This is the extent of research that the average Democrat does

Actually, Vietnam has been doing even better than South Korea if we go purely by the numbers. (Perhaps SK comes out ahead if we adjust for population density.)
I also like what Japan is doing, they're dense and old as fuck, yet have no lockdowns and can even allow fans into stadiums again (not at full capacity ofc) while keeping the numbers at a comfortable and stable level.


Anyway, the broader point is this: with the exception of some East Asian countries (and the tiny isolated island New Zealand), everyone got steamrolled by this virus.
And it should also be noted that South Koreans authorities are having access to personal data and movement profiles of their citizens in a way which would be completely incompatible with western data privacy laws.



Agreed, I expect things to get dramatically worse in the U.S. too. Still worth pointing out that the way European governments currently seem completely helpless in the face of the second wave makes the U.S. look less bad in comparison, at least for now.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 23 2020 04:43pm

I can’t remember about what we spoke about earlier but Europe is in a separate category than Asia/America because it seemingly spread throughout there at higher levels before Asia/America had to deal with it. They had less time to initially prepare and there indolent rates became higher even when it got under control. America had same advantages as Asia but somehow ending (will see regarding 3rd wave what happens) up worse than Europe who had less time to prepare.

Europe is really a mess atm though so let’s see what happens. Interestingly the real 3rd wave success or failure will have to be determined after the election

This argument that Europe got blindsided is only truly valid for Italy back in spring, perhaps also Spain. Not the rest of the continent. And it's not really true for this second wave anyway. We had half a year to prepare for this moment. During summer, all of Europe got its case numbers down to a far lower level than the United States or Latin America. Then it was on a very gradual upward trend for about 2 months, and then around October 5-7, boom, cases exploded almost simultaneously all across Europe.

If you look at the curves for Germany, Italy or the UK, it's not even an exponential growth curve, there is a sharp bend around that Oct 5-7 period. Here is a screenshot of the trend curve for Germany:



This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 23 2020 08:49pm

Timeless classic

Ffs more of Ontario going back to stage 2 this gonna be a long fucking winter 😴😴😴😴

Hm that is quite steep, didn’t honestly realize Europe’s numbers were THAT bad

Any resident Europeans have insights as to why? Weather? I can’t imagine variety of different countries have exact same policies so I feel like like it’s more geographic/climate related. Looking at it more deeper it seems to be A Europe phenomenon and not just one specific country

US is fkd if anything remotely similar occurs here

This post was edited by Bazi on Oct 23 2020 09:45pm

As a German, I would say it is a combination of seasonal effects and carelessness. There was a ton of tourism and partying going on in late summer and early fall. Until September 20, we had fantastic weather and tourism boomed. I also noticed people got a little careless. Then, the weather changed very rapidly and was very cold and rainy ever since.

So I think this explosion in Europe comes down to people letting their guard down, travel activity contributing to the spread, and then a sudden drop in temperatures causing people to get sicker and to spend more time indoors. The Oct 5-7 period when things took really off is quite exactly two weeks after the weather started sucking.


Here is a picture I took on Sep 15:
https://i.imgur.com/A6YTYNG.jpg

Aside from the beautiful scenery, note the amount of people in the bottom left, how they dont keep a distance, dont wear masks, etc. Note that this was on top of a mountain, at 10:30am. It got a lot fuller later in the day, and there was even more crowding and scrambling going on down there in the towns.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 23 2020 10:08pm

yeah I think this really is key. in the US I don't think people have really had that guard up for significant lengths of time tbh, it has been mostly guard down at least in midwest areas

on the bright side, I think this next major spike coupled with hopefully a vaccine (even a 70% successful one )by early next year and in ~6months maybe we can get closer to 'normal' in regards to world as a whole opening up