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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday May 13 2020, @08:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-completely-unexpected dept.

COVID-19 resurges in reopened countries; Wuhan sees first cluster in a month:

The World Health Organization on Monday called for continued vigilance as several areas that have eased lockdown restriction began to see a resurgence in COVID-19 cases—and the United States begins unbuttoning as well.

The Chinese city of Wuhan—where the pandemic began last December—saw its first cluster of cases in at least a month. The city began reopening in early April.

The cluster was just six cases: an 89-year-old symptomatic man and five asymptomatic cases. All of the infected lived in the same residential community.

[...] NPR's Emily Feng reported from Beijing that "The rise of such hard-to-detect asymptomatic cases has alarmed public health authorities in China, who have ramped up contact tracing and testing efforts."

China state media announced Tuesday that it has ordered all residents of Wuhan—roughly 11 million persons—to be tested within the next 10 days.

Likewise, the mayor of Seoul shut down bars and restaurants over the weekend—just days after South Korea had eased restrictions and allowed businesses to reopen—due to a spike of 86 new COVID-19 cases. Authorities identified a 29-year-old who visited five nightclubs and a bar while infected with the virus, sparking an outbreak of at least 54 cases, according to NPR. The uptick also led South Korean officials to delay the reopening of schools.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Pav on Friday May 15 2020, @12:26AM (30 children)

    by Pav (114) on Friday May 15 2020, @12:26AM (#994447)

    Sweden went full neoliberal 10 years ago. They privatised hospitals, schools, aged care etc... Bernie Sanders is pretty out-of-date in his rhetoric. Going into this crisis Sweden already had a healthcare crisis. They were sacking thousands of doctors and nurses, not to mention having scandals in their aged care facilities eg. they weren't changing adult daipers to make more money. Sweden now has the SECOND WORST number of hospital beds in Western Europe... but guess who's the worst? The UK. Oh, and Swedens private healthcare system has simultaneously become the most expensive in Western Europe which it certainly wasn't before. (BTW, Swedish schools went from challenging for #1 in the world with Finland and Korea to being #20 of 28 in the OECD, though they've somehow managed to limp back into being a little better than average ie. into the top 10... though their teacher morale has become the worse in Western Europe).

    The geniuses who came up with this privatisation binge after it had already failed pretty much everywhere else then came up with this "no lockdown" strategy... probably so that if things went to crap they could say the bad numbers weren't an apples to apples comparison, and was merely a failure of a novel strategy and not a failure of their largely privatised healthcare system. BTW, Germany by comparison has the best served population in Western Europe... and only behind South Korea and Japan worldwide, and even though their infection rate has been feirce they've been keeping more infected people alive. Meanwhile the Swedish government has been gaslighting Swedes by saying the Swedish population is a more regimented and well behaved population... uniquely suited for this "no lockdown" strategy.... a nice pat on the head there. I guess that means if you complain you aren't a "good Swede".

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 16 2020, @01:54AM (18 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 16 2020, @01:54AM (#994841) Journal
    I notice you miss a big thing - why it happened. Going in with a health care crisis is bad. Going in with a worse health care crisis is worse.

    The geniuses who came up with this privatisation binge after it had already failed pretty much everywhere else

    Like where? Just don't ape California, and you've made it halfway there already.

    • (Score: 2) by Pav on Sunday May 17 2020, @02:44AM (11 children)

      by Pav (114) on Sunday May 17 2020, @02:44AM (#995224)

      California? I think you mean the USA. My country (Australia) is on its way down too, but at least we can mount a semi-effective response to a pandemic (even if it was because the conservatives haven't downgraded our public health infrastructure quite as fast as the UK, and because our current prime ministers job was in danger because he half arsed the bushfire disaster).

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 17 2020, @03:21PM (10 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 17 2020, @03:21PM (#995378) Journal
        My point here is that privatization has little to do with Sweden's choice of how to respond to covid. But it did help their health care systems and economies be stronger. And if you think "privatization" has failed everywhere else, you probably ought to look at what's been done sometime. In telecomm and passenger airlines, for example, it has proven itself.

        A key thing to remember here is that public infrastructure can't be better, if the economy can't support it. A lot of this privatization is driven by a sort of political triage - keeping the more popular public stuff, privatizing what can be privatized, and discarding the rest.
        • (Score: 2) by Pav on Monday May 18 2020, @01:42AM (9 children)

          by Pav (114) on Monday May 18 2020, @01:42AM (#995564)

          Swedens healthcare became more expensive and less effective after privatisation... though it seems I posted my reply (full of links etc...) in the wrong place (previous level).

