Absolute population should be pretty meaningless for the early phase. It‘s obviously important for peak numbers. Population density/ social interaction seems much more important now and the Netherlands has a lot of that
It could go that way too! 
Yeah, I don’t understand the people who think that population size matters right now. If I get sick and interact closely with a couple dozen people and give it to two of them, it doesn’t matter if there’s a thousand people I didn’t interact with or a million, there’s still just three cases. It seems like population size will only begin to matter once the number of cases gets way out of control and then the percentage of the population that has already had the disease, recovered, and now has immunity becomes meaningful, which would obviously happen sooner in a smaller country than a big one.
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It probably matters somewhat after quarantine.
Which countries don’t have social interaction or population densities?
Canada bans anyone with symptoms from planes and trains
Canada has said it is banning people with COVID-19 symptoms from domestic flights and trains.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the measures on Saturday.
Under the new rules, which come into effect on Monday, people with symptoms will be denied travel on domestic flights and intercity trains.
According to a government press release, train operators and airlines will have to conduct a health check of passengers before they travel.
During the check, they will be asked health questions and staff will be required to look for signs of illness, according to the Globe and Mail.Those who show symptoms will not be allowed to travel for 14 days.
“If you feel the onset of symptoms of a cold or of COVID-19, you need to stay at home, you need to isolate, you need to not travel,” Mr Trudeau said.
He added that Canadians had been doing an excellent job at staying at home but he would enforce further measures to keep Canadians safe if needed.
“Right now we’re not looking at closing the provincial borders,” he said.
It‘s not just about countries, but there is a reason, why things are spreading faster in New York than Idaho and Wyoming.
What an awful map. Why would you give two bordering countries the same color?
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Not as many NY’ers visiting Idaho and Wymoing 14 days ago or not as many running there before stay home order.
I think it’s less about how close the resdiences are built to each other but more where these low density dwellers sociallly interact - same large grocery stores, same hospitals for specialists (but that’s IMO)
Ya, not every city in Italy has an International Airport but somehow the virus has arrived country side in +/- 2 weeks of d-day. US has no idea when d-day was.
It must be those non-americans but now 100,000 real americans are infected and some of those moved around the US. If they test positive now, after a ‘slow’ US start on tests, they’ve had it for 5-7 days before testing positive. So they’d travel without knowing they’re a threat
Meanwhile, in San Diego
The one person I know IRL that has tested positive is from this group. Plays in our home game. He’s in his 30s.
If you only know one you’re doing well.
JFC - “our telework system can’t handle the load” - bureaucracies are the worst.
My university kept us all there a week and a half after cancelling classes, even when they knew someone who worked in our building was getting tested. And our group is always completely set up to work from home. But they had to make a blanket decision for the entire workforce at the same time for some idiotic reason. Can’t play favorites.
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A friend of mine just lost his stepdad to it. He lost his mom about 10 years ago. Brutal.
Hi! Long time, how goes it?
Pardon the ignorance, but I’ve tried looking around for this info and can’t find a clear explanation.
As far as I know there are around 40m people in the US with no health insurance, and around 30m with “inadequate” cover. What happens to these people when they contract COVID? I assume they’re still treated…? But isn’t this going to create an absolute clusterfuck of bills and claims later?
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