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Seoul's full cafes, Apple store lines show mass testing success

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Re: Seoul's full cafes, Apple store lines show mass testing success

#281

Post by nikofeyn »

teapourer wrote: post #27

To be clear, the Korean government officially still recommends social distancing. They are especially worried about the family picnics mentioned in the article, and have officially closed many public parks in response. To repeat: don't take this as a sign that Korea believes it has successfully managed the outbreak.

> To repeat: don't take this as a sign that Korea believes it has successfully managed the outbreak.

but they have successfully managed it. it's just that they're still managing it and are not done.

Re: Seoul's full cafes, Apple store lines show mass testing success

#282

Post by popcorncowboy »

zzzcpan wrote: post #93
rhino369 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no evidentiary basis for the extreme lock-down Spain is using. While this disease is pretty contagious, you are pretty unlikely to get it walking around outside or going for a run. Especially if everyone is wearing a mask. It's possible you could catch it by running through a cloud of an infected persons breath, but the risk is low enough that we shouldn't ban outside activities. The vast, vast majority of i…

This is an ancient understanding though, it ignores aerosol transmission. But you are still correct that outside is safe, there is absolutely no need to restrict it at all, it's confined poorly ventilated spaces that are a problem, like almost any building, cars, buses, planes, where the virus can concentrate in the air and close range contact isn't even needed, just breathing such air is bad enough. Wearing a mask i…

Except it doesn't spread by aerosol.

https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/modes-of-t...

Re: Seoul's full cafes, Apple store lines show mass testing success

#283

Post by brewdad »

hinkley wrote: post #211
teapourer wrote: post #27

To be clear, the Korean government officially still recommends social distancing. They are especially worried about the family picnics mentioned in the article, and have officially closed many public parks in response. To repeat: don't take this as a sign that Korea believes it has successfully managed the outbreak.

Do we know yet whether the clusters of fatalities among families are due to higher exposure rates or some genotypic susceptibility to the worst effects of the illness? Or is that just that the family clusters are good news copy (ugh) and over-represented?

Spouses wouldn't necessarily share any genetic susceptibility yet there are plenty of stories of husband and wife pairs dying. Whether these stories are over-represented, like most areas of "proof", is pretty much impossible to say for certain at this point.

Re: Seoul's full cafes, Apple store lines show mass testing success

#284

Post by stcredzero »

greedo wrote: post #234
stcredzero wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many lives could have been saved if we (western/European countries) didn’t have such an aversion to wearing face masks My wife and I were one of the few people wearing masks at the start of the pandemic, before the closing and work from home orders came. We were harassed by random people shouting at us. Also, I don't really get the societal penalty for disaster preparation. It's completely illogical. Jus…

I was in a similar position at work. I was continually pointing out from mid-January onwards, that this was a serious issue that might spread world-wide. That we should at least conduct some tests/drills to insure that our business could function remotely. I was treated like a third head had grown atop my shoulders. Jump to mid-March, when the pandemic was obvious to anyone with the least amount of curiosity, and the…

the same group was saying "It's just a flu."

Technically, not an influenza virus. However, from what we know of virus diseases that cross species, it's not the 1st time a virus with this severe capability to spread rapidly has crossed over into humans. It's also not going to be the last.

The aspect of that statement that's true, which is worse than a lie, is that, "It's just a flu," puts people in mind of a disease that's a normalized part of everyday life. It's often the case, that when a virus crosses over to our species, the situation is far more dire than normal.

IIRC, when syphilis crossed over into humans, it would flat-out kill people in 2 weeks.

Re: Seoul's full cafes, Apple store lines show mass testing success

#285

Post by lokedhs »

noobermin wrote: post #266
lokedhs wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of people entering Singapore in March were Singapore citizens returning. A lot of them were students who came back because the schools had closed. The mistake was not letting them it, but to let them self-quarantine at home. This led to them infecting other family members who then spread it further. This has changed now as anyone entering Singapore has to be quarantined in a separate facility.

Why is letting them stay where they were an issue? The country (an isolated island, Palau) where my parents are from did that even for students and it's kept covid19 from reaching there till now. Given their situation, they can't afford any cases at all until there's a vaccine. I get you care about your citizens abroad but it's clear that's where all the hotspots in sg turned up in March.

Because not letting your own citizens enter your country is something very few countries do willfully.

As I mentioned in the previous post, they now quarantine them in dedicated facilities for 2 weeks.

