11–20 of 287 posts
Another effing article that completely ignores Taiwan... I’m no taiwanophile, but why is it that a first-world democracy with a successful strategy against Covid is being completely ignored by media? https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 Taiwan has huge flows of Chinese people, yet no outbreak. Maybe it’s a good thing they are not recognised by the WHO?
I think comparing Singapore, a tiny, highly urbanized island nation, with the US, a continent size country with a vast number of points of entry, is a little bit apples to oranges. Don't get me wrong, I do think that some Asian countries took great measures to contain the virus, and some western countries failed to do so, but I doubt the same measures would be equally as effective everywhere. This is relevant because…
So have Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia (440 million people). They've all had fewer cases than Luxembourg so far. I've yet to see a good explanation for it, other than maybe the premise about seasonal temps and humidity (northern vs southern hemisphere). There's no evidence they're massively lying about their numbers (which would show up in the form of a demolished hospital system and thousands dead of pneumo…
So have Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia (440 million people). They've all had fewer cases than Luxembourg so far. I've yet to see a good explanation for it, other than maybe the premise about seasonal temps and humidity (northern vs southern hemisphere). There's no evidence they're massively lying about their numbers (which would show up in the form of a demolished hospital system and thousands dead of pneumo…
Meaning - they don't have cases because they weren't testing them and weren't reporting them truthfully.
Another effing article that completely ignores Taiwan... I’m no taiwanophile, but why is it that a first-world democracy with a successful strategy against Covid is being completely ignored by media? https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 Taiwan has huge flows of Chinese people, yet no outbreak. Maybe it’s a good thing they are not recognised by the WHO?
So far. I suspect there is a lot of premature celebration when this is contained.
So have Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia (440 million people). They've all had fewer cases than Luxembourg so far. I've yet to see a good explanation for it, other than maybe the premise about seasonal temps and humidity (northern vs southern hemisphere). There's no evidence they're massively lying about their numbers (which would show up in the form of a demolished hospital system and thousands dead of pneumo…
At least initially I read that Philippines didn’t even have testing capability and had to send samples to Australia to be tested. You don’t find what you don’t look for.
That effect even showed up somewhat in Russia, in heightened pneumonia cases (they're now admitting it's likely far more widespread than the positive case results would imply). It's not easy to hide or disregard if you have high figures, which one would expect of poorer, very vulnerable nations with huge populations so close to China - unless there's another explanation. These nations didn't implement the type of disciplined system (matched with mass testing) that South Korea followed, and there's no sign of crushed healthcare systems with many thousands dead from pneumonia.
Testing more thoroughly would also provide us with a better understanding of the virus' properties, like the distribution of symptoms, severities, and mortality rate. I think one of the main reason for general fear and panic has been the alleged high mortality rate, with numbers up to 5% being mentioned. But there's a strong selection bias in those statistics (people with severe cases get tested more often), so the a…
As a cruise ship the passengers tend to be older, but the crew tend to be younger.
Doesn't matter if you test 1 million people or 10,000 people, if you aren't doing statistically significant tests, it's meaningless to draw conclusions.
Another effing article that completely ignores Taiwan... I’m no taiwanophile, but why is it that a first-world democracy with a successful strategy against Covid is being completely ignored by media? https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 Taiwan has huge flows of Chinese people, yet no outbreak. Maybe it’s a good thing they are not recognised by the WHO?
Just to be clear, Taiwan did not have huge flows of mainland Chinese soon after the outbreak though. They closed the border to all travelers with PRC passports in mid-February. They did take some drastic measures that have worked.