COVID-19 thread

[Travis B.]

I don't know, man. everyone claims we can't trust the chinese or vietnamese numbers, but this seems to be to be mostly just "communism bad, therefore they lie". vietnam's a lot more open than china, and I've not seen any evidence that they might be lying o that their getting covid under control came at the cost of vast human rights violations.

it's like if a rich capitalist country has good numbers, they're amazing. if a poor communist country has good numbrs, it must be red lies. do you have like... things that may convince me that nam is lying ?

It is more like "authoritarians cannot be trusted", which is not unique to China or Vietnam.

[doctor shark]

In "interesting" developments, a court order just struck down the curfew here in the Nether Regions as being "improperly enacted" and a "constitutional violation" of the right to freedom of movement, so, assuming no stay, the curfew is lifted with immediate effect.

Stay was approved until Friday, when the case will be heard by the appeals court, so... curfew still in effect.

I don't know, man. everyone claims we can't trust the chinese or vietnamese numbers, but this seems to be to be mostly just "communism bad, therefore they lie". vietnam's a lot more open than china, and I've not seen any evidence that they might be lying o that their getting covid under control came at the cost of vast human rights violations.

it's like if a rich capitalist country has good numbers, they're amazing. if a poor communist country has good numbrs, it must be red lies. do you have like... things that may convince me that nam is lying ?

It is more like "authoritarians cannot be trusted", which is not unique to China or Vietnam.

At the same time, I'd trust the numbers from Vietnam more than China, because, while I wouldn't trust the numbers entirely from an authoritarian country (see: Iran), I'd think mainland China would have more motivation than Vietnam to massage their data, so Vietnam's numbers can at least be expected to be the correct order of magnitude.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I think it might also be worth pointing out that, in many ways, China seems now communist in name only, but quite harshly authoritarian at the same time. I also wouldn't trust numbers out of Russia or Saudi Arabia.

[Torco]

China's communistness is indeed a weird thing: they don't plan the economy that much, but moreso than liberal countries. they have a lot of private enterprise, but it's really not as private as elsewhere and there seems to be more party influence towards what businesses do than, well, rich people controlling the government, which is basically the rule in "the free world". And Xi Jinping seems to be trying make it redder in some ways. i guess it ultimately rests on what you mean by communist: it's not the soviet union, but then again only the soviet union is. I look forward to the day that there's just a word for 'the chinese system' and we can call it, vietnam and wherever else I don't know... Dengist ?

[zompist]

The PRC and Vietnam hit it out of the park, but they're sorta planned economies, they're good at this kind of thing.

I have to disagree: they claim to have it under control.
It's a lot easier to fix a problem if anyone saying it isn't fixed fwhen you say it is faces jail time at best. The Chinese govvernment has a track record of trying to sweep the pandemic under the rug and being generally less than truthful. Why should we believe their numbers?

In the case of Vietnam, assuming their numbers are correct (kind of a big assumption already), there's a reason Western countries couldn't reproduce their strategy: Vietnam is an authoritarian country that can detail people at will [...]

Oh come now. Large countries with under 2000 cases/1M include Australia and South Korea. Under 1000: Mongolia. Under 500: Taiwan, New Zealand. All democracies. Japan has 3300.

Compare to France with 53,000 and the US with 85,000. If I didn't miss a country, the best rate in Europe is Finland with 9200.

You don't need an authoritarian regime to handle the virus well. And countries like Russia and Turkey haven't done well at all.

[Ares Land]

I don't know, man. everyone claims we can't trust the chinese or vietnamese numbers, but this seems to be to be mostly just "communism bad, therefore they lie". vietnam's a lot more open than china, and I've not seen any evidence that they might be lying o that their getting covid under control came at the cost of vast human rights violations.

it's like if a rich capitalist country has good numbers, they're amazing. if a poor communist country has good numbrs, it must be red lies. do you have like... things that may convince me that nam is lying ?

No, China is communist in name only -- I mean to me it registers more as rich capitalist country than anything.
My own impression, on the contrary, is that everyone is very impressed with China or Vietnam without considering how they achieve those results or the possibility they might lie.
I mean, I'm just as distrustful of the numbers in very capitalist Russia but I don't bother mentioning it: everybody's aware they're lying.

I honestly don't know if Vietnam is lying or not. The possibility is there, though. (With media under control and no opposition, who's going to bring up that the government is lying?)

The problem, is could their success have been replicated?
Vietnam had the advantage of getting to ignore WHO recommendations in January and make up their own response.
Their response was very drastic and I believe would have run into constitutional obstacles if we'd tried it here.
Basically, yeah, we could have done the same by ignoring the constitution, the opposition and public opinion. (And chancing upon the correct opinion back in January!).

