
Norwegian asks students in poor healthcare countries like USA to return - NicoJuicy
https://www.complex.com/life/2020/03/norwegian-university-coronavirus-message-to-students
======
phoe-krk
"NTNU strongly recommends that all NTNU students who are outside Norway return
home. This applies especially if you are staying in a country with poorly
developed health services and infrastructure and/or collective infrastructure,
for example the USA."

In one way, it is stating the obvious, since HN submissions about the US
health care have been aplenty; in another way, this seems to be a genuine show
of care for the students stuck in the US; in yet another, political shots have
been fired, and USA starts being perceived as the third world country that it
is with regard to its public health care services. (Unless you happen to be
_rich_ , which you likely don't.)

~~~
tyfon
They're not just concerned about health care, they're concerned about the
whole infrastructure in the US. They just formulated the wording a bit
strange. Collective infrastructure for instance is probably "public
transportation" since "kollektivtransport" in Norwegian is public
transportation.

I'm not taking any sides here but personally I know where I'd like to be if I
become sick. I might actually be already, I've started to have chest pains and
slime balls and a slight fever last few days.

~~~
lostmsu
As much as I love public transport, universal lack of it accompanied by having
nearly 1 car per person on average during pandemic is good.

~~~
tyfon
These are students, they don't have cars.. At least not here maybe they buy
one when they get to the US :)

------
rococode
Someone on Reddit largely debunked this as a (possibly intentionally) bad
translation, leading to the 32k upvote thread on /r/worldnews being removed:

Original comment, copy pasted below:
[https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/fj61zf/norwegian...](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/fj61zf/norwegian_university_tells_students_in_us_to/fklbz6w/)

=====

FAKE NEWS!

They are talking about "collective infrastructure" which is a poor translation
of the norwegian term "kollektivtransport" or "kollektiv infrastruktur".

The Norwegian original makes it abundantly clear, as they mention an example
of: "where it could be difficult to get to the airport without your own car".

> I tråd med rådet fra UD vil jeg som rektor sterkt anbefale alle NTNU-
> studenter som befinner seg utenfor Norge om å reise hjem. Det gjelder
> spesielt hvis du oppholder deg i et land med dårlig utbygd helsevesen. Det
> gjelder også for land med dårlig kollektiv infrastruktur som for eksempel
> USA der det kan være vanskelig å komme seg til flyplass hvis du ikke har
> bil. Det samme gjelder hvis du ikke har helseforsikring.

Proper translation would be:

> In accordance with the advice from the UD, I as a principal strongly urge
> every NTNU-student that is outside Norway to come home. This especially
> applies if you are in a country with poorly developed health care. _It also
> applies for countries with poor public transport, like for example the US
> where it can be difficult to get to an airport without your own car._ The
> same applies if you do not have health insurance.

I tried to translalte word by word, rather than getting the grammar correctly,
hence the strange wording.

------
refurb
Cancer death survival rates (US vs. Norway)[1]:

Prostate (97% vs 86%)

Breast (89% vs 86%)

Cervix (63% vs 71%)

Rectum (64% vs 65%)

Colon (65% vs 62%)

Leukemia (51% vs 53%)

[1][https://ourworldindata.org/cancer](https://ourworldindata.org/cancer)

~~~
playeren
Rich people are skewing the data favorably. The average does not tell the full
story.

[https://qz.com/1519229/the-annual-cancer-rate-report-
shows-t...](https://qz.com/1519229/the-annual-cancer-rate-report-shows-that-
cancer-kills-more-poor-people-in-the-us/)

~~~
refurb
Actually your data shows that both rich and poor saw a significant decrease in
cancer deaths, the wealthy just saw a bigger decrease.

~~~
playeren
You could probably say the same about any random country. Not sure what your
point is.

------
RickHull
Actually, the US is probably the best country for COVID-19 treatment due to
the number of ventilators per capita. 52 ventilators per 100k residents. Italy
has only 5 per 100k. Not sure what Norway has.

[https://medium.com/handwaving-freakoutery/predicting-
america...](https://medium.com/handwaving-freakoutery/predicting-american-icu-
saturation-during-covid-19-f45ec1672571)

~~~
anfilt
Like that's good to hear. That's an order magnitude more, but still pandemic
could easily overwhelm what is available.

------
dbhattar
I know it is politically correct nowadays to diss US healthcare system. But in
the current pandemic, it is more about government preparedness. If you let an
exponentially infectious pandemic run wild without any curtailing mechanism,
no matter how sophisticated the healthcare system is, it is bound to get
overwhelmed.

~~~
tabtab
Many in the US have no healthcare insurance, or watered-down plans, recently
permitted by GOP.

~~~
dbhattar
My point is no matter whether you have insurance or not, if hospitals are
overloaded, you will not be treated. Just look at situation in Italy.

~~~
tabtab
Until it all runs out, I'd rather _start_ with a situation where I have health
insurances versus a situation where I don't.

In other words, I'd rather _try_ to escape the encroaching fire in a Toyota
than a Yugo.

~~~
dbhattar
It is good to have insurance. I have one. But when I was trying to reach a
doctor during the weekend because I had bad cough and was very worried, I
couldn’t get through. The line was overloaded. At that time it hit me that, in
case of emergency, different set of rules apply. Having insurance becomes
almost irrelevant.

~~~
tabtab
Corona has swamped a lot things.

------
loopz
What people miss is this: You don't want to be sick in America, or abroad
generally. It could turn out very very expensive. There are travel insurances,
but they have limits. In rare circumstances, this can happen in _every
country_.

------
datashow
Critical Care Beds Per Capita

8 vs 34.7

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-
co...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-countries-
with-the-most-critical-care-beds-per-capita-infographic/amp/)

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-012-2627-8](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00134-012-2627-8)

------
ck2
Well the other angle is the US public just doesn't give a damn about anyone
else in general.

There is absolutely no change in behavior here.

In weeks if they were stacking bodies for lack of storage space, I am still
not sure people here would change their behavior, everyone feels
special/priviledged and not affected until it suddenly hits them.

------
xwdv
This is an inflammatory headline for no reason. The USA does not have “poor
healthcare”, it has _expensive_ healthcare.

A true poor healthcare nation would be somewhere where no amount of money
could buy you any effective treatment.

We cannot allow people to think that shitty but cheap and freely available
healthcare somehow qualifies as a nation with “good healthcare”.

~~~
outworlder
> The USA does not have “poor healthcare”, it has expensive healthcare.

So... it does not have healthcare for the poor? That's not good healthcare, is
it?

> We cannot allow people to think that shitty but cheap and freely available
> healthcare somehow qualifies as a nation with “good healthcare”.

For some people, it is a choice between shitty healthcare, vs no healthcare.

~~~
refurb
_So... it does not have healthcare for the poor?_

Sure it does, it has either Medicaid (almost zero out of pocket) or heavily
subsidized (up to 100%) marketplace plans.

~~~
robocat
Do Norwegian students have access to Medicaid? If they have travel insurance,
would they be covered, or will an exclusion kick in?

In many socialised healthcare countries, tourists will get treated for free or
cheaply (although you should always have insurance: and you really really want
to avoid many facilities in poor countries because they often lack funds to
give decent care).

