20 March 2020

Coronavirus Responses As Measures Of National Character


One way to interpret the different trajectories between countries is as an empirical measure of the capacity of each country to mobilize grassroots collective action.

The U.S. and China are marginally worse than most of Europe. Iran seems to be improving. South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong are the stand outs here, as extraordinarily disciplined societies.

Hong Kong is a particularly interesting case as it is both very different from China as a whole despite being a very high in population density and ethnically similar to China as a whole, and has recently witnessed mass protest against the government that is organizing the coronavirus response.

9 comments:

neo said...

it shows asian bowing is less likey to transnmit the virus than italian and spanish kissing on cheek

neo said...

are all these restrictions on private citizens such as no groups over 50 - i heard 10 - even constitutional?

i understand coronavirus can spread and i would not want coronavirus in my lungs, it'd be a bad day plus i may die, but US constitution guarantees peaceful assembly

besides, spring breakers in florida are gathering in beaches by the tens of thousands

neo said...

maybe east asians are slightly more resistant to coronavirus than italians and Spaniards, or have had a milder strain as reports are its a different mutated version in spain

there was ethnic differences in the new world from spaniards to aztecs is such diseases as small pox and measles

andrew said...

"maybe east asians are slightly more resistant to coronavirus than italians and Spaniards, or have had a milder strain as reports are its a different mutated version in spain"

Pretty clearly not. This may be the cast in Latin America, however, as blood type O is linked to lower risk of infection.

"it shows asian bowing is less likey to transnmit the virus than italian and spanish kissing on cheek"

The Chinese don't kiss on the cheek and yet has a trajectory similar to Europe, not Japan.

"are all these restrictions on private citizens such as no groups over 50 - i heard 10 - even constitutional?

i understand coronavirus can spread and i would not want coronavirus in my lungs, it'd be a bad day plus i may die, but US constitution guarantees peaceful assembly"

Yes. I wrote a piece at Law.StackExchange on it. There is a long line of case law to that effect.

neo said...

so what would happen if there was large scale protests against these stay at home orders, organized by leftists students and their ilk, all over the nation?

plenty of spring breakers are defying these orders on florida beaches

what will happen to businesses? how will pet shops and animal shelters feed the animals?

Morris said...

As of 23 Mar US/Canada: Cases/Deaths Comparison
USA: 33.5k cases, 419 deaths
Canada: 1.5K cases, 20 deaths
Absolute number of tests in Canada exceed that of US

Population scaling factor: 327/37 million or 8.8. 10 for mental math.
Is a population scaled comparison interesting?
Why is it not in the media?

Tom Bridgeland said...

Wonder why you say US response is somewhat worse than Europe. The US compares very well with Europe. First identified case was Jan 20 in the US, days to weeks prior to European countries. Number of cases per million population is lower than most Euro countries and deaths per million population lower than many, and not much higher than those few lower. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Certainly things could have been done better. Trump erred in trusting the CDC and FDA to be competent, obviously. But other things have been done well. We have the advantage of having far more ICU beds per capita, which may be significant in the coming month as cases peak.

andrew said...

The U.S. just got a late start. But the slop of the curve by which the U.S. is developing is steeper and isn't leveling off anytime soon.

Germany has more ICU beds per capita, and a more disciplined response and more careful tracking, all of which has helped it keep its numbers low. But, the U.S. is progressing on a path much more similar to Italy, but delayed a couple of weeks.

Tom Bridgeland said...

Thanks Andrew. I'd appreciate a link to your data source. What I have seen suggests it started in the US, or at least was detected in the US weeks before Europe, even Italy. I suspect European countries simply failed to find the early cases.
Also, where do you find info on German ICU beds? It contradicts easily found numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/12/the-countries-with-the-most-critical-care-beds-per-capita-infographic/#2b90f3dc7f86