[Ares Land]

Oh come now. Large countries with under 2000 cases/1M include Australia and South Korea. Under 1000: Mongolia. Under 500: Taiwan, New Zealand. All democracies. Japan has 3300.

Compare to France with 53,000 and the US with 85,000. If I didn't miss a country, the best rate in Europe is Finland with 9200.

You don't need an authoritarian regime to handle the virus well. And countries like Russia and Turkey haven't done well at all.

No, that's not my point at all. Many democracies did very well indeed.
I just have trouble with using China and Vietnam as examples to be emulated. There's probably plenty of dirt behind the scenes and we're not getting a complete picture.

[Torco]

Well, my own country could be lying too, for all I know, though not by that much. And zomp's point is very much true, plenty of liberal countries have done well: it's just more impressive when a poor country does it. and China might be very big and strong and scary, but it is categorically not a rich country in the sense the US or France is. Like, China's just a country, man. sure, it does horrible things, but that doesn't mean everything it does is evil and everything it says is a lie: It hasn't declared any phony wars on false pretenses with death tolls in the millions, it hasn't funded trained or armed fascists regimes in the third world, and it isn't in the pocket of corporations that fund death squads to kill union leaders in poor countries. I really like you, man, please don't take this as aggro, but I never cease to be amazed at first worlders, who are otherwise quite aware of the horrors their countries do, somehow forget them when it comes to the countries that are opposed to their geopolitical interests. is china horrible? yes, but so was france, and so was britain after it, and so is the US.

Damn, I don't even like china all that much (I'm a lot more sympathetic to vietnam tho), but I think I'm getting why tankies defend it: it's not a caricature of evil, man, and even if it's evil (which it is) it's factually a couple countries with a much stronger grasp on its economy. the fact that that grasp is due to it using a system you don't like, or even if it's resting on a bedrock of human rights violations (as if the economy of the western powers didn't) is immaterial to that fact, and that fact makes it unsurprising that they did well, which is all I'm saying.

When you're a third worlder and an anti-imperialist, I guess you just get used to talking about countries in other dimensions that 'oh, they're evil' cause of course they are, but they're also a reality and when they do good things it matters. huzzah to the evil empire for finally looking like they're getting stuff under control, and huzzah to the other evil empire for not having it get out of hand in the first place, i guess.

[KathTheDragon]

Honestly, I think the response to this worldwide pandemic has been quite excellent in light of a) people really can't be expected to be infinitely responsible and b) the historical record.

I'm here in England looking at New Zealand, and I can't help but get the impression that you're really very wrong.

well, what were you expecting. New zealand did very very well, no arguments here, but were you really predicting for britain to do that well? the PRC and Vietnam hit it out of the park, but they're sorta planned economies, they're good at this kind of thing. The most cosmopolitan city in the ancient empire that basically made 'fuck you got mine' its official ideology (not to mention brexit) was never going to do that well.

Also what monsieur Land said.

Is that even the point? I can and will endlessly criticise my government for handling the pandemic terribly, and point at New Zealand as what we could've accomplished if we'd not dragged our feet until the last possible moment.

[Ares Land]

I really like you, man, please don't take this as aggro, but I never cease to be amazed at first worlders, who are otherwise quite aware of the horrors their countries do, somehow forget them when it comes to the countries that are opposed to their geopolitical interests. is china horrible? yes, but so was france, and so was britain after it, and so is the US.

Hey, no problem, man! That's a fair point to make.

Actually, I changed my mind on this.

A few things stick out:
- Most countries that did well closed their borders early.
- They restricted internal travel.
- They made testing available and quarantined people who were positive.
- They insisted on face masks early on.

All of this was done fairly early.
None of these were done in the EU or, when they were done, were done too late to make a difference.

As it happens, China and Vietnam did these too. So, you know, I stand corrected.

(Whether this has to do with being planned economies or whether these count as socialist is another matter!)


On separate notes:
- There's a pretty bad cluster near where my parents live, and they can't get a vaccine. They're 75 and 80, both with serious health issues. I'm not that worried (they're really good at self-isolation) but it still drives me mad.
- The European Commission apparently opposes closing internal UE borders. *facepalm*
- Can we get a proper lockdown already? The current restrictions are already killing the economy and making people half-mad with cabin fever, a lockdown won't do worse and would at least give us a chance of getting out of this mess.

[Torco]

Is that even the point? I can and will endlessly criticise my government for handling the pandemic terribly, and point at New Zealand as what we could've accomplished if we'd not dragged our feet until the last possible moment.

oh please do, politically it's the correct take and I tbh do the same, but this is still humanity has handled a pandemic in ever, and i still expected much worse from us bunch of monkeys.

None of these were done in the EU

whoa... really? not even giving people tests and isolating them? putain.

[Ares Land]

None of these were done in the EU

whoa... really? not even giving people tests and isolating them? putain.

Talking about the whole EU may be inaccurate, I don't really know how it was elsewhere.

