[robr2]

Originally Posted by michael917

I've noticed that a number of movie theaters in CT have stopped selling concessions in an effort to make sure people keep their masks on inside the building. I wonder, though, why this is happening when places like restaurants and bowling alleys are still serving food indoors.

I can't even imagine how the movie theaters are surviving like this, given that the majority of their profits come from concessions.

I believe here in MA you have to order your concessions online with your tickets and pick them up "to go" when you get there.

[rach5]

Originally Posted by Stylo

In January and February we would’ve had to lock down to the point where Americans likely wouldn’t have supported it, with little evidence of community spread.

I really struggle to see what we could’ve done specifically, can you?

Re: science, don’t forget we live in a Republic and many of our states have the resources and budgets of small countries and no one has been able to solve this without vaccines.

No one? Quite a few places have been able to contain (though not solve) this without vaccines. Like Hong Kong, with over 7.5 million inhabitants, has had 9,152 confirmed cases and 156 related deaths. Extremely densely populated. South Korea is experiencing a "major" spike right now, but that means 1000 cases/day - with a population of over 51 million. They were extremely aggressive and did a lot of testing very early on to contain outbreaks - I remember reading details of impressive contact tracing there very early on, while we were basically not testing at all.

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by rach5

No one? Quite a few places have been able to contain (though not solve) this without vaccines. Like Hong Kong, with over 7.5 million inhabitants, has had 9,152 confirmed cases and 156 related deaths. Extremely densely populated. South Korea is experiencing a "major" spike right now, but that means 1000 cases/day - with a population of over 51 million. They were extremely aggressive and did a lot of testing very early on to contain outbreaks - I remember reading details of impressive contact tracing there very early on, while we were basically not testing at all.

There are too many vast differences to list in those places, especially culturally.

I meant “no one” as in no state. Even the super liberal ones that have done exactly what Biden would’ve done. And liberal European countries are no different.

Culturally, public health can’t rely on “well if people just locked themselves in a room for a year there’d be no problem”. Unrealistic public health that points blame is a failure.

Also, Asia might’ve gotten lucky with the variant. The first variant that spread there was far less contagious than the European variant that spread here. So they may have been able to mitigate effectively without wide spread due to fortunate timing.

People like to reduce this to such simplicities like “look at X county” but this is far more complex.

[7 Wishes]

Originally Posted by rach5

No one? Quite a few places have been able to contain (though not solve) this without vaccines. Like Hong Kong, with over 7.5 million inhabitants, has had 9,152 confirmed cases and 156 related deaths. Extremely densely populated. South Korea is experiencing a "major" spike right now, but that means 1000 cases/day - with a population of over 51 million. They were extremely aggressive and did a lot of testing very early on to contain outbreaks - I remember reading details of impressive contact tracing there very early on, while we were basically not testing at all.

Don't forget Australia and New Zealand, where though containment hasn't been perfect, it's so low that their societies are 90% "normal" now....they have concerts, live theatre and near full sport events crowds already! For some reason, channel 7 Eyewitness news showed on sports clips from a cricket match in Australia last night and there were mass crowds in the stands! Unlike us where today's Buffalo Bills playoff game will be an "experiment" of 7000 masked fans in a stadium of 80,000 for the first major live sports event in the Northeast to have fans (I know in some other parts of the country like OH, TX and FL football games have had about 10-20K fans and I'll admit they seemed to have gone well)

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by 7 Wishes

Don't forget Australia and New Zealand, where though containment hasn't been perfect, it's so low that their societies are 90% "normal" now....they have concerts, live theatre and near full sport events crowds already! For some reason, channel 7 Eyewitness news showed on sports clips from a cricket match in Australia last night and there were mass crowds in the stands! Unlike us where today's Buffalo Bills playoff game will be an "experiment" of 7000 masked fans in a stadium of 80,000 for the first major live sports event in the Northeast to have fans (I know in some other parts of the country like OH, TX and FL football games have had about 10-20K fans and I'll admit they seemed to have gone well)

Timing was on their side. It was their summer when this hit us and Europe. We were THEIR canary in the coal mine, so they didn’t have the mass community spread go under the radar like the Western world had. By March, they put in place everything they needed to keep numbers low and kept out the rest of the world. Timing and luck. Also, if they had the Asian variant predominantly back then, it was not only their summer; but a less contagious virus to start with.

And lower population, population density, and the fact they’re islands.

