Bad News Thread

[Grace T.]

South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are major economic powers, densely populated, democracies, and deeply intwined the world economy.

All three managed to drive R below 1 and keep it there. I suspect all three have suffered less economic damage than we have.

Call it a lockdown if you like. But their policies worked and ours did not.

There you go again. Japans lockdowns were more lenient than California’s relying on lockdowns and curfews by metropolitan area only as the virus surged. The chief differences: they really focused early on protecting the elderly and stopping reseeding on the border, their weight ratios and diet, and their culture not just of masks but if you are sick you take steps of politeness to not infect others. Possible prior exposures to other coronavirus may also explain the difference in outcome with the Phillipines. That said they went through a winter wave starting around late November (guess they relaxed things for thanksgiving) and are in a current wave now. Their testing has also been awful (cases are undercounted) as has been their vaccine rollout. And now there’s the olympics

South Korea has relied on test and trace, had a December much smaller surge (gosh that thanksgiving!) but is now over 600 cases.

Taiwan is a success story but: a they didn’t believe the prc, they are an island, they shut their island right away, they lockdown and t&t to drive everything down and they kept the border shut.

South Korea and Taiwan are democracies but they are also hardly free states. Much like Australia they took steps like mandatory separation from your family and forced testing and South Korea was not able to control the virus. You keep searching for that utopia which doesn’t exist though as public health options (force everyone to exercise and eat sushi and protect the elderly and magically become super polite) is far fetched as they come.

 

[happy9]

South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are major economic powers, densely populated, democracies, and deeply intwined the world economy.

All three managed to drive R below 1 and keep it there. I suspect all three have suffered less economic damage than we have.

Call it a lockdown if you like. But their policies worked and ours did not.

I'm not going to get into an exhaustive point by point rebuttal. I'm not as smart as you. I'm sure R means something to you, it's doesn't to me. It's not black and white and those countries each had their issues, maybe except for Taiwan. All 3 have very restrictive borders and culturally they are very different from murica.

It's easy to sit home and coldly analyze a problem. I don't mean that as a personal attack against you (or anyone). It's kinda like an MBA student working on a capstone project in school then trying to apply that in the real business world. Not everything is neat.

To someone running a business, being told by the government to close your business is a lockdown. Many businesses are gone forever. There are economic footprints all over the country that have lost upwards of 60% small business of all types of flavors and many more to come. Many still struggling. Where do you draw the line? I know where I draw mine

 

[espola]

 

[dad4]

There you go again. Japans lockdowns were more lenient than California’s relying on lockdowns and curfews by metropolitan area only as the virus surged. The chief differences: they really focused early on protecting the elderly and stopping reseeding on the border, their weight ratios and diet, and their culture not just of masks but if you are sick you take steps of politeness to not infect others. Possible prior exposures to other coronavirus may also explain the difference in outcome with the Phillipines. That said they went through a winter wave starting around late November (guess they relaxed things for thanksgiving) and are in a current wave now. Their testing has also been awful (cases are undercounted) as has been their vaccine rollout. And now there’s the olympics

South Korea has relied on test and trace, had a December much smaller surge (gosh that thanksgiving!) but is now over 600 cases.

Taiwan is a success story but: a they didn’t believe the prc, they are an island, they shut their island right away, they lockdown and t&t to drive everything down and they kept the border shut.

South Korea and Taiwan are democracies but they are also hardly free states. Much like Australia they took steps like mandatory separation from your family and forced testing and South Korea was not able to control the virus. You keep searching for that utopia which doesn’t exist though as public health options (force everyone to exercise and eat sushi and protect the elderly and magically become super polite) is far fetched as they come.

Yes. They did something different than we did. Their policies worked. Ours did not.

The question is not whether our policies and attitudes failed. We know we failed. The question is why we failed, and what we can do better.

Was T&T more important than business closures? Great question.

Did we do ourselves serious damage by staying social while mildly sick? Also a great question.

Add to that, did our national attitude towards individualism over collective action cripple our response? Unpopular, but needs to be asked.

