
Going back to normal: how Iceland has dealt with the coronavirus - yardie
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/we-returned-normal/613780/
======
qeternity
Every time I read an article about Iceland I feel the need to remind people
that it’s a country that is smaller than most medium sized cities.

You don’t see articles written about how Aurora, Colorado dealt with covid,
despite the fact that they are the same size.

Things that work for small, homogenous systems rarely work 1:1 on large,
heterogenous scales.

~~~
renewiltord
We know because the most common comment on anything done by any non-American
place that is superior to an American place is to remind us that the achieving
place is: more diverse, less diverse, larger, smaller, denser, sparser, more
homogeneous, more heterogeneous, or whatever.

Fortunately, the reason I love America (the real culture of aggressive
exploitation of gaps and inefficiencies) is alive and well in the real world
as much as the culture of excuse-making is alive on the Internet.

In time, I wonder if Americans will split into categories of low-agency online
commenters who believe that the greatest factors are environmental and high-
agency real-life operatives who believe the greatest factors are things they
can control.

~~~
qeternity
This is an absurdly loaded response. I never said anything about America being
great. I live in London. I was just making a point for a largely American
readership which has a tendency to presume the rest of the world is far better
(as you do) without having actually experienced anything else but the US.

There are many small cities in the US fairing very well, just as there are
here in the UK. But you’d never read about them because they aren’t sovereign
nations.

Sweden is a great example of this. Typically held up by Americans as some sort
of utopia, until they became the poster child for cavalier covid handling. Now
people just move on and pick some other new comparison.

~~~
renewiltord
I've lived in London, Mumbai, San Francisco, and many American cities.

Your original comment is nothing more than the standard "Correlation is not
causation" comment of these stories. It's exceedingly low information content
and ever-present.

~~~
qeternity
I can’t imagine what this implies then about a comment pointing out how common
such comments are. Negative value?

~~~
renewiltord
Possibly. I'm trying to get you to stop doing this, however. One can hope that
we can talk without repeating endless cliches. If it doesn't work, then we've
all paid the cost and gained nothing. If it works, I've paid the cost this
time and we never have to pay it in the future.

Alternatively, I'm working with a friend on a way for me to browse HN without
encountering these.

------
jacquesm
Interesting story about the one day test, with an incubation time of two weeks
how big are the chances that if contracted on the plane that would show up in
a test done the same day?

~~~
lbeltrame
> with an incubation time of two weeks

Can we stop perpetuating this myth? 14 days is when 99.5% of the people show
symptoms. The _median_ , which is far more important, is between 2 to 4 days.

~~~
jacquesm
Only it isn't a myth.

"The typical incubation period for COVID‑19 is five or six days, but it can
range from one to fourteen days with approximately ten percent of cases taking
longer."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019)

I could have been more correct by writing 'up to', but if 10% of the cases
take longer than 14 days then 99.5% within 14 days should be 90%.

Playing it safe with the incubation time around international arrivals is what
has led to authorities the world over adopting the 14 day quarantine.

~~~
lbeltrame
I've looked up some papers on the maximum incubation period (by no means a
comprehensive search):

\-
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32594928/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32594928/)
(14 days in 99.5)

\-
[https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/doi/10.1093/ije/dyaa106...](https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/doi/10.1093/ije/dyaa106/5864951#205111148)
(this one says 95% within 14 days)

\-
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7302302/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7302302/)
(preprint, says median is 5.35 days, and says the data support the 14 day
intervention policy but gives no data about why so)

Most of the studies are with "old" outbreaks so likely more data is needed.
Yet the median is still around 2-6 days.

> Playing it safe with the incubation time

That is, applying the precautionary principle. Not very scientific, but
understandable (although I don't agree with it). Personally, now that we're
well into the epidemic, I'd expect a little more rigor, though.

~~~
jacquesm
Well, given the cost associated with dealing with outbreaks it would make
sense to play it safe, precautions have a cost near zero and an outbreak has a
fairly large cost especially if not detected soon enough.

