates were locked.  

I read that it was purely down to two genetic markers, if you had both you didn't catch it, if you had one you would be sick but have a chance of survival, if you had neither you died. All the survivors of the Black Death had genetic immunity, which is why the disease died with it's victims. 

I suspect COVID will be the same, those susceptible will die until only the immune are left.

Edited March 19, 2021 by OswaldBastable

[cmarshall]

1 minute ago, OswaldBastable said:

I read that it was purely down to two genetic markers, if you had both you didn't catch it, if you had one you would be sick but have a chance of survival, if you had neither you died. All the survivors of the Black Death had genetic immunity, which is why the disease died with it's victims. 

You completely missed the point of the story even if your two genetic markers theory is true, which I doubt.  

[OswaldBastable]

Just now, cmarshall said:

You completely missed the point of the story even if your two genetic markers theory is true, which I doubt.  

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/02/black-death-left-mark-human-genome

[cmarshall]

Here's a simpler model for people who are being distracted from the big picture by details.                   

Healthy people -> exposed people -> Covid+ people -> sick people -> dead people

Almost all of the minor factors that are drawing unwarranted attention, including genetics, blood type, obesity, genetic factors, etc. only affect people who have been exposed to the virus.  They have no effect on the exposure rate and no effect on the infection rate.

Only the variable transmission rates of the Covid strains affects the percentage of the population exposed to the disease.  The greatest correlation among all variables will be the more people exposed, the more people will die.  This relationship must dwarf all the other relationships, because each group to the right is a strict subset of the group to the left of it.

So, the second most important factor that correlates with deaths is R, the transmission rate of the dominant virus strain, because this variable affects the rate of exposed people who become Covid+.  But even this factor like all the other more minor factors only affects the outcomes for the exposed segment of the population and does not increase the number of healthy people who become exposed to the virus.

Therefore, it follows that the interventions that reduce the exposure rate in the population are clearly the most important factor and will dominate the outcome.  This explains the success of the Chinese government's approach.  They drastically limited the total exposure of the population through the exceptionally vigorous application of public health measures which, in the absence of a vaccine, are the only way to reduce the exposure level. 

It's really that simple.

Edited March 19, 2021 by cmarshall

[sirineou]

11 hours ago, cmarshall said:

The kangaroos don’t count, because the population of Australia is concentrated on the East coast.  But, it’s true that Australia has a small population.

How then do you explain this:

                                Population                          Covid deaths/million

US                          330 million                           164.11

China                     1.4 billion                             0.35

In fact, that’s a rhetorical question, since I know very well how you will explain it: China must be lying about its statistics.  First, we know that some of the American states have been deliberately under-reporting their infection and Covid death rates, since the excess death rate for the US during the Covid year is about 100,000 more than the confirmed Covid death count of 536,000.  Second, if the Chinese had a death rate anywhere approaching the American rate, they would not have been able to hide it. 

Your followup objection is likely to be: yeah, well the whole Covid thing is the fault of the Chinese to begin with.  It is true that the Chinese government screwed up by delaying announcement of the epidemic.  But that fact does not excuse the ghastly American performance.  Both the (South) Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and the Taiwan Center for Disease Control were well aware after SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2015 of the possibility of a new pandemic originating in China.  They set up their own surveillance programs monitorig signs of an outbreak in China.  Both programs identified the Covid outbreak by Dec., 2019 long before either China or the WHO made any information public.  Both agencies immediately put into action disease control plans that had been prepared years earlier.

The US CDC was also quite aware of the possibility of a new epidemic in China and had set up their own offices in China to conduct their own surveillance.  The CDC Beijing office had 54 staff members including epidemiologists.  In addition, other US agencies also had staff in China dedicated to disease response including USAID.   In 2017, the Trump government in its wisdom cut the staff of the CDC Beijing office to 14, firing all the epidemiologists and closed the USAID and other offices.

Even if the US government decided to blind itself in this fashion, it could still have had access to the best up-to-date information and organized a prompt effort at control, just by asking our Korean and Taiwanese allies to keep us informed of their observations.  But they didn’t do that and that is not the fault of China.

