Remember all those posters who said we should 'look east' for how to deal with Covid?

[TypicaIMe]

I wonder if they still think that?

Some of the news coming out of that part of the world is so distressing.

I do think our government made a balls up of it too, and in many respects still are (particularly with regard to CEV people). But hopefully what we're seeing when we 'look east' now will give anyone still desperate for lockdowns and restrictions (and there are still a fair few, sadly) pause for thought.

@MintyMoocow that's delusional. We have one of the worst death rates in the world. Once a vaccine was available I agree the government has been pretty spot on but before then, they were completely hopeless.

I agree that @MintyMoocow is way off beam there.

The latest study has confirmed that if Johnson (the lying criminal) had locked down one week earlier, as advised, more than 20,000 people would have survived and the lockdown would only have needed to be half the length, with massive, obvious economic and educational benefits.

The vaccine response has been excellent (can't believe the Tory twats have subsequently sold off vital aspects of the system that delivered it). Pretty much everything else has been poor. Eat Out to Spread Covid About for example, what a stupid decision.

We have one of the worst death rates in the world.

26th in the world or something at this stage. I wouldn't call that one of the worst.

For the 5th richest country in the world I think it's pretty diabolical tbh.

For the 5th richest country in the world I think it's pretty diabolical tbh.

Plenty of rich and richer countries ahead of the U.K.

There wasnt really any correlation between gdp and response, if you look at the data.

The point is, there could have been. Wealthy countries have far more options than poorer ones.

The point is, there could have been. Wealthy countries have far more options than poorer ones.

Actually no. Collective action proved much more difficult to pull off in wealthy countries where people weren't used to being restricted by government. That insight was well discussed at the time.

Why are people criticising the OP? she is making a valid point.

It is important to accept that the countries that had the most draconian lockdowns and measures still did not manage to stop covid and to learn from that.

It just shows that a good vaccine programme is more important than trying a zero covid policy with aggressive, repeated lockdowns and masking/isolation.

It is not about gloating, it's about learning from what works and what doesn't and avoid calling for measures that simply have been shown not to be effective.

They were people on this site who wanted almost permanent lockdowns and no socialising and masks everywhere for years...which to me has always been a ridiculous view.

@wingscrow

Why are people criticising the OP? she is making a valid point.

It is important to accept that the countries that had the most draconian lockdowns and measures still did not manage to stop covid and to learn from that.

It just shows that a good vaccine programme is more important than trying a zero covid policy with aggressive, repeated lockdowns and masking/isolation.

It is not about gloating, it's about learning from what works and what doesn't and avoid calling for measures that simply have been shown not to be effective.

They were people on this site who wanted almost permanent lockdowns and no socialising and masks everywhere for years...which to me has always been a ridiculous view.

Or people who thought if there was only a proper lockdown, of three or five or eight weeks, covid would have been beaten.

And as for initiating responses earlier, people may not remember, but at the time there was a lot of concern everywhere with taking measures too early. Conventional wisdom in public health said the population would only be willing to restrict their movements for something like a month, so no one wanted to jump the gun and lose valuble time.

The UK appears to have more covid deaths in the last 7 days than any other country, the most covid deaths per million in the last 7 days, more covid deaths in total than all but six other countries, and more deaths per million in total than all but 28 countries.
I know it's not all about the deaths, but not only does "look east" seem kind of racist, the UK doesn't seem to have any cause for self congratulation.

www.ft.com/content/32436917-00b8-447d-8d6c-41f4be72b03f

One interesting difference between the West and East Asiain so far as generalizations are possible at allis that demographically, Western countries seem to have bounced back, whereas marriages and fertility rates are both continuing to fall in most East Asian countries. The measures taken in some East Asian countries may have been good at suppression (for a while), but if it turns out that they have had a long-term psychological chilling effect that discourages people from finding partners, marrying and having children, it's going to accelerate the demographic issues that are already quite worrying in this part of the world--especially considering that a lot of the same anti-COVID measures are also likely to make people think twice about migrating to any of these countries in the future.

"Success" is complicated, and over the next few years we will start to get a better measure of how different countries have performed with regard to COVID. It's complex because there are so many ways that a society's response can be defined as successful or unsuccessful, and perhaps a lot of tradeoffs.

There's a poster on here who lives in Japan and has alluded to the potential demographic impact, but I hadn't noticed any coverage of it in the MSM until this point.

It's pointless comparing death rates between countries as countries counted deaths due to, rather than co-incidently with, Covid differently.

