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posted by Fnord666 on Monday May 18 2020, @10:08AM   Printer-friendly

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?


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by zocalo on Monday May 18 2020, @10:57AM (51 children)

    by zocalo (302) on Monday May 18 2020, @10:57AM (#995676)
    I think it's *far* too early to say. The initial spread was via international travel, almost exclusively a "first world" luxury, so they are going to be ahead of the curve. Now that we're starting to see traditional second and third world countries ramping up the situation on the ground is looking much, much, worse and - to re-iterate - they are *still* only just starting to ramp up. The whole reason that Lombardy in Italy was so bad was that their local health service simply ran out of facilities, but at least they managed to cover the initial surge; that swamping of available beds and respirators is going to happen much faster if you don't have the numbers to start with.

    That's totally separate to the absymal failure of our politicians to get on top of things though (regardless of which "world" they are in). Yes, they're walking a fine line on damaging their economies, but it's pretty clear that they pretty much universally did some combination of prevaricating too long, bungled the measures they put into place (if any), sent out mixed messages, put too much focus on economy over lives, and (once it became painfully obvious they'd screwed up) took the "lies, damn lies, and statistics" game they'd been playing up to a whole other level. Maybe it's time to update the old proverb - "Those who can do, those who can't go into politics."
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @01:33PM (35 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday May 18 2020, @01:33PM (#995747) Journal

    put too much focus on economy over lives

    For the 99%, economy is life. If you can't work, you don't earn money. If you don't earn money, you can't buy food or pay rent. If you can't do those things, you and your kids lose your place and starve to death. It might be a little slower, but you still all die.

    30 million people in the US are out of work because of the lockdowns. If a third of them die from starvation, suicide, etc then was it worth killing 10 million people to save 1 million who might have died without the lockdown?

    That's the real calculus surrounding the quarantines.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday May 18 2020, @01:48PM (1 child)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2020, @01:48PM (#995756) Journal

      For the 99%, economy is life.
      ...
      That's the real calculus surrounding the quarantines.

      And the implicit constraint of the optimization problem is "minimum impact on the wealth of rest of 1%".
      Otherwise the problem of life for the 99% wouldn't be tied to "If you stop working for 1 month, you are screwed" and quite trivial a problem to solve.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday May 18 2020, @03:42PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2020, @03:42PM (#995868) Journal

        It wouldn't be trivial, but it would be easier.

        That said, the basic problem is not the 1%, but the corruption. Without the corruption, of course, the 1% wouldn't be the 1%, but you can easily have corruption without the concentration of wealth.

        --
        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 Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @01:49PM (13 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @01:49PM (#995757)

      For the 99%, economy is life.

      No.

      30 million people in the US are out of work because of the lockdowns. If a third of them die from starvation, suicide, etc then was it worth killing 10 million people to save 1 million who might have died without the lockdown?

      That's a nice way of saying that US is no better than one of the "African shithole countries"? In every other not-destitute nation, there are resources available to feed the population and not having to teeter-totter between famine and disease.. I honestly didn't believe that Trump America is choosing the path of famine AND disease.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @02:44PM (12 children)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday May 18 2020, @02:44PM (#995803) Journal

        That's a nice way of saying that US is no better than one of the "African shithole countries"? In every other not-destitute nation, there are resources available to feed the population and not having to teeter-totter between famine and disease.. I honestly didn't believe that Trump America is choosing the path of famine AND disease.

        What? Food and other resources cost money. They do not materialize out of thin air. Even if they did materialize out of thin air, you'd still have to pay people to transport them and distribute them. If the great Socialist Fairy in the sky handed your country a giant pile of stuff, you'd still have to guard it, move it, and distribute it lest it all be stolen by the great Black Market Demon and held for ransom.

        That is true no matter what country you are in. There is no magical Some Other Place where that is not true.

        The WHO thinks China's brutal lockdown was great and the right way to go. The WHO also thinks Sweden's non-lockdown is great and the right way to go. Those are both right at the same time, but everything the US has done is an epic disaster?