So, let’s look at the scorecard and see the outcomes of these different policies:

                                                Covid deaths/million

US                                          164.11

S. Korea                               3.24

Taiwan                                 0.0000004

Neither S. Korea nor Taiwan ever imposed wide-scale lockdowns.

So, yes, the atrocious loss of life in the US was almost entirely preventable and was entirely the fault of the US government.

I was simply trying to make a point in a (arguably) humorous way. 

Compacting Australia and New Zealand to the US and trying to make a value judgment is like comparing Apples and Oranges and trying to make   lemonade.  Australia has 1/13th the population of the US , and NZ has about half the population of New York City, not New York state! New York City.        In addition the US has 50 autonomous States, as compared to Australia's 6 and trying to get 5O American states to coordinate is like herding  cats.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              And though our wildlife might no include the stately Kangaroos, we did have one very fat . orange  trampus Americanus  gumming up the works. 

 I am proud to say that we have manage to coral the trumpus americanus, and we are doing much better now under new management.  ????

[Kiujunn]

On 3/17/2021 at 8:55 AM, irishman25 said:

this was NOT b.s about time someone pointed out why the superpower WEST failed to safeguard there people, because we are better then all others were super in all ways?     

As stated in the article, lethargy, indifference and arrogance of the West - in short,  decadence.

 

[Kiujunn]

8 hours ago, cmarshall said:

The performance of the West was never compared to the successful Asian countries.  While there were a few articles recounting how the Vietnamese, for example, uniquely defeated the virus, those articles never screamed out why are our own governments not doing the same?  But mostly they just ignored Asia as though it had nothing to do with us.

Because obviously,  nobody of the supermen in the West would ever compare himself to those dirty yellow Asians,  hardly considered humans. 

Thats the arrogance of the West.

Turns out, Asians are the cleaner ones. 

 

????

[simon43]

[quote]

Do you actually think that the freedoms reined in under the auspice of this pandemic will be reinstated?

[/quote]

I thought that many people in western countries simply ignored this 'reigning-in'.  So there's very little to reinstate. You reap what you sow etc.  I feel sorry for those who did adhere to the health rules and recommendations, but who have suffered because of the selfishness of others who ignored these rules.

[cmarshall]

14 hours ago, sirineou said:

I was simply trying to make a point in a (arguably) humorous way. 

Compacting Australia and New Zealand to the US and trying to make a value judgment is like comparing Apples and Oranges and trying to make   lemonade.  Australia has 1/13th the population of the US , and NZ has about half the population of New York City, not New York state! New York City.        In addition the US has 50 autonomous States, as compared to Australia's 6 and trying to get 5O American states to coordinate is like herding  cats.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              And though our wildlife might no include the stately Kangaroos, we did have one very fat . orange  trampus Americanus  gumming up the works. 

 I am proud to say that we have manage to coral the trumpus americanus, and we are doing much better now under new management.  ????

Right, and my argument is that Australia and New Zealand effectively refute the obesity hypothesis to which you reply that we can't legitimately compare populations of twenty-six million and five million with the 330 million of the US.  So, now your single-factor obesity hypothesis has morphed into the two-factor obesity plus population size hypothesis.  When I refute that by reporting the how much the US death rate dwarves that of China which is more than four times as large, your rebuttal is what exactly?  

If you still have an argument to make I don't see what it is, unless you are backing into the position that the differences in performances of the various countries are inherently beyond human understanding.

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by cmarshall

[sirineou]

10 hours ago, cmarshall said:

Right, and my argument is that Australia and New Zealand effectively refute the obesity hypothesis to which you reply that we can't legitimately compare populations of twenty-six million and five million with the 330 million of the US.  So, now your single-factor obesity hypothesis has morphed into the two-factor obesity plus population size hypothesis.  When I refute that by reporting the how much the US death rate dwarves that of China which is more than four times as large, your rebuttal is what exactly?  

If you still have an argument to make I don't see what it is, unless you are backing into the position that the differences in performances of the various countries are inherently beyond human understanding.

 

Population difference is not the only factor in the control of the pandemic, it is simply one that I used to compare one huge difference   between Australia , NZ, and the US.

