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It is interesting to read stuff like this. We never had it bad in Australia so when you read something like this it makes you thankful for how we have handled i

It is interesting to read stuff like this. We never had it bad in Australia so when you read something like this it makes you thankful for how we have handled it. Amazing that we will have 80,000 people at a football game on Sunday.

taxicabjesus 5y ago
One speculation I've read is that Australian/Japan/New Zealand's very-bad 2019 flu season was SARS-CoV-2 before it could be diagnosed. My understanding is that most cases of "flu" are suspected, not laboratory-confirmed. Just found this October 4, 2019 NY Times story: Australia Just Had a Bad Flu Season. That May Be a Warning for the U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/health/flu-australia-america.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/health/flu-australia-amer... From this NY times article: "This year’s Australian outbreak began in April [2019], two months earlier than usual, and persisted into October." COVID-19 cases in the US probably started November-ish. COVID-19 was found in US blood samples from December 2019. I had a day with an odd headache sometime around December 2019 or January 2020. I suspect I had a case of #EarlyCovid. Lots of other people in North America were super-sick in November/December 2019 and January 2020. Others have been using the hashtag for longer than I: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23EarlyCovid https://twitter.com/search?q=%23EarlyCovid Edit: At least 4 downvotes in 16 minutes. This indicates many of you do not believe SARS-CoV-2 could have been spreading before it was isolated in Wuhan China in December 2019, or that I and many others might have had a case of non-diagnosed SARS-CoV-2 before tests became available in the US in March 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pande... "A September 2020 review noted "The possibility that the COVID-19 infection had already spread to Europe at the end of last year is now indicated by abundant, even if partially circumstantial, evidence", including pneumonia case numbers and radiology in France and Italy in November and December." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pande... What does it mean if the COVID-19 timeline is wrong?
- taxicabjesus 5y ago
  (note to self: comment above quickly went to -4, then saw at +2, now at -1, so at least 14 votes.)
- projectileboy 5y ago
  I’m not totally sure why you’re being downvoted, it’s an interesting question. My niece in Seattle had a very bad “flu” for about three weeks early last year, well before the initial wave in the Pacific Northwest. I hope we will eventually learn a bit more about how and where this started and how and where it spread, so that we can do a better job next time. (Putting aside the obvious ways the US and other parts of the world chose to deny reality, there still is much to learn.)
  - tharkun__ 5y ago
    I can completely believe this. Unfortunately we can't prove any of this but personally I think my team was at least exposed to Covid in early 2020 as well. We had a guy in our (small) team room out sick from Thursday to Monday and he reported being 'floored' and coughing his lungs out. His SO got the same a few days after. Nobody else really got sick but given the close quarters and what we know about aerosol spread and incubation periods now, I think we were practically bathing in virus soup.
- viraptor 5y ago
  While not impossible, there are a few things that I think would need good explanations: - labs would get more flu swabs which test negative - there would be enough globally to make someone suspicious - why did we see only one strain of covid initially if it was already spreading early (and as I understand it the strain hierarchy always points to the Wuhan one on top) - we haven't seen the cases drop completely without special measures in any country (there's a drop in summer, but only partial) - why was Australia pretty much covid free initially with all the assumed 2019 cases?
  - taxicabjesus 5y ago
    1. Flu cases numbers are estimates. Flu cases have disappeared, presumably on account of everyone getting SARS-CoV-2 instead. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/faq.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/faq.htm https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-... 2. Figuring out if a person has a strain requires genetic sequencing of samples that tested positive for generic COVID-19. I don't know when this became possible. https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/how-are-covid-19-variants-discovered-tested-and-tracked-1.5312988 https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/how-are-covid-19-v... 3. Some populations are healthier than others. I think 'Special measures' are mostly theater.
decafninja 5y ago
The Asian countries that fared relatively well - Taiwan/Japan/Korea/etc.etc. - I guess you could chalk it up to cultural differences, but what and how did Australia, a "Western" country that I reckon is culturally more similar to the USA and Europe than to say, Japan or Korea, do so well and differently vs. the USA? Correct me if wrong, but Aussie culture has an individualistic streak like the USA too, doesn't it?
