The Corona Pandemic

Away End - General Chat
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None of which contradicts any of the reasons I’ve given for why these countries are better disposed to being able to deal with these issues.

And by “authoritarian” Taiwan (up until very recently) and certainly Singapore are authoritarian in comparison to the UK.

authoritarian

adjective

  1. favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.

Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong have historically all met that description when compared with the UK which goes to my associated point about what their population is generally accustomed to. This is a point that you also make in your second paragraph. Their populations are more generally compliant and are more inured to circumstances where their personal freedoms are constrained, again relative to the experiences of the vast majority of Europeans.

All of which means that comparisons between how they dealt with the outbreak and how the UK did (and really this is how Europe did but for some reason it is the UK that is uniquely referenced here, strangely) are problematic.

It is unreasonable to equate the differing responses as if everything else is equivalent and, frankly, I do not understand the reluctance to compare the UK with more obvious and natural comparators that can be found closer to home; Germany, Italy, Spain and France. Unless, of course, it doesn’t make the UK look quite as fucking terrible if we were to do so.

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I quite happily back you up on some of this but shouldn’t the comparison be done by comparing the UK with another European country who done relatively well in terms of cases and deaths. Italy, France and Spain have not done well in this regard so maybe only Germany left, but why not compare to Norway or Denmark instead of New Zealand.

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You referred to them as Authoritarian Governments, seemingly to align their strategy with those draconian strategies employed by China. They are not.

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62.378 jabs for yesterday, week total so far is 258.929.

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Because they are not as comparable. Norway and Denmark differ in more respects to the UK than the other four in terms of total population, population density, visitor numbers, date of first confirmed case, extent to which it had already seeded etc.

The first reported cases across Europe went as follows (according to the ECDC timeline) Timeline of ECDC's response to COVID-19 or think global timeline UPDATED: Timeline of the Coronavirus | Think Global Health

9 January China’s CDC first reports of novel coronavirus detected in China
24 January France reports first case in Europe
27 January Germany reports first case
29 January Finland reports first case
31 January UK, Italy and Russia confirmed first cases. First case in Canary Islands.
Belgium 4 February
11 February worldwide death toll passes 1,000 (all but 2 in China)
15 February France reports first death in Europe (4th outside of China)
21 February Italy reports its first death
24 February first cases in Spain. 7 deaths now in Italy.
25 February Switzerland, Croatia, and Austria confirm their first cases
26 February Norway and Greece confirm their first cases
27 February The Netherlands and Denmark confirm their first cases
28 February New Zealand confirms its first case
29 February Ireland confirms its first case
1 March Czech Republic confirms its first case
2 March Portugal confirms its first case
3 March Ukraine confirms its first case
6 March UK records its first death
9 March first two deaths recorded in Germany. Italy declares lockdown. UK advises against all non-essential travel to Italy
11 March WHO declares pandemic. Sweden and Ireland report their first deaths
12 March first death in Norway
13 March first deaths in Ukraine. Denmark, Poland, and Czech republic close their borders
16 March, France, Germany and Spain close their borders to all non-citizens and residents
18 March Belgium imposes lockdown
19 March Italy surpasses China as country with most deaths. France confirms 10,000 cases
20 March Italy records 627 deaths
22 March Singapore closes its borders to all visitors, Greece enters lockdown
23 March UK announces lockdown
25 March Spain overtakes China’s death toll, now 2nd to Italy

We basically had a week’s notice of coronavirus being detected in Europe before we had our first case whereas Norway and Denmark had a month.

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Whether population density, type of regime, type of border, blah blah, the truth of the matter however you try to butter it up is that the UK made the most almighty mess of handling the pandemic and it was down to the tories handling of it under Johnston. Most deaths per capita than every other comparatively sized country in the world. Why not just say fuck all and accept that without trying to put some kind of a positive comparative spin on it.

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I didn’t equate them to any other country, I was contrasting them to the UK and other similar European countries. Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan (until very recently) are authoritarian in comparison to the UK, Germany, Spain, France and Italy.

If you understood that I was equating them to regimes such as China or North Korea then that is my failure to make myself properly understood. I had thought it was clear that I was contrasting them to the UK etc as it was the differences between those countries that was being explored.

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Assuming that’s aimed at me I’m not at all trying to put a positive spin on it. I’m trying to keep the assessment as to how the UK has done relative to appropriate yardsticks.

Its deaths per capita is one of the worst in the world (currently 13th of all countries nestled between Italy in 12th and the USA in 14th). But we get nowhere if we don’t actually explore the various factors why death rates in the UK are high and, just as importantly, why death rates in other comparable countries are low (by comparison), such as Germany.

Yes, of course, the responses of the various governments will be a major factor but it isn’t the only factor so unless we consider those there is no meaningful way to objectively and properly assess what a particular country’s government got right and what it got wrong. This ought to be about learning lessons which you can’t do if you just blindly attribute every appalling consequence to actions of the government and every favourable outcome to anything but.

It’s as important to understand what failures the government can or cannot reasonably be held responsible for as it is for what favourable outcomes it can or cannot reasonably take credit for.

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It all sort of misses the point. Population density is a rubbish metric. Some kind of surrogate for opportunities for crowding or person to person contact. The rationale being more people = more spread. Which is logical and long standing paradigm. However it does not hold true.

Let’s focus on England and London. On 27th of January the breakdown of deaths per 100,000 people of the population were

England 156.4
Wale’s 145.7
North West 195
North East 175
West Midlands 175

London 141.5

London’s population density (which is undeniably high) is not the reason the UK failed so badly.

London mirrors several cities across the world. Being international hubs creates greater risk at the start of the pandemic (connectivity of international travel) but the population density does not lead to a negative outcome during the length of the pandemic.

The most densely populated state in the US is New Jersey, they have half the number of deaths per capata than North Dakota one of the lowest density states.

Japan, South Korea are other densely populated nations that have done well.

Now I know you consider Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan as being authoritarian. Therefore can be discounted. But let’s take it back to its core principle. It’s easier to control the population if you live in an authoritarian state ?

Look at Russia they are hardly a success story even their suppressed numbers are amount the worst in the world. Iran is hardly a country of freedoms, yet is currently experiencing one of the greatest surges of infections in the world (20,000 a day).

Granted western countries did not steel weld peoples doors like in Wuhan. But New Zealand’s lockdown was considers the most draconian in the world. Those in Australia similar. There is nothing actually performed in many of those Asian countries that was not done in these western democracies.

All countries have advantages and disadvantages that’s natural. Before the pandemic you could say the UK was well placed. It’s a small island, with well developed infrastructure. A national health system, some of the worlds top infectious disease experts. Educated population, financial wealth and buying power. Access to early warning intelligence in China. Access to Italian health data via EU.

I can kind of forgive the performance of the UK during the first wave. The true risk not appreciated, the cost not known, the difficulties of a mad scramble for limited resources, an agility government not use to such challenges.

The second wave though was all to predictable. Irrespective of variants. There was not excuse for UK (and European countries) to react accordingly.

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I was not responding to Kopstar because I think there was a mismatch of how this is going. Not that I think he is wrong or that others are but we are probably banging on different elements.

So I will talk about things I probably know better. As a Singaporean, Kopstar is not wrong, we are as what my Taiwanese friend described “a country who seems to be ruled like a dictatorship with plenty of evidences of a democracy”. We get to vote, we get alot of freedom, we even get to protest. But yet all these are allowed with certain boundaries which is definitely different from the western idea of democracies. And Kopstar is not wrong, by and large, Singaporeans believe and trust the government and also yes, we do not want to be punished for doing the wrong thing, not because we are necessarily scared but being educated and being economically better off, we ourselves would weigh “what would be lose if we do something stupid?”, we not only might get a fine, we might even lose our jobs or lives if we do something stupid during this pandemic." So our obedience is as much selfish in terms of personal gains/losses (and we also can see in different cultures, what is considered as important gains and losses are different) as much an obedience to rules. And on this part, we are fundamentally different from why people in Taiwan obey the government, why the people in China obey, why the people in NZ obey, why the people in OZ obey etc…

I said this much just to highlight one thing, as like what ISMF said, regardless of political inclinations, regardless of culture, geography, my point on success or failure of controlling the pandemic seem to rest on 2 main points, the lack of iron will of governments to implement policies that hurt but is effective and the lack of more consistent buy in and responsible behaviour from bigger parts of the society.

PS: And as for the migrant worker issue that Kopstar highlighted, I think it is a real issue that there is no need for us to shy away in any case. It is what it is and the government and even people like myself felt the need for us to address our mentality and how we ensure the welfare of these people. We use to think that they are living pretty ok in conditions when we compared them to places like the middle east etc. But we are wrong, when the pandemic hit us, (in fact the majority of our infections come from the dorms), the infections spread so fast in the dorms, that the general public get to know what kind of conditions they are living in. By no means, they are living in shite but considering the rest of us living in nice apartments, we are appalled by the gap of their living conditions in close quarters. The government of course sprung to action and while we deal with the outbreak in these 300K workers by moving them to different quarters, in the long term, we are building better spaced out dorms with implementing laws for better management of these facilities in terms of cleanliness and amenities and heavier penalties if companies do not comply. If they play such an important part to building up our economy, the least we Singaporeans can do is to ensure they also get to enjoy part of what they helped to build. But we definitely have a long way to learn and go in the treatment of migrant workers.