But stop saying “it was all inevitable”. It was not inevitable. Several democratic countries handled the virus with minimal deaths. We did not. Can we learn from the successes, instead of just coming up with a list of excuses to justify past mistakes?

 

[Grace T.]

Yes. They did something different than we did. Their policies worked. Ours did not.

The question is not whether our policies and attitudes failed. We know we failed. The question is why we failed, and what we can do better.

Was T&T more important than business closures? Great question.

Did we do ourselves serious damage by staying social while mildly sick? Also a great question.

Add to that, did our national attitude towards individualism over collective action cripple our response? Unpopular, but needs to be asked.

But stop saying “it was all inevitable”. It was not inevitable. Several democratic countries handled the virus with minimal deaths. We did not. Can we learn from the successes, instead of just coming up with a list of excuses to justify past mistakes?

But none of them did through your preferred option of mild NPIs and masks.

Change the density of cities, make people more polite about illness, have them eat healthier and lose weight, give them exposure to other prior coronaviruses or become an island are not short term pandemic responses that you can turn on in emergency response.

The one thing ALL the countries that did better have in common BTW is control the border. We couldn't even do that.

 

[happy9]

But none of them did through your preferred option of mild NPIs and masks.

Change the density of cities, make people more polite about illness, have them eat healthier and lose weight, give them exposure to other prior coronaviruses or become an island are not short term pandemic responses that you can turn on in emergency response.

The one thing ALL the countries that did better have in common BTW is control the border. We couldn't even do that.

We WON"T do that. It's a choice, unless it's not and we are incapable of controlling the border. It may be even be tooooo sensitive of a topic to discuss as adults, too many extremists on both sides.

 

[Desert Hound]

I'm not going to get into an exhaustive point by point rebuttal. I'm not as smart as you. I'm sure R means something to you, it's doesn't to me. It's not black and white and those countries each had their issues, maybe except for Taiwan. All 3 have very restrictive borders and culturally they are very different from murica.

It's easy to sit home and coldly analyze a problem. I don't mean that as a personal attack against you (or anyone). It's kinda like an MBA student working on a capstone project in school then trying to apply that in the real business world. Not everything is neat.

To someone running a business, being told by the government to close your business is a lockdown. Many businesses are gone forever. There are economic footprints all over the country that have lost upwards of 60% small business of all types of flavors and many more to come. Many still struggling. Where do you draw the line? I know where I draw mine

@dad4 has a number of issues.

- Does not do cost benefit analysis
- Does not adjust his view to real world data
- Clings to masks (EU CDC, WHO and the US NIH have all said they don't know if masks work).
- Advocates closing/killing biz, closing schools, etc. all while he has a job that with lockdowns are not affected. You can lay money if he owned a biz and some people were saying no big deal just close it, he would be a very strong advocate of real data and not killing his lifelong investment. It is real easy to advocate shutting biz down when you can do so and still receive full pay sitting in a basement with a mask on.

 

[dad4]

But none of them did through your preferred option of mild NPIs and masks.

Change the density of cities, make people more polite about illness, have them eat healthier and lose weight, give them exposure to other prior coronaviruses or become an island are not short term pandemic responses that you can turn on in emergency response.

The one thing ALL the countries that did better have in common BTW is control the border. We couldn't even do that.

You yourself said Japan did a more mild lockdown than we did. That seems to be mild NPI + masks.

The difference may be that Japan actually followed their rules.

Compare that to us. What fraction of the country has been to at least 20 indoor gatherings in the last 14 months? We have plenty of people who spent the last year in weekly indoor gatherings, and now complain that “lockdowns don’t work”.

Well, yes. Speed limits don’t work either, if you ignore them.

 

[Grace T.]

We WON"T do that. It's a choice, unless it's not and we are incapable of controlling the border. It may be even be tooooo sensitive of a topic to discuss as adults, too many extremists on both sides.

It's not just the illegal immigrants and asylum seekers either. It's the many US citizens which would have been stranded overseas and the shutdown of airtravel that would have been required. Even Trump didn't want to go that far. Remember it was the repatriation of US citizens off the Diamond Princess that was partially responsibility for the early escalation in NorCal and Washington, and Americans returning from Italy that accelerated the NY outbreak.

