Septic Sceptics how the anti lockdown folks got it so wrong and poisoned the debate.

[vera99]

A comprehensive and polemical account of how the poisonous right wing tributaries of 'truth' got it so wrong and are so unable to do a mea culpa and have so poisoned and contributed through their half baked half assed opinions a rational evidence based response particularly in the vital early days and the September/Christmas debacle that we have one of the highest death rates in the world. the-free-press.co.uk/2021/01/26/septic-sceptics-toby-young-allison-pearson-and-the-art-of-being-wrong/

Singapore look like they have a 14 day quarantine too. Not in a facility but there is an electronic tag. There seem to be restrictions on transiting through the country as well.

Thailand closed to all international travel in early April. Before then they had screening of passengers arriving already up and running. They imposed curfews, shut businesses, closed schools. Their track and trace was effective early on. A country of nearly 70 million and a total of less than one hundred covid deaths to date. I know we can't compare directly for so many reasons but surely some lessons can be understood.

Brazil is really in a devastating state. It's going to need a massive international effort now.

@ChameleonClara

mobile.twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1372523992918163461

Brazil is in a terrifying mess, they have a completely collapsed healthcare system now.

But sure, a lockdown would have been worse

Peru had a strict lockdown very early on and has hardly loosened it ... and is worse than Brazil. Perhaps you’d like to explain that?

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

South Korea do have mandatory quarantine facilities for people arriving from abroad. They also require testing 72hrs before arrival and on arrival with anyone positive being taken to a hospital. And they do periodically introduce localised restrictions where there are outbreaks. The difference is they act early when the outbreaks are small and don’t go for a keeping cases low enough that healthcare isn’t overwhelmed approach. IIRC from a friend, their app/tracking devices are mandatory as well.

They didn’t restrict travel early though, which was the point I was making to a PP. The WHO did not advise it, for various reasons so it was too late by the time they did.

Looks like Taiwan do to. On fact I’d say the one thing all of those place do have in common is pretty heavy travel restrictions regardless of whether they are an international hub or not.

The only reason we don’t in the U.K. is a lack of willpower and a long list of excuses as to why it won’t work here. Almost all of which apply to at least one other country doing it successfully.

@mrshoho

Thailand closed to all international travel in early April. Before then they had screening of passengers arriving already up and running. They imposed curfews, shut businesses, closed schools. Their track and trace was effective early on. A country of nearly 70 million and a total of less than one hundred covid deaths to date. I know we can't compare directly for so many reasons but surely some lessons can be understood.

Brazil is really in a devastating state. It's going to need a massive international effort now.

By early April it would have been too late, there’s so much travel from China to Thailand, especially during Chinese New Year. East Asia’s relative success has other reasons which will be studied in the future. I tend to think it’s a combination of climate, relative youthfulness and very little obesity.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

Looks like Taiwan do to. On fact I’d say the one thing all of those place do have in common is pretty heavy travel restrictions regardless of whether they are an international hub or not.

The only reason we don’t in the U.K. is a lack of willpower and a long list of excuses as to why it won’t work here. Almost all of which apply to at least one other country doing it successfully.

It’s early travel restrictions that matter though. Taiwan is the outlier for restricting travel from Wuhan early on, to much international criticism.

It was march/April, I think. Up until that point most places were limiting travel to S Korea. Once they had more cases coming in than they had community spread they tightened up the borders pretty quickly.

I think the difference is more likely to be they know how to deal with potentially damaging viruses and don’t talk about acceptable numbers of people dying tbh.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

I think the difference is more likely to be they know how to deal with potentially damaging viruses and don’t talk about acceptable numbers of people dying tbh.

Japan never took this seriously and they’ve done well too. I think the UK needs to compare itself to other European countries.

The UK still does poorly by that comparison, but it’s a more realistic assessment imo.

The difference in attitudes towards infectious diseases must play a part. I'm sure demographics also come into it. But the concept of having to completely change our way of life for what we were being told was an illness similar to the common cold for the majority, was quite alien to us last year. Our leaders did down play and delay compared to the East Asian countries whose public information was direct and clear.

Brazil on the other hand has a leader who thinks the whole thing is a personal conspiracy attack on him and continues to question whether his full ICUs are full of covid patients or some other illness. When your own leader is denying the scale of infections it makes you wonder how much worse will it get there.

Our leaders did down play and delay compared to the East Asian countries whose public information was direct and clear

Japan’s response was confused and very delayed. No lockdown because they can’t legally enforce it. No WFH culture at all either, so trains et al were still packed. Japanese people didn’t trust the leadership and there were plenty of conspiracy theories going around that the government was hiding deaths (this wasn’t true at all)

East Asian countries did not have unified responses, they do have culture similarities, yes. But they still varied wildly in strategy (or lack thereof).

So you really can’t make sweeping generalisations here except to say East Asia fared better, but no one has a clear answer as to why.

Brazil on the other hand has a leader who thinks the whole thing is a personal conspiracy attack on him and continues to question whether his full ICUs are full of covid patients or some other illness. When your own leader is denying the scale of infections it makes you wonder how much worse will it get there

No one has yet to tell me why Peru in constant lockdown is doing worse than Brazil ....

I take your point with Japan but would you say they were probably the outlier?

With regard to Peru my own take is that their health system was already in a terrible state before the pandemic with a dire lack of ICU beds. There were also horrendous mistakes made with huge numbers fleeing the cities back to their rural communities. People quite rightly did what they thought was best to support themselves as the government help was missing. Yes they had a strict lockdown but they allowed crowded markets to remain open leading to continued high transmission. Maybe it's not that lockdown was pointless but rather it wasn't thoughtout for the specifics of what was needed in their situation.

@mrshoho

I take your point with Japan but would you say they were probably the outlier?

With regard to Peru my own take is that their health system was already in a terrible state before the pandemic with a dire lack of ICU beds. There were also horrendous mistakes made with huge numbers fleeing the cities back to their rural communities. People quite rightly did what they thought was best to support themselves as the government help was missing. Yes they had a strict lockdown but they allowed crowded markets to remain open leading to continued high transmission. Maybe it's not that lockdown was pointless but rather it wasn't thoughtout for the specifics of what was needed in their situation.

I do appreciate your response here. It’s really complex and we don’t really know what works or why some did better than others at this point. Hopefully lessons will be learned