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Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

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Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#51

Post by gassius »

thesizeofa wrote: post #28
shadowprofile77 wrote: post #22

Awful lot of privileged software engineer types with relatively cushy lockdown-friendly jobs, good income, savings, covered healthcare and good homes that leap to criticize as selfish, greedy, irresponsible and dumb anyone who insists that economic consequences from lockdown are possibly, just maybe, for many, many hundreds of millions of people all around the world something a bit more than just going short of trave…

Do you not grasp that in most countries where lockdowns took place people had government support? Do you not fathom that most countries have publicly accessible healthcare? Do you not understand that not all countries ditch their vulnerable under the bus in such unprecedented times? Is it such an alien concept the fact that us, the high earning developers pay tax precisely to help those in need? What a strange view o…

Just a friendly remainder that "government support" cost money, and governments usually[0] don't have any other source of money than taxation and borrowing, both put the burden in the productive citizens of a country, and had their limits. Very hard to see where the support will be paid off without traumatic consequences.

Of course, almost every economy is printing money as there is no tomorrow, diluting current assets dramatically, and who will suffer that most are those with fixed income like pensionist. Is a very very bad scenario that we are getting into it.

In the US, people wonder how markets are growing since the beggining of the pandemic despite the colossal impact in the real economy, there are many reasons but my contention is that people should take that growth as the new baseline of value, and see how their assets compare with that growth. The difference is how much value your assets lost in that timeframe. Printing money is the magic invisible taxation that most people don't see or complain until its too late.

[0] Maybe Norway and its massive sovereing fund is an exception, but the fund took an over 100B USD loss in the first quarter of 2020, and it will be a lot worse in the second. Even that sovereing fund, which is the gold global standard for a rainy day state fund, can be depleted very quickly with the current scenario

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#52

Post by throwaway-571 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #27
saiya-jin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering various aspects like anti-vaxers, very remote tribes etc. as true eradication with 7 billions is most probably impossible. Everybody will never get them. Also, seems like every state will have their own variant with varying effectiveness (and possibly some bad side effects), I don't see things very rosy for next few years. It will be probably good enough situation eventually, but I presume it will just be…

Considering that Covid can be lethal I’d assume anti-vaxxers would be a self-resolving problem if given enough time.

While I understand the sentiment, they don’t live in a bubble and mask work by lowering the transmission at the source, not as much at the destination. Anti-mask / anti-vaccine people can still take down science abiding citizens with them, probably faster than the disease can take _them_. I don’t wish short or long COVID on anyone.

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#53

Post by LittlePeter »

INTPenis wrote: post #26

40% of GDP from tourism. So in a perfect world now it would be time for the government to take that saved tourism money and support their citizens so they survive/stay until the next tourist season. Or borrow money from other nations to do so. And is it really sane to stay 100% covid free? I mean I would assume that when tourism starts up again it will start a wave of covid infections in these countries.

40% seems very high. Is that a worldwide average?

I found that it is around 10%: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1099933/travel-and-touri...

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#54

Post by LoSboccacc »

gassius wrote: post #29
LoSboccacc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a day ago there were estimate that anout basically everyone in NYC has having been in contact with the virus at some point and the city doesn't look like a wasteland. lethality was grossly overestimate and subsequent decision built off not only partial and incomplete data, but flat out wrong. would full lock down have been the best course of action? probably still so. but the extent and duration and especially now fo…

I find very interesting that this is being downvoted. I mean, is not even a hard negationist opinion. There is a mix of arguments and opinions in this post, in my view some are totally debatable (ie, very unlikely that everyone in NYC has been in contact with the virus, or the 'flat out wrong' characterization of the initial data), and some are totally agreeable (ie, why the issue, and the discussion of it, is politi…

> very unlikely that everyone in NYC has been in contact with the virus

in contact doesn't mean has contracted. the last round of testing showed 21% prevalence over 3000 samples; if that was the prevalence in march anyone that had more than 15 contacts has 95% chance of having been in contact with the virus by now.