- vmception 5y ago
  Geography, topology, authoritative control, non-porous border which was closed, mandatory two week quarantine for any exception
  - rvn1045 5y ago
    + a small population of 25 million
    - vmception 5y ago
      yes thats useful context, I was mentally grouping that into topology kind of stretching that to the few areas where people live and how desolate the rest is
  - BelenusMordred 5y ago
    Australia abandoned their own citizens abroad to thundering applause. No other country on Earth did that. The number of people allowed back into the country is minuscule and right now, foreign business travellers get priority on flights because they can pay more for seats.
  - shoo 5y ago
    another factor could be how cohesive / fragmented the government response is -- maybe this is another facet of "authoritative control". here's a crude model as a straw-man thought experiment: australia has a federal government with some degree of control but the 8 local state/territory governments still get a reasonable amount of ability to make local decisions. The states often disagree with the federal government, and with each other, and have disagreed about the appropriate responses to covid in many cases. Suppose the federal government has no ability to control anything. Each local government has a 95% chance of doing something reasonable in response to a pandemic and a 5% chance of doing something stupid. If we make the poor working assumption that each local government decides what to do independently of the others, then about 2/3rds of the time we would expect all 8 australian local governments to do something reasonable, and 1/3 of the time one or more local government will respond to the pandemic in a stupid way. So maybe we got to see the 2/3rds outcome in australia -- or perhaps we actually saw a 1/3rd outcome where stupid decisions were made that dramatically elevated risk, but we simply got lucky. In contrast the US has say 51 local government regions, so there's about a 7% chance that they all do something reasonable and a 93% chance that at least one local government region does something stupid. Then if it is hard or impossible to isolate the impacts of bad decisions to each local region, the impact of poor decisions in one region can help outbreaks spread in connected regions. On another hand, a downside of having a strong central control of the entire country's response is that if that central response is stupid, then the entire country starts cohesively doing something stupid, whereas a country with more fragmented/decentralised decision making might fare a bit better locally.
jjcm 5y ago
I’m one of the rare ones who had covid in Australia, but also spent time in the states during the pandemic so I’ve seen both sides, and experienced how a positive case is addressed here in Aus. Australians care far, far more. I saw more people wearing masks on Sydney trains at zero cases than I did in a US supermarket at the peak. Politics don’t play into whether or not you wear a mask in Australia. In addition, Australian’s have made sacrifices for the greater good of all in the past (giving up guns for example). This just isn’t a thing in America. While both are western countries, there are major differences in mindset. When I tested positive in Australia, I was immediately moved to my own private apartment dedicated for covid patients, free of charge. I wasn’t allowed to leave, but was fed and had doctors visiting me twice a day for vitals. I had very mild symptoms through all of this, but they treated it very seriously. In America they just send you home. Australia invested more up front to keep the curve low. Despite having some complications with the duration of my stay, which lead me to be quarantined for 31 days[1], I vastly prefer Australia’s approach to the pandemic. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-15/sydney-man-covid-policies-stuck-quarantine-hotel-no-end-date/13058440 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-15/sydney-man-covid-poli...
- decafninja 5y ago
  I always thought Australian culture had its individualistic streak like American culture. I guess I was wrong, or at least it's a different flavor of individualism.
  - mrec 5y ago
    I didn't get the impression that individualism was the USA's problem here, so much as political tribalism. Mask-wearing seemed to get established very early on as a tribal marker, and everything else followed from that.
    - decafninja 5y ago
      I guess political tribalism was certainly a big factor, but I always thought it was something that amplified an already existing characteristic for "rugged individualism", as in, a tendency for people not liking being told what they can or can't do. It exists to various degrees in pretty much any culture (even highly collectivist cultures like some Asian countries), but in the USA, I think it's seen as a bedrock upon which the country was founded on and successful with. I don't disagree, and I think this individualist go-get-em culture contributed to some of the country's successes, but in times like this, it certainly shows its dark side. You could chalk up the whole US healthcare system fiasco to this too.

