We still don't have a satisfactory answer for why poor megacities like Dhaka, Lagos, Jakarta, Manila, or New Delhi haven't had a runaway coronavirus outbreak like the ones that hit New York or Lombardy, while other parts of the world are on their second or third iteration.
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People typically respond to this observation in two ways. The first is to point out rising cases in such cities, which is absolutely right. The mystery is the lack of catastrophic growth, six months in to the pandemic. The second response is to say the figures are simply wrong
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But there are a lot of places that by our understanding of this disease should have been decimated, that haven't been. This includes places with disastrous policy, misgovernment, poverty, high density, lack of public health infrastructure, you name it. I remain baffled.
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Replying to @Pinboard
low frequency random events if you get 500 individuals arriving from infected areas and, say, 10 are highly contagious, you get an outbreak if you only get 10 arriving in the first place, low chance there's enough aggregate viral shedding there to create an outbreak
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Replying to @inflammateomnia @Pinboard
so of the places that "should" have had an outbreak but didn't: the ones that fall into the first category apparently just wore masks and it worked (e.g. japan, jakarta) and the rest fall into the second category. How many visitors is Lagos getting from Wuhan?
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I think it's a good working theory, especially given the evidence on superspreading events driving the pandemic. But the tension between a disease that spreads really easily but then also leaves Africa and Asia mostly alone is weird. There's a residual bafflement!
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