South Korea and the UK are being held up by medical critics of the Trump Administration as the way it should have been done here.
The first of those two is correct.
Do you apply the same level of contempt to other Govt responses in Europe as you do to the UK?
Yes.
I'm just finding it hard to believe that eastern Asian countries seem have worked out how to keep the spread of this thing under control and their economies working at the same time, without coercion, much of it with simple, common-sense leadership, and the US and Europe have completed ignored what they've been doing for weeks, followed inevitably by huge, disruptive lock-downs when the numbers get to where the numbers were always projected to get to.
"Please consider cancelling events and large gatherings unless they are essential. Please work from home if practical". Why is this hard?
No, I'm not *sure* - it's early, the measures taken haven't had that long to work so there's not much data yet, and since actually *eradicating* the thing doesn't seem practical, they'll bounce up and down when you get clusters showing up here and there. But look at the whole trendlines - the curve is much, much less bad.
South Korea and the UK are being held up by medical critics of the Trump Administration as the way it should have been done here.
The first of those two is correct.
Other than South Korea, which country's response would you commend?
Japan, for the timely "try to work from home if practical, please consider cancelling events, for now we're closing schools" part. The testing is weak and parts of the response have been incompetent but the trend is still pretty good, and like I say the economy is basically functional, so you can keep this up pretty much indefinitely.
South Korea and the UK are being held up by medical critics of the Trump Administration as the way it should have been done here.
The first of those two is correct.
Other than South Korea, which country's response would you commend?
Japan, for the timely "try to work from home if practical, please consider cancelling events, for now we're closing schools" part. The testing is weak and parts of the response have been incompetent but the trend is still pretty good, and like I say the economy is basically functional, so you can keep this up pretty much indefinitely.
If they are limiting testing, how can you be sure about the trends?
South Korea and the UK are being held up by medical critics of the Trump Administration as the way it should have been done here.
The first of those two is correct.
Other than South Korea, which country's response would you commend?
Japan, for the timely "try to work from home if practical, please consider cancelling events, for now we're closing schools" part. The testing is weak and parts of the response have been incompetent but the trend is still pretty good, and like I say the economy is basically functional, so you can keep this up pretty much indefinitely.
If they are limiting testing, how can you be sure about the trends?
Like I say you can't be *sure* about it, but; 1) Testing is expanding, so limits to testing should impact the left side of the graph more than the right side. 2) The testing should be good enough to at least catch it once people become seriously ill, so if there was a huge part of the picture missing you should see the statistics looking like the disease is getting mysteriously more dangerous.
South Korea and the UK are being held up by medical critics of the Trump Administration as the way it should have been done here.
The first of those two is correct.
Other than South Korea, which country's response would you commend?
Japan, for the timely "try to work from home if practical, please consider cancelling events, for now we're closing schools" part. The testing is weak and parts of the response have been incompetent but the trend is still pretty good, and like I say the economy is basically functional, so you can keep this up pretty much indefinitely.
If they are limiting testing, how can you be sure about the trends?
Like I say you can't be *sure* about it, but; 1) Testing is expanding, so limits to testing should impact the left side of the graph more than the right side. 2) The testing should be good enough to at least catch it once people become seriously ill, so if there was a huge part of the picture missing you should see the statistics looking like the disease is getting mysteriously more dangerous.
Another huge part of the picture missing is that testing is, to my knowledge, limited to real-time PCR which, as it is based on detecting the virus' RNA, will only detect those currently infected, not those who have caught the virus and recovered from it. For that, we need a serology test, based on detecting antibodies to the virus, not its RNA. I think Singapore has developed one, but it has problems with cross-reactivity with dengue, or something.
Until we know the number of people who have had the virus and recovered without being detected to date, we can't really get a good calculation for either the R0 or the fatality rate, and so we won't have good confidence in what percentage of people will catch it, and hence how many are likely to require ICUs or are likely to die.
It is really hard to find out what is being done to get a reliable serological test available for widespread testing.
Comments
Schengen only. Ireland also excluded.
https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1237918795550916608?s=20
So "transit via Heathrow" won't work.
1) Testing is expanding, so limits to testing should impact the left side of the graph more than the right side.
2) The testing should be good enough to at least catch it once people become seriously ill, so if there was a huge part of the picture missing you should see the statistics looking like the disease is getting mysteriously more dangerous.
Until we know the number of people who have had the virus and recovered without being detected to date, we can't really get a good calculation for either the R0 or the fatality rate, and so we won't have good confidence in what percentage of people will catch it, and hence how many are likely to require ICUs or are likely to die.
It is really hard to find out what is being done to get a reliable serological test available for widespread testing.