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday May 18 2020, @05:04PM (8 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2020, @05:04PM (#995920) Journal

            Swedens healthcare became more expensive and less effective after privatisation...

            What privatization? Instead, I read stuff (see page 111) like:

            Sweden has an integrated public healthcare system in which the majority of financing and almost all of the delivery is provided by the public sector.

            That study dates from 2017.

            • (Score: 2) by Pav on Monday May 18 2020, @10:32PM (7 children)

              by Pav (114) on Monday May 18 2020, @10:32PM (#996056)

              So it has the efficiency of the US military then?

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @08:26AM (6 children)

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2020, @08:26AM (#996232) Journal
                You need a new narrative, bro.
                • (Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday May 19 2020, @09:47AM (5 children)

                  by Pav (114) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @09:47AM (#996254)

                  By certain metrics, and when squinted at the right way only 10% of the UKs NHS has been privatised also... except the "public" parts have been forced to outsource their clinical front ends, pathology, equipment maintenance, IT, the list goes on. It's a license to print money, and this private sector drag is painted as public sector waste... and it has certainly turned the NHS into a failure relative to the rest of Western Europe. The same thing is happening here in Australia although we're not as far along in this neoliberal-managed decline. The more sensible and honest Germans put public and private healthcare in a seperate head-to-head matchup, with the private sector failing miserably with only ideological diehards now willing to waste their money on it. I haven't dived into the Swedish numbers specifically, but Swedish healthcares dive tracks the privatisation drive nicely just as in the UK and more recently Australia. Correllation does not equal causation, but from their rising costs and declining metrics after their privatisation drive it's a fair assumption that Sweden has the same termites sinking the more civilised parts of the anglosphere (though I can't speak for Canada).

                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:30PM (4 children)

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:30PM (#996450) Journal
                    So then, it's not privatization. It's rent seeking. I got this.
                    • (Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday May 19 2020, @08:26PM (3 children)

                      by Pav (114) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @08:26PM (#996515)

                      BTW, because public healthcare won a fair fight in Germany the righties busied themselvesfixing that [thetimes.co.uk]. They're closing and or privatising hospitals in the public system even during the pandemic so they can move to the less effective but more profitable Swedish and NHS model. It's no wonder Asia has pulled ahead in healthcare also.

                      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @08:40PM (2 children)

                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2020, @08:40PM (#996527) Journal
                        Again, cool story bro. But just because there is criticism of a public healthcare system, doesn't mean that it's "righties" to blame.
    • (Score: 2) by Pav on Monday May 18 2020, @01:38AM (5 children)

      by Pav (114) on Monday May 18 2020, @01:38AM (#995562)

      Worse? The rationale was the welfare state cost too much... and that BS actually flew because previous to this the unions lost control of the biggest tabloid in Sweden (Aftonbladet) so there was no counter narrative. After the privatisation was done the right wing across Europe was excited [theguardian.com], deeming it a success out of the gate, and a shining example for more privatisation in eg. the UKs NHS. Swedish healthcare costs soared [statista.com] to become the most expensive in Europe while bed numbers dropped [statista.com] even far beyond previous cuts to be the second worst in Western Europe... the worst being the stealth-privatised and chronically underfunded (by Western European standards) [europa.eu] NHS in the UK. Things were so bad going into the crisis that mothers giving birth were being flown to Finland to give birth because of a lack of hospital capacity [thelocal.se]. If being cheaper and more effective previous to privatisation is "worse" I'd like to borrow your crack pipe.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @05:25PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @05:25PM (#995930)

        The rationale was the welfare state cost too much... and that BS actually flew because previous to this the unions lost control of the biggest tabloid in Sweden (Aftonbladet) so there was no counter narrative.

        Counter narratives won't turn this pig into a swan. In other words, only the unions had an interest in continuing that state of affairs. No wonder it lost.

        Consider your "excited" link (guardian story about the "lessons" of private healthcare):

        There are now six private hospitals funded by the taxpayer in Sweden, about 8% of the total.

        So it wasn't very privatized at the time of that story (2012). and as I noted in another post [soylentnews.org], there still wasn't much in the way of privatization as of 2017. On your healthcare to GDP link, 7.4% (in 2000) to roughly 11% (in 2018) (about 60% of which came in a single year change from 2010 to 2011) is not soaring healthcare costs.

