Countries that have successfully controlled the virus

[Cam77]

... so far. I’m thinking countries which had high numbers relative to their population but, in contrast to the vast majority of other countries, actually managed to get and stay on top of things. Which countries would meet that criteria? Well, from brief look at stats I think certainly China and South Korea. Possibly Malaysia. And that’s about it.

China, for example, had cases in the low thousands for quite a while but has basically not gone above double figures since the beginning of March. The spike in Beijing a month or two ago was no more than an isolated puddle in the end.

At the beginning of July, 10 million students in China safely sat their university entrance exams (their A-levels) and the country has been virtually mask free for a good two months. People are shopping and eating in restaurants, going to domestic leisure spots etc mask free across the vast majority of the country and have been doing so for a couple of months now.

(As an aside, it’s interesting how the Western media has gone pretty silent on China in this regard, only occasionally showing a picture of people wearing masks in Beijing - could it be because that is the only city among China’s 200 cities where masks are still commonplace?Surely not!)

Anyway, I’d be interested to hear from anyone, particularly those who are/were recently living in China and S.Korea recently, what in your opinion allowed their government/society to succeed in controlling it. What did they get right that every other country seems to have failed to do?

Sweden- they have reached herd immunity

Herd immunity without a vaccine is a load of bollocks. It's basically letting everyone (or the vast majority) catch it, ignoring the fact a huge number of those will die.

Sweden had 5-12 x deaths / million of their Scandinavian neighbours with similar low population density & culture

Their central bank also predicts a similar net fall in GDP by the end of 2020

I appreciate the gain in civil liberties and freedom from restrictions, which is significant,
but multiples of the UK death toll would NOT be an improvement

The UK death curves followed other densely populated European countries like Italy, not the sparsely popualted Scandinavian countries

I think when we are talking about countries in Asia - so Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore etc - it’s a question of preparedness. Basically almost every year since about 2003 those countries have been threatened by a respiratory virus coming from China – SARS, MERS, H1N1 – so although this has been devastating worldwide, for them, Covid was just another respiratory virus coming from China. And they knew exactly what to do- move schooling online, close everything down tight for a while, wear masks outside. The Western world just wasn’t prepared to the same degree.

Completely agree @Cam77.

I'm an expat in China and it's complete rubbish to say that the stats are all lies.

The facts speak for themselves, the country has practically no cases anymore and life is pretty much entirely back to normal. Outside of Wuhan and Hubei province more largely in the early days of the outbreak, lockdown wasn't even that repressive.

I think the main thing is China is very easily able to track and trace. Obviously this is due to a lack of privacy and the government having a lot of info on people, I'm not saying this is right, but it's not exactly surprising that a country like China has the power and the means to get on top of an epidemic like this.

North Korea is at the extreme end of the spectrum. Not being as bad as North Korea doesn't make China an open and honest regime.

Yes the Tories massively cocked things up, but China also made very serious mistakes (some for overtly political reasons) that allowed the virus to get out of control in the first place. They have contained it because they are a totalitarian regime and can enact measures we can't.

It is really depressing to see people so willing to embrace dictatorial regimes, to say we should all be more like them. There are plenty of more democratic countries that have done well,

I live in a province of South Korea moved here in 2018.
Few mis conceptions in this thread the government does not have complete control. However people have a lot of respect for the government and will do what they are told.
South Korea does seem to have it under control without ever being in lockdown. Schools closed for 12 weeks and bars without outdoor space were closed for 1 month. Churches closed for 14 weeks. There was also a few weeks were we only allowed to socialise with people in our post code or we worked with.
South Korea had lots of things going in their favour.

1. they messed up so much with SARS the were on alert for something to happen.
2. they started developing a test in December the day after the first case came to light.
3. in South Korea you always get a big tax pay out in April this year the top 50% of earners did not get that money this year. Also the PM took 3 months off getting paid. This meant they had the money to do everything.
4. they still have national service so the have a lot of army not doing anything. These men have been put to use taking people’s temps and spraying disinfectant.
5. people live and work in their local area so when they introduced daily medical checks it was easy for people to go to one place every day.
6. people don’t steal or take more than they need. So the bottles of antibacterial hand gel that were put out everywhere are still there.
7. work ethic Koreans work hard they ran every lab in the country 24/7 for a good while.
8. track and trace. Also with track and trace came the text of shame. So if I got Ill tomorrow everyone on the island I live on would get a message saying victim number: xx has been diagnosed. Female, British perm resident, the area I live in. then everywhere I have been for the last 2 weeks down to what shops I have been in at what time. How long I spent at the gym. These messages have cause affairs to come to light, people have lost jobs due to these messages. when there was a outbreak in a gay night club it caused issues for a lot of people. This has meant people have not gone out, people have stayed in more and been careful about their movements.
9. over 80% of the country is mountains making it hard to move around.
10. the desire to fit in. Everyone does the same (hair cut, style etc) meaning that if you get advised to wear a mask everyone will do it. And you will do it just so you fit in.
11. government advice texts South Korea loves these. Since Jan I have had 4 texts a day reminding me of the covid rules (as well as the other government texts like today I got told it was sunny and I should drink water). I do believe if Korea closed its borders then they could be free of Covid but all borders are open to everyone (just with strict quarantine rules).

