But all of these countries were able to mostly return to normality last year bar international travel meaning they all avoided the 2nd lockdown.
So it begs the question, is a tough sacrifice early on, but a return to normality earlier a better option than pushing ahead with a clueless plan bumbling from 1 disaster to the next waiting for your miricle solution to hopefully arrive?
When you say “all of these countries were able to mostly return to normality last year bar international travel meaning they all avoided the 2nd lockdown” you’re not referring to any European country, are you? None of them avoided subsequent lockdowns.
So what you appear to be saying is that European (western) democracies are not as well equipped (or preconditioned) at dealing with global pandemics as authoritarian governments with populations that have historically enjoyed less personal freedoms? In which case I’ve already agreed with that.
Would living under those sorts of regimes be worth a lower death toll whenever a major global pandemic was to arise? I’m not sure it would and this is why I feel using these countries as comparators is slightly disingenuous because they give a false choice.
That’s why I feel that the more appropriate comparators are the likes of Germany, Italy, France, and Spain. Let’s learn from what worked well in these countries, take the lessons on board for next time, and implement measures that are effective and applicable to the situations we find ourselves in rather than thinking that everything is automatically transferable from one country to another regardless. It isn’t.
But none of Hong Kong, Singapore, NZ or Taiwan are authoritarian governments, they are all democracies just like UK and Europe.
Are we back to including NZ in this despite the other aspects that make it incomparable to the UK and other European countries?
You can’t seriously describe Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan as being democracies “just like UK and Europe”. Seriously, do you really believe that they’re equivalent to the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and France and that their populations have grown up experiencing the same personal freedoms?
I think Australia would be a valid comparison.
At one point in the summer (after first wave) both countries had similar number of infections.
Australia went for zero Covid strategy while the UK opened up. Despite huge size, 95% uninhabited. The population density of Sydney, Melbourne Brisbane and Perth must be similar to cities in UK.
Are you really calling Taiwan and Singapore authoritarian?
Population density London 5,518/km2
Population density Sydney 415/km2
Population density Melbourne 1,560/km2 London vs Melbourne: What is the difference?
Brisbane 176/km2 Comparison London and Brisbane by area and population
Perth 264/km2 Comparison London and Perth by area and population
109 English districts have a population density greater than Melbourne.
197 more than Sydney
227 more than Perth
260 more than Brisbane
Taiwan has progressed rapidly in the last couple of decades and was rated as a flawed democracy up until last year when it was ranked as a full democracy for the first time on the democracy index
However, it is constantly being challenged by China.
Singapore was ranked as a “hybrid regime” up until 2013, putting it somewhere between an authoritarian regime and a flawed democracy. Since 2013 it has just skimmed above the ranking of hybrid putting it bottom of the flawed democracy rating.
Neither their political governance nor the experiences of their respective populations make it truly comparable to the UK. Italy maybe… 
I’m not saying that some of the measures Taiwan, in particular, took the UK couldn’t have taken - they absolutely could. But then you could level nearly all the same charges at every single other major European country.
Taiwan’s response was aided by their experience of SARS first time around as, no doubt, will the UK’s and other European countries’ as and when the next similar pandemic manifests itself.
Even Germany learning lessons from this experience, as must all countries
That’s not really comparing apples with apples though.
Take the size of what is defined as greater London, that is considered very large. 1572km2. The area sized defined as Brisbane is 15,826 km2. Larger than the area of Northern Ireland.
If you take the actual city the population density typically ranges from 1000/km2 in the suburbs to 3000/km2 in central Brisbane,
The actual city of Sydney is 9212 people per km2
Both links government sources.
Whilst we can debate what defines a city. I think it’s fair to say the underlying point is that Australian cities do have significant parts of population living in close proximity similar to the UK.
But then you’re not comparing apples with apples either then. The City of Sydney has a population of only 246,343 making up only 4.6% of the total population of Greater Sydney (according to your link). At a population density of 9,212 per km2 there are 11 London boroughs with a greater population density than that with a total population of 3,048,625.
So more than 12 times the number of people live in more densely populated areas of London than in the City of Sydney. 246k isn’t really comparable to over 3 million living in even closer proximity.
Population density was only part of the problem imo, as we’re other things which you have mentioned.
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1380494267852984320
https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/meeting-highlights-pharmacovigilance-risk-assessment-committee-prac-6-9-april-2021
PRAC investigating thromboembolic events after vaccination with COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen
PRAC has started a review of a safety signal to assess reports of thromboembolic events (formation of blood clots, resulting in the obstruction of a vessel) in people who received COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen.
Four serious cases of unusual blood clots with low blood platelets have been reported post-vaccination with COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen. One case occurred in a clinical trial and three cases occurred during the vaccine rollout in the USA. One of them was fatal.
COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen is currently only used in the USA, under an emergency use authorisation. COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen was authorised in the EU on 11 March 2021. The vaccine rollout has not started yet in any EU Member State but is expected in the next few weeks. These reports point to a ‘safety signal’, but it is currently not clear whether there is a causal association between vaccination with COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen and these conditions. PRAC is investigating these cases and will decide whether regulatory action may be necessary, which usually consists of an update to the product information.
EMA will further communicate once the evaluation has concluded.
This wouldn’t be wholly surprising given how similar the Janssen vaccine is to the AstraZeneca one. One to watch.
“Singaporeans place a lot of importance on discipline, and corporal punishment is widely accepted. Caning is not only used to punish criminals but also as a disciplinary measure in schools, the military, and in the domestic scene. Do not be surprised to find canes sold in grocery stores”
As Kopstar has already said, it is difficult to compare countries who have already experienced similar to what is happening now and also have populations who are geared to doing what they are told or face serious punishments for things most western countries deem minor offences.
Ok, so even at worst if we call it a “Flawed Democracy” what does that mean it isn’t? An Authoritarian regime. By the very metric you are using, even Singapore, a state that has not made the same progress as Taiwan, is still two levels above being classified as Authoritarian. While Taiwan’s democracy is seen as troubled, internally it is one of the strongest in the world, well above the US and UK. The threat they have comes principally from China (and those internal parties that may try to build ties with the PRC, but who overwhelmingly lose in their democratic elections) which presents in ways that have no impact on what levers the Taiwanese government had available to it to manage a public health crisis.
These states have recent experience of similar outbreaks. While most Western government who mainly watched outbreaks like SARS had some lessons they took on board, most either didn’t internalize them or decided to throw them away, that made them less responsive to the outbreak in the early months. But just as importantly they have populations who complied. There are some arguments about how the ethnically “Chinese” are more compliant (arguments that often veer off into blatant racism), but the real issue is that they’ve been affected by these outbreaks before and so know the drill and seemingly better appreciate the importance of not being a fucking idiot.
Well fuck.
omg
Unlike many other European countries, Italy did not give automatic precedence to its army of pensioners when it launched its inoculation campaign in December, even though they were bearing the brunt of the disease.
Italy’s government also said the over 80s should get priority, but a haphazard rollout has allowed professionals including lawyers, magistrates and university professors to move to the head of the queue in many places.
Health undersecretary Andrea Costa, who took office in February, told Reuters that mistakes had been made in not clearly identifying priority groups.