Nick, hi,

Ah, the sieve of my head.  As in my technical work, I am browsing a variety of 
stuff, remembering conclusions I find interesting, but not keeping good track 
of sources.  Here is what I can provide off-the-cuff, and a tiny bit on 
searching.

In Asia, the four very good responses have been Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, 
and S. Korea.  One can see statistics on their histories — thus outcomes but 
without explanations of methods — at both of 
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ 
<https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/>
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus <https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus>
which I realize have been offered on FRIAM on several occasions.

Here is one article that overlaps with content I know I have read, although at 
relatively shallow descriptive depth:
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/can-us-emulate-asias-coronavirus-response 
<https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/can-us-emulate-asias-coronavirus-response>
I find this and other similar links by doing a google search on the string
"coronavirus responses taiwan singapore hong kong s. korea"

Although S. Korea had bad case growth early, which showed up as large numbers 
thoroughout the course, a lot of that seems to have been because they had this 
huge burst of early cases from the megachurch in Daegu, before they realized it 
was in the country.  Probably also a fair number of travel-related spread too, 
though I haven’t seen a statistical analysis pertinent to that question.  

I seem to remember having read, somewhere, that there was informal gossip in 
the Chinese-language social mediasphere, about the novel pneumonia during the 
early weeks of December when China was still trying to squelch it.  Because the 
Singaporeans have access to that and are Chinese readers, they spotted right 
away that there was a likely problem, and I think I recall that they were the 
first to put a travel ban in place from China, back in the very earliest weeks 
when such a ban actually did make a significant dent in cases coming in through 
the border.  I have always wondered what the US state department under Obama, 
which of course must have access to data-sharing with speakers of every major 
language world-wide, would have done if their Chinese-language contacts had 
sent word that there was a potential major hazard.  We would not have had a way 
to know in real-time, but years later somebody would have written a memoir 
telling what warnings were circulating within the government at what times.

I think.I saw an NYT article perhaps last week or the week before on various 
Asian enforcement responses.  I seem to remember something about a $30k fine to 
a Taiwanese man who skipped quarantine and went to a bar, and something about 
Singaporean police going to pick up a minor who skipped quarantine and went 
somewhere.  In the same article, was it Singapore that used ankle bracelets to 
track quarantinees?  There have also been numerous reports about social media 
apps requiring reporting of people’s conditions, ne more than one of those 
countries.  Some commenter on one of the NYT articles, a US expat in Korea, 
described the follow-up he has experienced as a mandatory-quarantined traveler. 
 It sounded typically Korean-official: polite, no-nonsense, and 100%-committed. 

In the West, Iceland has probably been best at case tracking and very early 
quarantine (so that many who develop symptoms are already quarantined before 
they do); I think I saw an article on pbs on that within the last week, because 
I remember listening to the distinctiveness of the Icelanders’ accent versus 
those of Norwegians, Swedes, or Danes.  I am glad Glen found the link on German 
effectiveness; there have also been two articles (perhaps two slightly updated 
versions with overlapping content) on the NYT.  I too had wondered.  Although 
Germany has not been good at limiting cases, in part because they had a huge 
burst of younger infected skiers from Austria or Italy, they have been 
excellent at limiting mortality.  I think not quite as low as S. Korea, but 
within the statistical estimation errors of how many asymptomatic infecteds 
there are, and also within variations in age structure of those who got sick.

Anyway, sorry I can’t send a better reference list, but there are probably 
several useful articles on the google search response above.

Be well,

Eric



> On Apr 9, 2020, at 3:20 AM, <[email protected]> 
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Hi, Eric 
>  
> Taiwan BETTER than China!?  That’s something, isn’t it?  Isn’t there some 
> real hope in that? 
>  
> Where do I go to learn in detail about Taiwan’s response. 
>  
> Nick 
>  
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>  
>  
> From: Friam <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> On 
> Behalf Of David Eric Smith
> Sent: Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:53 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected] 
> <mailto:[email protected]>>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] RedState/BlueState OneState/TwoState
>  
>> Has china actually eliminated the virus from the population and the are 
>> merely putting out sparks that have blown in from other places?  
>  
> I would bet very high odds that is not the case.
>  
> They have probably greatly reduced the caseload.  Friends there say they are 
> rebuilding daily activities (up in Beijing, which was not by far the hardest 
> hit) slowly, carefully, and incrementally.  But not by any stretch is life 
> normal, or expected to revert to normal in any foreseeable future.
>  
> There was an NYT piece a few days ago saying that the intelligence dept. is 
> trying to get accurate case numbers because they don’t believe the central 
> government is reporting either honestly or accurately.  That seems a decent 
> bet.  And to the extent that this info is not coming from trump stooges at 
> the top, but being leaked from somewhere in the middle ranks, it is probably 
> coming from committed professionals who are concerned with what is true.
>  
> My guess is that the forensics of what is going on in China will take a long 
> time to perform, and probably important information will be suppressed until 
> it can be lost forever.  So for some of it ignoramus et ignoramibus.
>  
> All that said, the clamp-down was impressive, and probably fairly effective.  
> Not a gold standard like Taiwan, but better than any of the major countries 
> in the west, and with a much larger population.
>  
> Eric
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