taxicabjesus 5y ago

One speculation I've read is that Australian/Japan/New Zealand's very-bad 2019 flu season was SARS-CoV-2 before it could be diagnosed. My understanding is that most cases of "flu" are suspected, not laboratory-confirmed. Just found this October 4, 2019 NY Times story: Australia Just Had a Bad Flu Season. That May Be a Warning for the U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/health/flu-australia-america.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/health/flu-australia-amer... From this NY times article: "This year’s Australian outbreak began in April [2019], two months earlier than usual, and persisted into October." COVID-19 cases in the US probably started November-ish. COVID-19 was found in US blood samples from December 2019. I had a day with an odd headache sometime around December 2019 or January 2020. I suspect I had a case of #EarlyCovid. Lots of other people in North America were super-sick in November/December 2019 and January 2020. Others have been using the hashtag for longer than I: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23EarlyCovid https://twitter.com/search?q=%23EarlyCovid Edit: At least 4 downvotes in 16 minutes. This indicates many of you do not believe SARS-CoV-2 could have been spreading before it was isolated in Wuhan China in December 2019, or that I and many others might have had a case of non-diagnosed SARS-CoV-2 before tests became available in the US in March 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pande... "A September 2020 review noted "The possibility that the COVID-19 infection had already spread to Europe at the end of last year is now indicated by abundant, even if partially circumstantial, evidence", including pneumonia case numbers and radiology in France and Italy in November and December." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pande... What does it mean if the COVID-19 timeline is wrong?

taxicabjesus 5y ago
(note to self: comment above quickly went to -4, then saw at +2, now at -1, so at least 14 votes.)
projectileboy 5y ago
I’m not totally sure why you’re being downvoted, it’s an interesting question. My niece in Seattle had a very bad “flu” for about three weeks early last year, well before the initial wave in the Pacific Northwest. I hope we will eventually learn a bit more about how and where this started and how and where it spread, so that we can do a better job next time. (Putting aside the obvious ways the US and other parts of the world chose to deny reality, there still is much to learn.)
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  I can completely believe this. Unfortunately we can't prove any of this but personally I think my team was at least exposed to Covid in early 2020 as well. We had a guy in our (small) team room out sick from Thursday to Monday and he reported being 'floored' and coughing his lungs out. His SO got the same a few days after. Nobody else really got sick but given the close quarters and what we know about aerosol spread and incubation periods now, I think we were practically bathing in virus soup.
viraptor 5y ago
While not impossible, there are a few things that I think would need good explanations: - labs would get more flu swabs which test negative - there would be enough globally to make someone suspicious - why did we see only one strain of covid initially if it was already spreading early (and as I understand it the strain hierarchy always points to the Wuhan one on top) - we haven't seen the cases drop completely without special measures in any country (there's a drop in summer, but only partial) - why was Australia pretty much covid free initially with all the assumed 2019 cases?
- taxicabjesus 5y ago
  1. Flu cases numbers are estimates. Flu cases have disappeared, presumably on account of everyone getting SARS-CoV-2 instead. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/faq.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/faq.htm https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-... 2. Figuring out if a person has a strain requires genetic sequencing of samples that tested positive for generic COVID-19. I don't know when this became possible. https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/how-are-covid-19-variants-discovered-tested-and-tracked-1.5312988 https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/how-are-covid-19-v... 3. Some populations are healthier than others. I think 'Special measures' are mostly theater.

decafninja 5y ago

The Asian countries that fared relatively well - Taiwan/Japan/Korea/etc.etc. - I guess you could chalk it up to cultural differences, but what and how did Australia, a "Western" country that I reckon is culturally more similar to the USA and Europe than to say, Japan or Korea, do so well and differently vs. the USA? Correct me if wrong, but Aussie culture has an individualistic streak like the USA too, doesn't it?