There are many factors contributing in the control of the pandemic. A couple  of factors that you failed to consider in your above analysis as it pertains in the population disparity   and the role it played in the control of the pandemic are.                                                                                                           

One is that China did not have trump gumming up the works ,       Notice how the response improved after he was out of office and the adults were back in charge.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Another factor is that China has a centralized government that  affectively decided and implemented measures, where the USA as I mentioned in my original reply, has 50 autonomous states with their own political concerns that often make decisions for political reasons rather for the public good.    

PS: I wish TVF would bring back the reply format we had in the past, This new double line , silly format , fractures the flow of a response,    

Edited March 20, 2021 by sirineou

[irishman25]

4 hours ago, sirineou said:

Population difference is not the only factor in the control of the pandemic, it is simply one that I used to compare one huge difference   between Australia , NZ, and the US.

There are many factors contributing in the control of the pandemic. A couple  of factors that you failed to consider in your above analysis as it pertains in the population disparity   and the role it played in the control of the pandemic are.                                                                                                           

One is that China did not have trump gumming up the works ,       Notice how the response improved after he was out of office and the adults were back in charge.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Another factor is that China has a centralized government that  affectively decided and implemented measures, where the USA as I mentioned in my original reply, has 50 autonomous states with their own political concerns that often make decisions for political reasons rather for the public good.    

PS: I wish TVF would bring back the reply format we had in the past, This new double line , silly format , fractures the flow of a response,    

CHINA CHINA blame them for everything of course the WEST is just envy of there progress how that race of people are now making everything we need. The country's in the west from 1800 and 1900 were out to destroy the people and country example the 1930 to 1945 the Jap rape and destruction they will never forget this, O? I am not suppose to say this? if we only learn from history.   

[cdemundo]

8 hours ago, sirineou said:

One is that China did not have trump gumming up the works ,       Notice how the response improved after he was out of office and the adults were back in charge.     

exactly

[cmarshall]

11 hours ago, sirineou said:

There are many factors contributing in the control of the pandemic. A couple  of factors that you failed to consider in your above analysis as it pertains in the population disparity   and the role it played in the control of the pandemic are.       

I am not going to pursue this discussion with you further than this last post on the subject, because you seem unfamiliar with informal quantitative reasoning .  It’s not much fun to play tennis with someone who can’t hit the ball back over the net.  But even though I don’t expect you to understand it, I am going to make one more point just for the satisfaction of clarifying my own thinking.

The journalist David Wallace-Wells and I have been arguing that the dominant factor in explaining the huge difference in the Covid outcomes among the nations is the incompetence of the Western governments.  It is not a rebuttal of such an argument to claim that there there is some additional factor, such as soil salinity, that might also affect the outcome, even if it is true.  The only way effectively to rebut our claim is to show that soil salinity has a greater effect on the outcome than government incompetence.  The argument might also be rebutted by claiming that there is no dominant factor, but only minor factors.  Usually however, not all causes are equal.

Here I want only to argue against one claim: that obesity accounts for more of the variance than the competence of the government, a claim made in this post from the thread:

According to the World Obesity Foundation, the statistics are showing the countries with the highest percentage of obese people are 10 times more likely to have deaths from infection than those nations with low levels of obesity. Perhaps that explains why America was hit so badly, whereas a country like Vietnam was basically unscathed.

We know that the hierarchy of subsets of the population relative to Covid disease looks like this as exemplified by the US:

Population    Exposed to virus   Covid infected         Sickened          Dead

330 million       80 million              29.7 million           ???                   541,143

Each subset of the population is much smaller than the one to its left, which is only to say that only exposed people get infected, only infected people get sick, and only sick people die, but most people in each group do not get worse.

So how do we expect that a factor like obesity would affect Covid?  It isn’t going to lead to more exposure, nor is it likely to cause more exposures to result in infection, since so far the data indicates only that the more virus you breathe in, the more likely you are to become infected.  We know that obesity aggravates the effects of many other diseases, because metabolism is a factor in most diseases.  So, probably whatever effect obesity has is limited to increasing the likelihood of getting sick or of dying from it.

This is a table of a small selection of Failures and Successes among countries with the data relevant to this question.  We see right away that there is huge variation in success itself, i.e. Covid deaths per million.  The worst country (UK) has a death count per million more than 4000 times the death rate of the best country (Taiwan.)  Obesity rates vary also, but not as much: the worst obesity rate is ten times the lowest obesity rate.  The data for Taiwan is not at all promising for the obesity hypothesis since it has both the highest obesity rate and the lowest deaths per million!

