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Based on what you have seen/read, which countries do you think have responded well to COVID and which have not thus far? Which is yours?
- Thread starter .Detective.
- Start date
- COVID
Kiwi here, we've done an incredible job. I've been impressed at how Australia has made a turnaround too, during the initial days for them it seemed like the government wasn't taking it at all seriously.
Looks like we might be allowed to travel to and from each other's countries (New Zealand <---> Australia) sooner rather than later too which is cute.
Looks like we might be allowed to travel to and from each other's countries (New Zealand <---> Australia) sooner rather than later too which is cute.
I live in Canada, I think the response has been decent here. Brazil seems like one of the worst.
Germany definitely stands out as well as the likes of South Korea and Taiwan.
Here in Ireland we seem to have done well. We were actually one of the first of the European countries to close down certain institutions like schools, and this was before things began to get bad here. Sad how badly the UK handled everything in comparison being our nearest neighbours. We have had bad points mind you, idiots crowding Temple Bar on one Saturday when people were advised to be sensible, people flouting the restrictions because of nice weather on a Sunday, people flooding holiday areas in caravans on Easter. But for the most part we've done well and most are trying to do things right. We were scheduled to hit 15K cases by the end of March but only hit it this week if I'm correct so we've done decent, and this is with our mess of a healthcare system. People are beginning to push it lately though in thinking things are fine with higher usage of public transport and being outside in general in the past week.
Here in Ireland we seem to have done well. We were actually one of the first of the European countries to close down certain institutions like schools, and this was before things began to get bad here. Sad how badly the UK handled everything in comparison being our nearest neighbours. We have had bad points mind you, idiots crowding Temple Bar on one Saturday when people were advised to be sensible, people flouting the restrictions because of nice weather on a Sunday, people flooding holiday areas in caravans on Easter. But for the most part we've done well and most are trying to do things right. We were scheduled to hit 15K cases by the end of March but only hit it this week if I'm correct so we've done decent, and this is with our mess of a healthcare system. People are beginning to push it lately though in thinking things are fine with higher usage of public transport and being outside in general in the past week.
Australia and New Zealand have had some absolutely remarkable statistics. Taiwan is also doing well.
Chile has one of the worst health ministers in the world. This shit is just waiting to explode and fuck us all.
Too early for any victory laps but I think the Greek government did an impressive job keeping the contamination and mortality to low numbers.
Having a public health system severely crippled by the recent financial troubles, the ongoing issue with refugees and the very recent attempt to flood people from the Turkish land border, it was some feat to efficiently juggle one more serious issue in our hand.
But this war is far from over, I think.
Having a public health system severely crippled by the recent financial troubles, the ongoing issue with refugees and the very recent attempt to flood people from the Turkish land border, it was some feat to efficiently juggle one more serious issue in our hand.
But this war is far from over, I think.
Canada. I think the initial response is very bad. They made no almost preparation, no quarantine for anyone coming from a hotspot. In the beginning we somehow lucked out as China actually exported only a few cases to us. However we are screwed once we have cases from Iran and Europe and then it it hit the long term care homes.
That's said, most government responded quickly once shit hit the fan. Trudeau managed to convince US to close border "mutually" is probably the best thing. Except the federal Conservative party who want to reopen the parliament to get some air time and keep making racist remarks. Not even Ford is doing those thing.
I think the best country is probably Taiwan.
That's said, most government responded quickly once shit hit the fan. Trudeau managed to convince US to close border "mutually" is probably the best thing. Except the federal Conservative party who want to reopen the parliament to get some air time and keep making racist remarks. Not even Ford is doing those thing.
I think the best country is probably Taiwan.
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We gotta get our nails done, damn it. This ain't no communism.
Singapore and South Korea are the only ones deserving of any credit
They actually test people and quarantine them, wow
They actually test people and quarantine them, wow
Taiwan... but they aren't doing as much testing as South Korea.
Taiwan was literally kept in the dark by the WHO.. began immediately taking this seriously earlier than anyone else complete with thorough contact tracing and quarantining. To date 429 positive 275 recovered and 6 deaths.
Taiwan was literally kept in the dark by the WHO.. began immediately taking this seriously earlier than anyone else complete with thorough contact tracing and quarantining. To date 429 positive 275 recovered and 6 deaths.
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Judging by how rapidly cases are rising there I'm pretty sure they will be soon
Germany, where I am currently living is doing very well, but it will obviously still have a huge impact on daily life, mainly because of the rest of the world shitting the bed, the threat of the virus will be there for years until we have a vaccine. there will be many more outbreaks after the initial ones are over. social distancing will be a world wide normality until we have a vaccine.
