EACLucifer wrote: ↑Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:47 am
Worth pointing out the South Korea has managed a pretty good job of containing it without welding people into the flats and totally shutting cities down. They got it before us, have had a fraction of the mortality, and haven't had to use as restrictive measures as we have.
And their figures are a lot more likely to be accurate than the Chinese fascists that caused this in the first place and sabotaged initial containment.
As has Australia, which, with a very similar government to the UK and USA, is currently on a very different trajectory to either. The number of deaths in the UK overtook the total number of cases in Australia a few days ago and is accelerating away. Australia's doubling time is currently 15 days, down from 3 days in early March.
Australia didn't move especially quickly and I was very worried for the first half of March. Nobody has been locked in their home, though the treatment of returning travelers from overseas hasn't been exactly great. Nobody has gone to jail for disputing the official narrative. And almost nobody is wearing masks. Australia has done a lot in the area of financial support so that most people can afford to stay at home without starving, which probably helps, as does the sprawling nature of our cities.
Also, our positive test rates are around 3% and the new case rates have been stable for a while so we're probably not missing large pockets of disease in the community.
The other thing that China, South Korea, and Taiwan share is experience with SARS. That gives their community a headstart in taking the risk seriously. But, again, Australia (and New Zealand) demonstrates that you don't need that history to stomp on this disease effectively, at least in the short term.