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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Germany did it, but Germany is second only to Scandinavia and Singapore in bureaucratic competence, and had a leader who worked as a research scientist until 1990.
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Replying to @asymmetricinfo @DouthatNYT
Germany is a legislatively decentralized nation, like ours. No experience with a recent pandemic. Yes, of course, they had good leadership, and that's the point. Could we avoided this fate with a bit of effort? Absolutely. The introductions mean nothing. They happened everywhere.
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Replying to @zeynep @DouthatNYT
Germany has a vastly, vastly better bureaucracy than the United States, and also, a very strong culture of bureaucratic compliance. (I love
@mungowitz's story about being attacked for jaywalking across an empty street by an old lady screaming "Die kinder! Die kinder!")2 replies 0 retweets 7 likes -
I have family in Germany and lived there. Yes, they have the recycling police and all, but they also have all sorts of counter dynamics. All the culture and immunity arguments fail, because there are things common to sustained success, but it is simply not culture or geography.
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I'm sorry, it is impossible to spend any time in Germany and the United States and not conclude that there are really, really different cultures around rule compliance.
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Replying to @asymmetricinfo @zeynep and
My father spent a year in Germany in his youth and he always tells the story of the man he saw waiting for the sign to cross the street at 2AM on a completely empty street.
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I know the place. There is that, but there is also a lot of other things that work just the other way for pandemic response. The key turns out to be a correct assessment of the characteristics of the pathogen and the right response, along with some competence.
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Replying to @zeynep @Holden114 and
Btw corona infections are on the rise again in Germany & Western Europe. Germany has implemented questionable new travel restrictions for domestic tourism. People from corona hot spots need to show a negative test result (max 48h old) in order to stay at a hotel in another state.
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