But anyway this is also more evidence that wherever you want to locate Trump's crucial failure re: the pandemic, in most counterfactuals with more normal presidents the initial spread still gets out of hand.
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Replying to @DouthatNYT
This is obviously not true because there are many countries that had many introductions from travel, just like this, and even large outbreaks, and got it under control without anything like China’s shutdowns. There are other proven strategies that work well.
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Replying to @zeynep @DouthatNYT
Take a look at my article. Almost every country got multiple introductions, just like the United States, and some even had bigger outbreaks than we did early on and did not have draconian shutdowns, just appropriate response to the threat, and it worked.https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/ …
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Replying to @zeynep @DouthatNYT
To a first approximation, no large country outside the Pacific Rim got it right that early (counting Canada, which had significant exposure to Original SARS)
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Germany got it right secondarily, but with pretty significant restrictions; every other large European country failed. Trump's not an outlier until summer.
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I mean, I think we should have done better, because we had longer to get it right, but bad US policy doesn't show up in the data in the early, critical months.
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Replying to @asymmetricinfo @DouthatNYT
Yes, almost all of Western Europe flunked because they went with the flu playbook, rather than SARS/MERS (hence my article) but it's not just Japan and South Korea. Yes, Germany. But also Uruguay. (Despite elsewhere in Latin America failing badly). Uganda. There's more.
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It's not true that we were doomed because introductions happened. And, look, South Korea had a massive, massive early outbreak because of terrible luck. The Pacific Rim didn't do well by magic. Aggressive response to outbreak+targeting indoors/ventilation/crowds/clusters+masks.
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Replying to @zeynep @DouthatNYT
I think there are two separate questions: first, were there policy interventions that could have minimized this despite multiple introductions? Absolutely, yes. Second, were those interventions politically possible in places that hadn't had a major pandemic in 100 years?
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Leaving aside small countries (because statistically, you'd expect small countries to have both the best and the worst outcomes, even if policy was the same everywhere, just due to natural variance), I think the evidence on #2 is "Not really".
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Why? Look at Japan. Multiple introductions. Early outbreak. No lock-down, ever—not even legally possible. Aging population. Dense cities. Mass transportation. Not a small country. In March, Americans would have rallied around sensible precautions because people wanted to be safe.
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Replying to @zeynep @DouthatNYT
On the Pacific Rim, already has a pandemic/mask culture. Different problem from Europe/US.
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Also, I think the evidence suggests there may be some background immunity from a related coronavirus circulating in Asia--Thailand/Vietnam hard to explain without it, even with excellent policy.
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