South Korea has had 2044 deaths, out of 51.7 million people. That's a death rate surely under the usual "flu and pneumonia" rate. I don't understand, I really don't. I anybody can explain, I'd very much appreciate.
There is absolutely no question that SK's strict prevention measures are the cause of that. They were very strict from day one, no doubt because they were hit hard by SARS-CoV-1.
Really? "no question"? Aren't they also much healthier than, for instance, Americans? 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic, so I've heard recently.
South Korea has had 2044 deaths, out of 51.7 million people. That's a death rate surely under the usual "flu and pneumonia" rate. I don't understand, I really don't. I anybody can explain, I'd very much appreciate.
What's not to understand? The numbers in Korea are low because everyone is willing to sacrifice their personal freedom and convenience for the common good. They vigilantly wear masks, socially distance, follow guidelines, and abstain from K-Pop dancing at gyms and running fast on the treadmill when their health departments ask that of them. Americans will happily let more people die if it means they get to go to the gym without a mask. It's really that simple.
"Free Democracies" are passing the weirdest restrictions. It's mind boggling just how much power our governments are allowed to wield. I'm not even a libertarian and I think this is government overreach. So you're going to allow people to work out in gyms, but playing music that's too fast is somehow too dangerous to allow? Come on. If it was a real problem you'd just close the gyms again.
I don't follow this argument. By your own argument, the government could simply close the gyms - and it even has the power! But because they feared political backlash (this wonderful thing called "democracy"), the government made a stupid compromise and settled with a lesser (and less effective) restriction, and this proves that the government has too much power?
South Korea has had 2044 deaths, out of 51.7 million people. That's a death rate surely under the usual "flu and pneumonia" rate. I don't understand, I really don't. I anybody can explain, I'd very much appreciate.
It's behavioural modification, and it actually works. The aim is to encourage people to do certain things. To that end, restricting various things which on their own seem nonsensical, actually becomes justified if it changes behaviour. It's also "optics" which is mainly psychological.
I happen to believe it's only optics, and frankly am disturbed to find myself in a fully postmodern society where only appearances and posturing matter.
The actual title of the article: Say goodbye to Gangnam Style, treadmill running for next 2 weeks: Some Level 4 distancing rules being called ‘illogical, nonsensical’ "Under Level 4 rules, taking showers within fitness club premises is prohibited and only a limited number of users are allowed in each area at a time. At the same time, the running speed on treadmills is capped at 6 kilometers per hour. Music played at…
6 kilometers per hour is a fast walk. That's wild.
It's possible to jog at that speed if you try hard - I've been doing some low heart rate training recently and can get down to 11m/km while still jogging, and I'm pretty tall so the biomechanics are weird.
This is what we call "compromise"; when you've got a reasonable position on one side, a reasonable position on the other, and the solution is to meet in the middle and produce policy which is totally unreasonable and makes no one happy.
This reminds me of how grocery stores were allowed to remain open, but the greeting card aisle was taped off because they didn't want people going to birthday parties. It felt like insanity, what if I wanted to send a card in-lieu of going to a gathering? Didn't matter. They weren't going to sell me one.
South Korean here and I just wanted to add some thoughts. The real reasoning for the ridiculous ban is because they've been shutting down the gyms whenever the numbers spike but can't anymore because the business owners are in a desperate state because of the prolonged shutdowns. So it's their way of saying please don't to the gyms while avoiding a total outlash from the gym owners. Obviously how well we're managing…
Out of 51.7 million people, SK has had about 2000 covid deaths. How could SK have been anywhere near "total medical system collapse"?!
This is what we call "compromise"; when you've got a reasonable position on one side, a reasonable position on the other, and the solution is to meet in the middle and produce policy which is totally unreasonable and makes no one happy.
This reminds me of how grocery stores were allowed to remain open, but the greeting card aisle was taped off because they didn't want people going to birthday parties. It felt like insanity, what if I wanted to send a card in-lieu of going to a gathering? Didn't matter. They weren't going to sell me one.
>they didn't want people going to birthday parties.
Did they state this reason? If so that's probably close to madness. But it does seem like a product that is frequently handled and returned to the shelves would be a good vector to suspend...
South Korea has had 2044 deaths, out of 51.7 million people. That's a death rate surely under the usual "flu and pneumonia" rate. I don't understand, I really don't. I anybody can explain, I'd very much appreciate.
What's not to understand? The numbers in Korea are low because everyone is willing to sacrifice their personal freedom and convenience for the common good. They vigilantly wear masks, socially distance, follow guidelines, and abstain from K-Pop dancing at gyms and running fast on the treadmill when their health departments ask that of them. Americans will happily let more people die if it means they get to go to the…
You don't think it has anything to do with the awful physical and mental health of Americans, as opposed to not following the rules? And mind you, I'm not in American but in another western nation where I've observed with my own eyes that people have followed all the stupid rules, regardless of enthusiasm, but they respected them, and the outcome has been just as disproportionately bad.
This is what we call "compromise"; when you've got a reasonable position on one side, a reasonable position on the other, and the solution is to meet in the middle and produce policy which is totally unreasonable and makes no one happy.
This reminds me of how grocery stores were allowed to remain open, but the greeting card aisle was taped off because they didn't want people going to birthday parties. It felt like insanity, what if I wanted to send a card in-lieu of going to a gathering? Didn't matter. They weren't going to sell me one.
It seemed there was a story like this every day back in early 2020. The interesting thing was how much variation there was even among different states in the US on identical issues. For example, West Virginia encouraged people to go fishing by waiving license requirements during the lockdowns [1] while Washington completely banned recreational fishing statewide [2].