Even excess deaths, while probably better, are problematic as the impact of lockdown on people's health and mortality varied from country to country.

What I have noticed is that, like so many current issues, different studies into all aspects of the pandemic come up with different results and a lot of people tend to emphasise the ones that support their POV and ignore the ones that don't. I guess that's human nature.

@Porcupineintherough

Well I'm still looking at Japan and wondering what's so terrible about their approach.

Oh yeah, they wear masks!!!

Wearing masks worked real well in scotland didnt it, as I recall 🤔

They absolutely did not have some of the highest infection rates in the UK when the mandate had been lifted in England and are obviously proof that the best mitigation was masks......

🙄🙄

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10604711/amp/Britains-Covid-death-rate-ISNT-one-worst.html

Apologies for a daily fail link, if you can access The Times their article on this is much more detailed.

I just thought that since we're discussing posters saying "look east" that same poster was also found of "look at our European neighbours" and, well, the UK is holding up pretty well against their figures too.

Personally, I was always in the camp of lockdowns being nothing more than just kicking the can down the road and not actually a way to stop a virus. But, if China had spent less time trying to hide the fact they had this virus and more time actually dealing with it then perhaps it wouldnt have become the global mess that it did.

I'm going to contradict my position from earlier and say yes we can learn things from all sorts of countries.

The problem is there's no nuance in the discussion usually, so it's pointless. And as amicissimma notes, it's usually done to support a preconceived view, so there's little interest in interrogating what's actually going on.

See all the, 'oh we should have done what X did' totally ignoring the legal, geographical, societal, cultural differences that make situations very different.

Let's take Japan. Interestingly, Japan didn't play by the pandemic rule book. They didn't lockdown. They didn't flood the country with testing. They may wear masks, but infection rates have been plenty high at various points, so let's not overplay that.

What's very interesting is that their FR has been very low, right from the start. Which is very surprising, given the age of their population. What's that about? Good health generally? Diet? Exposure to other CV building some immunity? That's well worth understanding better.

@Namenic

OP - there are lots of countries in the ‘East’. Do you mean China? Be specific, because different countries have had different strategies. Singapore has done well with a fraction of the deaths of U.K. and opening up once the vaccines and treatments were available.

Their schooling system I think was less affected than U.K. and I think their health system too. They did not do enough for their migrant workers and I hope conditions will have improved as a result. But on the whole I think they did well - with higher population density, though younger demographic than U.K.

This is a really valid point. I live in Singapore. Our approach has been markedly different to that in Japan, Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand etc. If you mean "Look at China" that's a very different thing than "Look at the Asia-Pacific and Far Eastern countries". As an aside, while we still have measures here (groups of 10, masks indoors) and had some very strict measures along the way, only around 1000 people have died in total here despite a population density several hundred times higher than the U.K., my kids only missed 4 weeks of school, and I think we had about 2 months in total of not being able to dine out/do stuff (albeit admittedly in smaller group sizes). I don't think we will know until the pandemic is over (and it's nowhere near over in much of the world) which is the best blend of approaches to take. All countries have done well with some choices and poorly with others.

Japan has really low obesity rates.

True but it must be more than that as age is the biggest risk factor and their population is old

Are people on about a particular poster whose username sounds similar to ‘fanny and bomb’

Completely forget about them they were everywhere here during the peak covid times

Are people on about a particular poster

Prolific as she was, she isn't the 'look east' poster.

That was someone else, who also hasn't been seen for a while.

Tealights and something was always on about how fantastic Australia was

@user1477391263

Japan has really low obesity rates.

Bingo.

Despite being one of the wealthiest countries in the world(even though our GDP per capita is declining), we have some of the worst obesity rates in the world.

If your country is full of fat unhealthy people, your deaths will be higher from a virus that is worse for fat unhealthy people.

As for the question of if we should of followed a zero-covid policy, one look at Shanghai should put it all into perspective. Its like some kind of dystopian horror. We haven't even really begun to feel the long term economic, health and social impact of our minor lockdowns, I just thank god no one in serious power got onboard the zero-covid train.

I just thank god no one in serious power got onboard the zero-covid train.

Seconded.

Volezvoo, if you do an advanced search for Look East on the covid board during the Omicron wave, you'll see a few entries. I believe Fanny and Bomb had been banned by that point.

Our lockdowns didnt seem minor to me. It is this minimization of peoples sacrifices which will ensure non compliance should (God forbid) there be a next time.

Because there are plenty who think lockdown should become policy.