3968

They are pretty much an island, if you consider the porosity of their northern borders.

3969

I do think that there’s different levels of success and failure as well. I don’t think the US could have ever “locked down and controlled COVID” like New Zealand did, but we also didn’t have to fail this spectacularly. We could have been managing it much better and potentially saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

3970

Isn’t South Korea for Covid purposes essentially an island? They only have one land border and it consists of a heavily mined belt of land that no one is allowed to set foot on. Plus the normally reclusive northern neighbor they do share a land border with went full reclusive when the pandemic started.

3971

No one > only islands > isn’t everywhere an island when you think about it?

Anyway:

3972

By controlled, I should say eliminated. Which hasn’t happened as witnessed by NZ latest lockdown over 1 case. If you want to argue that many countries have done better than the US that is a no brainer argument. But comparing the US to NZ is just stupid and assuming a better response would have elimainted covid is useless for a variety of reasons.

The truculent/scott has the right of it that you need to consider the make-up/laws of country you have and not utopia. Better comparison to US would be larger EU countries that are more similar in demography/geography/economic size etc.

Finally, US biggest problem is getting vaccinated in minority communities not liberal hating whites. I believe Vax rates more closely correlated to ed levels than political with a few state exceptions (LA!). But Asians>whites>hispanics>blacks in vax rate per Kaiser.

3973
3974

Hmmm

CDC data somewhat contradicts this poll, except that CDC data is incomplete (ethnicity data exists for only 59% of vaccination records)

It appears that the biggest predictor of vaccination status is who you voted for.

3975

Yup. A few weeks ago I did a dig into this, and after looking through multiple sources, surveys, reports, etc. came away with a very clear picture.

Yes there is some racial differences in vaccination rates. But political identity is a 3-4X greater impact than any racial characteristic.

3976

what about non-voters?

I suspect most of the minority unvaxxed are non-voters. Just a hunch though. Has anyone looked into that correlation with polls?

3977

There have been dozens of news stories/interviews done over the last 6 months in minority communities where vaccine hesitancy has been an issue. Most often they find that many in those communities want the vaccine, but are misinformed, thinking that they have to go to a hospital to get it, and/or that it will cost money they can’t afford. Many minority communities were also hesitant in the early months of the vaccine because of the terrible past history in the U.S. of using minorities as test subjects for experimental drugs and treatments, and were afraid it was happening again (rumors likely fueled by outside sources…hmm wonder who those might be).

More recently however many cities and counties have had success with outreach programs in the communities that inform people that the vaccine if free and available locally, and news stories of 180 million vaccinated Americans have alleviated much of the early fear of the vaccine. Some communities even have people going door to door passing out information on how to get the vaccine and/or scheduling people for local appointments to receive it. Of course Republicans have opposed this outreach at every turn, because we can’t possibly have vaccinated minority communities, as they might actually feel grateful enough to go vote in 2022/2024.

If I had Jeff Bezos money, I would fund outreach programs in minority communities around the country that not only provided free vaccines, but assisted recipients with registering to vote while they waited the 15 minutes post-shot. Maybe make it into a street fair type of atmosphere, with some free food and drinks, music and local community services programs on site to let people know about services they may qualify for. Get everyone in the community vaccinated, informed and involved…a true GOP nightmare scenario!

3978

That’s a good idea. Too bad some of the rich sports figures like LeBron are apparently anti-vax. He could lead the charge for vaccinations otherwise.

3979

Up until just recently, Vietnam was very close, and South Korea, and China have very low rates. But there is no question that being an island helps, it certainly helped here in Hawaii.

3980

I distrust CHina’s reporting, and they shut down their borders, which actually isn’t as hard as you’d think, given how difficult it is to cross many of them.

3981

On one hand they’re an authoritarian hellhole, so you can’t trust their numbers.
On the other hand they’re an authoritarian hellhole, so if they want people do something, people are going to fucking do it.
Or they’ll weld you into your apartment.

Not to mention stuff like this:

image
image1920×985 80.3 KB

Pandemics are a lot easier to control when you can just kill people who don’t follow your rules.

3982

Is there something in that photo that suggests someone is getting killed? That’s a thermometer in his hand.

3983

No that’s a proton beam gun.

3984

It can still be authoritarian without murder.

3985

For sure, and I’m not suggesting that China isn’t authoritarian (it is) or that they don’t murder their citizens (they do). It’s just the comment under the photo says “Pandemics are a lot easier to control when you can just kill people who don’t follow your rules” and that doesn’t describe the photo at all, I don’t think.

3986

I mean if you think the person at the other end other end of that thermometer has a choice in what’s happening in that picture, I don’t know what to tell you.

Edit:
This was China in the early days of Covid:

Li said the family had eaten the same combination of white rice, cabbage and peanuts for three weeks, since gathering to celebrate the Lunar New Year last month, stinting on portions due to limits on the numbers of people from each household allowed out to shop.

“We bought vegetables today, but I don’t know when we will go out again,” Li said by WeChat on Friday, adding the family could now only buy food at the gate of their compound.

3987

I’ll bet that if that thermometer had read 38.5 celcius she would either have been dragged out of that apartment or locked in it with the rest of her family.