Feeling very, very lucky to be Australian at the moment. Only 1300 odd infections and 15 deaths in Victoria which is insane when looking at what it could've been without the restrictions.
Also glad they've we've got it down to a point where we can carefully plan out the next steps and expand testing to population sampling and cold symptoms, not just flu symptoms.
Also glad they've we've got it down to a point where we can carefully plan out the next steps and expand testing to population sampling and cold symptoms, not just flu symptoms.
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I don't think it is obvious. I did try to come up with a solid number of deaths per capita but the only thing I found was a "real clear politics" which showed we were better than a lot of countries.
Coronavirus Updates (COVID-19) Deaths & Cases per 1M Population | RealClearPolitics
Coronavirus Updates (COVID-19) Deaths & Cases per Population | RealClearPolitics
I'm not sure how accurate that is but its the best I can find and it is terrible that mainstream news outlets arent reporting the numbers in this format,
Second, China silenced healthcare professionals trying to warn the world. and punished those that warned about a cover up.
China Detains Activist Who Accused Xi of Coronavirus Cover-Up (Published 2020)
Xu Zhiyong, a prominent Chinese legal activist, went silent over the weekend. His girlfriend, Li Qiaochu, a social activist, has gone missing.
China, literally, locked up Chinese citizens in their own homes preventing them from leaving in emergencies.
"Officials and volunteers have sealed off buildings, erected barricades and stepped up surveillance to ensure compliance with the ban on movement, measures that are taking a toll on many in the community. "
Sealed in: Chinese trapped at home by coronavirus feel the strain
During weeks holed up in her grandmother's apartment with 10 relatives and eating a restricted diet, Chinese teenager Li Yuxuan says tempers have frayed.
www.reuters.com
The key to understanding the origins and where we go from here is to go back to the beginning and...
"Zhao tweeted unsubstantiated speculation that the American military may have brought the virus to China."
Here are some excerpts of what Chinese diplomats have said about countries raising concern
"Ambassador Gui Congyou has belittled journalists in Sweden, comparing them to a lightweight boxer seeking to go toe-to-toe with a heavyweight China. A commentary on the embassy website last month assailed a Swedish reporter for an article on the impact of China's one-party political system on its virus response."
" China's envoys in Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda have been berated over reports of virus-related harassment of Africans in the city of Guangzhou, a rare public rebuke of Beijing by African nations. The Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe waved away the anger, tweeting dismissively about "so-called racial discrimination."
"The French foreign minister summoned the Chinese ambassador after an embassy statement, in apparent response to Western criticism, accused French nursing home workers of deserting and "letting their residents die from starvation and disease."
So explain to me how the US response was worse for the world than the Chinese government
China's diplomats show teeth in defending virus response
Chinese envoys have set off diplomatic firestorms overseas with a combative defense whenever their country is accused of not acting quickly enough to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic
abcnews.go.com
This may be controversial, but I believe in a year's time we're going to realize that Sweden had the right approach. They're going to build up herd immunity quickly, their economy isn't going to tank as drastically, and they won't suffer from stringent on again off again lock downs. The strategy to invest and focus on protecting vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, while allowing the younger and largely asymptomatic population to build up the herd immunity that will reduce long term transmission to me seems like the best approach. Otherwise we're going to live for potentially years in lock down while we attempt to "contain" a virus that is essentially impossible to accomplish without a vaccine or extremely draconian measures. Containing in the long term to me seems like an impossible task, as it requires a massive infrastructure and violation of privacy that most western democracies aren't going to tolerate, and any success is still at risk with one slip up potentially leading to another surge in cases and locking people up once more.
Could be totally wrong though, but only time is going to tell.
Could be totally wrong though, but only time is going to tell.
Australian here. I'm so glad New Zealand took it serious because I actually think they influenced Aus to step up our response.
I'll be repping my country Brunei Darussalam, and say the government has done a stellar job. We had our first infected Covid patient come back from a Islam related event in Malaysia, during IIRC early March or late February. From the on we accumulated cases up to 138(122 recovered, 1 death sadly) to this day, with 0 new cases for the past week, but thankfully the government was able to contact trace most of those who came into contact with patient zero and or others who also attended that same gathering at Malaysia.
Currently, our country's kinda on a lock down, cineplexes are closed, most popular spots to gather are also closed, mosques have been closed for a month and maybe even longer just in case, you can only take away from restaurants and can get fined for eating in, schools have all closed IIRC and we've taken an online approach to classes. This will continue to happen until we reach day 28 of zero infected locally transmitted cases, does not include those who after recovery get reinfected. Our Sultan had to even announce publicly there'll be no raya celebrations(usually a month or so of celebrating our completion of the month of fasting). And also thanks to our healthcare system, anyone can get themselves tested for free and get their results within a week and anyone who does come back into our country will be quarantined for 14 days at a specific location like hotels.
Sure there were some folks who didn't respect the rules placed this year but overall majority of the country has done their best to flatten the curve. As our Ministry of Health PM said, don't push it and ever since patient zero, we didn't!
Currently, our country's kinda on a lock down, cineplexes are closed, most popular spots to gather are also closed, mosques have been closed for a month and maybe even longer just in case, you can only take away from restaurants and can get fined for eating in, schools have all closed IIRC and we've taken an online approach to classes. This will continue to happen until we reach day 28 of zero infected locally transmitted cases, does not include those who after recovery get reinfected. Our Sultan had to even announce publicly there'll be no raya celebrations(usually a month or so of celebrating our completion of the month of fasting). And also thanks to our healthcare system, anyone can get themselves tested for free and get their results within a week and anyone who does come back into our country will be quarantined for 14 days at a specific location like hotels.
Sure there were some folks who didn't respect the rules placed this year but overall majority of the country has done their best to flatten the curve. As our Ministry of Health PM said, don't push it and ever since patient zero, we didn't!
My kids will not be going back to school in two weeks, one of the biggest community outbreaks in Sydney was due to a childcare facility in Blacktown. The governments original stance about kids not being a risk factor was utter shite. Also my wife still works in a high risk medical job and we don't want to chance infecting 1000's because of a few more missed school weeks. They'll catch up.
I think a huge part was many people started distancing off their own backs. I took my kids out of school a week or so before they officially announced it and the school was already half empty, restaurants around us were empty and many had started doing take outs before they had to. A lot of people saw what was happening in Italy at the time and took their own steps. Even our local pub closed before they had to, they reopened a few days later as a Bottlo' and take out food place.
I still think we can fuck up if we come out to early. Just stay as it is until we have a month of zero new infections and keep flights closed. We'll be golden and in a position to trace and control any further outbreaks.
I think Germany and South Korea are the big success stories. I'm worried about Germany opening up to quickly, though.
I'm in California. Although Trump was too slow and too chickenshit to take any decisive measures early on, I think our governor has handled it impressively. I would put Cali and Washington state at the top of US response. Maybe on par with the best worldwide.
Edit: Totally forgot about Singapore and Vietnam. But I have to admit I'm ignorant when it comes to most places' situations outside of the North America and EU.
I'm in California. Although Trump was too slow and too chickenshit to take any decisive measures early on, I think our governor has handled it impressively. I would put Cali and Washington state at the top of US response. Maybe on par with the best worldwide.
Edit: Totally forgot about Singapore and Vietnam. But I have to admit I'm ignorant when it comes to most places' situations outside of the North America and EU.
I feel safe for my girlfriend and her parents in Vietnam, they have been good in managing this...even if it prevents me to be with her for the time being (should be in Vietnam at this moment) . South korea managed it well with a big outbreak too
I would not feel safe in spain at least how they managed it at first. USA is in the top worst too.
Here in quebec we are the worse of canada with 22000 cases and 1400 death.... new york state (our next door neighbour)is about double quebec population but they have 20k death , how can it be ☹️😳
I would not feel safe in spain at least how they managed it at first. USA is in the top worst too.
Here in quebec we are the worse of canada with 22000 cases and 1400 death.... new york state (our next door neighbour)is about double quebec population but they have 20k death , how can it be ☹️😳
Costa Rica here, doing truly well, stupidly well in my opinion. 6 deaths and still under 700 cases after a month and a half , we had like single digit daily confirmed cases all the past week. We controlled this without an actual quarantine, and we dont have curfew laws or an army to enforce shit, mostly controlled traffic and fined the ass of whoever got out witht heiur car when shouldnt and closed bars, malls and obvious risk factors.
It fucking helped that the Health minister is young (as is the president) and an epidemiologist to boot. who was pestering about handwashings for years before becoming minister. Also we lucked out with a strong health system and even antivenom institute and faciliteis that are now working on antibody treatment
This might actually be a little bad, because immunity is not building up fast enough, however we had a gained a lot of time to prepare and next week they will announce changes, probably easing stuff.
Economically destroyed, but that is everyone everywhere. Fucked up tourism, but a lot of jobs here are service, call center and back office for the US companies, Amazon call center here even is hiring up.
It fucking helped that the Health minister is young (as is the president) and an epidemiologist to boot. who was pestering about handwashings for years before becoming minister. Also we lucked out with a strong health system and even antivenom institute and faciliteis that are now working on antibody treatment
This might actually be a little bad, because immunity is not building up fast enough, however we had a gained a lot of time to prepare and next week they will announce changes, probably easing stuff.
Economically destroyed, but that is everyone everywhere. Fucked up tourism, but a lot of jobs here are service, call center and back office for the US companies, Amazon call center here even is hiring up.