Here in France we could get tests by July, but at the time getting a test, and then the results took a lot of time. Self-isolation while waiting for the test was kind of on a voluntary basis. I remember having a bad cough at the time: getting a test done was a pain in the ass. Test centers would give appointment one or two weeks later. I managed to get one done earlier by calling about a dozen centers and finally finding out that had an unexpected cancellation. I was again, lucky, in getting the results in two or three days: some people I know had to wait a week. Forget about contact tracing of course.
I assume most people just didn't bother.

I think things got more reasonable in October.

I think China and Korea, among others, had a pretty good system running in April maybe? They definitely did in May.

Not having proper tests after the first lockdown meant that the virus had a fairly good chance to spread though. In September, after the summer holidays, employers insisted on no work from home, everything back to normal. By October there was little chance of bringing things under control again.

[Ares Land]

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the first lockdown.
At this stage my only thoughts are 'Is this over yet? How about now?'
(Also Strong Measures Will Be Taken. They'll probably be annoying and useless and too little too late so who cares?)

Is anyone in other countries seeing a modicum of light at the end of the tunnel?

[alice]

Is anyone in other countries seeing a modicum of light at the end of the tunnel?

Here in Britain, yes. The one thing we've done right is the vaccination.

[Ares Land]

That clown... Boris Johnson.. actually... handled the crisis... better than we did...

*cries in French*

[Vijay]

Taiwan did a great job of handling it. I left for there as soon as it started, and they immediately blocked all flights coming into Taiwan from China. Everyone at work was required to wear masks, and no one really had issues with this because people in East Asia commonly wear masks anyway. We were also supposed to check our temperature when we clocked in and out at work (I did this faithfully every day, but apparently, my co-workers were somewhat more lax about this). There was never any lockdown whatsoever because there were barely any cases coming in to begin with.

[Linguoboy]

In Chicago, the pandemic has reached a frustrating new phase: There's enough vaccine available that they've expanded eligibility, begun offering it through a wide range of partners, and set up county-level websites for people to register and book appointments. But there are still far more eligible people who want the vaccine than are able to get it, leading to what some have criticised as a "Hunger Games-style" scenario. It's not that bleak, but there's definitely an air of gamesmanship to the scheduling process, with some people snagging an appointment with relative ease while others in the same classification try repeatedly day after day only to be told there are none available.

Exacerbating this, it's become a common flex to post a picture of your vaccine card or bandaged arm to social media. A few folks have told me that they find it cheering to see their friends vaccinated one-by-one while others express resentment at seeing those who they believe to be lower priority getting jabbed before they are. Making it worse, some of the guys I know who got their first shots (and were bitching the loudest on social media about the slowness of the process) immediately left for vacation and then flooded their walls with snaps of Florida and Hawai'i.

I admit, it's beginning to affect me. I'd long been expecting not to be vaccinated before May at the earliest. Now that the real possibility of getting the first shot before the end of March has emerged I find myself getting antsy. It also doesn't help that I just passed the one-year anniversary of when my own personal lockdown started.

[ProfSaber]

Los Angeles is having the same problem with the vaccines. I'm eligible, even though I'm young, because of my weight problem and high blood pressure, but apparently there isn't a single appointment available in all of Los Angeles County for the rest of the year, if I can believe the websites. Meanwhile, I also have to go into work every day, and I know people younger than me, in perfect health, who managed to get vaccinated.

Apparently, you're supposed to go to a pharmacy at the end of the day and get the shots they have leftover from people who missed their appointments, but it's hard to call pharmacies all day when you're working full time. (Apparently, doing accounting work for the film and TV business counts as "essential.")

I'm going to stop myself now, since apparently I'm more upset about this than I realized...

[doctor shark]

Here in the Netherlands, people who are not working in healthcare and not high-risk are, right now, supposed to be vaccinated starting in May, with the target of the Dutch government being to offer a first dose of vaccination (or, in the case of the Janssen vaccine, the full vaccination) to everyone who wants it by July. But given the election last week and the problems to date with the Dutch program, I'll believe it when it happens. (It's been going at a glacial pace: 2 million doses of vaccine administered since the program began on 6 January; there are supply issues foreseen with the AstraZeneca vaccine in particular; and the Janssen vaccine isn't scheduled for delivery until, at the earliest, end of April!)

It is a bit frustrating also seeing how a lot of my friends/former coworkers in the US are getting vaccinated quite quickly (though I do know many in healthcare, so that's not a surprise), and here I am just wondering when I'll be able to get it...

[Linguoboy]

I read yesterday that the supply problems are a result of the EU prioritising keeping costs down over getting immediate access to vaccine supplies, but I don’t know the details. (This was an opinion piece complaining that EU leaders were essentially handing the UK a post-hoc justification for Brexit.)