 

[Grace T.]

You yourself said Japan did a more mild lockdown than we did. That seems to be mild NPI + masks.

The difference may be that Japan actually followed their rules.

Compare that to us. What fraction of the country has been to at least 20 indoor gatherings in the last 14 months? We have plenty of people who spent the last year in weekly indoor gatherings, and now complain that “lockdowns don’t work”.

Well, yes. Speed limits don’t work either, if you ignore them.

They actually regionally surge, which is how the lockdowns were originally intended to operate. Not let's close indoor dining nationwide for a year plus.

Again, change the culture of a country to make everyone more polite like the Japanese is not a policy prescription. Hasn't helped the Canadians avoid their current surge either.

 

[Grace T.]

They actually regionally surge, which is how the lockdowns were originally intended to operate. Not let's close indoor dining nationwide for a year plus.

Again, change the culture of a country to make everyone more polite like the Japanese is not a policy prescription. Hasn't helped the Canadians avoid their current surge either.

Japan as of last week IIRC was at 1% partially vaccinated. They are also still considering hosting the olympics except without visiting spectators but with limited seating at stadiums. Their testing has also been abysmal and their handling of the Diamond Princess quarantine was a disaster that seeded outbreaks in the rest of the world.. And they are having a third wave....

Japan COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer

Japan Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.

www.worldometers.info

 

[happy9]

It's not just the illegal immigrants and asylum seekers either. It's the many US citizens which would have been stranded overseas and the shutdown of airtravel that would have been required. Even Trump didn't want to go that far. Remember it was the repatriation of US citizens off the Diamond Princess that was partially responsibility for the early escalation in NorCal and Washington, and Americans returning from Italy that accelerated the NY outbreak.

As with life, the geo political world isn't black and white. Attaching words like xenophobia to the management of a crisis causes bad decisions. People have to think about "feelings" and don't look at consequences. Crisis management then turns into consequence management - that's where we've been.

 

[Hüsker Dü]

Yes. They did something different than we did. Their policies worked. Ours did not.

The question is not whether our policies and attitudes failed. We know we failed. The question is why we failed, and what we can do better.

Was T&T more important than business closures? Great question.

Did we do ourselves serious damage by staying social while mildly sick? Also a great question.

Add to that, did our national attitude towards individualism over collective action cripple our response? Unpopular, but needs to be asked.

But stop saying “it was all inevitable”. It was not inevitable. Several democratic countries handled the virus with minimal deaths. We did not. Can we learn from the successes, instead of just coming up with a list of excuses to justify past mistakes?

Asian cultures, even Aussies and Kiwis, are more able to bite the bullet and just do the damn restrictions knowing it will make things get worked out faster. Here, the land of death cults and extreme selfishness, not so much.

 

[dad4]

They actually regionally surge, which is how the lockdowns were originally intended to operate. Not let's close indoor dining nationwide for a year plus.

Again, change the culture of a country to make everyone more polite like the Japanese is not a policy prescription. Hasn't helped the Canadians avoid their current surge either.

Japan did it through politeness. Australia and New Zealand found another path. South Korea found a third.

None of them declared that each individual citizen gets to act as their own personal health department. They had rules, they followed their rules, and they had consequences for violations of those rules.

We have several good examples of wealthy democratic countries that managed this:

South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore.

UK learned from them. Can we learn from them, too? Or is it more important to make excuses and play political CYA?

Some things they did, which we can copy:

Isolate patients.
Restrict travel, including border closures.
Test and trace.
Mask up.
Close indoor gatherings.
Significant penalties for rule violations.

Something we did, which they can copy:

Throw gobs of money at vaccine research and production facilities.

 

[crush]

As with life, the geo political world isn't black and white. Attaching words like xenophobia to the management of a crisis causes bad decisions. People have to think about "feelings" and don't look at consequences. Crisis management then turns into consequence management - that's where we've been.

Thoughts = Choice = Actions = Consequences

 

[Grace T.]

