
How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down - mmhsieh
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/26/821688981/how-south-korea-reigned-in-the-outbreak-without-shutting-everything-down
======
mcsb4
Again another article that doesn't even mention the use of masks and hand
sanitizer.

The cost of the epidemic now goes into the trillions, self-made cotton masks
are cheap compared to the economic damage. They can be disinfected in boiling
water and if everybody uses them they will help to stop the spreading of the
virus.

In all the countries mentioned in the article people wear masks when in
public, often just against pollution (i.e. Thailand).

The moment we open our mouth we spread germs, even more so when we speak. And
when we touch our nose or mouth, we have them on our hands.

Thus entering a supermarket without a mask and without first disinfecting the
hands should be forbidden.

Social distancing is one thing, stopping the virus at the source is another
and seemingly very effective measure.

~~~
throwaway_pdp09
I've read repeatedly (and heard on the radio several times) that wearing a
mask if YOU are infected will help protect other people, but if you are not
infected then it has no known protective effect ie. is not thought to be any
more protective than not wearing one.

Do you have any evidence to back up you talk of masks?

(And if YOU are infected you should not be out anyway)

Edit: I was thinking of non-medical situations. @j7ake below, clearly pointed
out they work in medical situations, something I was not contesting at all but
did not make clear. The original post talked of "wearing masks in public"
which was clearly not in medical situations and I was following through that.

~~~
endorphone
"no known protective effect"

Right. No one has ever studied contagions among the community at large and the
effect of masks. When you hear people say there is no evidence, this is what
they are referring.

"is not thought to be any more protective than not wearing one"

This is taking that claim too far, and is seldom what they're saying. Or
rather _never_ what they are saying.

Early on there were PDAs that discouraged masks because a) there is a weird
social effect in much of the West where people get panicky, and somehow view
someone else wearing a mask as increasing the odds, or at least the reality,
that they instead will get sick, b) to discourage personal buyers competing
with medical buyers, c) because the odds of coming into contact with a SARS-
CoV-2 carrier was very low, whereas it's high to very high for medical
professionals.

We need to discard with that bullshit. We __know __with overwhelming evidence
that masks work -- that 's why medical professionals wear them -- and even the
lowly surgical mask has the same effectiveness blocking pathogens in as they
do out, especially aerosol pathogens like this one.

And of course we know that people can be spreading this without symptoms, so
it would be a massive win just for that.

As supplies normalize and manufacturers ramp up, we're quickly going to be at
a place where most in the West will be wearing a mask of some fashion, and it
will be officially encouraged. This whole weird anti-mask paranoia will have
cost lives.

Masks aren't a panacea, of course, They should be properly worn and rotated.
Add that they increase the effort the lungs have to exert, especially N95
masks, so in a unfortunate irony people with compromised lungs -- the most
vulnerable to COVID-19 -- have the most difficulty using masks.

~~~
throwaway743
>a) there is a weird social effect in much of the West where people get
panicky, and somehow view someone else wearing a mask as increasing the odds,
or at least the reality, that they instead will get sick

Definitely experienced the stigma of wearing one in public. Have had reactions
ranging from stares to hurriedly moving away from me.

> We need to discard with that bullshit. We know with overwhelming evidence
> that masks work

To add, why else would NY ask older folks to wear masks when going outside?

Also, this NIH study adds to support that masks are effective.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22485453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22485453)

~~~
endorphone
"Definitely experienced the stigma of wearing one in public"

People can be deeply illogical when it comes to personal protection. I did a
summer stint during college with a factory, assembling some part of an air
conditioner system for cars. This was done with huge, incredibly loud
machines. Fiberglass. Etc.

The company offered ear plugs, eye protection and masks. _No one_ used them.
There was a 0% utilization rate. It was bizarre. I did, however, and earned
snarky comments, critical suggestions, and lots of sideways glances. People
really seemed to feel that my concern for myself made the threats more real.

