[HN Gopher] The Weirdness of Government Variation in Covid-19 Re...
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The Weirdness of Government Variation in Covid-19 Responses
Author : igammarays
Score : 36 points
Date : 2021-11-22 21:26 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (richardhanania.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (richardhanania.substack.com)
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Main reason the author seems to be surprised appears to be that
| he drastically underestimates the cultural differences in Europe.
| Political culture and attitudes towards restrictions and
| liberties vary drastically even between neighbouring countries.
| Austria might be close to Germany in several ways but it has
| always been notoriously weird politically. There's also a
| dividing line between what's (oversimplified) been called
| historically 'Latin' and 'German' cultures. Greece and Italy work
| very differently in terms of governance than Northern and Central
| Europe.
|
| Other point is about the difference of covid responses compared
| to the lack thereof on other issues. This is pretty much a prime
| example of what Carl Schmitt called the _State of Exception_.
| Covid is a pretty rare occasion in modern times where all the red
| tape and bureaucracy gets pushed aside and states actually
| exercise sovereign power, and that just brings differences much
| more to the surface, both across the pond and here on the
| continent.
| wk_end wrote:
| Can you elaborate on how Austrian politics are weird/tend to
| differ from Germany's, in your view? I lived in Germany for a
| bit and have visited Austria, but am otherwise ignorant, so I'm
| not doubting you or anything - that just sounds interesting.
| Bayart wrote:
| Once in a while someone has the wild realization that European
| countries are, in fact, different countries. Despite a common
| background (and even that really needs to be taken with
| precaution, a lot of the common ground in Europe has more to do
| with the worldwide uniformization of material culture than
| anything else), we do have strong differences, _especially_ when
| it comes to governance, administration and political culture. For
| example Britain and France have more to do with their former
| colonies, in terms of how they 're structured, than any of their
| direct neighbours.
| koshergweilo wrote:
| Man this guy has clearly never been to socal. Otherwise he would
| never do something so silly as comparing orange county to LA
| county.
|
| It has three times as many people and twice the population
| density, and the average person makes significantly less per
| year. Is it that surprising that a smaller, less dense, richer
| suburb doesn't need as many restrictions as the largest county in
| the country?
|
| This is all without even touching the historical political
| differences between the two counties. Frankly I'm amazed (and
| very glad, I'm visiting over the holidays) the two counties have
| such similar vaccination rates.
|
| Edit: Also he neglected to mention Orange County actually has a
| _higher_ vaccination rate than LA County. Seems like a Federalism
| success story to me.
| zwieback wrote:
| I was struck by another detail: even between "blue"
| jurisdictions, e.g. coastal US/cities and cities in Germany the
| details differ wildly. Natural immunity seems to count for
| something in Germany but not in the US and it's the opposite with
| PCR tests, those can get you into my US workplace, which has a
| vaccine mandate, but not enough to get you into some venues in
| Germany. I'm trying to sort all this since I'll be visiting my
| parents in Germany for the first time in 2 years.
|
| Also, it's politically very hard to pass vaccine mandates in
| "obedient" Germany but easy in "wild-west" US. This has to do
| with privacy laws more than medicine or science.
|
| What's common, as far as I can tell: right-wing=anti mask/vaccine
| and left-wing=pro mask/vaccine.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| The thing to takeaway from COVID-19 policy responses is that
| there is no clear success in any strategy whatsoever. The virus
| has confounded and mutated and spread in the face of masking,
| social distancing, triple vaxxing, lockdowns, and medical
| apartheid.
|
| We are two years into this. It's clear that Covid is endemic and
| here to stay. That its rate of mutation and spread is too high to
| contain. Antiviral treatments and therapeutics should be given
| more heavy support and research. People also need to move on, and
| live freely, because life is too short to live in a bubble of
| fear and dreariness. How many high school graduations, proms,
| death bed visitations, dance recitals, wedding receptions, music
| concerts, games and sporting events have been ruined by these
| awful and ineffective government responses? How much life and joy
| has been sucked out of the world to stave off the inevitable?
| newacct583 wrote:
| South Korea certainly seems like a success, with a per capita
| death rate about 3% of what the US saw. In fact contrary to
| your point, there is a very wide spread in covid impact from
| nation to nation. Here's a graph of all nations with 10M+
| populations (scaled to eliminate Peru, which is a significant
| outlier that makes the graph hard to read):
|
| https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countr...
|
| And while there's lots of confounding issues here, like
| developing nations or autocracies with underreported or suspect
| data, it's pretty clear that some countries are doing a ton
| better than others. And it certainly looks to my eyes that
| among developed democracies, the nations with stronger popular
| adherence to mitigation strategies (in particular vaccination
| rates, but distancing and mask-wearing too) are the ones who
| are winning.
