I don't get it. What's different about these new strains compared to the hundreds that have been found before? Sounds more like the media jumping on their new favorite word "strain", because it makes people fear and fear makes them money.

Vietnam is doing really well for its size, only 1500 cases and 35 deaths on a population of 96 million.

Their strategy obviously works, if it's one you would want to live in is a different question
https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/vietnams-war-against-covid-19/

Yet there are parallels with New Zealand and Taiwam

Other countries, such as Taiwan and New Zealand, have likewise been remarkably successful in cultivating high levels of social cohesion, which helped to keep the pandemic at bay. No matter what the means are, it is clear that those who stay united manage to persevere in the face of the hardest situations.

Clear and consistent messaging bordering on indoctrination together with strong social cohesion is what works. Shouting fake news and standing up for your rights not to wear a mask, does not help.

So much this.

People that cry "enough is enough" "my rights", and those that refuse to follow guildelines, are what cause this to drag on forever, and keep staying around (and harming and killing more people). Its a case of "only as strong as your weakest link", and the more of these types you have in a society the worse it does.

Its sad, but it appears that chinas methode of simply beating people into submission, might have been for their own good.
Even if they lied about numbers (by a factor of like 10x), they still got of light compaired to many other nations, esp considering their population density.

Pandemics are handled best either by haveing insane levels of unity & social cohesion (to the point a free nation almost wont have it), or by simply enforceing it with a heavy hand (dictator like style).



Quarantine:

The word quarantine comes from quarantena, meaning "forty days", used in 14th–15th-century Venetian and designating the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague epidemic; it followed the trentino, or thirty-day isolation period, first imposed in 1347 in the Republic of Ragusa, Dalmatia (modern Dubrovnik in Croatia).

This worked (europe figured this sh*t out ages ago).

How did they manage to get people to copperate?
Did they have high levels of social unity & cohesion? nope.


They had a 0 tolerance policy, and shot and killed anyone attempting to break Quarantine rules.
After that, no more disease & plague.

Now people arnt even given fines most places for breaking rules.
And if they are, their so light, many dont even take it seriously.
Ontop of those crazies that just laugh in the face of it all, and believe their own "alternative facts" (or reality).

There should be crazy punishments for doing things that lead to more spread (and breaking rules/guidelines).
Only way to get public "unity" some places.
Police officeres like (some of) the ones in the USA, that refuse to enact these laws & rules, should all be fired, and fined, and blacklisted.

100% agree

I wish for people who have lost someone due to COVID to start suing all of those journalists and politics that have made a point of spreading misinformation. I'm sure they will be more careful about the sh*t they say on TV/Social media when people start holding them accountable for their actions.

Dude, chill out. I think you're way too emotionally invested in this. It's a respiratory tract disease, not the fucking black plague.

Yeah, countries who are either islands or authoritarian and absurdly non-transparent about their data have fewer infections, who on Earth could have predicted that? Truly mindblowing that it's exactly these who happen to have that mythical "social cohesion" you speak of...

Note, every sociologist would agree and point out that non-democratic countries have greater degrees of social unrest and civil disobedience. Google 'mass incidents': that's the euphemism China uses for them, for instance. So, no need to toss civil liberties out of the window.

Incredible that we have to argue that no, use of force is not the way, but here we are.

Also this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1510_influenza_pandemic

I thought they were supposed to have "figured things out" at the beginning of the modern age according to you, no? Guess it's not as easy as it seems, then.

I was always impressed by Vietnams success in fighting this natural disaster. The country is poorer and more densely populated than most european countries. As a neighbor with close economic bonds to China it was affected early on. Yet Vietnam was able to get through it mostly unscathed.

And I think early and consistent messaging is one of the key areas here. You want to secure cooperation of the population, and while you can fine people breaking the rules, it is much more effective to start guifing them early on with clear and consistent messages. For instance, this song was from February subtitled in many languages (at a time here in europe everyone painted it as an asian problem and the governmental messaging was that our health system is great and nobody needs to worry):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtulL3oArQw&ab_channel=MINOFFICIAL

international variant in english: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGoodWEtV8c

That already takes the fight against the epidemic as a serious issue that everyone is involved in and communicates the main methods: hand washing, not touching the face, avoiding crowds, and the video shows consistent mask usage. People are fast to point out that Vietnam is a totalitarian state, and sure enforcing their methods with police and military was a factor. But having songs like these in February officially circulated is far from totalitarian and would have changed already a lot for other countries.

I don't know if I care that much about the total number of infected people to be honest. Almost everyone I know who got infected almost did it to themselves deliberately, by taking masks lightly and going on lunch breaks or socializing without masks. I have managed to avoid it by wearing the simplest of masks so far, despite the heavy daily exposure. It does seem like carelessness affects the careless the most, and had minimal effect on me. Early on we had contradicting evience and short supplies of masks, it's not the case anymore and in the majority of cases seem self-inflicted.