Singapore Contained the Coronavirus for Months. Now It Has One of the Worst Outbreaks in Asia.
The government had a major blind spot.
agree with you. Coming into week 8 being isolated at home and seeing all these fuckwits at the beach in NSW I'm not feeling great about the next few weeks when cases start to rise again...
Not as lucky as we did in the UK. What are the odds that we'd have a pandemic exercise in perfect time to show us what we'd need to do for exactly this eventuality with enough time to implement it's recommendations?
And then to not be the first wave of countries to be hit, so that we had plenty of examples of what to do (and not to do) along with clear scientific advice from the WHO.
Frankly you'd have to be an idiot and a psychopath to mess it up from there.
Yeah. The laet couple of days have been fucking stupid.
Selfish, unthinking fuckwits.
Germany: Political leaders were a bit late on closing down and now early on opening back up, but so far got bailed out by the country's robust healthcare infrastructure. Overall we benefit from a relatively responsible media and public.
I live in Spain. From today onward, kids 14 years old or under can go out for a walk 1 hour a day accompanied with one of his/her parents, with recommended mask and gloves. Just a walk. No toys, no seeing his friends: just a walk to breathe "fresh air"
Well, yesterday there was 3 kids inside a supermarket, alone and without mask/gloves.
We're fucked.
Edit: Got some info wrong. They can play outside with toys and stuff, but they still have to keep social distance while doing so. Yesterday some pictures about lots of families no keeping distance run across Twitter.
We're still fucked.
Well, yesterday there was 3 kids inside a supermarket, alone and without mask/gloves.
We're fucked.
Edit: Got some info wrong. They can play outside with toys and stuff, but they still have to keep social distance while doing so. Yesterday some pictures about lots of families no keeping distance run across Twitter.
We're still fucked.
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Europe is not only the big countries. Smaller countries in Europe have done well. I'm pretty happy with how the situation was handled in Portugal. Germany deserves all the merit, but they also have what's probably the best health system and ICU capacity in the world.
Finland has done pretty well, im sitting here in our ER's x-ray room and everyone's bored because there's not many patients. the COVID unit is right next to us and im not sure if they have a single confirmed case atm. kind of incredible really.
the movement restrictions, closing of shops etc really worked, and our hospital wasnt overrun. there were a couple weeks that were scary, it seemed like it was accelerating and i was personally transporting COVID patients for hours some days, from the ER to the lung ward and infection ward, it was tense.. if it had gotten worse we would have been in real trouble. it still can of course.. i hope and trust our government makes wise choices (fun fact my gf's friend from school is our PM now, heh, what an absurd timeline).
the movement restrictions, closing of shops etc really worked, and our hospital wasnt overrun. there were a couple weeks that were scary, it seemed like it was accelerating and i was personally transporting COVID patients for hours some days, from the ER to the lung ward and infection ward, it was tense.. if it had gotten worse we would have been in real trouble. it still can of course.. i hope and trust our government makes wise choices (fun fact my gf's friend from school is our PM now, heh, what an absurd timeline).
I dont know about the entirety of India but my home state of Kerala got it all under control from being proactive as early as January.
Thankfully due to the experience they had with the Nipah virus few years back and kudos to the excellent medical field/groups there which puts anything in the US has comparable to shame.
www.theguardian.com
www.technologyreview.com
Cant say the same thing about my city/state here in the US lol.
Thankfully due to the experience they had with the Nipah virus few years back and kudos to the excellent medical field/groups there which puts anything in the US has comparable to shame.
How the Indian state of Kerala flattened the coronavirus curve | Oommen C Kurian
A strong health service and clear communication is key to communist-run Kerala’s success, says Oommen C Kurian of New Delhi’s Observer Research Foundation
www.theguardian.com
What the world can learn from Kerala about how to fight covid-19
The inside story of how one Indian state is flattening the curve through epic levels of contact tracing and social assistance.
www.technologyreview.com
Cant say the same thing about my city/state here in the US lol.
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Canadian. I think we've done a pretty good job all things considered but I'm not satisfied. We should have responded more strongly in the beginning. Also, bailing out oil companies was a mistake and I think there needs to be more federal support for frontline workers. Of course, the Liberals haven't done a bad job but I think like with most things, our perspective on the actions of our government are somewhat painted by what goes on in America.
South Korea and Taiwan seem like the best from what I've read. I've heard good things about New Zealand too.
South Korea and Taiwan seem like the best from what I've read. I've heard good things about New Zealand too.
My girlfriend and I are French but we're living in the UK and looking at what's happening in France with a lot of jealousy haha. Not saying they've been great, but in comparison to the UK, my god...
