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Asian Countries Have a Different Approach

By November 12, 2020Commentary

Our Governor and many other officials try to say the US response has been so bad and often point to Asian countries like Taiwan and Korea and say they have done a much better job.  That is very misleading.  Mask wearing in the US is consistent with Asian countries.  But a big difference is they don’t test a lot, in fact they only test symptomatic people or those who clearly had a contact.  See the chart below.  There is no testing in Taiwan.  It is also a myth that some of these countries ever engaged in strict lockdowns.  See the other chart on comparative lockdown stringency.  Now part of the lack of testing and less stringent mitigation measures may be lower case incidence.  So be careful about inferring any causative relationship one way or the other.  Lower cases may be because there was in fact a widespread incidence of infection in these countries earlier, with most cases undetected due to no or mild symptoms.  Asians have much lower rates of risk factors for serious illness, like obesity.  And there may be a greater incidence of pre-existing immune response capability.  But what really stands out is that they just seem to worry about massive testing that only finds asymptomatic cases.  And as we have seen with this virus, they may yet have another massive surge.

 

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  • Colonel Travis says:

    I heard a guy on the Dennis Prager show today who is a statistician and a former medical school professor at Cornell. William Briggs, who also wrote a book about this CV19 nonsense. I was so impressed by him that I ordered it. He said Taiwan never locked down, and I’ve read that here. These are the only two places I’ve ever heard anything about a country other than Sweden not locking down. In fact, there was a headline on CNN from October that said – “Taiwan led the world in closing down for Covid-19, now it wants to do the same with opening back up”. I only found that story because I was looking for info. about Taiwan. When I saw the headline I thought – ok, this contradicts what I’ve heard. Then I read the story and there was absolutely zero in there about a lockdown. What Taiwan did is engage in a strict policy for letting foreigners in the country, which I find perfectly reasonable, especially considering how close they are to China. Nowhere in the story does it mention that Taiwan didn’t lockdown like most the rest of the world. CNN ignored it, while slapping on a misleading headline.

    It is absolutely infuriating how difficult it is to find out what’s really happening with this virus. I read this site regularly, Kevin you are a voice of sanity and reason. Thanks

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