Just thanks - I am so happy to read your analyzes. They are important, and written so everybody that wants to will understand. Looking forward to read more from your hand.
Excellent work, as usual. Just a contribution: in the second chart, the bottom left is messed up (several countries with the same numbers). Probably just a table error, but it's worth making it right.
I always enjoy your analysis, Tomas. Being from the US Upper Midwest, I lived through some of the hottest infection rates in the world. I got the virus along with everyone else in my family (five months of ick), and can easily name over 100 friends who tested positive. Know why we didn't lock down or enthusiastically participate in contact tracing? Not deadly enough. In the worst phases I kept asking people if they were afraid and they always said they were not. We all knew maybe two or three people who died (and of course MANY friends of friends, grandparents of old acquaintances) and these stories were heartbreaking, but it didn't scare us. My 78-YO mother took her chances and rode out the virus (but seems to have permanently lost smell and taste). I'm in a very red area and my democrat-voting friends were the ones who masked up and stayed home. The rest of us didn't. Just reporting what I saw- local heterogeneous behavior and high infection rates because of fearless Christian stoicism. You can't apply those beautiful boxes to both North Dakota and California- two different worlds.
I'm afraid you are right as you were right way back March 2020. I've been tweeting anyone I could since then about tti. I can forgive the mistakes in March but not later.
Even science got it wrong on masks. Why does the West not have the balls to make tti work? In June we were so close?
This was a really interesting read. I noticed there was not much mention of Eastern/Central European countries. Is this due to a lack of accessible data? Living in Hungary, I can imagine it is hard to obtain.
Hi Tomas. Thanks again for your great articles, always very well written and documented.
This last one I didn't like so much. Facts are facts, I agree with all the data, but philosophically, I would like to defend some "freedom" approaches some western countries allow to the population (either because of laziness, incompetence, constitution rights, freedom approach, idiosyncrasy, etc.).
If the health care system of a country isn't overwhelmed, then each indivual retain the choice of behaving "free and recklessly", OR perhaps keep away from danger by isolating or wearing good gear. But personal choice remains.
Before COVID there were a lot of dangers too: from drinking toilet water to jump in wingsuit from every mountain. And every time it was, and still is, personal choice. I believe this point has to be mentioned and is missing from the debate.
I'm from Chile and I must say, I agree on the approach that was taken here: government played with the restrictions according to the level of saturation of the health care system. And there was little to do otherwise: people here are hard to lockdown: we want to go out, we believe no one has the power take away our freedom of movement, just to name one.
If the healthcare-system situation is manageable, freedom and personal accountability should still remain.
Thomas, This article is again proof of your in-depth research. Pandemics have followed the same script for 5000 years. Looking into history could have prevented lots of damage. Sure the circumstances and the tools are different, but this is just a variation to the same theme. We would love to subscribe "Premium" with our think tank to your new adventure. Is there a way to communicate before we do so ?
Lo han hecho tan mal los gobiernos europeos que la gran duda es si les importaban o les sobraban las vidas perdidas. Se ha "limpiado" la población de personas mayores y enfermas y, aunque es muy duro, creo que les ha convenido o al menos no importado demasiado; sino es así, es que son torpes y descerebrados porque no tomaron medidas cuando se sabía lo que había que hacer y qué no hacer. La OMS ha sido terriblemente lenta en aceptar la trasmisión aérea. No he oído que nadie haya dimitido por ineficaz y torpe. Esto es y ha sido una guerra mundial donde se han muerto los débiles y se han enriquecido muchos y lo seguiran haciendo mientras la mentes claras y los científicos de verdad sufren viendo lo que ocurre con las manos semiatadas...
The problem in the UK and the US was similar: a political party in control that does not fundamentally believe in its responsibility to protect the people (that being too socialist/communist and therefore dangerous). The isolation part of test/trace/isolate requires paying people to stay home or do nothing and not be available to work (except work online) and this is the antithesis of what these parties stand for in the case of the Conservatives in the UK who are consistently cutting unemployment benefits etc. Similarly, the Republicans in the US suffer from the idea of government control is always bad - which it certainly isn't in the case of dealing with pandemics.
They took the wrong approach but this was because of ideological reasons (stupidity).
Succinct and to the point. Of course, there is also (in the case of the U.S.) the psychological and political mindsets that heavily impacted pandemic response. I'm glad you called out Hawaii separate from the mainland U.S.
The chart is great! I love charts for the density of information. But there are some inconsistencies with the colors vs. numbers, especially in the border flow column where countries with the same numerical value have different colors. In addition, the urbanization values were confusing. Low urbanization is better, and the key says completely rural is 100%, so high numbers should be blue and low numbers are red... but instead low numbers are blue and high numbers are read.
Is the data in the bottom left of the top chart accurate? How do all of the countries US through Chile have the same number of deaths per million (1,744)?
Just thanks - I am so happy to read your analyzes. They are important, and written so everybody that wants to will understand. Looking forward to read more from your hand.
Excellent work, as usual. Just a contribution: in the second chart, the bottom left is messed up (several countries with the same numbers). Probably just a table error, but it's worth making it right.