Democratic countries with few deaths:
Japan, S Korea, Taiwan, Singapore

Others:
Hong Kong, VietNam

Not as spectacular a success, but a more comparable European country:
Germany

They had just over ⅙ the deaths / million of the UK
..... and ⅕ the deaths / million of Sweden while having about 12 x Sweden's population density

Germany is predicted to have a significantly lower drop in GDP than the UK by end 2020,
around the level of the drop for Scandinavian countries

It is true that nearby countries that had been hit hard in previous years by viruses coming out of China were much better prepared

and sprang into action as soon as they heard the first reports - they guessed what was coming

Taiwan did an excellent job but they learnt from SARS & I believe went against initial WHO advice in the beginning.

As for herd immunity ....

Recent serological surveys in high COVID epicentres have shown v high levels of antibodies in:

• about 93% of the population of Iquitos, Peru

• 78% in some areas of New York City

• 50% in Mumbai slums

These are all v densely populated areas, so sparsely populated countries might have herd immunity with much lower figures
However .... the UK is quite densely populated, especially in much of England

We are a country that doesn’t like to be told ,what to do and lots are not prepared to follow the guidelines and quarantine isn’t being enforced because the civil liberty groups would be out in full force

Exactly, you do have to take into account the society we actually live in.

@googybob The WHO refuse to advise Taiwan.

I've got no faith in the WHO anymore anyway.

@Kayakinggirl not sure I agree with all your points (Korean citizen here) but most of them are true enough. Numbers creeping up again due to churches which at this point I wish they would just close but I guess it's all about the 💰

Let's not forget the WHO hasn't included Taiwan in its data etc

@HopelessSemantics x post

When people talk about sparcely populated scandinavian/nordic countries they usually ignore the fact that most of the population live in a relatively small area. Eg Finland: Lapland is 30% by area but has 3% of the population. Another 10% of the area is lake and just over 40% of the population live in just 10 cities. But people always divide the population by total landmass when they are talking about population density. It's just not that straightforward. It still is less dense but the difference is exaggerated. Same applies to most nordic countries

I'm in South Australia and life is largely back to normal.
We even get to send dd on school camp at this stage, dd only lost 2 weeks, 1 our choice, 1 was mandated week off going into school holidays.
Was a footy with 20,000 3 weeks ago, though a couple new cases have reduced that back to 10,000 for time being
We have no mask requirements and I've only seen them worn maybe 10 times since March.

Aus shut state and international borders and fast, outbreaks were jumped on hard in SA. Victoria is a no go zone and your own state won't let you back, in SA anyway, NSW isnt far behind but we looking to move to QLD and dp could travel there pretty easy now upon some research. Very few from overseas getting in supposedly.

I think largely SA just stayed home but we could still get takeaway whole time, go bottle shop, shops like target or Kmart and Bunnings were open, bigger yards and big open spaces and allowed to drive to them so had a balance of some normal which helped.
Events cancelled fast leaving people nothing to do but stay home, weather was getting colder anyway, when we normally retreat indoors more

That's not to say I'm a lockdown fan, I'm not, but not cos it don't work, it has worked but more I don't trust our government to give us freedom of movement back easily or let the extra power to detain go easily when this all said and done. The type of government we have, all this power is their wet dream.

[quote HopelessSemantics]@googybob The WHO refuse to advise Taiwan.

I've got no faith in the WHO anymore anyway.

@Kayakinggirl not sure I agree with all your points (Korean citizen here) but most of them are true enough. Numbers creeping up again due to churches which at this point I wish they would just close but I guess it's all about the 💰[/quote]
Why they allowed communion to start taking place in churches again at the start of this month, makes no sense!

Interested in what points you don’t agree with. Being a expat on a island I maybe don’t see the full picture.