Re: Seoul's full cafes, Apple store lines show mass testing success

#286

Post by yongjik »

tooltalk wrote: post #278
yongjik wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As GP said in another reply, the incumbent party won a landslide victory in recent congressional election (180 out of 300 seats), so it seems South Koreans generally approve how the government handled it. (Of course the timing was fortuitous for Moon: had the election happened ~45 days ago things would have been very different.) Even for the opponents, it seems the majority criticism was that the government didn't do…

You don't have to be a conservative to see how the gov't screwed up early on -- the SK gov't went against the advice of the Korean Medical Association to restrict travel from China; instead the current Moon administration made a political decision to keep their door open to China to please Xi JinPing of China. The problem for the minority party was their link to Shincheonji, a cult responsible for the majority of all…

Well, AFAIK, expert opinions were divided: many doctors were against border closing, saying that it will cause more people to enter illegally and hide, and then we'll have a harder time tracking them. (It's just a short boat ride across the Yellow Sea from China: you can't block the entire coastline.)

We may argue which side was right in retrospect, but it's not like Moon ignored the expert consensus.

Besides, Korean Medical Association is not exactly a neutral expert organization. The current head of KMA is this guy here [1], with pickets reading "Impeachment is void! Stop framing innocent President Park! Let's rescue innocent President Park with people's power and restore her honor!" blah blah, referring to Park Geun-Hye, kicked out in 2017 after corruption scandal.

[1] https://namu.wiki/w/%ED%8C%8C%EC%9D%BC:%EC%8B%9C%EC%9C%84%ED...

Re: Seoul's full cafes, Apple store lines show mass testing success

#287

Post by lmeyerov »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #83
lmeyerov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll be replaced, but the owners, employees, and loved ones who die won't.

Eventually, but an immense amount of capital (not just in a cash sense) that allows those businesses to operate has been irreparably destroyed. Rebuilding and bootstrapping that again from almost nothing will take years in many cases. Businesses don't exist in isolation, some sectors are seeing destruction not just of the businesses but the entire institutional structure of their ecosystems, which is much harder to r…

I'm not. Plenty of countries have shown that we can reopen without killing those at risk. The false choice of saving the economy vs saving the at-risk is an entirely political position and part of the propaganda machine you've fallen for.

Unfortunately, in the US, the federal government has presented the false choice of safety vs economy. Yes there are trade-offs in tactics, but it's not one or the other. Stop playing politics, unify messaging, and increase spending money on both. I'm helping organize projectdomino.org as part of staving off the currently-likely upcoming shitstorm of reopening without public health funding, coordination, infrastructure, and compliance. I encourage aiding local causes and telling your local Republican leaders that you're tired of their shit that has now stepped up to pathogens literally attacking us at home.

Re: Seoul's full cafes, Apple store lines show mass testing success

#288

Post by lmeyerov »

collyw wrote: post #41
crimsonalucard wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the hell is this voted down? It's true. There is a sacrifice that must be made between saving lives and saving businesses that is very real. Ideally we want to save lives but there will be a line drawn somewhere where we must open up businesses again.

I have to agree on this. Just go to any country with a poorly functioning economic system, the healthcare matches it.

Reopen safely. If you can't figure that out, put someone else in charge. We've done harder things.

Re: Seoul's full cafes, Apple store lines show mass testing success

#289

Post by lurquer »

RobAtticus wrote: post #202
teruakohatu wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but no one shut down travel from Europe during March. Biggest mistake ever The USA did shut their border to a lot of Europe in early March. But at the time the WHO opposed border closure.

Kind of - it closed the borders for Europeans traveling to the US, but did little to manage Americans returning from abroad. Given March is winter in the US (thus less tourism), I would imagine the majority of Europe -> US traffic at the time is Americans returning home, that's a rather weak closure.

>I would imagine the majority of Europe -> US traffic at the time is Americans returning home, that's a rather weak closure.

Over 10 million a year from Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and UK alone. Just tourist visas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_the_United_States#V...

Re: Seoul's full cafes, Apple store lines show mass testing success

#290

Post by jariel »

bkor wrote: post #275
jariel wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" These are complex and expensive, " It's infinitely cheaper than shutting down the economy and the massive ensuing bailouts. "on the street observations in the article are: masks, masks, masks. " There is no evidence that masks are a solution. Just the opposite: contact tracing is definitely a primary driver of success. We should have enacted aggressive contact tracing and widespread testing a long time ago, and rec…

> There is no evidence that masks are a solution. Masks are not meant to solve/prevent Corona. It's meant to slow down the spread of the virus. It needs to be used in combination with other measures such as social distancing. Unfortunately the Dutch government keeps saying that masks do not help, sometimes they suggest that a mask can make things worse. The reason behind this seems to be to prevent people from steali…

No, the evidence for masks is not there.

If they did materially help, governments everywhere would support them.

The fact 'they use them in Asia' is not evidence.

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