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Monday May 18 2020, @02:51PM (11 children)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2020, @02:51PM (#995811) Journal

          If the great Socialist Fairy in the sky handed your country a giant pile of stuff, you'd still have to guard it, move it, and distribute it lest it all be stolen by the great Black Market Demon and held for ransom.

          Then let that pile rot at the place of production, because dead people and people without money won't buy them.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @03:19PM (10 children)

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday May 18 2020, @03:19PM (#995840) Journal

            So...you're saying that if those goods don't magically transport, guard, and distribute themselves then it serves the end consumer right somehow? I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

            People who live in cities need others in other places to produce food and bring it to them. But the people who produce that food and bring it to them are bad because they shouldn't be out producing food and bringing it to the people in the cities and "spreading the virus!!"? Is it that you want people to starve to death instead of possibly, maybe (we're not really sure) dying of Wuhan coronavirus?

            Should they resort to eating their pets, and their neighbors afterward instead? Can they get what they need by becoming Breathairians?

            --
            Washington DC delenda est.
            • (Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Monday May 18 2020, @03:51PM

              by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2020, @03:51PM (#995877) Journal

              So...you're saying that if those goods don't magically transport, guard, and distribute themselves then it serves the end consumer right somehow? I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

              I'm saying that optimizing the economy/profit while sacrificing the life of people is antisocial. Economy should be a mean, not a purpose.
              Corner cases like this will show what impact the "can't afford a month without work" will have until and on the recovery.

              --
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 4, Interesting) by meustrus on Monday May 18 2020, @04:53PM (8 children)

              by meustrus (4961) on Monday May 18 2020, @04:53PM (#995917)

              Sounds like someone is substituting the Fake News straw man for the person they're talking too.

              This conversation is about distribution of resources, not whether the meat packing plants are open or closed. An issue where I must try really hard not to get side tracked on how people only ever seem to care about the safety and availability of their food and have zero shits to give about the health and safety of the people making it. And no, I'm not saying the places should be closed, I'm saying we should give a shit about the health and safety of the people working there.

              No, the point here is that "the economy" is NOT life. At least not the economy [smbc-comics.com] they like to talk about on cable news.

              We are the wealthiest nation in the world. Our government could feed everybody for free if we all decided that's what we wanted it to do. Granted, there are good reasons to be skeptical about such a direct approach. But compared to someplace like Canada, where people living in isolation are now receiving regular checks from the government to help maintain existing standards of living until the isolation is over, the response in the US is dangerously inadequate.

              It's not all about wealth, though. As humans we have been able to feed ourselves long before modern economic theory ever existed. We don't need "the economy" to feed ourselves. What we need is for "the economy" to stop demanding we spend all our time paying off the literal rent seekers so we have time to take care of ourselves.

              What are some of the ways we could feed ourselves without "the economy"? Maybe community organizations like food banks. Maybe 21st century "freedom gardens". Maybe buy some chickens, get free eggs. Granted, a lot of this stuff takes an economic input. We used to be able to supply that input from last year's harvest, or from the waste products of other production.

              Economic efficiency has stolen our self-sufficiency. It's time to embrace redundancy and community, band together (at a distance of 6 ft), and organize little communes. It's time to rediscover what it means to be a human capable of maintaining life with nothing more than the earth and the tribe to sustain it.

              --
              If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
              • (Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Monday May 18 2020, @05:09PM (7 children)

                by hemocyanin (186) on Monday May 18 2020, @05:09PM (#995922) Journal

                I have chickens. I give away my extra eggs to friends. Sometimes they offer to pay but I always decline, or they'll slip a few bucks into the returned egg cartons and I'll roll my eyes and say nothing. My eggs cost me roughly $8-10/dozen between feed, facilities, vermin control, and so forth. None of those cost calculation includes labor. Some of those costs are the same whether you have 10 chickens or 100, some scale with the flock, but the idea that you get free eggs from chickens is not correct. You get really excellent eggs that put any supermarket egg to shame, but you don't get free eggs. The friends of chicken owners do -- if what you want is free eggs, see if you can manipulate a friend into getting chickens -- of course that would just make you an asshole more than a friend, but that's the only way you get free eggs.

