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Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

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Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#61

Post by sradman »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #60
sradman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of these are top scuba diving destinations. They depend on regional air hubs, all presumably closed to non-essential connecting flights. I wonder if these ten nations, all Melanesian/Polynesian with historical ties to the Anglo sphere, represent a true COVID-19 resistant pattern or are just reporting anomalies.

> represent a true COVID-19 resistant pattern or are just reporting anomalies. Probably anomalies. We're talking small, small population groups on isolated islands. I mean it's possible there is a Polynesian DNA thing that helps make them resistant, sort of a smallpox-in-reverse advantage, but my money says it's just because 1) super isolated, and 2) because of point 1 they can very effectively filter traffic and qua…

I was thinking socio-economic and transportation connectedness rather than genetic resistance. Anglo-centric Cook Islands vs. French Polynesia, for instance, and the evolved political, economic, transportation, and health systems.

It could be something as simple as incoming flights mostly originating from one of Sydney, Singapore, or Hawaii and the travel restrictions implemented at each hub. We are also maybe placing to much emphasis on zero-per-hundred-thousand compared to one-per-hundred-thousand stats.

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#62

Post by gassius »

antientropic wrote: post #55
gassius wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a friendly remainder that "government support" cost money, and governments usually[0] don't have any other source of money than taxation and borrowing, both put the burden in the productive citizens of a country, and had their limits. Very hard to see where the support will be paid off without traumatic consequences. Of course, almost every economy is printing money as there is no tomorrow, diluting current asse…

What assets are being "diluted dramatically"? The only asset class you mention are stocks and they're mostly up. Here in the Netherlands, housing prices have continued to rise during corona. Eurozone inflation in July was 0.4% annualized. So were is the massive dilution? The government support you mention is for the most part financed through bonds (at very low or negative interest rates), not by "printing money".

The value of money is being diluted, the USD[0] and the Euro[1] for example, but by no means limited to them.

IMHO the difference of the monetary growth and the GDP growth in the same period is the value lost for each money unit. I concede GDP growth is not the perfect indicator of the value of an Economy, but it is what we have.

This is not post Bretton Woods, standard modus operandi we are talking here. Since 2008 we can see a change of scenario, and in Q1 2020 we can see once again a clear jump.

Inflation may result of an increase in the monetary base, but, as we saw with Japan, since they already tried[3], other factors as a productivity shock alongs with a liqudity trap might lead to deflation[4], which may be a far worse scenario.

One could argue that if equity and assets prices, on one hand, and salaries and pensions on the other, are stable while money is diluted as per above definition, you are already on a deflationary cycle.

[0]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE [1]https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/money-supply-m3 check 10y [2]https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap19l.pdf [3]https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap70c.pdf

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#63

Post by crummy »

goalieca wrote: post #59
Animats wrote: post #2

A drop of only 5-10% in GDP? They won. They're tiny isolated islands with tourism as a major industry. How's New Zealand doing?

The funny thing about New Zealand is that the new outbreak has genetics unique to New Zealand. It’s very likely that they never actually rid themselves of it and that it had time to mutate. It could be seen as a warning that suppression works only so long as you keep suppressing even under relatively ideal conditions.

I think it's unlikely that it's been spreading around undetected for 100 days, and suddenly we've noticed it. We've found nearly 100 new cases in the mass testing that has come out of this outbreak, but they all can be traced back to a single source.

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#64

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

joshuahughes wrote: post #25
LoSboccacc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a day ago there were estimate that anout basically everyone in NYC has having been in contact with the virus at some point and the city doesn't look like a wasteland. lethality was grossly overestimate and subsequent decision built off not only partial and incomplete data, but flat out wrong. would full lock down have been the best course of action? probably still so. but the extent and duration and especially now fo…

“but both now and yesterday people with a wide view of the issue were basically ostracized and chased away as if they were flat earther or antivaxxer” Agreed. I’ve been quite taken aback, seeing HN’s response to Covid threads. I’ve always assumed the community was willing to ask tough questions and entertain alternative points of view that are backed by data, but with Covid there’s a complete unwillingness to think a…

I think people crave rules, even if there's no evidence the rules are useful.

And in today's political/social environment - rules give the strict adherents tacit permission to abuse people (they don't even have to violate the rules) who even so little as question or critically examine the rules.

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#65

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

bachmeier wrote: post #48
euudheehdy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the terrible economic outcomes have been due to the lockdowns not the actual deaths. Losing 1% of the population isn't a massive economic blow when that 1% is predominantly composed of no and low income groups, it is however a moral blow. The difference is important however because, while early on total lock-downs made sense, the reality is that if only 1% of the population is at risk of death then the other…

Sorry, but this is a pretty confused post, and your first sentence shows a lot of the problems with it. > Most of the terrible economic outcomes have been due to the lockdowns not the actual deaths. First, it's not lockdowns vs deaths. The biggest factor by far in the US was the existence of the virus. https://privwww.ssrn.com/abstract=3631180 "While overall consumer traffic fell by 60 percentage points, legal restri…

> It's possible they'll have permanent organ damage and shorter lives.

It's clear to me that people use this argument as a virtual escape hatch from any critical argument about the response to coronavirus.

We don't really even have a specific number of how many people were infected - never mind the number of people with long-term effects. We don't even really know the long-term effects (and descriptions are relatively vague). It's probable that the prevalence and severity of those effects are overstated.

Given the evidence so far, it seems reasonable to assume the overwhelming majority of healthy people are not at risk from the virus. And appealing to things we don't know and assuming the worst-case isn't realistic - it's a convenient way to justify medieval mitigation methods that decimate the economy and violate civil liberties, while casting any objectors as misanthropes.

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#66

Post by UberMouse »

goalieca wrote: post #59
Animats wrote: post #2

A drop of only 5-10% in GDP? They won. They're tiny isolated islands with tourism as a major industry. How's New Zealand doing?

The funny thing about New Zealand is that the new outbreak has genetics unique to New Zealand. It’s very likely that they never actually rid themselves of it and that it had time to mutate. It could be seen as a warning that suppression works only so long as you keep suppressing even under relatively ideal conditions.

Provide a source for that? As someone who actually lives in New Zealand that's the exact opposite of what they have said about the outbreaks genetics... iirc it looks like it might have come from the UK or Australia.

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#67

Post by taneq »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #16
taneq wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what world is "economy takes a hit" not a win over "economy takes a hit and tens of thousands of people die"?

My concern is about the exit strategy. Most countries don't expect to eradicate the virus for decades, if ever, and vaccines are expected to be only partially effective. After months and potentially years of keeping the virus out, will these countries ever be able to switch and decide it's safe to let the virus in?

Vaccines are going to be no less effective than 'herd immunity'.

Countries that don't go for elimination might just have to be permanently locked out from countries that manage to eliminate it.

Re: Ten countries kept out Covid, but did they win?

#68

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

taneq wrote: post #67
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My concern is about the exit strategy. Most countries don't expect to eradicate the virus for decades, if ever, and vaccines are expected to be only partially effective. After months and potentially years of keeping the virus out, will these countries ever be able to switch and decide it's safe to let the virus in?

Vaccines are going to be no less effective than 'herd immunity'. Countries that don't go for elimination might just have to be permanently locked out from countries that manage to eliminate it.

That's certainly true. Neither vaccines nor herd immunity are expected to eradicate the virus - but every country I know of, even New Zealand and China who are willing to lock down millions for tiny outbreaks, has made it clear they plan to end restrictions after a vaccine is widely distributed. So there's going to come a choice where Palau's choices are accepting the virus and becoming a permanent hermit kingdom.
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