COVID-19

[FRx]

It's worth considering that different countries which have different genetic makeup may have different levels of immunity to the virus. Maybe they are less likely to pass it on once they have it, or are less likely to shed it asymptomatically, or they will have less severe symptoms after contracting it.

[thrifty++]

It's worth considering that different countries which have different genetic makeup may have different levels of immunity to the virus. Maybe they are less likely to pass it on once they have it, or are less likely to shed it asymptomatically, or they will have less severe symptoms after contracting it.

Quite possible. Japan has been quite a baffling one. The experts think Japan has basically done everything wrong, and despite that and also having such an aged population it hasnt been particularly hard hit by the virus. Some put it down to culturally very high hygiene standards but thats not really enough to account for it.

[FRx]

The hygiene theory is quite interesting. My homeless population and those patients of mine whom I can't imagine to ever wash their hands, they are rarely sicker than my "hygienic" patients or those who are "ultrahygieners".
It does make sense in settings where ultimate sterility is requires - the operating room and in the ICU's. But I haven't seen the hygiene theory of washing hands or showering in sanitizer decrease transmission of droplet spread infections.

[thrifty++]

Its seeming like COVID19 is back under control in NZ again.

There has still been 0 community transmission since April. There is 18 active cases but those are all returning NZers who are in quarantine. The cock up with the two women returning from UK were allowed out on compassionate grounds before testing positive doesnt seem to have yielded any more virus in the community and was almost three weeks ago.

Australia seems to have problems again with community transmission. In the state of Victoria. I hope it gets under control so we can have a NZ/Australia bubble. Would like to see family living in Australia, at least by Christmas in any event. But I cant see an Australia/NZ bubble happening until community tranmission is gone.

People from NZ are allowed to visit Europe for a holiday but when they return they are required to do mandatory quarantine and pay for it themselves. I think this will result in very few people visiting, if any. The only people I could see doing this would be in their 20s, on a big travel sojjourn for months, and not caring about having weeks wasted in an NZ hotel. But also have enough money that they dont mind wasting it on a NZ hotel room for weeks. Its very rare that the combination of youth, wealth and time all comes together at once.

I actually think that any NZers returning now should be required to pay for their quarantine costs. Its costing the rest of us a fortune. And its been 5 months now since this started. Its no secret they should have come back sooner and that they will be in quarantine. And many who have been away for so long have not been contributing to the NZ tax pool yet expect us to pay for them. I am hoping we shift to this soon.

[ZAFCorrection]

@nomadscientist

It's a bit passe now, but it has also been fashionable to compare the United States with the so-called Scandinavian Miracle. Since we are in the Great Awokening, it makes sense that the new paragons are East Asian.

In both cases, the answer is the same. Culture is a path function. Even if you wanted to get there, it's not clear how you would go about it.

[nomadscientist]

It's not so much a question of getting there as is there a there?

Jacob's post mentions New Zealand as the peak example - a tiny Western off-shoot kinda in the middle of nowhere - not Japan, world's third largest economy and eleventh most populous country. Also an intriguing example because it didn't even do high tech contact tracing and so on, it just sort of... didn't have a big breakout. Somehow.

I am not suggesting anyone who does this is political anti-Asian; indeed it's an extremely common tendency to ignore them as comparisons that crosses all the partisan and cultural divides in the West. But they're there. And like the Romans the West might just not have noticed that its empire has already fallen.



@thrifty

Japan makes sense if masks cut the spread of respiratory diseases with similar efficacy as sewage cuts the spread of water-borne diseases. I am coming to believe that is the case.

In this framework, most spread is due to mask non-compliance. What makes Japan special isn't that its median (in most countries, generally conscientious) citizen is better than our median citizen but that our long tail of non-compliers, Politics People, YOLOs, etc. doesn't exist there.

This also implies that even in Western countries the disease should "suddenly disappear" one day when all the non-compliers got the disease and became immune. This may have happened in the Tristate area.

