Comparing Corona Virus Success Stories with Abysmal Failures

[CharonY]

8 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Here Biden seems to making an effort in that direction:

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/11/09/joe-biden-coronavirus-task-force-nr-vpx.cnn

Hopefully it makes a difference.

It shows that he takes the pandemic seriously (as he should). Unfortunately I a significant proportion of the US population (and unfortunately also elsewhere) do not. And since the measures in place in most of the countries rely on community-level behaviour, things are likely to be rather dire for a while longer.

Just look at Canada, they had the right central messaging, but even ignoring policy failures there are too many people not taking the risks seriously. Especially among young folks there is the assumption that they are not going to be impacted, but apparently the spread is also not well contained in age groups above 40. Folks are tired of isolation and cases are rising everywhere.

I also worry that the successes of potential vaccines may lead to more irresponsible behaviour fueling more deaths and long-term harm than necessary.

[J.C.MacSwell]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

During the last months, and in all the debates, D Trump has always claimed a vaccine is 'just around the corner', as a defense against his bungled Coronavirus response.
And Pfizer waits until D Trump loses the election t announce their vaccine is testing 90 % effective.

Reminds me of the American hostages in Iran being released just in time for R Reagan's election.

But I still like it.

LOL. That's pretty cynical!

Trump of course will be the first to agree though, and the Dems will deny any help toward it from his administration, even if it was a routine one.😷

[J.C.MacSwell]

On 10/31/2020 at 6:46 PM, J.C.MacSwell said:

At the very least he won't be holding mass rallies.

 

On 11/2/2020 at 10:31 PM, iNow said:

 

On another note, I’m not totally convinced Trump will stop holding rallies if he loses, but again... 

+1 iNow

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/million-maga-march-washington-dc-trumps-motorcade-passes-supporters/

[iNow]

Oyyy... to be continued 

[CharonY]

On a different note, Sweden was doing a soft lockdown, but without the additional measures as found in a number of Asian countries. There was a bit of a controversy whether they actually tried to go for herd immunity (it was officially denied, though internal memos hinted at that). There were semi-official estimates that a good proportion of Stockholm might already have been infected a while back, though a subsequent antibody study indicated that it is not the case. Overall Sweden had a much higher number of deaths than their neighbours (600 deaths per mio vs 140 in Denmark). And now the numbers are climbing as in other European countries, indicating that clearly there is no sign of herd immunity to be found.

 

Using current data, on a global scale the Americas are leading in deaths. Africa as a whole is doing much better, with the exception of North and South Africa. Australia and most of East Asia is also way better off. As a whole the overall trends have not shifted that much from the start. 

[beecee]

While certainly lower population densities, it seems that Australia and New Zealand have essentially shown the way with controlling this damn virus. At the present time both NSW and Victoria have a few new [single digits] cases and other states are so far free of any new cases. Victoria went into a total lockdown a couple of months ago and then went 60 odd days without a case. The present single digit numbers have been put down to returning flight crews breaking isolation rules. Sydney has now deemed wearing a face mask as compulsory on public transport and in shopping complexes after a similar small "second wave" of single digit cases. 

There is and have been talk of creating a "Pacific bubble" with regards to Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific Islands. The Mrs is anxiously looking forward to that time to enable us to visit her family in Fiji. The same type of bubbles have worked successfully with our Rugby League competition that has now concluded without any problem, and continues with the Cricket and the Australia/India tests that are now in progress.

[CharonY]

Even before NZ and Australia, China has shown the way. And then some other countries demonstrated what could work instead of a total shutdown. And way before that we have history lessons about the efficacy of quarantine. It is just depressing that apparently most countries (which includes Australia, which first tried a flattening strategy before going for a burnout) decided that they need to experience that lesson themselves and likely forget if the next pandemic arrives too far into the future. The only other alternative to lockdown seem to be high compliance coupled with massive contact tracing. The lesson this time around is that half hearted approaches do, in fact, not work. 

[beecee]

23 hours ago, CharonY said:

Even before NZ and Australia, China has shown the way. And then some other countries demonstrated what could work instead of a total shutdown. And way before that we have history lessons about the efficacy of quarantine. It is just depressing that apparently most countries (which includes Australia, which first tried a flattening strategy before going for a burnout) decided that they need to experience that lesson themselves and likely forget if the next pandemic arrives too far into the future. The only other alternative to lockdown seem to be high compliance coupled with massive contact tracing. The lesson this time around is that half hearted approaches do, in fact, not work. 

Australia would have even fared much better if not for a couple of monumental mistakes...but essentially. most of what you say is true.

ps: You're an Aussie I take it?

Tip: If Labor loses  the next election under Anthony Albanese, Daniel Andrews will be conscripted to Federal Labor and be the next leader. The incessant criticism and allegations made against his person by the Murdoch press and its cronies, during the Victorian lockdown, and how he never once wavered, says much for the man.

 

[CharonY]

34 minutes ago, beecee said:

ps: You're an Aussie I take it?

Nope. But I have been involved in method development for surveillance and I do look at methods and approaches in various countries. I am not a big fan of re-inventing the wheel multiple times or assuming exceptionalism if there is no real indication for it.

[beecee]

1 minute ago, CharonY said:

Nope. But I have been involved in method development for surveillance and I do look at methods and approaches in various countries. I am not a big fan of re-inventing the wheel multiple times or assuming exceptionalism if there is no real indication for it.

No probs.

[CharonY]

But I take your point that for politicians it can be quite difficult to enforce the right thing, in the face of political propaganda. I suspect that many powerful folks (either private sector or politics) are used to be able to replace reality with make-belief. However, under crises such as the pandemic it shows that nature does not care much for that attitude.