I'd like to say that when I left everyone had followed the path I blazed, but
it was the same as it always was. People still sabotaged their own health and
hearing to avoid looking "paranoid".

~~~
magduf
Where was this?

I used to work as an intern at a shipbuilding company making aircraft
carriers. People wore stuff when they were required to, so hard hats were
always worn, and the attached earmuffs seemed to be generally worn when
someone was working with something very loud.

However, at one point I was helping an inspection in a tank and there was a
noxious odor, and I couldn't breathe in it. The shipyard worker with me went
ahead and went in and did the test, but after this I tried to procure a
respirator and they refused to get me one, saying it wasn't necessary for the
work I was doing.

Music concerts are another place where you don't see people using personal
protection much, though I will say that's changed in the last 10 years from
what I've seen. I do see a minority (but a growing one) of people wearing
earplugs, and we now have a lot of choices for "musician's earplugs" being
sold which are designed to have a neutral frequency attenuation.

------
robocat
Another effing article that completely ignores Taiwan... I’m no taiwanophile,
but why is it that a first-world democracy with a successful strategy against
Covid is being completely ignored by media?

[https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689)

Taiwan has huge flows of Chinese people, yet no outbreak. Maybe it’s a good
thing they are not recognised by the WHO?

~~~
ddrmaxgt37
Just to be clear, Taiwan did not have huge flows of mainland Chinese soon
after the outbreak though. They closed the border to all travelers with PRC
passports in mid-February. They did take some drastic measures that have
worked.

~~~
robocat
> They closed the border to all travelers with PRC passports in mid-February

And _before_ that they had plenty of people coming in from China with active
Covid infections - returning from New Year including people from Hubei.

The US enacted their travel ban to China on 31st Jan, yet that hasn’t helped
the US...

Now Taiwan is getting cases from other countries (returning citizens and
foreign migrant workers) e.g. yesterday: “Meanwhile, the 15 patients deemed to
have contracted COVID-19 overseas all returned to Taiwan in the period March
16-23. The countries they had visited were the U.S., the United Kingdom, New
Zealand, Spain, Malaysia, Monaco and Mexico.”

Taiwan is still allowing foreign migrant workers to enter the country, as they
need them for their economy.

~~~
tooltalk
South Korea kept their door open pretty much until this week as many expats
returned home with the virus from Europe and Americas.

IIRC, most early US cases came from Iran and Italy.

------
royroyroys
A physician from Korea recently did an AMA on Reddit and said: 'It is hard for
anyone to predict what will happen in the future in this volatile situation.
However, South Korean experts think that if the situation doesn't get better
within the month, it will last up to 6 months. If the situation exacerbates
within 6 months, it's apparent that this will become a much more difficult
scenario than previously imagined. There would be a high chance of economic
repercussions of this outbreak. Moreover, the resources of medical personnel
may be entirely exhausted in this situation, which would lead to more deaths.
In South Korea alone, 300,000 deaths would be a fair prediction from such a
scenario.'[0]

Seems too early to conclude this has been contained yet.

0:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fo4pj4/im_joon...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fo4pj4/im_joong_sik_eom_md_a_physician_treating_covid19/fld8msm/)

~~~
bagacrap
honest question: why do we keep looking to physicians for guidance? They are
highly trained in case by case treatment but not epidemiology. They are not
taught to make population wide predictions about the future, they just
diagnose and treat. They have access to some anecdata and that's about it.
Professors, epidemiologists, and medical researchers have a lot more training
and practice in the arena we care about.

~~~
tim333
In general they have some idea what they are on about re diseases. Also they
tend to be fairly down to earth in that they deal with patients directly
rather than abstractions.

------
basilgohar
The discussions in these threads are just so demonstrative of the erosion of
trust that now exists between the lay people and the experts of society, and
even amongst experts themselves.

Fake news, profit motives, political expediency, political correctness, and so
many other social factors have made this a real CF for anyone trying to make
sense of this and genuinely do the right thing.

I am sorry if I don't have anything positive to contribute, I'm just so
disappointed in the state of affairs right now and how selfish forces have
coopted the means of causing positive, effective action.

------
Freestyler_3
They took proactive measurements when the rest of the world was still looking
at how things would develop.

Making tests well before they had their first case.