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The two competing strategies have always been ‘living with it’ or ‘local elimination’. I think its safe to say that local elimination was the correct path both in terms of lives saved and the economy. Was local elimination ever possible in the UK? Perhaps only in the initial months but it was quite evident it was never actually a strategy seriously considered by the UK government. Just compare the first cases in Aus and UK. Both occurred around the same time (20 something of January): Australia’s media release of the first covid case on the day it occurs, reassuring the public of how the unfolding pandemic is being handled:

First confirmed case of novel coronavirus in Australia | Health Portfolio Ministers

Compared to the way the UK handled its first, which was a sign of things to come:
Coronavirus: How the UK dealt with its first Covid case - BBC News

Worried about scaring people rather than concerned about the best way to handle the situation.

Lets just keep in mind also that Australia is the second largest long-haul tourist destination for Chinese travellers after the USA. UK had about 880,000 Chinese visitors in 2019 while Australia had 1.44 million. So the threat was certainly greater in Australia. But guess what? They protected the borders. They screened people coming from Chinese flights so they were much better at limiting incoming infected people at the source. There were many stories of people entering the UK without a check or screen coming from China. This was the point at which the virus was to be won or lost. The UK government barely cared. I’ve read the SAGE reports at that time and it certainly doesn’t contradict that belief.

After Jan-April, there wasn’t much hope of local elimination. At its best, the case count in the UK was still simmering. Much lower than the peak but ever present. In mid July at its lowest, the UK’s 7 day rolling case average was 9 per million, and this very much coincided with Australia at its worst, 21 per million - to put in perspective the UK’s peak was 881 per million in early January 21. So even in a country fighting for local elimination (Aus) , and having to extend lockdown at least a month past the last community transmitted case, I couldn’t imagine the UK government - obsessed with, and governing on what’s best for their popularity rating - holding lockdowns into July to eliminate community spread.

I hear about how UK people and Aus people are different about what they are willing to tolerate. Im quite certain there was marching on the street and the Victorian Premier got an absolute hammering from the public for the length of the lockdown. Pretty much no-one was happy about it. I do know in QLD its very much a flag waving state - never seen so many flagpoles in people’s front and backyards before in Aus - and speaking to colleagues at work and they were all pretty much rehashing what Trump was saying (Aus is heavily influenced by the USA in everything it does). So I think its unfair to suggest Australians were accepting of what the state governments were doing. I think the common consensus in Australia is that Scomo could have handled things better. Australians should probably pray to their deity that they weren’t governed by the Conservatives then.

Im really only going to comment on the early part of the pandemic as that was where things were won or lost. Pages could be written about the failings of this government during the pandemic. They didnt learn before the first wave. They didnt learn before the second wave. Its why we should all be extra cautious about good times lying ahead when that third wave rolls around in September. The traffic light system to me is still the most reactive approach to limiting variants. I know it will fail. Its another excuse to open borders and hope that the vaccine offsets all the damage they are doing. We’ll see I guess. Opening borders is stupid. Opening borders without any self-isolation from certain countries is brain-dead.

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I don’t speak to enough Australians about this of course but the few I spoken to are pretty much frustrated by the lockdowns but complied for the greater good. I think to me, its not about whether people are happy about the lockdowns, I don’t think many are but the difference is the number of idiots who decided its a good idea to act against the government lockdowns just because they are unhappy about it in many western countries vs countries like OZ or NZ where they are similarly frustrated but decided to comply because most understood why it had to be done.

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Bondi in late March 2020 after government imposed gathering limits.

Down the street from where I was living was one of the first cluster events in Qld when a local restaurant decided to hold a large private birthday party for the wealthy. 24 infections from that one party.

The thing is, if there is no community transmission, then the aftermath of rule breaking is less severe.

Queenslanders for the first time needed to wear a mask last week when there was a spreading event in Brisbane. Life is very different when the government is doing it’s best to protect its borders.

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Is there then a difference where european countries maybe felt they couldn’t close their borders to other european countries,where we still see this as a bit of an issue even though it might be a political decision.

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my experience was the opposite. yes the headlines were about the noisy few, yes, no one i know was ‘happy’ about the lockdown, yes, Dan Andrews had a few thousand funny GIFs made about him…but in the end, on a personal level only, refering to my local community and my workforce…it was generally very much compliant and disbelief at the amount of shenanigans going on in the US and the UK in particular…

i honestly thought the general compliance was something to be proud of.

the media shit stirring was noisy… but the actual compliance i thought was pretty good.

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I must have lost the thread of conversation here. When was the matter of Australian compliance or otherwise brought up?

As I said previously, I personally think that one of the lessons, behavioural scientists in particular, should take from all this is that most populations are able to tolerate more severe restrictions for longer than they had given them credit for. Providing the information given is clear, financial support is made available, exit plans are set out, and the benefits to the greater good made plain.

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