I always enjoy your analysis, Tomas. Being from the US Upper Midwest, I lived through some of the hottest infection rates in the world. I got the virus along with everyone else in my family (five months of ick), and can easily name over 100 friends who tested positive. Know why we didn't lock down or enthusiastically participate in contact tracing? Not deadly enough. In the worst phases I kept asking people if they were afraid and they always said they were not. We all knew maybe two or three people who died (and of course MANY friends of friends, grandparents of old acquaintances) and these stories were heartbreaking, but it didn't scare us. My 78-YO mother took her chances and rode out the virus (but seems to have permanently lost smell and taste). I'm in a very red area and my democrat-voting friends were the ones who masked up and stayed home. The rest of us didn't. Just reporting what I saw- local heterogeneous behavior and high infection rates because of fearless Christian stoicism. You can't apply those beautiful boxes to both North Dakota and California- two different worlds.
I'm afraid you are right as you were right way back March 2020. I've been tweeting anyone I could since then about tti. I can forgive the mistakes in March but not later.
Even science got it wrong on masks. Why does the West not have the balls to make tti work? In June we were so close?
Masterful. Very clear and insightful.
This was a really interesting read. I noticed there was not much mention of Eastern/Central European countries. Is this due to a lack of accessible data? Living in Hungary, I can imagine it is hard to obtain.
Hi Tomas. Thanks again for your great articles, always very well written and documented.
This last one I didn't like so much. Facts are facts, I agree with all the data, but philosophically, I would like to defend some "freedom" approaches some western countries allow to the population (either because of laziness, incompetence, constitution rights, freedom approach, idiosyncrasy, etc.).
If the health care system of a country isn't overwhelmed, then each indivual retain the choice of behaving "free and recklessly", OR perhaps keep away from danger by isolating or wearing good gear. But personal choice remains.
Before COVID there were a lot of dangers too: from drinking toilet water to jump in wingsuit from every mountain. And every time it was, and still is, personal choice. I believe this point has to be mentioned and is missing from the debate.
I'm from Chile and I must say, I agree on the approach that was taken here: government played with the restrictions according to the level of saturation of the health care system. And there was little to do otherwise: people here are hard to lockdown: we want to go out, we believe no one has the power take away our freedom of movement, just to name one.
If the healthcare-system situation is manageable, freedom and personal accountability should still remain.
Thomas, This article is again proof of your in-depth research. Pandemics have followed the same script for 5000 years. Looking into history could have prevented lots of damage. Sure the circumstances and the tools are different, but this is just a variation to the same theme. We would love to subscribe "Premium" with our think tank to your new adventure. Is there a way to communicate before we do so ?
Lo han hecho tan mal los gobiernos europeos que la gran duda es si les importaban o les sobraban las vidas perdidas. Se ha "limpiado" la población de personas mayores y enfermas y, aunque es muy duro, creo que les ha convenido o al menos no importado demasiado; sino es así, es que son torpes y descerebrados porque no tomaron medidas cuando se sabía lo que había que hacer y qué no hacer. La OMS ha sido terriblemente lenta en aceptar la trasmisión aérea. No he oído que nadie haya dimitido por ineficaz y torpe. Esto es y ha sido una guerra mundial donde se han muerto los débiles y se han enriquecido muchos y lo seguiran haciendo mientras la mentes claras y los científicos de verdad sufren viendo lo que ocurre con las manos semiatadas...
The problem in the UK and the US was similar: a political party in control that does not fundamentally believe in its responsibility to protect the people (that being too socialist/communist and therefore dangerous). The isolation part of test/trace/isolate requires paying people to stay home or do nothing and not be available to work (except work online) and this is the antithesis of what these parties stand for in the case of the Conservatives in the UK who are consistently cutting unemployment benefits etc. Similarly, the Republicans in the US suffer from the idea of government control is always bad - which it certainly isn't in the case of dealing with pandemics.
They took the wrong approach but this was because of ideological reasons (stupidity).
Interesting article. How did you select this subset of countries, and why make Hawaii and the Canadian Atlantic Provinces countries?
Succinct and to the point. Of course, there is also (in the case of the U.S.) the psychological and political mindsets that heavily impacted pandemic response. I'm glad you called out Hawaii separate from the mainland U.S.
The chart is great! I love charts for the density of information. But there are some inconsistencies with the colors vs. numbers, especially in the border flow column where countries with the same numerical value have different colors. In addition, the urbanization values were confusing. Low urbanization is better, and the key says completely rural is 100%, so high numbers should be blue and low numbers are red... but instead low numbers are blue and high numbers are read.
Nice read.
The chart looks wrong.
1. All of US, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Belgium and Chile have identical deaths/million and economic stringency.#
2. is your "low flow borders" coloured correctly? Should high-level of tourists not be red (bad)?
3. is your "urbanization" coloured correctly? Should high-level of urbanisation not be red (bad)?
Thank you Tomas- your rational approach is appreciated I'm sure by many of us.
However it seems that rational thought in present times does not win votes or power, make money, win hearts etc etc... In fact rather the opposite.
So what are your thoughts on how to build the 'popularity' of rational thought itself?
Is the data in the bottom left of the top chart accurate? How do all of the countries US through Chile have the same number of deaths per million (1,744)?