[7 Wishes]

Originally Posted by Stylo

Timing was on their side. It was their summer when this hit us and Europe. We were THEIR canary in the coal mine, so they didn’t have the mass community spread go under the radar like the Western world had. By March, they put in place everything they needed to keep numbers low and kept out the rest of the world. Timing and luck. Also, if they had the Asian variant predominantly back then, it was not only their summer; but a less contagious virus to start with.

And lower population, population density, and the fact they’re islands.

I think they have some advantages, but to just say it's all that we don't have the will to do what they do is somewhat of a cop out. We as a society are very bad at short term sacrifice for long term gain (despite the most ardent deniers and anti-maskers usually being the ones that thinks the rest of society is the ones like that and a bunch of "takers").


Anyway Fox just reran their new game show, a remake of Name that Tune a show I loved as a kid in the late 70s. I knew the first episode was just this week and was shocked to see full, maskless crowds in the audience; and the hosts hugging the winners, etc. I thought, "did they film this 2 years ago and it just got delayed"? So I looked it up (and only foreign news outlets and Wikipedia are saying what I found out, at least based on my Google News search). They filmed it in AUSTRALIA and to "fool" Americans (won't we notice the maskless audience though?) only Americans who now live in Australia could compete on the show so we don't hear a bunch of foreign accents and the hosts (Jane Krakowski of "Ally McBeal" fame and Randy Jackson formerly of American Idol) went there, quarantined, etc. before production started.

We're not an island (even Australia is the "worlds largest island" if you think about it though it's considered the "worlds smallest continent" instead) and we have something like the 4th or 5th largest population on earth, and we're far from the only nation for which this is a crisis, but we, both government and society, could've handled this a lot better. But seeing that on TV tonight (and the cricket thing on the news last night I mention in a past post) gives me hope we'll be there sometime this year. Just like 2020 didn't start like this, I don't think 2021 will end like this.

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by 7 Wishes

I think they have some advantages, but to just say it's all that we don't have the will to do what they do is somewhat of a cop out. We as a society are very bad at short term sacrifice for long term gain (despite the most ardent deniers and anti-maskers usually being the ones that thinks the rest of society is the ones like that and a bunch of "takers").


Anyway Fox just reran their new game show, a remake of Name that Tune a show I loved as a kid in the late 70s. I knew the first episode was just this week and was shocked to see full, maskless crowds in the audience; and the hosts hugging the winners, etc. I thought, "did they film this 2 years ago and it just got delayed"? So I looked it up (and only foreign news outlets and Wikipedia are saying what I found out, at least based on my Google News search). They filmed it in AUSTRALIA and to "fool" Americans (won't we notice the maskless audience though?) only Americans who now live in Australia could compete on the show so we don't hear a bunch of foreign accents and the hosts (Jane Krakowski of "Ally McBeal" fame and Randy Jackson formerly of American Idol) went there, quarantined, etc. before production started.

We're not an island (even Australia is the "worlds largest island" if you think about it though it's considered the "worlds smallest continent" instead) and we have something like the 4th or 5th largest population on earth, and we're far from the only nation for which this is a crisis, but we, both government and society, could've handled this a lot better. But seeing that on TV tonight (and the cricket thing on the news last night I mention in a past post) gives me hope we'll be there sometime this year. Just like 2020 didn't start like this, I don't think 2021 will end like this.

The governments/people in Europe are not drastically different than Australia, and Europe is in the same boat as us, for the reasons outlined. It’s not just an American thing.

[Brian26]

[TheWaffleIron]

Originally Posted by gmdealerguy

Man, I would be grateful if it were Spring. But.....and I have to throw a wrench in, sorry.......What if the vaccine does not work against this new strain? Which I believe has been here circulating already since Fall.

This would be unlikely.

[mdovell]

Countries in Asia already dealt with this back in 2002 with SARS. Masks are much more socially acceptable. New Zealand is very remote and it is a unitary state so policies can be implemented faster. Australia is certainly more spread out.

Perth is on the west but much is in the south east. If you add up all the urban areas that's about 68% of the country, top ten localities add up to 73%. heck just two cities is about 40% of the overall population

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._by_population

Yes it is spread out to a point but if you take Darwin and Perth off it's mostly the south east.

Initially I thought the US stood out with a bad response but the EU is in the same boat. Heck Russia has about three times the fatalities of what they first said.