> I find very interesting that this is being downvoted.

since when his high majesty Paul has christened downvoting as a valid substitute for arguing disagreement things have gone downhill. funny because they got it right for submissions. tbf climate was less toxic back then. but still, it certainly doesn't feel not up to date with the recent society changes.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#55

Post by antientropic »

gassius wrote: post #51
thesizeofa wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not grasp that in most countries where lockdowns took place people had government support? Do you not fathom that most countries have publicly accessible healthcare? Do you not understand that not all countries ditch their vulnerable under the bus in such unprecedented times? Is it such an alien concept the fact that us, the high earning developers pay tax precisely to help those in need? What a strange view o…

Just a friendly remainder that "government support" cost money, and governments usually[0] don't have any other source of money than taxation and borrowing, both put the burden in the productive citizens of a country, and had their limits. Very hard to see where the support will be paid off without traumatic consequences. Of course, almost every economy is printing money as there is no tomorrow, diluting current asse…

What assets are being "diluted dramatically"? The only asset class you mention are stocks and they're mostly up. Here in the Netherlands, housing prices have continued to rise during corona. Eurozone inflation in July was 0.4% annualized. So were is the massive dilution?

The government support you mention is for the most part financed through bonds (at very low or negative interest rates), not by "printing money".

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#56

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

shadowprofile77 wrote: post #22

Awful lot of privileged software engineer types with relatively cushy lockdown-friendly jobs, good income, savings, covered healthcare and good homes that leap to criticize as selfish, greedy, irresponsible and dumb anyone who insists that economic consequences from lockdown are possibly, just maybe, for many, many hundreds of millions of people all around the world something a bit more than just going short of trave…

Consider it a cleansing fire, setting in motion the actions needed to reach the goal inscribed in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

/me shrugs

edit: Take it like a man! https://youtu.be/7tve5qbEkv4?t=170

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#57

Post by joshuahughes »

kungato wrote: post #41
joshuahughes wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the extreme response? Thousands and thousands of folks here in the UK are losing their jobs and therefore their homes. I assume the same thing is happening elsewhere. We have safety nets, but payouts are often nowhere near enough to match income that’s been lost. It’s a real disappointment to me that HN has decided there’s only one right way to talk about the Covid response, and every other point of view is idiot…

Maybe the uk is not socialist enough

The measures that the UK government put in place are impressive, but they’ve pushed the nation’s debt to more than £2trillion. There’s no escaping the fact that we’ll be paying for these measures for generations.

This is the problem with a socialist solution. We can make things ‘fair’ now, but SOMEONE, at some point in the future, has to pay. Is it really fair that the bill for this falls on future generations? They‘re likely to still be paying off OUR debt in 50 years time. What happens if they have their own ‘Covid‘ before the bill is paid? They’ll already be on the back foot financially.

I don’t resent us helping folks now. But I do resent what it means for my kids, and their kids, and so on.

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#58

Post by joshuahughes »

ImaCake wrote: post #38
joshuahughes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“but both now and yesterday people with a wide view of the issue were basically ostracized and chased away as if they were flat earther or antivaxxer” Agreed. I’ve been quite taken aback, seeing HN’s response to Covid threads. I’ve always assumed the community was willing to ask tough questions and entertain alternative points of view that are backed by data, but with Covid there’s a complete unwillingness to think a…

Just as an alternative perspective, I fully support lockdowns. But I have noted the opposite response on here compared to your observation; lots of people are arguing against the lockdowns on HN. Maybe we see what we want to see rather than what is actually there? Seems like a typical human bias.

Yes, clearly “lots of people are arguing against the lockdowns on HN“. My point is that if you do that, you will usually get downvoted to death.

Just like everything else these days, too many people are adopting a black or white stance on a topic when actually there’s tons of murky grey in the middle. I see way too many rational and reasonable comments get totally destroyed because they dared to question the status quo. It’s an unhealthy environment to exist in.

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#59

Post by goalieca »

Animats wrote: post #2

A drop of only 5-10% in GDP? They won. They're tiny isolated islands with tourism as a major industry. How's New Zealand doing?

The funny thing about New Zealand is that the new outbreak has genetics unique to New Zealand. It’s very likely that they never actually rid themselves of it and that it had time to mutate. It could be seen as a warning that suppression works only so long as you keep suppressing even under relatively ideal conditions.

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#60

Post by blaser-waffle »

sradman wrote: post #50
nearting wrote: post #19

The ten countries: Palau, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Samoa, Vanuatu, Tonga

Some of these are top scuba diving destinations. They depend on regional air hubs, all presumably closed to non-essential connecting flights. I wonder if these ten nations, all Melanesian/Polynesian with historical ties to the Anglo sphere, represent a true COVID-19 resistant pattern or are just reporting anomalies.

> represent a true COVID-19 resistant pattern or are just reporting anomalies.

Probably anomalies. We're talking small, small population groups on isolated islands.

I mean it's possible there is a Polynesian DNA thing that helps make them resistant, sort of a smallpox-in-reverse advantage, but my money says it's just because 1) super isolated, and 2) because of point 1 they can very effectively filter traffic and quarantine those who are questionable.

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