                • (Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday May 18 2020, @05:11PM

                  by hemocyanin (186) on Monday May 18 2020, @05:11PM (#995923) Journal

                  I forgot to add -- the reason I don't take money for my eggs is that unless I'm getting $10/dozen, I'm losing money. I'd rather give a gift and lose nothing (because it's a gift and the compensation is the warm fuzzies), than sell eggs for a loss.

                • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Pav on Monday May 18 2020, @11:20PM (3 children)

                  by Pav (114) on Monday May 18 2020, @11:20PM (#996076)

                  Even before governments existed to shake down societal non-contributors (taxation, what a crime against humanity and God!) a tribe would either club such people with stone axes until they contributed or banish them. Without that a society degrades into a prisoners dilemma that either progressively collapses at every crisis bigger than one persons ability to fix, or else gets rolled by the next tribe/society to come along.

                  • (Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Tuesday May 19 2020, @01:05AM (1 child)

                    by pdfernhout (5984) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @01:05AM (#996110) Homepage

                    Definitely one of the most interesting and insightful and pithy things I've read in a while...

                    --
                    The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
                    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Pav on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:33AM

                      by Pav (114) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:33AM (#996180)

                      Thanks, though it was a "collaborative" process in a manner of speaking. Continually dealing with right wing libertarians just boiled the pot dry, and rendered out the essentials.

                  • (Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:39AM

                    by dry (223) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:39AM (#996183) Journal

                    Usually started with shunning. Heard a blog about a small group of hunter gatherers (15?) where one guy was taking more then his share (as judged by the rest of the tribe). A bit of shunning straightened him up and made him realize he was dependent on the rest of the tribe.

                • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 19 2020, @03:58AM

                  by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @03:58AM (#996163) Homepage

                  This is actually why I don't keep chickens and produce my own eggs... the eggs might be 'free' but keeping the chickens is not (unless you just turn 'em loose, which isn't very efficient for eggs, but delights the foxes), and cost/benefit isn't very good at that small scale, especially not when I can get the same quality of eggs from the Hutterites for $2/dozen.

                  --
                  And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
                • (Score: 3, Interesting) by meustrus on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:19PM

                  by meustrus (4961) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:19PM (#996413)

                  Fair point. I thought I addressed it, but it was clearly too abstract; "waste products of other production" is supposed to mean that if you're running any other agriculture, you shouldn't have to pay for chicken feed. At least, that's how I imagine it worked in the past.

                  --
                  If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @01:50PM (8 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @01:50PM (#995758)

      They could have nullified rents during the pandemic but that would mean nullified mortgages . Can’t do that, those little old retired ladies need those retirement dividends so they can pay their rent.
      Wait, wasn’t rent cancelled?

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by fustakrakich on Monday May 18 2020, @03:12PM (7 children)

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday May 18 2020, @03:12PM (#995830) Journal

        They were supposed to freeze all the financial markets. Instead, Wall Street is now tapping a bottomless well courtesy the fed, and without congress nosing around.

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 18 2020, @03:46PM (4 children)

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2020, @03:46PM (#995871) Journal

          I think freezing all the financial markets might have been nearly as bad as what they did. I don't think there *are* any simple answers that don't cause problems worse than they solve. There are ways of ameliorating things, but they aren't simple, and don't make for good sound bites.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Monday May 18 2020, @03:51PM (3 children)

            by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday May 18 2020, @03:51PM (#995878) Journal

            Yes, you freeze all personal debt, rents, mortgage, etc. The fed should feed payroll and pensions, not Wall Street coffers. Nobody seems to wonder why the financial markets are doing so well in a "collapsed" economy.

            This is a heist, of the worst kind

            --
            La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
            • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 18 2020, @03:55PM (1 child)

              by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2020, @03:55PM (#995882) Journal

              never let a disaster go to waste.