        Things were so bad going into the crisis that mothers giving birth were being flown to Finland to give birth because of a lack of hospital capacity. If being cheaper and more effective previous to privatisation is "worse" I'd like to borrow your crack pipe.

        What makes you think it would be better otherwise? As I see it, little change actually happened from your alleged privatization. Something else is going on. I see that Sweden has had a decline [statista.com] in hospital beds since 2000, consistently since 2000. The surge in healthcare costs didn't even cause a noticeable change in that decline.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @08:28AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2020, @08:28AM (#996233) Journal
          Huh, how did that get posted as AC? I'm pretty sure I stayed logged in when I wrote it. The check box, it must have pushed.
        • (Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:06PM (2 children)

          by Pav (114) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:06PM (#996584)

          So unless a hospital is privatised from the roof to the slab that's the only privatisation that counts? That rhetoric actually worked here for a decade or so until electorates started becoming aware that falling efficiency was not just due to funding cuts but to "stealth privatisation" ie. pathology, front end clinical services, equipment maintenance, IT etc... IBM has actually been banned from submitting tenders for any more government contracts in my state because of failing to deliver even the barest fig leaf to justify their billions of drain on the public system, with the electorate forcing action. Still, despite that the US system has half the financial efficiency and almost universally worse outcomes except for number of MRI machines (which gets hyped in your media apparently, and repeated by US free marketeers, which would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic).

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:13PM (1 child)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:13PM (#996591) Journal

            So unless a hospital is privatised from the roof to the slab that's the only privatisation that counts?

            You haven't established that significant privatization has occurred in the first place. Meanwhile we still have that it's irrelevant to Sweden's response to COVID-19.

            • (Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:42PM

              by Pav (114) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:42PM (#996603)

              That's why people now often talk about "single payer" instead of public healthcare... it's no longer actually publicly provided healthcare. Hint for the particularly slow : it's because much of the infrastructre has been privatised.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @08:45PM (10 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2020, @08:45PM (#996533) Journal

    Sweden went full neoliberal 10 years ago.

    As an aside, I think we've established that Sweden hasn't gone full neoliberal.

    • (Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:09PM (7 children)

      by Pav (114) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:09PM (#996588)

      For Sweden having their system white-anted by "steath privatisation" (despite more explicit privatisation failure) is the definition of full neoliberal.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:17PM (6 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:17PM (#996593) Journal
        Again, where is this privatization? Most of the services are public as is most of the funding.
        • (Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday May 19 2020, @11:36PM (5 children)

          by Pav (114) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @11:36PM (#996620)

          In that case perhaps the US government should nationalise all your health care providers and insurers while keeping everything superficially the same then.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 20 2020, @02:14AM (4 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 20 2020, @02:14AM (#996670) Journal

            In that case perhaps the US government should nationalise all your health care providers and insurers while keeping everything superficially the same then.

            Because that works, right? Some changes are so fundamental, you can't keep things even superficially the same (which BTW doesn't mean much).

            • (Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday May 20 2020, @05:57AM (3 children)

              by Pav (114) on Wednesday May 20 2020, @05:57AM (#996764)

              Perhaps they could, I don't know... give free healthcare to the jobless, and a tax break to everyone else in July. You'd love it.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 20 2020, @06:02AM (2 children)

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 20 2020, @06:02AM (#996765) Journal
                They already do give health care to the jobless (via Medicaid) and gave out a tax break. We'll see if the US can afford it or if we'll see a bout of "austerity" in the US's future.
                • (Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday May 20 2020, @06:42AM (1 child)

                  by Pav (114) on Wednesday May 20 2020, @06:42AM (#996773)

                  You wanted the tax break to go straight to the top? In that case your system already suits you just fine.

    • (Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:13PM (1 child)

      by Pav (114) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:13PM (#996590)

      Ask a Brit about Blairs stealth privatisation and they'd probably call it "full neoliberal" even if the tactic wasn't balls-out enough to immediately get a share of the blame for dropping NHS standards.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:16PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2020, @10:16PM (#996592) Journal

        Ask a Brit about Blairs stealth privatisation and they'd probably call it "full neoliberal" even if the tactic wasn't balls-out enough to immediately get a share of the blame for dropping NHS standards.

        So what? Just because a hypothetical, ignorant Brit has an opinion doesn't mean I should take it seriously.