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Covid: Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working

bbc.com

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Re: Covid: Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working

#51

Post by ch4s3 »

orwin wrote: post #29
ch4s3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan and Canada seem to have done relatively well, as have the Nordic countries (perhaps with the exception of Sweden which is TBD). The Baltic nations have done reasonably well too. Looking outside of Europe and the OECD, African democracies like Rawanda have kept the virus in check without draconian measures. Having good or at least recently tested public health infrastructure and lucking into a good head of state…

Japan/Korea are not as liberal as US/western europe though. And danemark/norway/sweden/finland or the baltic countries in general are more socialist that enven France, really.

Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Estonia all rank higher in economic freedom than the US and have more direct democracies. The US literally wrote Japan's constitution. France stands out as having the most powerful executive branch of any of these countries.

Re: Covid: Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working

#52

Post by m0zg »

axolttl88 wrote: post #22
cultus wrote: post #18

Trump gets most of the attention, but this whole pandemic has laid plain how liberal republics have been hollowed out by neoliberalism over the past few decades. The capability for broad, fast, collective action has been all-but wiped out, even in the supposedly enlightened and well-run countries of Western Europe. The nations that defeated fascism are crippled by a far weaker threat. I can't think of another liberal…

Australia. After a (relatively) small second wave spike in one of the states (Victoria) which is now under control, there are very few cases of community transmission. It’s the result of a combination of: controlled island borders, unpopular but effective internal hard borders between some states, mandatory managed hotel quarantine for inbound passengers, well-executed contact tracing by health departments, broad acc…

> which is now under control

Famous last words. See e.g. France.

Re: Covid: Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working

#53

Post by anoncake »

corty wrote: post #7
chrisco255 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's an election year, unfortunately.

Not in the rest of the world, but it still looks similar. I guess it is just incompetent politicians and bureaucrats being overwhelmed by things.

They're no worse than anyone else. Practically the entire population is panicking.

Re: Covid: Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working

#54

Post by mannykannot »

makomk wrote: post #39
x3iv130f wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if mask wearing is the biggest factor and more generally, willingness to comply with restrictions due to experiencing SARS. Japan's politicans are no less incompetent than other 1st world countries and geographically they should be much worse off but their cases are way down compared to other places.

I'm not sure Japan had a geographical disadvantage. Generally speaking, the closer countries were to Italy the worse they seemed to do at least at first, and Japan is a long way from Italy.

The physical-proximity model has a problem with Italy’s distance from China.

Re: Covid: Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working

#55

Post by justusw »

slaw wrote: post #47

Sweden and Belarus handled pandemic by not doing lockdowns. In Sweden for the last 3 months only 0-3 people a day die with covid-19. There is no second wave like in other European countries. https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/se

Interesting to hear about Belarus. Did you find more resources that detail their approach to dealing with COVID-19?

Re: Covid: Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working

#56

Post by mannykannot »

cultus wrote: post #18

Trump gets most of the attention, but this whole pandemic has laid plain how liberal republics have been hollowed out by neoliberalism over the past few decades. The capability for broad, fast, collective action has been all-but wiped out, even in the supposedly enlightened and well-run countries of Western Europe. The nations that defeated fascism are crippled by a far weaker threat. I can't think of another liberal…

In the US, that “the capability for broad, fast, collective action has been all-but wiped out” is not a consequence of liberalism, neo- or otherwise, but of a deliberate strategy of those most vehemently opposed to it in any form (real or imagined.)

Re: Covid: Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working

#57

Post by harambae »

justusw wrote: post #55
slaw wrote: post #47

Sweden and Belarus handled pandemic by not doing lockdowns. In Sweden for the last 3 months only 0-3 people a day die with covid-19. There is no second wave like in other European countries. https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/se

Interesting to hear about Belarus. Did you find more resources that detail their approach to dealing with COVID-19?

Not sure if this is what you're looking for or not, but Belarus nightclubs are still open: https://djtechtools.com/2020/07/27/clubbing-in-the-covid-19-...

(I have friends in Belarus who have confirmed this as well)

I have to imagine any place with nightclubs open indoors doesn't care too much anywhere.

Re: Covid: Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working

#58

Post by nradov »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #46
nradov wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official case numbers in Japan probably drastically undercount the number of infections due to limited testing. A recent antibody seroprevalence study found 46% positive. It wasn't a truly random sample but had a large study population from multiple locations. If mask wearing is such a big factor than how did so many people get infected? https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.21.20198796v...

Because Japan's population is so elderly, any severe undercount of infections would show up as very large excess mortality, but that hasn't been observed.

Then how do you explain the study results linked above?

Re: Covid: Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working

#59

Post by kingofpandora »

PunchTornado wrote: post #23
jb1991 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iceland has done relatively well from what I've read.

Iceland is a remote island of 300k people with very low density. Giving it as an example is disingenuous.

But most of the population is concentrated in a rather small area, which national-level population density statics don't capture.

Re: Covid: Belgian doctors with coronavirus asked to keep working

#60

Post by harambae »

mannykannot wrote: post #54
makomk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure Japan had a geographical disadvantage. Generally speaking, the closer countries were to Italy the worse they seemed to do at least at first, and Japan is a long way from Italy.

The physical-proximity model has a problem with Italy’s distance from China.

There were workers in the Italian fashion industry who came straight from Wuhan. That was the whole reason they had a step-function for initial infection.
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