              --
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
              • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday May 18 2020, @04:11PM

                by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday May 18 2020, @04:11PM (#995895) Journal

                Sometimes you have to create one. Like so many others this one is man made, through this so-called "incompetence"

                --
                La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
            • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:14PM

              by meustrus (4961) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:14PM (#996437)

              Pretty sure the system is working as intended. Isn't it pretty clear that Trump cares more about the health of the economy [smbc-comics.com] than the health of the general population? The far-right commentators he likes have definitely been arguing for that preference explicitly.

              --
              If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
        • (Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Monday May 18 2020, @08:55PM

          by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Monday May 18 2020, @08:55PM (#996012) Homepage
          It's not bottomless - money machine only go brrrr to eleven.
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:12PM

          by meustrus (4961) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:12PM (#996434)

          The FED isn't exactly set up to distribute money to the little people. Doing so was completely impossible when it was first designed. It might be possible now, but lots of people would be rightfully skeptical about the amount of extra bureaucracy the FED would need to do it.

          Not saying that what they're doing now is the best possible solution. Just that it's all they're in a position to do, and keeping Wall Street afloat is probably a net positive.

          Besides, I'm pretty sure Congress is completely happy not to be "nosing around". If they did that, they'd have to go on record supporting or opposing individual actions. Letting the FED do whatever they want without accountability definitely helps Congress itself avoid accountability.

          --
          If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by zocalo on Monday May 18 2020, @02:18PM (2 children)

      by zocalo (302) on Monday May 18 2020, @02:18PM (#995782)
      I'd say that's where targeted state welfare comes in - the UK's furlough and company bailout/loan schemes, or the US' distribution of $1,200 checks, for instance. No, that's not cheap (especially once you factor in loss of tax revenue from people just staying at home and not earning and spending as much), but it's still a drop in the ocean compared to what typical nation states are spending on things like defence, services that can be at least partly mothballed during lockdowns, numerous "pork" projects, and so on. It's also just a different priority - the general welfare of the people vs. the state's finances, and it's one that's falling along very predictable lines.

      There's no disputing that it's a tough calculation, nor that there's going to be a lot of guesswork involved, but it's certainly interesting to see where people's priorities lie, and how responsibility for any problems with re-opening their businesses are not *their* problem to resolve. Human nature at it's finest - almost everyone out for number one. In particular those of the notional 1% that actually run the businesses (no doubt from home, or some other "safe" location), that are expecting their minions in the 99% to get back to work and take their chances. Lots of sociopaths being outed as a result of this, that's for sure.
      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @02:32PM (1 child)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday May 18 2020, @02:32PM (#995795) Journal

        In particular those of the notional 1% that actually run the businesses (no doubt from home, or some other "safe" location), that are expecting their minions in the 99% to get back to work and take their chances. Lots of sociopaths being outed as a result of this, that's for sure.

        Yes, there are those sociopaths, and then there are the other sociopaths, who are not part of the 1% and are not out of work because they can do their jobs remotely, who excoriate those who have to show up physically to do their job. Those latter should just starve because they're endangering the investment bankers and brave journalists who continue to blog from home during this crisis.

        It is a tough calculation that does not fit into an "economy vs. lives" dichotomy.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday May 18 2020, @05:22PM

          by hemocyanin (186) on Monday May 18 2020, @05:22PM (#995929) Journal

          I've been thinking a bit about how backward our economy is. Anything that cannot be done from home, has a much higher liklihood of being an actual essential task -- as in essential for survival (food, water, energy) and you will or could die without it. These people typically get paid the least. Work a person can do from home though, most of it is just superfluous overpaid busy work. I will grant that there a few things people can do with computers that improve the world, but most of what gets done is just bullshit.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:23PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:23PM (#995785)

      How easily your balloon of ignorance got popped. Maybe you should reconsider your later-in-life switch to conservative ideology. 90% is so called common sense that falls apart in this more complicated modern world.

      • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @02:34PM (3 children)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday May 18 2020, @02:34PM (#995799) Journal

        If you're going to attack someone, then at least try not to gibber. Or is it beer o'clock where you are already?

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @04:30PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @04:30PM (#995908)

          Gibber? Maybe you should ask TMB to dump your comments for the last year so you can see the patterns for yourself. Hard to say in this age of anonymity what someone's true motivations are, but your backstory does not jive with your rather Republican worldview.

          • (Score: 3, Touché) by FatPhil on Monday May 18 2020, @09:00PM (1 child)

            by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Monday May 18 2020, @09:00PM (#996018) Homepage
            https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jibe
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2020, @09:46PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2020, @09:46PM (#996568)

              TIL thanks!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:41PM (#995802)

      "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @09:44AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @09:44AM (#1007712)

      If you can't work, you don't earn money. If you don't earn money, you can't buy food or pay rent.

      Yet another fallacy, and evidence of the Third-World state of the US. In the rest of the first world (i.e., western Europe), nobody starved and I haven't heard any concerns about starvation either.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 18 2020, @02:32PM (14 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday May 18 2020, @02:32PM (#995796)

    What will be interesting (to me) is if there is more natural immunity to COVID-19 in the "third world," much the way there was for Polio and similar diseases pre-vaccination.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 18 2020, @03:51PM (4 children)

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 18 2020, @03:51PM (#995876) Journal

      Was there more immunity, or did people without immunity just die young? And probably without having the reason diagnosed, at least not in terms that the western medical world would recognize.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 18 2020, @07:38PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday May 18 2020, @07:38PM (#995974)

        Lies, damn lies, and statistics... there will be statisticians who clean up the variance in the populations and draw meaningful conclusions about it, the question is: will the politicians let them communicate that a) at all? and b) without drowning it in a sea of conflicting/confusing messaging?

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:48AM (2 children)

        by dry (223) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:48AM (#996187) Journal

        Polio got a lot worse once we had clean drinking water. Perhaps it killed off infants, of which many died from various causes, or perhaps some exposure when really young help immunity.

        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday May 19 2020, @11:25AM (1 child)

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2020, @11:25AM (#996276) Journal

          Or perhaps before then the disease was lost in the general high level of infant mortality. Read the "Spoon River Anthology".

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
          • (Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday May 19 2020, @03:00PM

            by dry (223) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @03:00PM (#996366) Journal

            Which I believe I touched on, or tried.

    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 19 2020, @04:04AM (8 children)

      by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @04:04AM (#996166) Homepage
      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 19 2020, @01:05PM (7 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @01:05PM (#996309)

        If reality has shifted enough that the "first world" no longer acknowledges that our rates of Polio were MUCH higher than India, Africa and other nations from the time of FDR until the vaccine was developed, it's time to stop reading those sources altogether.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 19 2020, @01:52PM (6 children)

          by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @01:52PM (#996340) Homepage

          I'd like to see that as per-capita (during that period, the first world was vastly more populous than most of the third world. Did you know that as of 1900, the estimated population of all of Africa was only 10 million? and that was the high estimate.) I'd also like to know how you compare a nation with good communication and disease reporting... to one with poor or absent communication and no reporting.

          From a source in Pakistan, a few years back I learned that they average 50,000 new cases per year, and this continues even today. Do you really think it was any better before the vaccine?

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          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 19 2020, @02:24PM (5 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @02:24PM (#996352)

            The story I've always been taught:

            Polio reached epidemic proportions in the early 1900s in countries with relatively high standards of living, at a time when other diseases such as diphtheria, typhoid, and tuberculosis were declining. Indeed, many scientists think that advances in hygiene paradoxically led to an increased incidence of polio. The theory is that in the past, infants were exposed to polio, mainly through contaminated water supplies, at a very young age. Infants’ immune systems, aided by maternal antibodies still circulating in their blood, could quickly defeat poliovirus and then develop lasting immunity to it. However, better sanitary conditions meant that exposure to polio was delayed until later in life, on average, when a child had lost maternal protection and was also more vulnerable to the most severe form of the disease.

            https://www.historyofvaccines.org/timeline/polio [historyofvaccines.org]

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            • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 19 2020, @02:46PM (4 children)

              by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @02:46PM (#996360) Homepage

              I think it's more likely that 3rd world juvenile polio got rolled into general infant mortality, and that later cases often went undiagnosed, and no one really has any idea how many died of it.

