How are different parts of the world so different?!

[JC17fj74]

How are we all dealing with Covid so differently right now?
So far I've seen friends in Australia enjoying the 'normal' things in life such a beach days, meals out and drinks and cocktails in bars. Friends in America dining out in restaurants etc
And here we are in full shitty lockdown with no end date in sight.
Why are we so different over her?!
It's like the rest of the world has started to get back to normal and we are stuck in this nightmare 😫

I think there’s a combination of factors. Climate, proximity, conformity etc will all contribute. The virus hit us early so our numbers were out of control before we knew we had it, in other countries their numbers started smaller and they were able to put a lid on its spread faster. I think it was Brisbane recently who went into local lockdown with 1 known infection, we’ve never known a time of 1 infection (or at least we thought we did with that Brighton fella returning from a ski trip, but with hindsight he wasn’t)

But added to that I think this is a virus that doesn’t follow logic. Thinking about the people I know who were infected in a “cluster” if you like (school class parents) four people of the same race, weight, height and no underlying conditions catch it at the same time, two barely suffer a sniffle two need ambulances. That’s not logical! I still don’t think we fully understand it, so we can’t adequately control it

@icedpurple, I’ll admit it was just to tempting to pass up on.

To be honest I can’t be arsed to look for a link that specifically sums it up, it’s part of the good Friday agreement and has been a very contentious point throughout the brexit negotiations because it impacts on the peace deal. There’s a lot of information out there but I’m not going to dig through it to find something that outlines it all briefly.

[quote Cornettoninja]@icedpurple, I’ll admit it was just to tempting to pass up on.

To be honest I can’t be arsed to look for a link that specifically sums it up, it’s part of the good Friday agreement and has been a very contentious point throughout the brexit negotiations because it impacts on the peace deal. There’s a lot of information out there but I’m not going to dig through it to find something that outlines it all briefly.[/quote]
Pass what up? Not knowing the exact legal status of the NI border - which you yourself don't appear to know either - is the same as not knowing that an island in the middle of the South Pacific isn't comparable to a major European nation?

If that’s what you need to think yeah ok.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

‘Boris and Co. are doing the very best they can in an unprecedented situation’ 😂 Yeah right.

Haha, this made me snort with laughter too. Everything about the statement, including the use of the word 'unprecedented' 🤣🤣

It'll take a public inquiry to work out where the UK went wrong, but nobody can seriously suggest that our government have 'done their best' when our deaths per million are something like the third highest in the world.

They might be able to redeem themselves a bit with a successful vaccine roll out, we'll see.

@LilyPond2

Anyone who lives somewhere other than UK/New Zealand/Australia lurking on this thread? Am genuinely interested to hear about what the rules and daily life are like in other countries.

I'm in Ireland. We're currently in lockdown. Cases started spiralling after Christmas and we ended up in the rather unenviable position of having the world's highest infection rate www.irishtimes.com/news/health/how-did-ireland-jump-from-low-covid-base-to-world-s-highest-infection-rate-1.4459429

All schools are closed until the end of January and probably beyond that. I think in the UK the schools are open to the children of keyworkers but that's not the case here. There's talk about maybe offering a service to children with severe special needs. No visitors are allowed in private homes/gardens except for essential family reasons. Weddings can proceed but with a maximum of six guests. Funerals can have up to ten mourners. You can only travel for work, education or other essential purposes. You can take exercise within 5 km of home.

@Jetatyeovilaerodrome
And actually in terms of vaccinating people, we are doing incredibly well - fancy that eh?!

Yeah but only because the NHS are administering it, thank God. For once in this pandemic the government didn't try to privatise something to line the pockets of their cronies. It would have been a predictable cock up once again if they did.

@Pechanga

We live in very close proximity to each other - dense population, tiny houses, public transport, closed windows and central heating. Cold & damp winter months. An ageing population with many people living into their 80s or 90's. We're also honest about our figures.

There was an interesting thread on population density just before Christmas, the UK doesn't have a city in the top 40 cities in Europe wrt population density iirc.