@HopelessSemantics
I totally agree, the Chinese government has some serious flaws. However, the West in general is on a bit of antiChina propaganda run at the moment, blowing things up it of proportion. The vast majority of Chinese people are very happy and optimistic about the future. Salaries have tripled in a couple of decades. The government is dealing with the pandemic much better than the West. People don’t hear about stuff like Xinjiang, but if you tell them there is a “genocide” going on they’d probably laugh at the word choice and say that China has 56 minority groups totaling nearly 400 million people and its goal is integration. Id agree with them. There’s certainly some instances of rough and unfair treatment going on in Xinjiang under the (somewhat justified) guise of anti terrorism/extremism , but to call it genocide is ludicrous and cheapens the word.

@Kayakinggirl
South Korea had lots of things going in their favour.
“1) they messed up so much with SARS the were on alert for something to happen. “

This cant be underestimated in the cases of S.Korea and China. If only our governments were capable enough to learn from others mistakes rather than needing to have our very own to work off. In the case of China they ignored the lesson TWICE. Once from SARS. Second from the unprecedented lockdown of a major metropolis in February (Wuhan). Sigh.

“8)8) track and trace. Also with track and trace came the text of shame. So if I got Ill tomorrow everyone on the island I live on would get a message saying victim number: xx has been diagnosed. Female, British perm resident, the area I live in. then everywhere I have been for the last 2 weeks down to what shops I have been in at what time. How long I spent at the gym. These messages have cause affairs to come to light, people have lost jobs due to these messages. when there was a outbreak in a gay night club it caused issues for a lot of people. This has meant people have not gone out, people have stayed in more and been careful about their movements.”

Sounds like this has been vital in S.Korea and China and others. It’s been harsh in its enforcement but it has saved lives.

People don’t hear about stuff like Xinjiang, but if you tell them there is a “genocide” going on they’d probably laugh at the word choice and say that China has 56 minority groups totaling nearly 400 million people and its goal is integration. Id agree with them. There’s certainly some instances of rough and unfair treatment going on in Xinjiang under the (somewhat justified) guise of anti terrorism/extremism , but to call it genocide is ludicrous and cheapens the word.

Was waiting for you to trot out this bullshit argument.

China has been ethnically cleansing Xinjiang for many years now, it is certainly a slow-motion genocide if nothing else. Demolishing Uighur homes and towns, mass relocations from other regions to dilute the percentage of Uighur residents, and now putting up to 1 million people in concentration camps.

You call that 'integration'?

@user1468968478
“Completely agree @Cam77.

I'm an expat in China and it's complete rubbish to say that the stats are all lies. The facts speak for themselves, the country has practically no cases anymore and life is pretty much entirely back to normal. Outside of Wuhan and Hubei province more largely in the early days of the outbreak, lockdown wasn't even that repressive.

I think the main thing is China is very easily able to track and trace. Obviously this is due to a lack of privacy and the government having a lot of info on people, I'm not saying this is right, but it's not exactly surprising that a country like China has the power and the means to get on top of an epidemic like this.”

Absolutely. Pretty much all common criticisms of China and its government regarding its inadequacies I can agree with - but there are also lessons to be learnt from China, including in its handling of the pandemic. It’s weird and unhelpful how Western countries, particularly the media, will put their fingers in their ears. The media just doesn’t want to know anymore about China’s successes - whether its tripling average salaries since 2000. Or whether it’s a death rate from this pandemic which is a tiny fraction of the US. Why? Basically because they won’t tow the Western line and fall in line under US hegemony. The rigidity of the propaganda battle lines drawn against China across the entirety of Western media the last few months have been very revealing. Freedom of press and information is a fragile thing indeed.

Interesting to read Kayakinggirl about South Korea, more to it than seemed to meet the eye.

The response in the Uk has been shameful.

@Cam77

I am not saying any of the things the Korean government has done was bad. Tack and trace and the fact people don’t want to go out as they are worried about it getting back to people also testing has been key.
We can get a test for free when ever we want one (and could do in February).

@dreamingbohemian
People can’t move freely in their own country? Whatever happened to multiculturalism? Has the influx of immigration into the UK “diluted” the culture? Sounds pretty much like racism to me.

Xinjiang has always been a land which has changed hands frequently thoruhout 2500 years of history. The Uyghurs are just one among many occupants. The state of China has had almost unbroken ownership since the 1750s.

I can't believe that anyone is saying they trust China. What about their reneging on the treaty regarding the freedoms of Hong Kong?

Perhaps China has told the truth about the number of Covid cases and deaths, but I don't think people are wrong to distrust the information provided by the government and want independent verification.