Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[Mnementh]

EnricoPallazzo said:

Mnementh said:

A lot of east asian countries (both democracies and authoritarian systems) had a lot of success in keeping the numbers down. If you compare that, the US has 333 deaths per 1 million people. Japan has 7, South Korea has 5, Taiwan has 0.3, Vietnam has 0. All four countries have really high population density too, which usually makes an infectious disease spread faster. So these countries were able to do something successful about it, I think the US and european countries should've been able to do similarly.

I think its not a fair comparison. VERY different cultures and behaviors. Not fair at all. Also they already have experience from previous infections so basically everybody there is prepared for that. They use masks all the time. People dont hug and kiss each others all the time. They have a different approach of individual liberties vs society. Also they are very aware of information that comes from china. When rumors of a problem in china started to appear back in January they already knew what to do.

So a comparison vs European countries would be fair in my opinion. We can learn what Germany did well for example, mortality rate there is very very low compared to other european countries. I just hope the west can learn from this experience.

In the end, i believe it will take years of discussion to understand the difference and why's of mortality rates in each countries, what they did right, what they did wrong etc.

This sounds like a pretty lame excuse: I don't want to be compared to asian countries because they do too well. Also germany also isn't looking good anymore if compared to the asian countries, germany has over 100 deaths per million people. Yes, the US has three times that number, but it is still 20 times higher than South Korea.

All cultural things you said about asian countries could have been easily adopted in the west too: masks, not so much kissing and hugging, better preparation after previous diseases.