If, as we suppose, the effect of obesity is only on the course of the disease in sick people, then that effect must show up in the Case Fatality Rate, which is the rate at which infected people die of the disease.  But the Covid Case Fatality Rates vary least of all.  In particular, the Case Fatality Rates do not vary enough to account for the very high variance in the Deaths per Million rates.  This is a relationship that if it exists, should be linear.  But it doesn’t exist.

In fact, this toy analysis indicates that none of the factors whose effect would be confined to the course of the disease is likely to explain why the West failed and Asian countries succeeded since any such effect must show up in differential Case Fatality Rates.  That would not be the case, for example, if access to effective treatment were a factor in outcomes as it is for AIDS, but there is no treatment for Covid.

So, we have to explain the huge differences in Covid deaths per million we have to look at factors that might have an effect on people who are not sick, i.e. that reduce exposure, reduce infection, or reduce symptoms among infected people.  We know that transmission is seasonal so climate or seasonal behaviors could be significant variables in transmission rates.  There might be genetic factors that make some people into asymptomatic carriers.  But that line of investigation doesn’t seem promising because most people in every country are asymptomatic carriers of Covid, unlike typhoid, for example, for which asymptomatic carriers were so rare that we still remember the name of Typhoid Mary.   So, the effect of genes is also likely also to be confined to differential rates of survival among the infected.  But, once again, we don’t see enough variation in Case Fatality Rates. 

Differential rates of transmission of the different Covid strains could be an explanation, but the timeline argues that all Covid strains spread fast enough to cause an out of control panic.  We see this in the inferences drawn from strain G, which is believed to be much more transmissible than the original D strain.  That doesn’t appear to matter though since from January, 2020 to about May, 2020 both China and the US had explosive growth in the virus.  China had the disdvantage that all the Covid strains in that period had a headstart in China including G.  Nevertheless, by May, China had already nearly completed eradication, while the US was about to get hit with the next, bigger wave of infection.

Our very limited analysis suggests that for the most part once infected with Covid populations die at approximately the same rate wherever they live.

So, the huge difference in Covid death rates is most likely explained by the differences in infection rates which are clearly due to the effectiveness or lack thereof of the public health measures.  Therefore, it’s the fault of the governments.

 

[Kiujunn]

4 hours ago, cmarshall said:

So, the huge difference in Covid death rates is most likely explained by the differences in infection rates which are clearly due to the effectiveness or lack thereof of the public health measures.  Therefore, it’s the fault of the governments.

Very true.

But don't forget "every people has the government it deserves". Governments are not imposed onto peoples by some outer force. When I speak to any Asian I know,  the attitude towards covid is just miles away from the attitude of many people I know in the West (as you can see on TVF). Asians who admire countries like the US, UK or Germany are at a loss to understand what they see on TV: Donald, Boris and German demonstrators.

I give you an example: in theory,  Taiwanese could travel to Thailand for a holiday.  But nobody, really not a single person,  is so stupid to even want that.  They know how lucky they are on their island,  and they stay put.

On the contrary,  Germans (just starting their third wave) now celebrate the possibility to again travel to Mallorca and spread infections all over Europe, just like they did last summer.  Flights are fully booked. A German friend of mine actually flies to Panama for a 2 week holiday. 

The virus is passive,  it does nothing.  It needs active behavior by humans to be transmitted. Taiwanese (and Thais, Chinese, etc) don't help the virus. Germans (and Britons, Americans...) actively propagate the virus,  willingly and knowingly. 

It's not just the government. 

[cmarshall]

1 hour ago, Kiujunn said:

Very true.

But don't forget "every people has the government it deserves". Governments are not imposed onto peoples by some outer force. When I speak to any Asian I know,  the attitude towards covid is just miles away from the attitude of many people I know in the West (as you can see on TVF). Asians who admire countries like the US, UK or Germany are at a loss to understand what they see on TV: Donald, Boris and German demonstrators.

I give you an example: in theory,  Taiwanese could travel to Thailand for a holiday.  But nobody, really not a single person,  is so stupid to even want that.  They know how lucky they are on their island,  and they stay put.

