Time to read THE LAST CENTURION?

The E wrote:
The chinese reaction to Corona shows both the advantages and disadvantages of authoritarianism quite clearly. On the one hand, yes, once the regime decided on a course of action, it was implemented swiftly. On the other, the bureaucracy's tendency to hide inconvenient news until they become truly unavoidable did delay the initial response for weeks.

Yes, but since currently no democratic capitalistic state demonstrated anything comparable with Chinese efficiency dealing with the outbreaks - it seems that advantages outweighted disadvantages. Let's not forget, the virus is new. So, the initial delay was probably unavoidable anyway; nobody was exactly sure what they are dealing with in first days.

Dilandu wrote:

The E wrote:
The chinese reaction to Corona shows both the advantages and disadvantages of authoritarianism quite clearly. On the one hand, yes, once the regime decided on a course of action, it was implemented swiftly. On the other, the bureaucracy's tendency to hide inconvenient news until they become truly unavoidable did delay the initial response for weeks.

Yes, but since currently no democratic capitalistic state demonstrated anything comparable with Chinese efficiency dealing with the outbreaks - it seems that advantages outweighted disadvantages. Let's not forget, the virus is new. So, the initial delay was probably unavoidable anyway; nobody was exactly sure what they are dealing with in first days.

So far we have seen no evidence that other countries are responding to the Coronavirus any less effectively than the Chinese. There simply hasn't been enough time to observe the growth rates and time to reach the inflection point.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

So far we have seen no evidence that other countries are responding to the Coronavirus any less effectively than the Chinese. There simply hasn't been enough time to observe the growth rates and time to reach the inflection point.

So far, we already knew that the situation in Iran is out of control (members of government fell ill), that South Korea and Italy have more than 4.000 cases each, and the numbers grew rapidly. Also we knew that USA suffered a series of setbacks due to purely bureaucratic reasons.

My opinion (and I am not fully versed in Immunology etc, so it is only my opinion) is that the West will get hit less than the East due to two main factors.
1) Social Distance. The West is more standoffish, which reduces the ability of a disease to transmit by a small but significant amount.
2) Physical Health. Westerners tend to have access to more varied foodstuffs allowing for more intake of vitamins etc. There is a reason that Westerners are, on average, larger than those from the East and Middle East.

I'm not saying it will somehow magically become harmless, but I don't think that the West will be hit as hard by the Coronavirus.

Goodness knows how the (surviving) leadership of Iran would react if the Coronavirus ends up killing less than a hundred of the "Infidel Heretics" of the UK and USA. Their regular "Allah brings chaos on our enemies" rhetoric would be rather... undermined.

Actually, South Korea deserves credit for reacting very quickly. Her large number of cases does not say that she has higher rate of infections, but better rate of discovery due to rapid implementation of testing. Also, death rate is extremely low, under one percent, probably due to effective precautionary measures.

Don

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Now they're out looking for "Patient Zero" in the animal kingdom. Not a good sign.

Cases are spiking in Africa just as the last Ebola case being treated is released.

n7axw wrote:Actually, South Korea deserves credit for reacting very quickly. Her large number of cases does not say that she has higher rate of infections, but better rate of discovery due to rapid implementation of testing. Also, death rate is extremely low, under one percent, probably due to effective precautionary measures.

Don

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There is a lot of travel between China and South Korea and Japan. I do not know if and when a travel ban was imposed. This enabled infection of many patients. Judgement should be reserved for how well they cope, not how hard they were hit.

Guys, guys, guys. Can we PLEASE tone down the "I'm right, you're wrong, SO THERE!" posts?
Getting back to the actual illness. I haven't seen anyone mention a small but very important reason some viruses ramp up and small don't. Those that tend not to ramp up can be called, for lack of a better term, an incomplete infector. The virus can infect a human but does so for lack of its "preferred" host. These will become less infectous as the disease progresses thru the population. This can mean it is less transmissible, effects the infected in lesser ways or both.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

n7axw wrote:Actually, South Korea deserves credit for reacting very quickly. Her large number of cases does not say that she has higher rate of infections, but better rate of discovery due to rapid implementation of testing. Also, death rate is extremely low, under one percent, probably due to effective precautionary measures.

Don

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There is a lot of travel between China and South Korea and Japan. I do not know if and when a travel ban was imposed. This enabled infection of many patients. Judgement should be reserved for how well they cope, not how hard they were hit.

My point is that in Korea testing and discovery proceeded very quickly which means that more cases were found. What is interesting about this is that as more cases were found, the number of deaths on a percentage basis dropped which could be heard as an encouraging word.

You're right. Judgement should be reserved for how well they cope, not how hard they were hit.

Don

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cthia wrote:Now they're out looking for "Patient Zero" in the animal kingdom. Not a good sign.

Cases are spiking in Africa just as the last Ebola case being treated is released.

The fact that Conovirus is spreading in tropical and desert climates worries me. Flu season in the US is winter because the virus can't survive warmer and drier conditions. If Coronavirus can continue propagating this summer, it will be a problem.