[graeme]

But several countries have basically eliminated the virus. SARS-COV-2 spreads in clusters. Tracing these clusters, testing people, and isolating patients seems to work.

Neighboring Denmark is down to ~30 cases a day. Is it impossible to believe that with border control and testing they’ll basically have it eliminated on their territory?

Countries which have basically eliminated it: Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, iceland, luxembourg, monaco, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Belize, China

Also the Canadian provinces of new brunswick, nova scotia, newfoundland, PEI, Saskatchewan, Manitoba

I’m sure I’m forgetting some. What do the countries in that list have in common? Yes some are islands but not all. Yes some are small but not all.

For the most part, they took action early, and used contact tracing, testing, isolation, and border control systems.

According to this article the small, poor country of Belize has outdone the province of Quebec, where I live. Belize developed a software based contact tracing system. Quebec still does it by fax. It is not a surprise which jurisdiction has better results.

What’s your theory for how the systems built in these countries will inevitably fail? The virus is contagious but it isn’t magical. It has to spread from person to person. If you test people, isolate the infected, trace their contacts, the virus has nowhere to go.

Most of the west is still not isolating the infected, instead sending them home to their families, and in many cases free to leave home if they decide to break quarantine.

https://www.vancourier.com/living/government-of-belize-credi...

[ApolloFortyNine]

The only virus ever to be eliminated globally is smallpox, and it took a vaccine to do so.

Unless Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, iceland, luxembourg, monaco, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Belize, China plan on never reopening to the World, the virus will spread again. It's already been proven you can go from 1 case to full pandemic in 4 months.

[graeme]

> It's already been proven you can go from 1 case to full pandemic in 4 months.

When nobody was testing, and nobody was expecting it. Testing and tracing infrastructure will only get better, not worse. You won’t see cases in Hong Kong suddenly go from zero to thousands.

> Unless Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, iceland, luxembourg, monaco, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Belize, China plan on never reopening to the World, the virus will spread again.

I suspect they'll reopen with mandatory testing and isolation of travelers. Many of those countries already have varying versions of this.

This will go until a vaccine exists. Then once a vaccine exists you’ll need proof of vaccination to enter.

Tourism is nice for economies, but not being in lockdown and not paying the costs of an outbreak is even better.

Why exactly will it be impossible for those countries to use this system for 1-2 years until a vaccine is ready? The alternative on offer in countries with outbreaks is hardly compelling.

Perhaps we’ll discover a treatment in between that will make this unnecessary, but barring that the world may divide into cold zones and hot zones.

[dredds]

Indeed. NZ & Aus exchange about 20% of each other's tourism in a regular year. Sometime in July we should see open borders across the ditch, saving a good number of jobs in travel and tourism sectors. Job subsidies have been timed to maximize this 'bounce back' economy as well.

China, Singapore, and Qatar seem to have less-lethal strains if their recent numbers are to be believed. Perhaps in lieu of an early vaccine we might see weaker asymptomatic strains as providing a safer path to herd immunity. Someone here from these countries might be able to explain their low death rates in more detail.

[graeme]

Good point about tourism amongst clean zones. There will also be less domestic money that leaks out to foreign tourism: much will be spent domestically instead. Tourism is mostly a wash.

The bigger loss will likely be from whatever business/scientific travel is truly necessary. If that gets harder you may see some long run economic harm.

As for China, not obvious they have a lower fatality rate? Their official stats show a 5% CFR.

Singapore and Qatar have their cases amongst the mostly young migrant workers, which should have a much lower fatality rate due to age. I’m skeptical that any countries have a much less lethal strain. Unless we see nursing homes with widespread infections but few deaths.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-05/as-virus-...

[dredds]

Wuhan recently tested all 9 million residents and found only 300 currently positive cases, which are not included in official figures since they are all asymptomatic. If they had tested the residents for antibodies instead then we would have a much better understanding of mortality vs immunity. So it seems like a wasted effort other than forcing residents out of their homes to stand in long queues. CFR depends on knowing the percentage of all cases, not just those showing up in distress at hospitals, as i suspect their official figures actually indicated.

[graeme]

Yeah I don't expect their IFR is 5%. But, some antibody result in places like New York and Spain suggest an IFR in the 1% range.

Sinapore and Qatar are clear cases of a lower IFR, but not obvious to me that China is. Every place has undiscovered cases, the question is how many.