On the contrary,  Germans (just starting their third wave) now celebrate the possibility to again travel to Mallorca and spread infections all over Europe, just like they did last summer.  Flights are fully booked. A German friend of mine actually flies to Panama for a 2 week holiday. 

The virus is passive,  it does nothing.  It needs active behavior by humans to be transmitted. Taiwanese (and Thais, Chinese, etc) don't help the virus. Germans (and Britons, Americans...) actively propagate the virus,  willingly and knowingly. 

It's not just the government. 

Yes, it's true that Asian people behaved much better.  There are no protest marches against wearing masks in Asia.  But it could have been a lot more like that in the US, too.  A critical part of an effective plan to control an epidemic is that the government has to communicate with the public, has to project a consistent, clear message, and had to have credible spokespersons whom the public could trust.  Trump, Bolsonaro, and Johnson did just the opposite by grabbing the microphone themselves and lying constantly.  Taiwan and Thailand had public health doctors giving daily briefings on TV to the public explaining the plan to get public acceptance.  In the US and UK the government did the opposite by silencing the epidemiologists.

At any point had the US or UK governments announced a total, Wuhan-style lockdown of the whole nation for eight to ten weeks with compensation for lost income to businesses and households, they could have eradicated the virus and restored normal economic activity.  Wuhan shutdown for 77 days and then it was over.  If Biden had announced that program the day he took office 1500 Americans would not have died today.

[sirineou]

11 hours ago, cmarshall said:

I am not going to pursue this discussion with you further than this last post on the subject, because you seem unfamiliar with informal quantitative reasoning .  It’s not much fun to play tennis with someone who can’t hit the ball back over the net. 

is that why you play against the wall?

[Ryan754326]

On 3/17/2021 at 4:52 PM, cmarshall said:

This is one of the more ridiculous theories.  China is a large country.  The bats in question are found in the extreme western part of China.  So, it beggars belief that people in Shanghai on the East coast of China would have had any contact at all with the bats in question.  But, the facts are even worse for your theory since we understand even in Western China human contacts with bat population are a recent phenomenon brought about by increasing areas of human activity in a zone that had been wild.

To say nothing of why the Thais, Japanese, Taiwanese, New Zealanders, and Australians would have developed any resistance to pathogens originating in Western China.

By contrast malaria was widespread and endemic in West Africa for the millennia which are necessary for an adaptation like sickle cell to evolve.

Why is it so hard to believe that the Western governments have been either grossly incompetent or criminally indifferent or both?  Sometimes the obvious explanation is the right one.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03217-0

[Ryan754326]

On 3/17/2021 at 8:07 PM, cmarshall said:

The Vietnamese conducted the most extensive contact tracing program in the world: they not only traced all the contacts of anyone who tested positive, but they uniquely traced all the contacts of all those contacts.  

Cambodia did none of these things, and fared just as well as Vietnam. How do you explain their success?

It certainly wasn’t a result of effective government policies. Looks to me like dumb luck. 

 

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by Ryan754326

[cmarshall]

32 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03217-0

 

Viruses in question were found in bats, not people, and therefore not relevant to the contention that the Chinese population had evolved some adaptation against such viruses analogous to sickle cell. 

 

Bat populations are known to be reservoirs of viruses that can cross over to people, but for some reason the bats of Western China are especially risky.

Edited March 21, 2021 by cmarshall

[cmarshall]

4 minutes ago, Ryan754326 said:

Cambodia did none of these things, and fared just as well as Vietnam. How do you explain their success?

 

It certainly wasn’t a result of effective government policies. Looks to me like dumb luck. 

 

There doesn't seem to be much information about how Laos, Cambodia, or even Japan has managed the virus.  So, I have no idea.  One certainly has to wonder how reliable the data is from Laos and Cambodia.

[placeholder]

53 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

 

There doesn't seem to be much information about how Laos, Cambodia, or even Japan has managed the virus.  So, I have no idea.  One certainly has to wonder how reliable the data is from Laos and Cambodia.

Laos and Cambodia both have very underdeveloped public health systems as do many of those nations reporting very low levels of covid infection. The data from them is obviously suspect.