The real issue is of course that the typically it is the powerless that suffer more. I always assumed that such failures would be sanctioned by voters, but in the world that we live in (regardless which country) it does not seem to be that straightforward.

[J.C.MacSwell]

Nova Scotia (just under 1 million people) finally again reporting a day with no new cases, and down to 28 active ones.

We did have a bit of a second wave but no Covid related deaths since the summer. I wonder if our flu related deaths are down because of our Covid measures, and by how much, but I don't think those stats are readily available or accurate. (going by a few searches)

[CharonY]

5 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Nova Scotia (just under 1 million people) finally again reporting a day with no new cases, and down to 28 active ones.

We did have a bit of a second wave but no Covid related deaths since the summer. I wonder if our flu related deaths are down because of our Covid measures, and by how much, but I don't think those stats are readily available or accurate. (going by a few searches)

As a whole the flu season in Canada is very mild to almost non-existent. It is almost certainly related to isolation and distancing measures.

[J.C.MacSwell]

30 minutes ago, CharonY said:

As a whole the flu season in Canada is very mild to almost non-existent. It is almost certainly related to isolation and distancing measures.

In Nova Scotia I think we have done reasonably well at those....plus for Covid have benefitted from geographical isolation and distance as well.

So far very few cases where tracking wasn't fairly immediate. Two members (out of 4) in our immediate family had tests that came back negative within 24 hours.

But it doesn't take much to have things turn south (pardon the expression 😉)

[CharonY]

16 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

In Nova Scotia I think we have done reasonably well at those....plus for Covid have benefitted from geographical isolation and distance as well.

So far very few cases where tracking wasn't fairly immediate. Two members (out of 4) in our immediate family had tests that came back negative within 24 hours.

But it doesn't take much to have things turn south (pardon the expression 😉)

No doubt, I think it has crystallized that really burning out the case numbers is absolutely necessary and surfing the curve is not a good strategy. Provinces such as Manitoba which did well for a time were rather quickly overwhelmed once the numbers surged.

[MigL]

Tell me about it !
Ontario started the second wave with large numbers in the Toronto area, but the numbers are now steadily increasing in most other areas as well.
Just about every hotel room in Niagara Falls was booked on New Year's Eve
These people weren't local, but everyone could book a room ( cheap winter rates ), get a wristband for entry, and then congregate together in one room to party. There were even stories of 'party' buses coming from Toronto.
Now we're getting 4000 new cases per day in Ontario.

[CharonY]

I think I mentioned before that countries with strong centralized responses had typically better outcomes that fractured-state level regulations. Now that likely also applies to vaccine roll-outs. I mean, it is hard to say for the US, for example as apparently they had no real plans, at all.

Quote

 But in the immediate hours following Biden being sworn into office on Wednesday, sources with direct knowledge of the new administration's Covid-related work told CNN one of the biggest shocks that the Biden team had to digest during the transition period was what they saw as a complete lack of a vaccine distribution strategy under former President Donald Trump, even weeks after multiple vaccines were approved for use in the United States.

 

 

[MigL]

Well, the previous President does have an excuse.
He's been busy trying to overturn an election, and plotting insurrections, since Nov 3, and hasn't really had any time to do his actual job.

[CharonY]

I have not seen Fauci that happy since the start of the pandemic. Sorry, I meant "Gina-Virus".

[StringJunky]

6 hours ago, CharonY said:

I have not seen Fauci that happy since the start of the pandemic. Sorry, I meant "Gina-Virus".

Fauci: TFFT.  

Edited January 22, 2021 by StringJunky

[StringJunky]

Just seen the video of Fauci. Nice to see him happy, after being sidelined for so long. Makes me realise better how damaging Trump and crew were.

Edited January 22, 2021 by StringJunky

[CharonY]

18 hours ago, MigL said:

Well, the previous President does have an excuse.
He's been busy trying to overturn an election, and plotting insurrections, since Nov 3, and hasn't really had any time to do his actual job.

The weird thing is that no one is really surprised that had no strategy. But it kind of boggles ones mind to some degree.

[J.C.MacSwell]

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

The weird thing is that no one is really surprised that had no strategy. But it kind of boggles ones mind to some degree.

Too bad drinking bleach wasn't successful...I think he had some pretty intricate plans for rolling out the program.

[CharonY]

3 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Too bad drinking bleach wasn't successful...I think he had some pretty intricate plans for rolling out the program.

When reports came out that Trump had abolished Obama's pandemic response team, there was an Op-Ed in the NYTimes (I think) where the remaining folks Trump pandemic team claimed that they did not disband it but rather just restructured it to make it more nimble and agile. Well, whatever it was, the remaining bits and pieces were clearly not able to do anything beyond repeating Trump's random thoughts. Agile indeed.

[MonDie]

It isn't over yet, America!  Deaths (as a proportion of cases) are spiking as covid-19 ravages underfunded hospital systems in southern Europe and west Asia!  https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths

If we don't even send them some vaccines specifically intended for hospital workers etc., which we should have done months ago, then I hope Narendra Modi, whom I am not a fan of, rubs it in our faces when they are manufacturing the Covaxin vaccine domestically without patent restrictions.  Because, by that time, it won't matter whether the patents are lifted, and that is called petty healthcare CEOs being too petty to be greedy.  On another note, the microchip, if it even existed, would probably become oxidized in a peroxisome or something somewhere.  Stop eating snake cakes.  Matt Binder had a guest on to discuss the 12 biggest anti-vax disseminators.  Let us have a live discussion about THEM.

The Anti-Vaxxer Disinformation Dozen Matt Binder

John Iadarola hosted Kurt Eichenwald (Anti-Vax Story Suffers SERIOUS Blow) to discuss how Andrew Wakefield set off the anti-vax movement.