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Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#201

Post by thomasz »

howlgarnish wrote: post #113
starkd wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's because it's an island. All the islands are doing better than whole continents. You can't contain it unless you go full bore like the chinese - locking people into their homes.

Sigh, this old canard again. Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore are all doing fine without "locking people into their homes" and they're not islands. (Ok, Singapore technically is an island but it's connected to Malaysia by the world's busiest border crossing; and Thailand's grappling with a new outbreak now but it seems to be improving.)

Look at the demographics of these countries and compare them to the United States and Europe. Throw in less detailed reporting and less transparency. We’re dealing with a virus that overwhelmingly affects old, obese people. A country like Vietnam probably wouldn't even notice the pandemic wave that currently affects Europe and the United States.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#202

Post by thomasz »

paganel wrote: post #197
howlgarnish wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh, this old canard again. Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore are all doing fine without "locking people into their homes" and they're not islands. (Ok, Singapore technically is an island but it's connected to Malaysia by the world's busiest border crossing; and Thailand's grappling with a new outbreak now but it seems to be improving.)

Maybe there's a genetic component to this virus? Which is "verboten" to be discussed and analysed because of various reasons ("race is a social construct" and all that), but at some point one has to take this into consideration too. All due respect to Laos, but I don't see it as having the needed expert infrastructure in order to keep this virus under control as well as they have. Similar discussion for Thailand.

The key is age and obesity.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#203

Post by m_mueller »

jsnell wrote: post #20
sigil wrote: post #7

As discussed on TWiV yesterday, B.1.1.7 isn't a "strain," which has demonstrably different biological properties, but is still considered a "variant." https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-697/ Any biological differences are theorized solely from the genome at this point. In the episode, Racaniello is at pains to point out that genomic differences alone don't imply biological differences in say transmission, and things li…

TWIW has kind of painted themselves into the corner by insisting that anything except biological evidence is irrelevant. The evidence for B.1.1.7 being more transmissive is quite solid, and seems to be getting more so as time goes on. But no matter how strong the statistical data is, it could never be good enough for them. So their policy recommendation ends up as "do nothing at all until there is 100% certain non-ci…

A lot of COVID discussions remind me of the history of Beri-Beri in Japan. Recommend everyone to read up on that one. Clinical purists who deny any validity to field data have cost many lifes going back longer than you think.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#204

Post by m_mueller »

InTheArena wrote: post #143
tailspin2019 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TWIW has kind of painted themselves into the corner by insisting that anything except biological evidence is irrelevant. I definitely don't know enough about this topic to say you're right, but as an avid layman listener of TWIV for 8+ months now, I've recently started thinking along the same lines. With the greatest of respect, Vincent Racaniello, while being clearly a true expert in the field, tends to take a ver…

As a long term listener of TWIV (4 years, IIRC), I think the service they have done for the community is priceless, especially once Daniel Griffin started doing his clinical updates. That said, I remember when COVID first started hitting, and their reaction was initially "meh", then like everyone else, it started to dawn on them how bad this was going to be. So still take their voices with a grain of salt. In the lat…

And then there are places like Taiwan that have kept themselves COVID free and report a grand total of 7 deaths on 22M inhabitants, without any lockdown needed and thus experiencing minimal economic impact. And yet no Western country seems to want to learn from that.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#205

Post by Izkata »

howlgarnish wrote: post #113
starkd wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's because it's an island. All the islands are doing better than whole continents. You can't contain it unless you go full bore like the chinese - locking people into their homes.

Sigh, this old canard again. Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore are all doing fine without "locking people into their homes" and they're not islands. (Ok, Singapore technically is an island but it's connected to Malaysia by the world's busiest border crossing; and Thailand's grappling with a new outbreak now but it seems to be improving.)

Thailand was doing fine, but as of this past week it broke past their quarantine.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#206

Post by m_mueller »

xg15 wrote: post #125
GregarianChild wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copy Taiwan. No country has been dealing better with Covid than Taiwan. No lockdown, and > 200 days without new Covid case [1]. Taipei had daily direct flights from Wuhan, and the Diamond Princess mooring near Taipei. They told the world early on [2] how they did it. Summary: Border closure, contract tracing, testing and controlled quarantine for those testing positive . It's worth reading [2] to realise how swiftly,…

This probably would have been good advice in late summer or early fall when contact tracing was still possible. However now there seem to be so many diffuse infection events and undetected chains that the question is more about how to regain control. I'm not sure how this is achievable without contact restrictions.

One way to regain control is to mass produce cheap rapid test kits, do a couple of mass testing events where significant percentage of population is tested to identify all clusters, isolate and trace from there. See Slovakia as an example.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#207

Post by thomasz »

carlmr wrote: post #199
Izkata wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barring post-Thanksgiving spikes, cases in the US Midwest have been dropping since mid-November. And the spikes didn't even show up in all those states. Seems like places are getting past the peak already despite the temperature still dropping.

In Germany they've been rising despite the lockdown light.

Er should avoid meaningless terms like “lokdown light” and just say that we closed bars and restaurants and told people not to meet in private, which was largely ignored.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#208

Post by Izkata »

jtxx wrote: post #47
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be some very special political reason for keeping borders with UK open, so even Fauci seem to approve it. I wonder what is it?

I’ve been thinking about this as well, they also kept their borders open to US citizens despite most countries closing them. Perhaps Brexit closing trade doors with the EU could be resulting in a stronger relationship between the US & UK?

Yeah, from a bit over a year ago: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-boris-johnson-brexit-t...

Though AFAIK it's kinda up in the air if Biden would go for the same thing.

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#209

Post by Izkata »

SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #92
bredren wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any new precedent for completely closing borders between developed nations for any reason is bad. Because it creates a “we did this before.” Even if the scale or details of circumstance are different—such as Clinton’s pardoning of his brother in minimizing Trump’s choices. Another reason is exceptions cause outrage. And there may be many instances of diplomatic or other government travel that needs to happen or happe…

Yea, slippery slope works both way, "we did not do this before", do not you think so? Remember that phrase about "the came after Jews, commies then after me"?

> Remember that phrase about "the came after Jews, commies then after me"?

Possibly better known as "first they came for", apparently officially titled "First they came..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came

Re: Mutated Covid-19 strain confirmed in Japan as case tally hits record high

#210

Post by carlmr »

thomasz wrote: post #207
carlmr wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany they've been rising despite the lockdown light.

Er should avoid meaningless terms like “lokdown light” and just say that we closed bars and restaurants and told people not to meet in private, which was largely ignored.

I agree we should have closed shops after this didn't work and then schools if that still hadn't worked. But they didn't course correct for 4 weeks where it was obviously not working.

But the people I know kept to the private rules as much or as little as during the first lockdown, which seemed to work despite keeping public transport open. Which would enable similar transmissions as shops and schools.

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