Coronavirus (COVID-19)

https://9to5mac.com/2020/03/09/apple-retail-workers-coronavirus/

BRB getting a job at Apple

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How much do people shake hands in Japan? I read one tweet that said it was all bows, and then another that said that’s BS businessmen shake hands all the time. Although maybe they got the word out to stop.

I don’t get the sense there’s much hugging or kissing on the cheek? And we know Japan’s reputation for obsessive cleanliness.

Seems to me like people in Italy who knew the most about this sort of thing were keeping their cool up until a week, if not just a few days, ago.

I think to a degree there’s just a failure of the human mind to comprehend what is coming, despite all evidence, in the vast majority of people. It’s too extreme, too chaotic, too horrible. People can’t fathom it happening in their country/state/city, so they don’t. It’s a natural response.

There’s an element of social proof, too - 99% of people don’t want to be the crazy one freaking out when people all think it’s no big deal. Wuhan was a catastrophe, the whole world saw it, nobody seriously thought it could happen in their country. It was, “Oh it’s probably not that bad,” or “They got a late start,” or “You really can’t trust China on this stuff.”

Even as the number of cases was growing in Italy, by all accounts they didn’t take it seriously, now they’re begging the rest of the world to learn from their mistake and 95-99% of the population here is like “Ehh, we’ll be fine, this is USA #1 we got this.”

Maybe, but that’s not what the evidence shows. And FWIW, the experts on like data science who are projecting the spread/growth, they don’t seem very calm.

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Got a few for sale?

Man, Italy’s been dysfunctional and on the brink of disaster for a long time. I mean, what are we even talking about here. It’s like pointing at the chaos in Iran and insisting the same thing will happen in America.

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On the coronavirus response continuum

Italy…US…Taiwan

And that may be generous to the US.

As of the other day, South Korea was conducting more than 2,300 times as many tests per capita as the US. They are alerting the public to the whereabouts and recent movements for like 7-10 days of each infected person, then offering free drive through testing. People there are also taking it pretty seriously from what I’ve seen when it comes to masks and social distancing.

Here we’re limiting tests to people who almost certainly have it based on symptoms or 100% have been exposed to someone who tested positive, CDC is slow walking some of the test confirmations and not keeping data available on how many tests have even been done, and rather than giving all of the recent movements of positive tests, we get the county they live in. Most people are doing very little to prevent the spread.

They’re doing like 100x better at containment strategies. We are more like Italy on this. If you have evidence to the contrary, it would legit make my night because I would love to agree with you on this one.

I mean, shit, Italy even has more doctors and more hospital beds per 1,000 people than the US.

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Hi. I’m Italian.
We used to think the same in Italy as well, that this was about “panic manipulation”, “just a flu”, “smoke screen”…
So people kept acting cool, hanging out, travel, using slogans like “let’s support our global economy” etc to cover our lack of sense of community.
Now we are all red area, all of us in quarantine, hospitals about to collapse, the amount of contaged people is doubling every 12 hours, and no more machines and doctors in hospitals for all of us.
Doctors are starting to use the doctors ethic law: first save the ones with more chances of survival, second save the youngest.
Screw the others.
We are way beyond containment.
In Italy, but in the rest of the world as well with 72 countries contaged.
Just be prepared to quarantine when it strikes your country as well, and good luck to all of us.
Read the numbers about Italy, on 9172 contaged people 463 are already dead, 724 healed, the others still fighting.
We fucked up because we underestimated the virus, but we hope we can still serve as bad example and other countries can learn from our failure.

Which other country that we both know pretty well does that sound like to you?

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Iran’s early government strategy: Everything is fine, there’s no coronavirus, it’s no big deal, you’ll all be fine.

USA #1 early government strategy: The virus is a Democratic hoax, we only have 15 cases, it’ll be at 0 soon.

I don’t think things will go Iran level bad here, but we’re in the category with those countries in terms of government preparedness and response, not South Korea.

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https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1237202138306162688

NAILED IT

Bowing is customary but yes, there is plenty of handshaking that goes on in the business world. Though I imagine Japanese would have an easier time adjusting and refraining from doing so than Western societies where handshake greetings are almost compulsory.

Behind that, Japan is most definitely NOT a touchy feely society. I know many people who haven’t hugged or kissed their parents since they were small children. My wife being one.

It is very sanitary here. My main concern is the population density of Tokyo, particularly on trains.

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Hysterical overreaction? You’re referencing the 1918 outbreak, FFS.

Look at the data from Wuhan, look at the data from South Korea.

Northern Italy has a pretty good health system by all accounts. A better question is what you think the US is doing better than Italy that will mean that it’s different. It sure as shit doesn’t seem to be testing or containment measures.

btw, a drive through testing clinic just opened here:

For the other Aussies here. Taking precautions is fine but Australia is testing and contact tracing and still without unexplained cases. Still think the weather is part of it.

China locked down hundreds of millions of people. South Korea did this:

The sluggish rollout of the tests has become a debilitating weakness in America’s response to the spread of the coronavirus. By this point in its outbreak, South Korea had tested more than 100,000 people for the disease, and it was testing roughly 15,000 people every day.

If you want to compare the US to those places, explain what about the US response so far has resembled South Korea more than it has resembled Italy.

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Yeah. Things look OK here so far but I need some meat in my freezer anyways.

US response is much closer to which countries?

  • Italy/Iran
  • SK/China/Taiwan

0 voters

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The north of Italy is a world away from its south, which is where the great bulk of Italy’s dysfunction is actually felt. Lombardy and Emilio Romagna are very wealthy places with a genuinely solid infrastructure and health service. On the HDI they’re at the very least the equivalent of South Korea.

You’re right that they’ve screwed up this outbreak and we could and should be taking lessons from SK and Singapore but so far the US and UK governments seem to be taking their lead from fortnight old Italians. It all seems like piecemeal reaction. This is a problem.

Is Amazon still delivering in Italy? I’m wondering what an actual quarantine looks like. Don’t open the door for 14 days?

Mongolia with the best response so far?

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1237221804219011073

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