vmception 5y ago
Geography, topology, authoritative control, non-porous border which was closed, mandatory two week quarantine for any exception
- rvn1045 5y ago
  + a small population of 25 million
  - vmception 5y ago
    yes thats useful context, I was mentally grouping that into topology kind of stretching that to the few areas where people live and how desolate the rest is
- BelenusMordred 5y ago
  Australia abandoned their own citizens abroad to thundering applause. No other country on Earth did that. The number of people allowed back into the country is minuscule and right now, foreign business travellers get priority on flights because they can pay more for seats.
- shoo 5y ago
  another factor could be how cohesive / fragmented the government response is -- maybe this is another facet of "authoritative control". here's a crude model as a straw-man thought experiment: australia has a federal government with some degree of control but the 8 local state/territory governments still get a reasonable amount of ability to make local decisions. The states often disagree with the federal government, and with each other, and have disagreed about the appropriate responses to covid in many cases. Suppose the federal government has no ability to control anything. Each local government has a 95% chance of doing something reasonable in response to a pandemic and a 5% chance of doing something stupid. If we make the poor working assumption that each local government decides what to do independently of the others, then about 2/3rds of the time we would expect all 8 australian local governments to do something reasonable, and 1/3 of the time one or more local government will respond to the pandemic in a stupid way. So maybe we got to see the 2/3rds outcome in australia -- or perhaps we actually saw a 1/3rd outcome where stupid decisions were made that dramatically elevated risk, but we simply got lucky. In contrast the US has say 51 local government regions, so there's about a 7% chance that they all do something reasonable and a 93% chance that at least one local government region does something stupid. Then if it is hard or impossible to isolate the impacts of bad decisions to each local region, the impact of poor decisions in one region can help outbreaks spread in connected regions. On another hand, a downside of having a strong central control of the entire country's response is that if that central response is stupid, then the entire country starts cohesively doing something stupid, whereas a country with more fragmented/decentralised decision making might fare a bit better locally.

jjcm 5y ago

I’m one of the rare ones who had covid in Australia, but also spent time in the states during the pandemic so I’ve seen both sides, and experienced how a positive case is addressed here in Aus. Australians care far, far more. I saw more people wearing masks on Sydney trains at zero cases than I did in a US supermarket at the peak. Politics don’t play into whether or not you wear a mask in Australia. In addition, Australian’s have made sacrifices for the greater good of all in the past (giving up guns for example). This just isn’t a thing in America. While both are western countries, there are major differences in mindset. When I tested positive in Australia, I was immediately moved to my own private apartment dedicated for covid patients, free of charge. I wasn’t allowed to leave, but was fed and had doctors visiting me twice a day for vitals. I had very mild symptoms through all of this, but they treated it very seriously. In America they just send you home. Australia invested more up front to keep the curve low. Despite having some complications with the duration of my stay, which lead me to be quarantined for 31 days[1], I vastly prefer Australia’s approach to the pandemic. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-15/sydney-man-covid-policies-stuck-quarantine-hotel-no-end-date/13058440 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-15/sydney-man-covid-poli...

decafninja 5y ago
I always thought Australian culture had its individualistic streak like American culture. I guess I was wrong, or at least it's a different flavor of individualism.
- mrec 5y ago
  I didn't get the impression that individualism was the USA's problem here, so much as political tribalism. Mask-wearing seemed to get established very early on as a tribal marker, and everything else followed from that.
  - decafninja 5y ago
    I guess political tribalism was certainly a big factor, but I always thought it was something that amplified an already existing characteristic for "rugged individualism", as in, a tendency for people not liking being told what they can or can't do. It exists to various degrees in pretty much any culture (even highly collectivist cultures like some Asian countries), but in the USA, I think it's seen as a bedrock upon which the country was founded on and successful with. I don't disagree, and I think this individualist go-get-em culture contributed to some of the country's successes, but in times like this, it certainly shows its dark side. You could chalk up the whole US healthcare system fiasco to this too.