When my country got its first cases they were still saying it isn't that
contagious and everything is fine.

~~~
netsharc
It's a bit of luck that the coutry had a private biotech company that makes
tests for viruses, and the CEO of said company looked at Wuhan and decided to
get samples from China.

I suppose, just like every country has a military or people managing their
transportation infrastructure, there should be a "pandemic watch". (Well the
US had a good one until Trump/John Bolton defunded it)

~~~
_trampeltier
Europe and the US even had more time, there is no excuse. It was clear from
the day one how to or not to act. Europe and the US did not act at all in the
beginning until it was to late to check each single case.

~~~
mensetmanusman
It’s not clear what ‘day 1’ means in the context of China though. China has
kicked out all western reporters, constantly lies like Russia even when the
truth is visible in the background, and arrests citizens who try to get around
this system.

The west was never going to believe what was happening in China because it is
impossible to know without invading them.

------
adventured
So have Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia (440 million people).

They've all had fewer cases than Luxembourg so far.

I've yet to see a good explanation for it, other than maybe the premise about
seasonal temps and humidity (northern vs southern hemisphere). There's no
evidence they're massively lying about their numbers (which would show up in
the form of a demolished hospital system and thousands dead of pneumonia).
Vietnam has also done incredibly well overall, showing no indications of being
crushed by cases, despite their proximity to China.

Mexico is also not being crushed at all by the virus, despite being right next
to the US as Vietnam is right next to China. Mexico shares enormous trade and
traffic with the US. They should be buried in pneumonia cases given their
overall context (population size, economy, testing rate, healthcare system).
They have just over half the cases of Finland (obviously Mexico isn't testing
at a high rate, I'm sure it's more than just 600). If many thousands of people
were dying of Covid in Mexico right now, it would be showing up blatantly.
Latin America's case load has largely been low vs population sizes (with only
a few exceptions), as with the rest of the southern hemisphere. Mexico is
technically northern hemisphere, and I wonder if they don't have some of the
southern hemisphere benefit (as perhaps India does), limiting the rate of
infection vs nations that are further north. And will that flip at all in the
coming months.

[https://i.imgur.com/EH8OkTd.png](https://i.imgur.com/EH8OkTd.png)

It'd be very interesting to see a comparison of avg temps and humidity among
nations most affected (or least) during the outbreak timeframe. Including
looking at locations such as Italy, France, Germany, Spain, NYC, Texas,
Southern California, Seattle, South Korea, parts of Mexico, Thailand, and so
on.

Basically, due to seasonal temps and humidity, is South Korea's task made far
easier than Italy's task? Does that considerably alter the infectiousness of
SARS-CoV-2 in South Korea vs Italy? Is their equation half the effort they've
put in (and credit on that), and half good luck of location. Mexico sure as
hell isn't avoiding being overrun by it due to maximum testing.

I spent many hours last night doing a deep dive on the latest research on the
impact of humidity on viruses, infectiousness and the respiratory system. It's
fascinating stuff.

~~~
simonsarris
I have wondered that for a while, especially since countries like Malaysia had
outbreaks long before Italy. Originally I thought:
[https://simonsarris.com/sunlight](https://simonsarris.com/sunlight) (note:
data last updated March 16)

But there are several axes that could matter just as much as
quarantine/lockdowns: Humidity, sunlight (as proxy for vitamin D levels, or
simply UV), pollution (which also affects sunlight), median age (47 in Italy,
30 in Malaysia, that's huge), and mask use.

Bergamo has low sunshine in Feb and March comparatively. Places hard hit, and
their average sunshine on selected months:

* Wuhan: 100 (In Feb)

* Paris: 79-129 (Feb-March, North France harder it by # of cases, cannot find death info)

* Bergamo Italy: 100-150 (Feb-March average)

* Seattle WA: 100-150 (Feb-March)

* Iran sunshine varies a lot by locale. But some places like Rasht, its very low light: 90, 78, 71, 113 for Jan, Feb, Mar, April

Places less hard hit:

* Bangkok 250-275 (Feb-March)

* Kuala Lumpur 185, 192, 208 (Jan Feb March)

* Ho Chi Minh City, 272 (March)

* Seoul: 175-200 (Feb-March) South Korea contained it of course, but their lethality numbers are also lower, and its the lethality that I find odd in all this.

~~~
fiftyfifty
I'm really starting to think there might be something to this. In the US, I
keep waiting for the other shoe to drop in places like California, Texas and
Florida and the days keep going by and we are not seeing anything like the
death toll New York is having. California had some of the very first cases in
the US and took in at least one cruise ship of infected people. Florida's
governor has been openly defiant against shutting the state down and they only
have 29 deaths so far. If ever there was a place in the US where virtually
every single inhabitant is vitamin D deficient it is New York City, even in
the summer time.

