Apparently it is relatively easy to control this virus during the summer, and almost impossible during the winter. Australia's summer seems to be helping it a good deal, even as winter in the northern hemisphere is making things much worse.
No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday
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Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday
#32Another thing that's helping Australia is that they're heading into summer. Normalized by population the worst non-tiny (10M+) countries to be right now seem to be France, Italy, Belgium and Poland. And it'd be even worse in France, Italy and Poland in terms of new cases if they had the kind of testing throughput the US has been able to muster (1.24M tests a day). Belgium has comparable normalized test throughput. As…
On a side note are there any sites that lists country level data about cases per day, normalised to population density?
Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday
#33It is important to point out that Coronavirus emerged when the Northern hemisphere was still in Winter and early spring, a time where viruses can extremely thrive and now the Northern hemisphere is seeing a second wave because we still don’t have a vaccine and are entering a full new winter with COVID. The southern hemisphere had only to battle COVID for a single Winter, and that delayed too, having had already the a…
We Europeans sure learned our lesson in spring...ohwait
You are still disadvantaged against nature. We know that being more outdoors and having your windows more open is helping to reduce infections, but when you are entering Winter then a lot of the knowledge we have won’t stop the fact that infections will still rise due to the change in our behaviour in cold weather. It’s just a fact of life, the entire world sees infection spikes of other viruses (flu and so on) in Winters and therefore it’s not helpful to make sarcastic finger pointing comments when we all have accepted this as a fact of life and know this is just how it is.
Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday
#34Apparently it is relatively easy to control this virus during the summer, and almost impossible during the winter. Australia's summer seems to be helping it a good deal, even as winter in the northern hemisphere is making things much worse.
I'll check back here in 12 months when Americas cases never stop rising
Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is Europe's status something to care about in the U.S.? China is basically operating on all cylinders right now. It's insane how people in the U.S. don't get the damage that's being done on literally all fronts right now. The past year has had irreparable damage to the U.S. It's hard to know where to even start, from slow production due to job loss and just everything going slower, poor health due to active cases…
Not long ago, it was popular to criticize the US's handling of the pandemic as a failure. Seeing the surge of cases in Europe makes what the US is going through look less exceptional and more expected. There's also no reason to think the level of containment China achieved is politically attainable in the west. Realizing it's "only" 180 cases, yes, China is firing on all cylinders: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2…
Doesn't "the west" include Australia? I would think Australia and New Zealand count, and they've done a pretty good job. Canada has done a relatively poor job by international standards, but still much better than the US and the UK, who have both been roundly criticized in the Anglosphere.
Although parts of continental Europe are struggling, there are others that have done okay - Norway and Finland, for example.
Outside of "the west", democratic countries in East Asia like Taiwan, South Korea and Japan have done alright too. Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand have their political issues, but they're less authoritarian than Vietnam and China - the whole lot of them are doing well. Most of Africa is too. South America, not so much.
So, it's not just about politics, and it's not just about geographic location, and it's not just about climate.
It will be interesting to see the analysis after all this is over. There must be something we can learn from why it was that certain countries failed at managing this virus while others succeeded.
Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday
#36If you told six month ago me that we'd be treating people who are high risk of this disease the same as people with low risk I would have been in complete disbelief.
Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday
#37It is important to point out that Coronavirus emerged when the Northern hemisphere was still in Winter and early spring, a time where viruses can extremely thrive and now the Northern hemisphere is seeing a second wave because we still don’t have a vaccine and are entering a full new winter with COVID. The southern hemisphere had only to battle COVID for a single Winter, and that delayed too, having had already the a…
It makes sense that winter makes things worse, but if weather were the only factor, why is South America seeing far more cases than Australia?
Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday
#38To those citing weather as a likely influence, I'm not sure I agree. Given the graph provided by the linked site, it looks like cases started really dipping in late August. August and September are still bloody cold in Melbourne, where most of the cases have been recorded. Additionally, Australia is heading into a La Nina summer, generally characterised by a slower onset of warmer weather and greater average rainfall…
Yes, it was Winter and they were in a four month lockdown. Let me repeat, a FOUR MONTH lockdown. That is a bloody long time so anything but a huge dip during a four month lockdown would just be bizarre. Now they have summer, cases a low after a lockdown and due to the weather cases will remain low like we've seen in Summer across all of Europe, regardless what measures countries have taken. If Europe was to spend 4 months out of their Winter in lockdown, then cases will drop there too.
Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday
#39It is important to point out that Coronavirus emerged when the Northern hemisphere was still in Winter and early spring, a time where viruses can extremely thrive and now the Northern hemisphere is seeing a second wave because we still don’t have a vaccine and are entering a full new winter with COVID. The southern hemisphere had only to battle COVID for a single Winter, and that delayed too, having had already the a…
It makes sense that winter makes things worse, but if weather were the only factor, why is South America seeing far more cases than Australia?
Because Australia suppressed the virus as much as they could with a very long lockdown. South America didn't, so they started with complete different baselines into their summers.
Re: No new locally-acquired coronavirus cases in Australia yesterday
#40Apparently it is relatively easy to control this virus during the summer, and almost impossible during the winter. Australia's summer seems to be helping it a good deal, even as winter in the northern hemisphere is making things much worse.
Checking in from Sydney here, summer is still a month away, my family is snuggled on the lounge under blankets right now.
The result comes down to a competent government response to a public health crisis. Not the weather.