[BeyondtheWrap]

It's worth considering that different countries which have different genetic makeup may have different levels of immunity to the virus. Maybe they are less likely to pass it on once they have it, or are less likely to shed it asymptomatically, or they will have less severe symptoms after contracting it.

On a similar note, it has been suggested that the Italian strain of the virus is much more infectious than the original Wuhan strain. I think that could account for much of the difference we have seen.
https://www.biospace.com/article/mutate ... ontagious/

[C40]

It's worth considering that different countries which have different genetic makeup may have different levels of immunity to the virus. Maybe they are less likely to pass it on once they have it, or are less likely to shed it asymptomatically, or they will have less severe symptoms after contracting it.

Perhaps it is possible that Vietnamese have some genetic resistance, but we don't know. We DO know that they have done the right things. I think for Vietnam their success is more likely due to the obvious: that Vietnam has their shit together, and that the countries where it's bad do not. The U.S. is a great example of the other end of the spectrum.

There have been 355 cases of Covid in Vietnam... I think 250 or 300 are Vietnamese people. Most of them (95%) got the virus while in other countries - many while in in Europe. I don't know numbers that would provide any detailed insights on how likely a Vietnamese person is genetically to contract or spread Covid (and no one does). But, obviously, Vietnamese people can get Covid. And they do spread it. I'm quite sure that even in Western countries with high rates, Vietnamese (at least first generation, students, etc) are less likely to get Covid because they take a more collectivist and conscientious approach.

[tonyedgecombe]

I do find it bizzare that mask wearing can become a political issue. The US really is a strange place when it comes to politics, separate from the rest of the Western world.

[Stahlmann]

considered going to legally organized rave party (recently as full time capitalist conscientious objector I have more free time, btw I'm waiting for article on wiki on me ) with white t-shirt with marker written "INTP" (I was planning of pulling this for a long time).

realized that wearing a mask would be taken as something againt in group coherence of given ravers (also, trying to explain that some political order doesn't stop spreading the virus to intoxicated people would be fruitless). 110 active cases in 2kk province, since start of the party (:lol:) total 700 sick people were recorded.

bit disappointed. I lack some boom-boom-boom in my life recently.

stayed home based on some short spot on things what happening in USA (after such parties).

was thinking about calculating possible risk/fun ratio, but it seemed too complicated.

pls rate.

[George the original one]

California and Texas (any others?) have now rolled back restaurant & bar privileges. In a perfect world, that means it will be 2 weeks before we really see any effect on the infection rates. But, based on the loosey-goosey lockdown, it will take 3-4 weeks before the infection rates come down. Any bets on whether the privilege rollbacks last 3-4 weeks?

[theanimal]

I had to take a covid test yesterday for work. It was likely one of the most unpleasant 5 second physical experiences of my life. Very uncomfortable, I would recommend caution for that reason alone. Unfortunately, I’ll have to take the test 2 more times this summer.

[jacob]

IHME extended their projection to 20201101: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america You can now click around to add in options like widespread mask usage, easing lockdowns, etc.

I like this county map the most because it shows the daily (MA(7)) new cases per 100k: https://globalepidemics.org/key-metrics ... ppression/
This one is turning all orangey/red again: https://covidactnow.org/?s=64399 ... it'll give you R0 numbers.

I've noticed that the ICU count has remained practically constant at 15-16,000 over the past few months despite death counts falling to about 1/3 of the peak. This suggests to me that there's a sorting mechanism that allows people into the ICU && that the ICU count is maxed out in the "use'em if you got'em"-sense.

[Jean]

This could also be that doctors have gotten much expérience in how to improve survivability of critical covid patients.

[jacob]

On that note, the current US crowd for the second wave in the Sun Belt is also 15 years younger than the early rounds in NYC et al, and so they will have better outcomes. They're still sending them to ICUs though.

[FRx]

I hope that I am wrong in this regard, but there is a bit of a bad incentive for hospitals to take patients into the ICU for management. The payment by 3rd party payers is higher when the patient is in the ICU.
But, in all fairness, in some instances, it is easier to manage infection spread by having patients in the ICU.