~~~
adventured
There is something to it, I just don't know why nobody is talking about it
much. It's pretty painfully obvious if you start digging into the data,
researching the outbreak map, and looking at the temps & humidity levels in
the areas. SARS-CoV-2 appears to more or less be obeying what influenza does
when it comes to seasons, temps, and humidity (along with perhaps sunsine /
vitamin D as a factor).

NYC should be cranking humidifiers, pushing humidity up to 50% in every space
where people exist (except hospitals). It'll dramatically slow the
infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 imo. Super low human space humidity is the best
friend of a respiratory virus.

Why aren't San Antonio and Houston buried in cases? Same reason Mexico and Los
Angeles are not (relatively speaking, and especially compared to eg NYC).

Las Vegas should be buried in cases, they have tons of international traffic,
a zillion opportunities for the virus to be transited around, spread to casino
workers and everywhere. Their ICUs should be overflowing to an epic degree.
Las Vegas has an inverted humidity map, peak humidity there is November to
March, and avg high temps stay up near 55 to 60 degrees (influenza at least
hates temps over ~60-65+ F).

How about Santa Fe or Phoenix? Super low case loads, as with Houston and
Austin and other similar locations.

Florida isn't seeing a particularly bad outbreak in its cities.

Albuquerque and Phoenix have inverted humidity seasons, their peak humidity
times are roughly October/Nov to March.

Wuhan's low sunshine season is November to March. Temps are often well below
50 degrees during that period (and essentially never get to 65+), not high
enough to interfere much with influenza or probably SARS-CoV-2. It gets cold
enough during flu season there to require persistent indoor heating, which
dries everything out, lowering indoor humidity levels dramatically, amplifying
potential infectiousness.

------
pgrote
"South Korea has used data from surveillance cameras, cellphones and credit
card transactions to map the social connections of suspected cases. "

None of these things are available to health departments in the United States
unless someone voluntarily allows it.

The United States has a weak federal containment strategy when it comes to
pandemics since most of the decision making is left to Governors. Louisiana
allowed Mardi Gras. Florida didn't issue guidance on their beaches until most
of spring break was over. One state next to another such as Illinois and
Missouri have vastly different mandates.

The United States lost the battle of containment. The only thing left is the
war to not overwhelm the medical system.

~~~
sp332
Every cell phone user has to be tracked so the cell network knows how to route
their calls. Result:
[https://twitter.com/TectonixGEO/status/1242628347034767361](https://twitter.com/TectonixGEO/status/1242628347034767361)
(edited for better link)

~~~
rsync
Where did this researcher get the anonymized mobile phone location data points
from ?

Also, I think it's important to clarify that:

"Every cell phone user has to be tracked so the cell network knows how to
route their calls ..."

... would be more accurate if we said:

"Every cell phone has to be tracked ..."

Many pieces of the cellular network have no idea _who_ the handset (or other
device) is assigned to, or who is using it - they just know that that SIM card
is up on the network, and needs to be routed appropriately ...

~~~
dylz
As a note for readers: to get a mobile SIM in South Korea of any kind, you
pretty much need identity verification.

~~~
rsync
You've missed my point.

Of course the telecom itself, for many purposes - not the least of which is
_billing_ \- needs to know a personal identity behind a SIM card.

What I am saying is that individual cell sites - and other pieces of the
cellular infrastructure - are only indirectly (or not at all) connected to
personal identity of the mobile subscriber. Call routing can be done just fine
without any idea of subscriber identity in meatspace.

