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What interests me in the cases is specifically, Western or Western-style countries seem to be rising up far quicker than others. The more withheld a country is and/or the more draconian their measures, the less cases they have. Finland stood out as an interesting case so far where the number hasn't risen terribly. There was an Asian island (not Japan or Indonesia, don't remember) that was also doing incredibly well and specifically had lots of draconian measures. So the countries that end up getting lots of cases are at least somewhat outgoing in nature (accepting or taking part in a lot of tourism, lots of social activities in open communities instead of closed communities leading to lots of varied social contact) and unwilling to change this. As an example: The Netherlands, where I live, has had a significant rise and our measures are.. self-isolate on showing symptoms, wash hands more often and don't shake hands. The former completely misses the problems with spreading during the incubation period (and worse, there are cases where you may leave, despite not being tested negative yet, solely on the basis of not showing symptoms. This totally misses the fact one can still be a carrier for at least a few days: antibodies don't work outside your body, last time I checked biology). The middle one is self-explanatory, but may also hurt your microbiome and can cause resistant bacteria when done too aggressively. The third measure.. completely misses the scope of the problem. You can still touch objects others have touched on the regular, still opening up a potentially worse way for the virus to carry over. Not to mention the primarily presented alternative is to.. touch elbows? Which looks like a poor joke and still results in touch. What are some alternatives that would have more effect? Work from home unless coming to the office is absolutely necessary, don't go to social places (especially not large city centers like Amsterdam, Utrecht, etc.), avoid social contact with strangers or outgoing people. All measures that could be implemented fairly easily and have minimal impact on the economy given the alternatives: can't shop physically? Shop online. Can't have social contact online? Play an online game, chat through VoIP. Not working at the office? Surely you can be at least 80-90% as efficient as at the workplace with some etiquette, have some discipline. And don't get me started on people who get the flu, infect others and completely ignore that other illnesses may mask the virus. Maybe survival of the fittest just needed to weed out stupidity. But hey, that's all just my opinion / hypothesis. |
Are you thinking of Singapore?