|
| (And needless to say, the US is pretty much at the bottom of
| the list of industrial democracies.)
| mft_ wrote:
| With COVID rife, and too few people vaccinated, the outcome of
| _" people also need to move on, and live freely"_ is spread,
| mutation, infection, and many many deaths - both from COVID
| directly, and also from people with other conditions who can't
| get optimal treatment due to hospitals and especially ICUs
| being (literally) full of COVID sufferers.
|
| That's what restrictions and lockdowns are largely driven by:
| preventing disasters within the hospital system.
|
| So... how do you weigh up loss of human life on a massive
| scale, against _" living freely"_?
| throw10920 wrote:
| > So... how do you weigh up loss of human life on a massive
| scale, against "living freely"?
|
| You know that the vaccine has been available for, like, nine
| months, right? Anyone who wanted to get it got it months ago,
| and has been rather safe. ICUs being full points to a problem
| with the medical system (and, at least in America, the
| medical system is well known to be broken), and if you don't
| want to fix that, there's a really easy political fix (which
| is to de-prioritize unvaccinated COVID patients, given that -
| again - there's a vaccine available, so if you willingly
| chose not to get it, then your medical care can wait until
| those who have unpreventable issues are helped).
|
| We're well past the point where you can make the argument
| that these restrictions are for the greater good, because
| we've been in a state where one's health is almost entirely
| one's personal responsibility (you either take the vaccine
| and you're safe, or you don't and you're not) for months now.
|
| If other people want to remain unvaccinated and that leads to
| them dying ("loss of human life on a massive scale"), _they
| can do that_.
| bserge wrote:
| Got Covid, got the vaccine, will get the fucking "boosters",
| will wear mask and be careful.
|
| Now fuck off with any other restrictions, that's where I
| think the line is.
| beebmam wrote:
| Seems like China's policy and Taiwan's policy are the only
| nations that have clear success. And it's the zero tolerance of
| COVID policy. One that many of us have been calling for near 2
| years now.
| callmeal wrote:
| >How many high school graduations, proms, death bed
| visitations, dance recitals, wedding receptions, music
| concerts, games and sporting events have been ruined by these
| awful and ineffective government responses?
|
| I would think that not having a high school graduation / prom
| /recital /wedding etc to be a lot less ruinous than having a
| close relative die from one of these?
|
| I agree with you: life is too short. Personally I would hate
| for it to be cut even shorter because all the hospital beds are
| taken up by people who contracted an avoidable, extremely
| infectious disease.
|
| https://people.com/health/college-student-dies-from-covid-af...
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/bride-planning-funeral-instead-wedd...
| commandlinefan wrote:
| You realize that means we have to cancel all high school
| graduations / proms /recitals /weddings etc forever, right?
| version_five wrote:
| Your argument is an old and tired one. Maybe we should all be
| on mandatory medically supervised diet and exercise regimens,
| not allowed to drive, not allowed any alcohol or caffeine or
| other drugs. If your dream is to optimize for longevity over
| all else, you can do that, at home. For many people, living
| life is actually important, not just living long. You have no
| right to tell them how to behave, or to rob them of life
| moments because of your personal criteria you're trying to
| optimize for.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > I would think that not having a high school graduation /
| prom /recital /wedding etc to be a lot less ruinous than
| having a close relative die from one of these?
|
| The vaccine has been available for anyone who wants to get it
| for the better part of a year now, boosters have been
| released, and it's effective at preventing both transmission
| and severe cases (to include death).
|
| If your relative is vaccinated, the odds of them getting
| severely sick from an unvaccinated person are _incredibly_
| small, and as such, various gathering restrictions are not
| only ineffective, but straight-up immoral.
|
| (if your relatives aren't vaccinated, then they've made a
| choice to increase their risk exposure, and that's on them -
| given the effectiveness of the vaccine, it's pretty clear
| that safety is a personal choice, not something that other
| people impose on you - which is reinforced by _both_ of the
| links you posted, wherein unvaccinated people died from the
| virus, not vaccinated ones)
| User23 wrote:
| We should figure out what Sub-Saharan Africa is doing right and
| then emulate that, because they've been by far the least
| affected, despite a 6% vaccination rate. More on that here[1].