------
bufferoverflow
Korea's population followed strict quarantine, and they had testing at a
massive scale, matched only by China to this day.

~~~
Tepix
It's not the population that's in quarantine, it's just the few thousand
affected people.

There's another thing these countries have in common: Masks are worn by the
majority of the people. They may work better than advertised.

------
ahmedalsudani
S. Korea wasted no time and the population has shown great ability to
cooperate with the state to control the outbreak.

It’s too late for the rest of us. Extreme measures are now the only option.

------
blauditore
Testing more thoroughly would also provide us with a better understanding of
the virus' properties, like the distribution of symptoms, severities, and
mortality rate. I think one of the main reason for general fear and panic has
been the alleged high mortality rate, with numbers up to 5% being mentioned.
But there's a strong selection bias in those statistics (people with severe
cases get tested more often), so the actual number is likely much lower.

~~~
iso1631
It's a small sample, but it's a comprehensive one as everyone was tested. On
the Diamond Pricess, it only reached 20% of the people on board, and of those
60% had no medical symptoms. Overall 1% of people catching it died.

As a cruise ship the passengers tend to be older, but the crew tend to be
younger.

Doesn't matter if you test 1 million people or 10,000 people, if you aren't
doing statistically significant tests, it's meaningless to draw conclusions.

~~~
learnstats2
Statistics is not the only purpose of testing!

If physical distancing is successful in reducing the reproduction number (R0),
you will then want to track, trace and isolate every case to prevent further
outbreaks when you relax the rules.

That means a lot of testing.

~~~
iso1631
OP said

"better understanding of the virus' properties, like the distribution of
symptoms, severities, and mortality rate"

Random and self-selecting testing doesn't seem to offer much in that. Imagine
going to a Nics game and asking everyone there who they support, chances are
you'll get a lot of Nics fans.

How does that give you a better indication of mortality rate or severity if
you have no idea how many people actually have it, because you only have a
statistically insignificant tests.

Sure, if you're in the stage where you want to lock down specific people (like
South Korea) then random widespread testing works to increase the number of
locked down people.

But if you're in a country where you've locked down everyone already, then
testing could well be increasing the risk.

If the population assumes they've tested positive, and acts like they are,
then what does testing add?

~~~
sct202
The purpose of random testing or testing of more people who have exposure but
no symptoms would be to limit household spread by separating people from their
households or having the households act differently knowing that they'll be
constantly exposed.

~~~
iso1631
If you're testing people without symptoms, you need to be testing large
numbers otherwise you'll be ignoring 99% of houses.

Globally there have been fewer than 5 million tests performed since the start
of January.

------
m0xte
So far. I suspect there is a lot of premature celebration when this is
contained.

~~~
Zigurd
Caution is certainly called for. There will probably be recurring outbreaks.

But, the benefits of widespread testing are there for every nation, at any
stage of the pandemic, to access if they have the will and competency in
leadership to do it.

~~~
SiempreViernes
Widespread testing depends on infrastructure being in place, it's not
something that appears simply by willing it.

------
lmilcin
I think it is an interesting case. It seems that shutting everything down and
locking everybody in their homes is still the fastest method.

But if you look at the outcome and impact on entire country investing in
aggressive testing and tracking cases seems better return on investment even
with higher number of cases.

One potential problem I see with this is locking everything is easier to
implement and has less risk that it won't work at all. With a week delay
between your actions and the results, not restraining your population and
instead hunting cases might put you in a situation where you suddenly learn
your actions had no effect and now it is too late for drastic lockdown to rein
in the cases.

------
C19is20
Italy, Veneto Region: our _first_ delivery of masks for our family (3) just
got volun-delivered. They are single-use and it is very emphasised on an
accompanying sheet that they will not stop the virus, they are for when you
have to absolutely go out, as we are still on lockdown: transgression of which
has gone from €260 in fines up to €4000. Of course, when the masks were
delivered a whole bunch of people immediately went to the communal post-boxes
area to pick them up and talk about it.....oh, well.

~~~
bagacrap
The lockdown hasn't been effective at slowing the spread (of known cases) in
Italy. So perhaps increasing the fine will stop the virus. Brilliant.

------
billfruit
Last few days though, more numbers are being reported of new infections in
both China and South Korea. Yesterday more than 100+ in SK I think.