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              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 19 2020, @03:19PM (3 children)

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @03:19PM (#996373)

                I'm not implying that overall mortality is higher in the first world.

                What I'm wondering is whether or not baseline immunity for this relatively novel disease is higher in the "third" world? May not be for COVID, or it might, thus the question.

                I would bet that there are parts of Africa where the human population does have better immunity to ebola than the first world - just like Europeans had better immunity to small pox than Americans did in the 1600s.

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                • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:24PM (2 children)

                  by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:24PM (#996418) Homepage

                  Oh, there's probably all kinds of variation on that front. But with some diseases it makes no difference (eg. rabies). And with truly novel diseases, it can't make a difference, because there IS no baseline immunity. (Or do you refer to how much generic stimulation their immune systems get? in that case, first world farmers should be equally immune.)

                  Native Americans mostly lived in what we'd call third-world squalor, yet they had no baseline immunity to smallpox, to them a novel virus. I'd guess most of the better European immunity was due less to historic smallpox exposure (remember many Europeans still died from it) as from living in close proximity to their cattle, and thereby frequent exposure to cowpox, which does produce some cross-immunity with smallpox.

                  It does occur to me to wonder if dogs, while readily infected by CV19, are generally asymptomatic because of cross-protection from the ubiquitous canine coronavirus. Nearly all dogs older than six weeks have immunity to canine CV, either through early exposure or vaccination. (Canine CV is not a serious disease, and is only a concern when there's inadequately-good parvovirus vaccination, because CV knocks down the immune system and serves as a gateway for parvo.)

                  --
                  And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
                  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:55PM (1 child)

                    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:55PM (#996426)

                    do you refer to how much generic stimulation their immune systems get? in that case, first world farmers should be equally immune.

                    Yes, and no. First world farmers may kick the shit, but they're also exposed to a wide spectrum of stuff that screws with immunological profiles - chlorinated water (or not), first world vaccine schedules, pesticides, heavy antibiotic doses in their food animals, etc.

                    So, this "novel" Coronavirus, crossed over from bats we are told, how novel is it, really? As you say, canine coronavirus... do dog owners have better immunity? Apparently cats also contract and spread COVID-19 asymptomatically... whatever that's worth.

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                    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:46PM

                      by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:46PM (#996456) Homepage

                      CV19: Cats get seriously ill about on par with humans, just have not had many cases yet. Dogs, far as I've heard, only very rarely become ill (again not enough samples) and do not spread it to humans. Ferrets and mink get seriously ill at much higher rates than humans do. At this point it's still mostly field observation, better'n anecdotal but not exactly solid stats, tho contagion studies with cats and ferrets were both in the above ballpark.

                      My observation is that getting vaccinated more often confers better immunity -- after all, vaccine is just a controlled challenge to the immune system, and when it's challenged regularly, it keeps the troops on their toes, so to speak. This is why I get the flu vaccine every year and don't worry if it's the 'right' one or not... having noticed back in the early days that after I'd had a few years of flu shots, I stopped getting the flu even when the vaccine was the wrong one for that season. Even a near miss is useful, or so it appears.

                      Pesticides and antibiotics are very much targeted, they're not just sprayed over everything as you imply. If I have to dose a cow, I certainly don't dose myself too. How would I get exposed? and if it's such a problem, why aren't all the livestock dying, given they're regularly injected with vaccines and parasite controls, and antibiotics at need (tho with the new restrictive regs, gonna be a lot more calves dying of spring scours for lack of immediately-available antibiotics, cuz the $50 profit margin on that calf is not worth the cost of the vet for a ranch call, and when he can't get there today, it's too late anyway).

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                      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.