[jacob]

Interesting TIME article comparing the ranking on the Global Health Security Index with the actual outcomes. The US and UK were #1 and #2 respectively---and they still are. The suggestion is that such indices need to be modified for the "political situation" for lack of a better word.

Methinks it probably also has a lot to do with how the disease manifests itself. Had this been a matter of "airborne Ebola", I think the outcomes would be have been different. Otherwise, it's very interesting how all the countries in the world who have yet to get things under control also happen to be under the leadership of various combinations of populism and illiberal democracies. Hard to tell whether it's just ineffective leadership or it's also related to a reflection of the state of the "ego" spirit of the country which would elect such leaders. For example, a population that has been hammered economically are more likely to blow off a "piddly virus" (relative to loss of job, etc. issues) compared to a more prosperous population.

Either way, going forward we probably shouldn't count on the fact that mere money and technology also translate into useful action. Many countries did far better with far less and ultimately, it's the results that matter.

[AnalyticalEngine]

That is interesting. It underscores the point that the world's challenges can often be more social problems than they are technological problems.

It'll be interesting when all the data comes in after this is all said and done. The global death toll is probably a significant underestimate due to lack of testing in the 2nd and 3rd world countries. The US does have more testing capacity, as well as a population with more preexisting conditions (obesity), so I wonder if that plays an additional role. That is to say, the US/UK is doing a poor job but is able to recognize it's doing a poor job. Whereas other places doing a poor job may not know they're doing a poor job.

I do wonder how this will stack up against 1918 when this is all over. 1918 had several things going against it (hadn't even discovered influenza virus yet, no proper social distancing, even more lack of unified regional response, high TB+ rate making respiratory illness worse overall, WWI).

ETA: Looks like there are countries with way less public health infrastructure but who are still doing far better than the US, so my point on testing may or may not still be relevant.

[chenda]

Otherwise, it's very interesting how all the countries in the world who have yet to get things under control also happen to be under the leadership of various combinations of populism and illiberal democracies.

It will also be interesting to see if Corona discredits populism or increases it. Whether with masses will now be drawn towards mature leadership or will they double down on populism...

[nomadscientist]

Interesting TIME article comparing the ranking on the Global Health Security Index with the actual outcomes. The US and UK were #1 and #2 respectively---and they still are. The suggestion is that such indices need to be modified for the "political situation" for lack of a better word.

In the US the failure looks broad spectrum, not just political, or in terms of generally decaying social structure, but also the technical agencies like CDC made serious technical failures before the issue became political (monopolising testing unnecessarily, slow roll-out of tests, tests that don't work, no overarching response plan etc.).

In the UK the alleged failure was due to government deferring to technical experts who allegedly made bad judgements*, which is harder for the index to wiggle out of.


*It remains to be seen whether any country will actually get out of this other than by herd immunity. If not, the initial UK [technical expert] position may look smart and the political decision to follow other countries with lockdowns may look like a failure.

Otherwise, it's very interesting how all the countries in the world who have yet to get things under control also happen to be under the leadership of various combinations of populism and illiberal democracies.

I'm not sure such claim stands up to much scrutiny. I'd be interested to see complete list of countries you think are run by populists/illiberal democracies (I'm guessing China doesn't count as such).


edit: I didn't actually read the article, because I thought it would be silly. Oh boy is it silly.

"There is an eerie similarity in the appalling political decisions made by President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Boris Johnson—two right wing “illiberal populist” leaders who believed their nations were invulnerable"

This is purely political propaganda aimed at Americans. Boris Johnson is personally an elite, he has spent his whole career in politics, he does not have extraordinarily weird policies, he is not an authoritarian, he is not an anti-cosmopolitan (he has Turkish ancestry and was actually a dual US citizen until very recently), and he never made opposition to coronavirus a part of his political personality. There is no way this would have been published in a comparable UK-directed periodical. It is a deeply dishonest article that assumes the reader does not know anything about the topic.