~~~
theseadroid
For China many Chinese emigrants are returning home with the virus with them.
as they don't trust their local healthcare systems.

One example: [https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/biogen-parts-way-
employe...](https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/biogen-parts-way-employee-who-
hid-coronavirus-symptoms-and-lied-her-way-back-to-china)

~~~
magduf
Well she's probably right not to trust the American healthcare system. It was
pretty bad before, and it's going to be a completely dysfunctional disaster
pretty soon.

Meanwhile, China is able to build an emergency pandemic hospital in _10 days_.

------
m23khan
All countries which the rest of the World relies on production of masks,
gloves, plastic items, electronics, medical equipment have done well.

The rest of World which includes once capable nations (who have now outsourced
everything and now don't have capacity to produce even bandages for their
population) is now screwed.

Lesson learnt: Self reliance is key.

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
> Self reliance is key.

I'm not a student of politics, but I wonder if self-reliance also makes a
country more willing to start unnecessary wars.

If so, I'd wonder which strategy has a higher death count.

~~~
gdy
Economic and financial warfare that the US is waging on Russia clearly shows
that a country has got to choose between self-reliance and obedience.

------
rdlecler1
Another factor is that schools remain closed. We know children are largely
asymptomatic and their R0 is 2x - 8x greater than the general public. We’ll
see how they fare when they reopen schools. That said we just need enough
mitigating measures to push R0 < 1\. If it’s 2 now, then two 30% measures will
work, or three 20% measures, ...

------
mschuster91
The thing is, South Korea (and many other Asian countries cited as having
handled COVID19 relatively well, such as Taiwan, HK, Singapore, Japan) have
all learned from the 2003 SARS epidemic and others, while the Western
countries did not. This is not just in terms of politics/preparation to
disasters, but also in the civilization - in Asia even the most radical and
extreme measures are accepted by the population as everyone there knows what a
pandemic can cause, while in Germany people are having "corona parties" and
there have been numerous incidents of people spitting or coughing at other
people.

Additionally, in many Western countries healthcare systems have been wrecked
by neoliberalism profit-first ideology (Germany, UK), by austerity following
the 2008 financial crisis (Italy, Spain, Greece) or by decades of incompetency
(USA), combined with the end of stockpiling of critical assets such as face
masks, gloves and other PPE after the end of the Cold War.

The key point of "shutting down" is to avoid overloading the healthcare
systems, or at least to try to limit the overloading.

~~~
luckylion
It _might_ have something to do with people remembering a previous disease
outbreak, it might also be primarily a question of how collectivist vs
individualist the societies are and how strongly the population follows
government suggestions/orders.

Considering that, you'd expect South Korea or Japan to do better than Germany,
Germany to do better than the US or Italy. And even within Germany, you'd
expect large cities to do worse, with Berlin leading the charge. Would Hamburg
be affected as much if it wasn't for their holidays falling right into that
time?

------
onetimemanytime
Great for them, so far, but let's hope that a vaccine is found and fast. This
cannot be maintained for ages. The mask thing, even if not N95 makes sense,
you don't touch your face. Go home wash etc etc.

~~~
PeterisP
There's no possible hope of a vaccine that comes fast. We already have a
'found' (made) a bunch of candidate vaccines that might work, but there's a
huge gap between having a candidate vaccine and something that's available to
inject in nearly everyone. It takes a year or so of testing to see what it
actually does and if it really makes things better and doesn't hurt healthy
people.

So we hope that there's a vaccine coming next year, but we're certain that
there will be no vaccine this year. This will definitely be going on for many
more months no matter if it "cannot be maintained".

------
angarg12
I think comparing Singapore, a tiny, highly urbanized island nation, with the
US, a continent size country with a vast number of points of entry, is a
little bit apples to oranges.

Don't get me wrong, I do think that some Asian countries took great measures
to contain the virus, and some western countries failed to do so, but I doubt
the same measures would be equally as effective everywhere. This is relevant
because the spread of the virus is a multifaceted and complex issue, and
reductionist explanations might take us down the wrong path if not careful.

~~~
bawolff
Why is it anytime usa screws up its because its a diverse nation that's
different from all the other nations?

Maybe sometimes the USA is just incompetent and usually it can get away with
being incompetent without consequence because nobody wants to poke the 800lb
gorilla, but sometimes consequences do happen.