@Taytocrisps Thank you for your reply and for linking to that article. It sounds like the Irish government has sadly made similar mistakes to the UK government, ie ignoring scientific advice and allowing pubs and restaurants to operate on something close to a business as usual basis when the spread of the virus wasn't sufficiently under control to allow for that.

There seems to be a cohort of people in the UK who are determined to attribute the UK's high Covid rates and death toll to population density despite there being some obvious examples of places with very high density populations which have done much better than the UK, eg Hong Kong has very high population density, as does much of Japan.

@LilyPond2

Shhhh. We need to compare ourselves to other failures because they're our neighbours.

@AKissAndASmile OK, thanks. In that case I'll take care not to point out that a large proportion of Japan's population is also very elderly and yet Japan has somehow avoided a death toll on anything like the same scale as the UK.

@LilyPond2

You're a bit of a loose cannon, aren't you? I thought parts of Africa are unscathed because most of them are under 25

currently out of around 25K ICU beds nationwide [in Germany], only 5K are free

I think that comment on its own suggests that Germany is doing much better than the UK! I cannot imagine that there is a single ICU bed free in the UK at present for any longer than it takes to move one patient out and the next one in!

The whatabouterry on this thread is strong.

Nothing to be envious about regarding America.

@borageforager

Some parts of America aren’t acting as normal - schools never reopened in some states for example.

This. I live in the US and in my state we have been under lockdown in one way or another since March. No schools opened, masks mandatory everywhere, shops, entertainment facilities, restaurants, hairdressers etc closed.

@QuarkIsGreat and @TheSilentStars Thank you for your replies about Italy, Interesting that Italian primary school children are apparently able to cope with masks whereas in the UK masks haven't even been compulsory in secondary school classrooms (and indeed in some schools have been specifically prohibited!)

Here in Portugal (death rate 870/mill as opposed to UK 1311/mill) we have worn masks inside and out for months, no exceptions. We are now on a strict two week (rolling) lockdown although I believe schools are still open. The government has acted quickly, decisively and with the support of the majority of the people throughout.

In what way are 'other parts of the world' different?

Do you mean NZ and Australia which have most of their imports coming unaccompanied and have no land borders or short sea crossings with another country?

Do you mean South Korea where everyone's phone and credit card activity is tracked. If there is a case who has been in a public place, everyone else who was there is contacted and tested. If they test positive, they are taken, immediately to a secure medical facility (which they don't get to choose) for isolation?

Do you mean South American countries like Peru, which shut down earlier and harder than us? Or Brazil?

Or various European countries? Pick the one you fancy?

Or is it all Boris's fault and every single other country has managed much better, with no easier circumstances?

Or is it all Boris's fault and every single other country has managed much better, with no easier circumstances?

Whilst obviously not everything can be laid at Johnson's door, a lot of bad decision-making can, eg his dithering led to a late initial lockdown in March, and sending schools back on a business as usual basis in September was never going to end well (as large numbers of people pointed out at the time). He also ignored his scientific advisers when they recommended a circuit breaker lockdown in September. Most recently, his dithering led to thousands of primary school children returning to school for a single day(!) after the Christmas holidays, thus producing the worst of both worlds (ie an opportunity to transmit the virus without any significant continuity of education).

Or is it all Boris's fault and every single other country has managed much better, with no easier circumstances?

Pretty much of it is his fault, yes. Next question.

For example I knew exams would be cancelled back in August last year. Started a thread on here and got ripped to pieces. We know how that turned out.

The man is an idiot and the reason we are in such a shit position.

'Here in Portugal (death rate 870/mill as opposed to UK 1311/mill) '

And yet your next door neighbour Spain has 1140/million. Up until our recent superspreading variant our tragic death rate per million was pretty similar to France, Spain. Italy is 1360/mill. It always seems so crass to list these numbers as if it is a competition however it is purely to show most western Europe countries are suffering similarly.

Also Portugal does have a lower pop density 111/per sq km as opposed to England's 275/per sq km which with an infectious disease I would suggest is more relevant than wearing masks outside..