Japan did it through politeness. Australia and New Zealand found another path. South Korea found a third.

None of them declared that each individual citizen gets to act as their own personal health department. They had rules, they followed their rules, and they had consequences for violations of those rules.

We have several good examples of wealthy democratic countries that managed this:

South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore.

UK learned from them. Can we learn from them, too? Or is it more important to make excuses and play political CYA?

Some things they did, which we can copy:

Isolate patients.
Restrict travel, including border closures.
Test and trace.
Mask up.
Close indoor gatherings.
Significant penalties for rule violations.

Something we did, which they can copy:

Throw gobs of money at vaccine research and production facilities.

True thing which is sort of funny. I keep starting a post with an alternate history of the US where they do everything you want them to but everytime I start it it runs off the rails quickly. I keep stumbling on the Ds throwing Trump out of office when he either shuts the borders and airtravel even to US citizen and illegally diverts money to the border wall without Congressional authorization (all in the midst of the February impeachment), or when he disregards the Supreme Court rulings on the limits of his executive power and dares Roberts to go enforce his ruling, or where he has to deploy the National Guard to suppress the riots. It gets too outlandish from there, ending with Trump canceling the elections, and I keep scrapping it, knowing espola will just call it coocoo.

 

[watfly]

Asian cultures, even Aussies and Kiwis, are more able to bite the bullet and just do the damn restrictions knowing it will make things get worked out faster. Here, the land of death cults and extreme selfishness, not so much.

There is nothing that exhibits extreme selfishness more so than preventing children from attending school and making our youth bare the biggest burden of the pandemic lockdowns despite having an infinitesimal risk from the virus.

 

[espola]

True thing which is sort of funny. I keep starting a post with an alternate history of the US where they do everything you want them to but everytime I start it it runs off the rails quickly. I keep stumbling on the Ds throwing Trump out of office when he either shuts the borders and airtravel even to US citizen and illegally diverts money to the border wall without Congressional authorization (all in the midst of the February impeachment), or when he disregards the Supreme Court rulings on the limits of his executive power and dares Roberts to go enforce his ruling, or where he has to deploy the National Guard to suppress the riots. It gets too outlandish from there, ending with Trump canceling the elections, and I keep scrapping it, knowing espola will just call it coocoo.

Coocoo

 

[Grace T.]

Coocoo

I welcome anyone, including yourself, to try it. It gets scifi coocoo so long as the alternate history assumes Trump is president, the Ds and media are so hostile to him and will do everything possible (within stretched reason) to remove him and/or win the election, China initially lies about the outbreak, the US is geographically the same and the beginning of the outbreak takes the same pattern, and the US Constitution remains in place.

 

[dad4]

True thing which is sort of funny. I keep starting a post with an alternate history of the US where they do everything you want them to but everytime I start it it runs off the rails quickly. I keep stumbling on the Ds throwing Trump out of office when he either shuts the borders and airtravel even to US citizen and illegally diverts money to the border wall without Congressional authorization (all in the midst of the February impeachment), or when he disregards the Supreme Court rulings on the limits of his executive power and dares Roberts to go enforce his ruling, or where he has to deploy the National Guard to suppress the riots. It gets too outlandish from there, ending with Trump canceling the elections, and I keep scrapping it, knowing espola will just call it coocoo.

How about I speak for me and you speak for you? It is simpler that way.

If it’s about individual rights and individual responsibility, then fine. Let each of us own up to the responsibility half, too.

How many indoor gatherings have you been to in the last 13 months? Doesn’t matter what it was: restaurant, hotel, vodka tasting, bar visit, dinner party, casino, hotel, etc. Count everything except grocery stores, doctor visits, and your own employment.

1? 10? 100?

I know. You want to point out my one. Fair enough. What’s your number? How many indoor gatherings have you hosted or attended?

If, as I suspect, you’ve been part of over 50 indoor gatherings, then take a long look in the mirror and think about why this plague is still with us. How many people are there who had a similar number of unnecessary indoor gatherings? Why would you expect the lockdown to work when that many people ignore the advice that often?