~~~
odshoifsdhfs
Because pretty much all of Europe did the same so it isn't exclusive to USA?

NY did almost as many tests in a day as some european countries have done
total. Of course they are going to have a spike in cases. No-one believe (in
Europe at least) that the number of cases are the truth, and we pretty much
know that a lot of people aren't being tests. Portugal until 2 days ago was
rejecting tests still of people that had no 'known' chain of contagion.
(Source, ex-wife works in the frontline of this crisis)

~~~
bawolff
I don't see how "other people screwed up too" is a counter argument to my
argument that "usa is different from every country in the world and thus its
impossible to do things right" is bullshit. They're two completely different
claims.

It is difficult to compare reported cases across countries, and certainly
there are many countries that have dropped the ball (Iran especially comes to
mind). At the risk of sounding unfeeling, a clearer picture will probably
emerge once the deaths start rolling in, since dying is a very binary state
and less subject to measurement bias due to gov (in)action.

~~~
odshoifsdhfs
I agree. But even with deaths will be tricky. Some countries define any death
that tests positive as a COVID death, while others only mark it as so if no
other more pressing co-morbilities are found.

------
dirtyid
South Korea is basically an island, conducted serendipitous did large scale
pandemic drill in December, has a compliant population with mandatory civil
service and memory of recent authoritarian government, can mobilize techno-
authoritarian surveillance.

My question is, what is happening in Japan? Except wide spread mask usage,
they have systemic undertesting at 1/6 capacity, no social distance measures,
nothing shutdown, old population like Italy. Their hospitals should have been
overwhelmed with dead by now. Are they just leaving the old to die at home?
France and Italy aren't counting deaths at home as part of statistics. Maybe
something similar? Which loops back to S.Korea, why so eager to trust their
numbers. Their politics is fairly corrupt.

~~~
summerlight
> South Korea is basically an island, conducted serendipitous did large scale
> pandemic drill in December, has a compliant population with mandatory civil
> service and memory of recent authoritarian government, can mobilize techno-
> authoritarian surveillance.

And they didn't even try to shutdown churches, bars and clubs, while churches
consistently have been the largest sources of mass infection. And your may
also want to know that literally every single media has been criticizing every
single action taken by the government. What an authoritarian government.

> Which loops back to S.Korea, why so eager to trust their numbers. Their
> politics is fairly corrupt.

They earned their trust by reporting 7000 cases, taking the risks of huge
political disadvantages. All the other first world countries were reluctant on
doing that due to the exact opposite motivations. And unless you have some
ideas on the modern political landscapes in S.K., I would recommend not to
inconsiderately speak up a such fairly strong opinion.

~~~
dirtyid
I didn't say they were authoritarian government but a large segment of SK
population grew up under SK dictatorship which has implications on compliance.
Same with Taiwan, Singapore is still single party dictatorship etc. I'm well
aware of the domestic SK reaction (negative) around alleged mishandling of the
response which is just extra incentive to manipulate test data. Cho Kuk was 6
months ago. Record high unemployment since GFC. Nothing about this
administration suggest it's not above fixing stats on top of overall high
testing rate especially with the high stakes of underperforming. Almost every
SK president has been mired in corruption scandals, many were imprisoned for
shady dealings. Why would this be any different?

Yeah, they could have found a working formula, but they could also be lying
like other first world countries that we know are under reporting deaths via
recatorigzation of likely covid deaths to other deaths to depress the impact.
SK corruption and transparency index is comparable to France and Italy who
already acknowledged doing so. Add the geopolitical layer of western media
trying to grasp at any alternative strategy that doesn't involve Chinese style
lockdown. Very few reports even mentions SK contact tracing is closer to
Chinese techno-authoritarian techniques than not, which ultimately makes SK
response not a useful model for these countries until they get desperate.
Which is my main point, media is fixating on SK testing and contact tracing
when latter is not possible in many first world countries.