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29278184
| pangolinplayer wrote:
| This is and was always about power. The idea they care about
| the health of the less than 1% of people who die is laughable.
| They unleashed a disease on the world, seized further power and
| mocked you the whole time and everyone let it happen. We slaves
| deserve our condition.
| lezojeda wrote:
| I seriously can't fathom at all how anyone could be in favor of
| lockdowns still.
| belltaco wrote:
| "Accidents still happen and people die despite traffic lights,
| stop signs, some wearing seatbelts and having airbags
| installed, everyone needs to move on and ignore all road safety
| rules and laws"
| commandlinefan wrote:
| So... you think mask mandates should be permanent?
| woodruffw wrote:
| Given that the US is sitting at a vaccination rate of around
| 60% (i.e., around 10% _lower than the lowest_ estimate for
| "some degree of herd immunity"), I don't think you can fairly
| blame this on strategy (other than a general failure of public
| education, but that's a doozy of a failure.)
|
| One way or another, the restrictions are going to eventually
| end. But they _could_ have ended sooner, with fewer deaths and
| fewer severely ill, had more people decided to act
| affirmatively and with their civic duty in mind.
| graeme wrote:
| Unclear this is true. There's no herd immunity for any other
| coronavirus. Antibodies wane quicker than for other diseases.
|
| We have a SARS virus that we hope is actually just a common
| cold. That's the plan. Hope and see.
|
| Even highly vaccinated European societies are seeing a sharp
| rise in cases now that winter is here. Even Portugal, which
| vaccinated basically 100% of adults, has seem cases triple in
| a month.
|
| They seem to be doing alright, but antibodies are currently
| fresh from recent vaccines. We'll see how this goes long run.
|
| But there's no empirical support from any society, anywhere,
| that we could be done. Before any place can claim victory
| they have to make it through their traditional flu season.
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" Given that the US is sitting at a vaccination rate of
| around 60% (i.e., around 10% lower than the lowest estimate
| for "some degree of herd immunity"),"_
|
| Singapore has a "fully vaccinated" rate of 88% -- +29% above
| the USA -- yet currently has a higher case rate than the US.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-
| vaccina...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-
| cases.h...
|
| Other examples of highly-vaccinated hotspots: Germany (68%),
| Netherlands (73%), Denmark (76%). (All data from NYT and
| using their definitions).
| version_five wrote:
| > there is no clear success in any strategy whatsoever.
|
| No clear success from a covid mitigation perspective, but lots
| of huge wins in gaining power and growing bureaucracy. From the
| perspective of an advocate that wants a way to push their
| agenda forward, or a director that wants to get more budget and
| headcount for their group, covid had been a huge boon. There
| have been massive losers as well, in politics, business, and
| personal freedom, but if you look at how some have benefitted
| it's clear why there are lots of entrenched interests that
| don't want us to move on.
| mmazing wrote:
| I disagree that there was no clear success. Look at New
| Zealand. They took it seriously and took it seriously early.
| Their cases dropped to near nothing and held that way until
| September of 2021.
|
| I would argue that most of these countries and US counties
| being talked about in this article were deeply divided from the
| start, and never had great adoption of mitigation efforts due
| to politicization of the issue.
|
| Had we all acted like New Zealand, actually having unified
| messaging and adoption of efforts, maybe we could have cleared
| this up early on and wouldn't be fighting all these variants
| now.
| TylerE wrote:
| I think part of the problem is that things that work get
| discontinued... "Oh, we're 70% vaxxed and positive rate is
| under X%..we don't need to mask anymore.."
| majou wrote:
| Where I live dropped mask mandate only to bring it back in a
| few months with a strict vaccine mandate.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| there you go, thinking as an individual -- a voice like a poet.
| Decisions on governance are made from the point of view of
| _administration_ .. that is, what are the financial costs, how
| much attention is on the subject, things like that. The
| monetary costs to insurers combined with Doctor 's Orders
| (literally) are at stake. Individual people, their work places,
| social lives, their free will, their own affairs, are counted
| for naught it seems.
| mft_ wrote:
| How would you balance harm caused to other individuals?
|
| If someone was walking around a mall with Ebola, I'd assume
| you'd be comfortable with them being restrained and placed in
| quarantine?
|
| Everyone that contracts COVID and is seriously harmed (or
| dies) contracted it from someone else - and through different
| measures, that transmission and death was preventable. And
| yet, because in the majority of cases, COVID isn't seriously
| harmful or fatal, it's okay to be part of its transmission to
| others?
| warning26 wrote:
| This article was disappointing -- I was hoping it would be a
| detailed of comparison of different responses and their
| performance, but instead it basically boiled down to something
| like:
|
| "Different areas responded differently, which sure is
| _interesting_. The end. "
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(page generated 2021-11-22 23:01 UTC)