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How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

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Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#101

Post by SuoDuanDao »

mcsb4 wrote: post #21

Again another article that doesn't even mention the use of masks and hand sanitizer. The cost of the epidemic now goes into the trillions, self-made cotton masks are cheap compared to the economic damage. They can be disinfected in boiling water and if everybody uses them they will help to stop the spreading of the virus. In all the countries mentioned in the article people wear masks when in public, often just again…

It looks to me like a bit of an indication who has the most social capital. China was late to the party because the local chief of police overrode the doctors during the early days of the crisis.

The rejection of masks looks to me like a similar prioritization of law enforcement's preferences over public health.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#103

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

mikemotherwell wrote: post #81
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then WHY ARE SO MANY EXPERTS TELLING US WHAT I QUOTED? What you say (and others too) makes sense to me and I could well believe it true, but I'm NOT claiming that masks are useless unless you are infected, I'M ASKING IF ANYBODY KNOWS WHY EXPERTS ARE SAYING OTHERWISE (or whether I just heard an unluckily skewed sample) Plus, I also asked for a citation to back up the poster's position, not common-sense arguments (whic…

Masks may be 100% irrelevant for healthy people, but we have asymptomatic people. There is no way to ascertain who is healthy, ergo "healthy people don't need masks" is practically redundant. What am I missing? Oh, and you want citations, sorry, my bad: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4p... - 30 some citations on masks.

> What am I missing?

See my reply https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22701821 Mind, I just don't know if what I'm saying there holds water.

Citations are good, following up!

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#104

Post by tooltalk »

mschuster91 wrote: post #10

The thing is, South Korea (and many other Asian countries cited as having handled COVID19 relatively well, such as Taiwan, HK, Singapore, Japan) have all learned from the 2003 SARS epidemic and others, while the Western countries did not. This is not just in terms of politics/preparation to disasters, but also in the civilization - in Asia even the most radical and extreme measures are accepted by the population as e…

> in Asia even the most radical and extreme measures are accepted by the population as everyone there knows what a pandemic can cause,

Well, yes and no. They might have been more willing to accept that 30-40 years ago, but definitely not these days. They've been always known for militant labor unions, religious fanatics, and political extremism -- the last two attributed to the outbreak in South Korea this time around. There are still religious groups defying the gov't's plea not to hold mass services in South Korea today.

> in many Western countries healthcare systems have been wrecked by neoliberalism profit-first ...

South Korea suffered a much smaller coronavirus, MERS, not too long ago and they found out that they were awfully unprepared for a public health crisis of that scale (only 130+ were infected and 30+ death), so they spent the next several years preparing for the "next" crisis. Their gov't removed all potential legal/legislative barriers that had hindered their response last time around and private biotech companies started working on reagents and the medical infrastructure almost as soon as the outbreak in Wuhan became known.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#105

Post by [deleted] »

bawolff wrote: post #43
angarg12 wrote: post #3

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…

Why is it anytime usa screws up its because its a diverse nation that's different from all the other nations? Maybe sometimes the USA is just incompetent and usually it can get away with being incompetent without consequence because nobody wants to poke the 800lb gorilla, but sometimes consequences do happen.

[deleted]

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#106

Post by SuoDuanDao »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #70
mikemotherwell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume healthy people do not need a mask. In fact, let's take it as Gospel, and the statement "Healthy people have no use for a mask" as absolutely true. Given we know there are people with COVID-19 who are asymptomatic, any "Healthy people have no use for a mask" can simultaneously be true, and be practically irrelevant, as any definition of "healthy people" is necessarily impossible to prove. You simply can n…

Then WHY ARE SO MANY EXPERTS TELLING US WHAT I QUOTED? What you say (and others too) makes sense to me and I could well believe it true, but I'm NOT claiming that masks are useless unless you are infected, I'M ASKING IF ANYBODY KNOWS WHY EXPERTS ARE SAYING OTHERWISE (or whether I just heard an unluckily skewed sample) Plus, I also asked for a citation to back up the poster's position, not common-sense arguments (whic…

I imagine to prevent mask shortages and to make law enforcement easier.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#107

Post by logicchains »

adventured wrote: post #27
izacus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was following Thailand (due to now cancelled trip) and it seemed they used the "turn off monitoring in production" approach to solving this crisis. Meaning - they don't have cases because they weren't testing them and weren't reporting them truthfully.

It's a consideration. However, where is the million dead people that should be happening between these nations given the 440 million people? The virus would be destroying them at this point. We've seen what it can do in Italy, the US, Germany, France, etc. in terms of spreading and hitting ICU units, killing people. It has a 10% mortality rate despite Italy's best efforts, and a 5.7% mortality rate in France (among p…

Check the population pyramid for these countries. They have a way smaller fraction of old people, and a way larger fraction of young people. This has a big effect on fatality rates.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#108

Post by rfrey »

rat9988 wrote: post #77
aneutron wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please attest to the correctness of the news about the Czech government stealing a shipment of masks that was meant to be delivered to Italy [1] ? If so, is there something the "outsiders" are missing (e.g. some political bs between the two countries) ? Or is it just plain old theft ? [1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-czech-...

Why does he have to? You can do your research on internet nowadays and be just as well informed as him.

A good faith interpretation of aneutron's comment is that they heard this report on Reuters; saw the author is from the Czech Republic and thought it was a good opportunity to find out about "local news" on the issue to get a different perspective.

Agree it sounded confrontational, but it probably wasn't.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#109

Post by logicchains »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #65
Tepix wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, containing a pandemic in a large city is much harder than doing so in the countryside.

Singapore is very dense but it is also very authoritarian. They can take measures that would be both legally and socially unthinkable in the United States.

Yes, they just recently shut bars and clubs, and forced restaurants to allow one meter of spacing between patrons. I can't imagine American governments ever doing something so authoritarian.

Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down

#110

Post by dirtyid »

tooltalk wrote: post #97
dirtyid wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What stereotype are you referring to?

> ... compliant population with mandatory civil service and memory of recent authoritarian government, can mobilize techno-authoritarian surveillance. ...

Isn't it relative to western countries? S.Korea is like Israel, a large part of the population with civil service experience who can follow instructions, but also some religious fanatics / cults who don't give a fuck. The government has more accessible, non-emergency options to crackdown, last I heard Korean officials is trying to contain the cults via lawsuit and criminal charges. Can you imagine US suing a church, arresting a pastor for holding congregation? In Canada we have been trying to recall our citizens abroad and it wasn't until things got bad that 1million+ snow birds decided to return. Prior to that kids were going on spring break. No one took things seriously until last week after a month escalating warnings. And this is in a city with SARS experience. Down south is even more of a shit show. As for techno-authoritarian surveillance - health officials cross referencing CCTV footage, location data and cred card reports - that would not fly here as a "public" option which is why it's rarely mentioned in any of these TEST OFTEN and contact trace articles. The uninformed would attribute those techniques to China. The informed would immediately understand that wouldn't work in many western countries without massive legislative overhaul.
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