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COVID-19 Has Blown Away the Myth About 'First' and 'Third' World Competence:
One of the planet's – and Africa's – deepest prejudices is being demolished by the way countries handle COVID-19.
For as long as any of us remember, everyone "knew" that "First World" countries – in effect, Western Europe and North America – were much better at providing their citizens with a good life than the poor and incapable states of the "Third World". "First World" has become shorthand for competence, sophistication and the highest political and economic standards.
[...] So we should have expected the state-of-the-art health systems of the "First World", spurred on by their aware and empowered citizens, to handle COVID-19 with relative ease, leaving the rest of the planet to endure the horror of buckling health systems and mass graves.
We have seen precisely the opposite.
[...] [Britain and the US] have ignored the threat. When they were forced to act, they sent mixed signals to citizens which encouraged many to act in ways which spread the infection. Neither did anything like the testing needed to control the virus. Both failed to equip their hospitals and health workers with the equipment they needed, triggering many avoidable deaths.
The failure was political. The US is the only rich country with no national health system. An attempt by former president Barack Obama to extend affordable care was watered down by right-wing resistance, then further gutted by the current president and his party. Britain's much-loved National Health Service has been weakened by spending cuts. Both governments failed to fight the virus in time because they had other priorities.
And yet, in Britain, the government's popularity ratings are sky high and it is expected to win the next election comfortably. The US president is behind in the polls but the contest is close enough to make his re-election a real possibility. Can there be anything more typically "Third World" than citizens supporting a government whose actions cost thousands of lives?
(Score: 1, Disagree) by shrewdsheep on Monday May 18 2020, @10:43AM (10 children)
All factors being equal, the criticism would be correct. However, there are (at least) three mayor differences: age structure, climate, and genetics. All three combined easily explain the current state of affairs despite worse measures and health systems in place in "third world" countries. Let's just be grateful they got away this time.
Mediterranean climate seems to be most covid friendly. Going hotter or cooler seems to protect.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday May 18 2020, @10:54AM (5 children)
Interesting hypothesis you have there. From your position, address this then:
Maybe instead of "Let's just be grateful they got away this time." we'd be better with "Let's not just be grateful, but maybe start to learn something"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Disagree) by shrewdsheep on Monday May 18 2020, @02:07PM (4 children)
Contact tracing and isolation has proven ineffective. That was the initial plan. Otherwise, I only see big strawmen here. Price of the tests has never been an issue, only capacity. Even if that were true, there is no indication that this is what has kept infections low over there (I did argue to the contrary). As much as I would wish there would be something to learn, I do not see what.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday May 18 2020, @02:35PM (1 child)
FTFY. Because in Australia, that's exactly what we do and it works [worldometers.info]. The latest cluster of infections, in the low tens, were traced, other contacts identified, tested and yet asymptomatic infections were identified and isolated before they could spread it further.
As for why this has been proven ineffective in US? I don't know, a decent hypothesis is maybe because the usians covidiots [urbandictionary.com] are in larger numbers and more foolishly active [independent.co.uk] than in Australia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @07:57PM
I think the reasons behind that are simple, and they rhyme with "bump."
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Monday May 18 2020, @03:43PM
Where are you referring to when you say that this has been ineffective?
In most of the U.S., as in just about everywhere but New York City, NY, the health care system's were not overwhelmed. The hospitals between New York state and California are mostly empty. The "curve" wasn't just flattened, it was obliterated.
In places where you aren't crammed into small confined spaces this works just fine, which is most of the the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday May 18 2020, @03:56PM
Contact tracing is ineffective if you don't do it. Similarly for quarantine. Telling people to stay home when you know they're infected and not enforcing it is not quarantine. Telling it to people who CAN'T stay home is more foolishness than quarantine.
The US has not used either contact tracing OR quarantine. And you need to use both of them. Even so that wouldn't get everyone, because of asymptomatic carriers, but it would cut the number down low enough that those could be identified and either quarantined or treated. (There are reports that plasma works to treat asymptomatic spreaders, though I'd need more evidence to be certain.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Monday May 18 2020, @12:15PM (2 children)
You should have highlighted age structure - cut and paste from my post below... (apologies to dupe post, but how else to do it?)
Senegal - 2.9 % aged 65+
India - 5.4 % aged 65+
UK - 18.0 % aged 65+
Presumably this is something like a tail of a poisson distribution so the number aged 70+ is even more skewed towards the West (etc).
So the headline should be "Third world healthcare is so bad that all of the vulnerable people are dead already."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Senegal [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_Kingdom [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @05:35PM (1 child)
Well Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan have lots of old people above 65 too with a high population density. South Korea's weather isn't that warm either...
Sure they're still younger than the UK but their death rates per million are magnitudes lower. At least 100 times. Can that be explained merely by the difference in population age?
Definitely doing better the USA or most of Western Europe.
While I still think it's a high chance that the virus came from China, given the level of the virus and incompetence in Europe and the USA it does make me wonder whether it came from somewhere in those places instead and just nobody noticed for more months than China did. China probably took months to notice too, but maybe 2-3 months (assuming the "true" first human case was in Oct 2019, instead of Dec 2019). There were early cases in the USA and Europe that were not detected, and only detected in "hindsight"... Does that mean the USA and Europe are so dependent on China to detect such diseases first?
FWIW I think India is likely to have a higher death rate, same for Bangladesh. Their curves are just ramping up. With the amount of poor people there, many are going to die of hunger and/or violence. Imagine if you only earn 1-2 dollars day and spend most of it merely to eat to survive. How long can you survive a lockdown? They have the excuse though of being poor. When your GDP/capita is only a few times more than a covid-19 test, and similar to the cost of ventilator your options are lot worse.
But what's the excuse for the rich countries? Blame China and the WHO? You think Taiwan is doing better because they got better info etc from China or the WHO?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday May 18 2020, @06:35PM
Totally agree. To take South Korea as an example, from Wikipedia 13.5 % of population is 65 years and over (much more comparable to e.g. UK 18 %). South Korea GDP per capita is similar to UK as well. Clearly, South Korea managed the pandemic better.
However, the premise of TFA was "third world countries are handling covid better". TFA highlighted India and Senegal as examples. I point out that India and Senegal have a totally different demographic, and so the comparison is not a fair one and the logic is flawed.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 18 2020, @09:11PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves