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The Asian city-state of Singapore and the territory of Hong Kong are on a different trajectory in terms of the growth in case numbers. The rate of increase has so far been relatively contained through rapid and strict measures.
from the FT Article linked to above.

Singapore and Hong Kong despite both being high travel locations are showing reduced growth of infections compared to other countries in the region.

Worldometer stats 30/03/2020:
Singapore - 879 cases 3 fatalities
Hong Kong - 642 cases 4 fatalities

Singapore and Hong Kong both had historic ties with Britain, Hong Kong has many communication ties with China, Shenzen being a neighbour and many in Hong Kong were very critical that their government left travel with China open, after the Chinese epidemic was established.

Hong Kong - The territory - a special administrative region of China - has so far been able to avoid the contagion seen elsewhere, thanks partly to a quick government response.

In January, cross-border travel with mainland China was slashed. Soon afterwards, health workers went on strike to demand a total border shutdown.
from Hong Kong to quarantine all arrivals from abroad
I can't see if HK did freeze travel from China, I seem to recall that they did, but they certainly seem to have low cases and deaths, if the figures are to be believed.

Singapore
As of 30 March 2020, 12pm, 16 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospital. To date, 228 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities.

Separately, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has also confirmed an additional 35 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore, of which 9 are imported and 26 are local cases who have no recent travel history abroad.
from COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019)

Safe-Distancing Ambassadors are deployed to help ensure that safe distancing measures are complied with. They do not issue fines.

They also have MOH (ministry of health) contact tracing teams
from MOH | Updates on COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) Local Situation

Singaporean lawyer Iman Ibrahim was enjoying her snowboarding holiday in Italy, Switzerland and Austria this month when the coronavirus outbreak in Europe suddenly turned the trip into a race home. With borders and mountain resorts closing around her and her flight back to Singapore cancelled, she drove to Germany and caught whatever plane she could back to the south-east Asian city state. “The situation was changing every few hours . . . but once you’re back in Singapore you know everything is efficient and you will be looked after,” she said.
from Subscribe to read | Financial Times
I couldn't read any more as I don't have a subscription atm.

I wanted to be more comprehensive but there isn't much easy to find information in English.
 
from Subscribe to read | Financial Times
I couldn't read any more as I don't have a subscription atm.

Singaporean lawyer Iman Ibrahim was enjoying her snowboarding holiday in Italy, Switzerland and Austria this month when the coronavirus outbreak in Europe suddenly turned the trip into a race home.

With borders and mountain resorts closing around her and her flight back to Singapore cancelled, she drove to Germany and caught whatever plane she could back to the south-east Asian city state. “The situation was changing every few hours . . . but once you’re back in Singapore you know everything is efficient and you will be looked after,” she said. Ms Ibrahim did not know just how lucky she was to have made it home to the city, an international financial hub known for its quasi-authoritarian but effective government. Three days after her return, she tested positive for the coronavirus.

Singapore reported its first two deaths from the pathogen only this weekend, despite being one of the first countries to be hit by the outbreak outside China two months ago. That has made it one of the safest places in the world for patients of the disease, which has already killed more than 13,000 people globally. The city’s success in dealing with the outbreak is attributed to the government’s speed in imposing border controls soon after the disease first erupted in China, meticulous tracing of known carriers, aggressive testing, a clear public communication strategy and a bit of luck. “There is nothing they should be doing differently,” said Ying-Ru Jacqueline Lo, the World Health Organization representative to Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore.

After controlling the first infections, Singapore now faces a second wave of cases from returning travellers, such as Ms Ibrahim. Authorities tightened travel restrictions and social distancing measures after the number of cases doubled to 455 in the past week. Yet many analysts believe Singapore will also bring the second wave under control. Some of the city-state’s advantages in confronting the outbreak are difficult for larger western countries to replicate, such as its small population of 5.7m. It also learnt from its experience of Sars in 2003, which forced it to strengthen its healthcare system. But similar to some Asian neighbours, such as Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong, which have also managed to slow infection rates, Singapore’s example could contain lessons for the US and Europe, which have been caught wrongfooted by the virus.

As soon as information about the disease emerged from Wuhan, the city at the centre of China’s outbreak, Singapore began preparing by ramping up laboratory capacity for mass testing and developing its own test kits. This was seen as instrumental to containing infections and not overwhelming hospitals, a problem faced by countries such as Italy. As of March 20, Singapore had conducted 38,000 tests, or about 6,800 examinations per million population, the health ministry said. That rate outpaced South Korea, the region’s poster child for fast and expansive testing, which had administered about 6,100 tests per million population in the same time frame. There’s a higher degree of acceptance of being monitored by the state. That makes some of the more invasive methods for contact tracing easier Chong Ja Ian, National University of Singapore “We used the lead time that China gave us by its massive shutdown to really refine our readiness,” said Dale Fisher, professor of infectious diseases at the National University of Singapore. “By the time we had one of our cases, we were able to do tests and within a week, tests were available in all major hospitals.”

Some experts say the fact most patients in the city have been below the age of 65 also helps explain the low number of deaths. But Leo Yee Sin, executive director at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, which was set up after Sars and is helping spearhead Singapore’s response to the coronavirus, said: “I don’t consider us lucky. We are just giving the best of critical care to those affected.” She said 15 per cent of confirmed cases were on ventilators in intensive care units, with two undergoing ecmo treatment, whereby blood was drained out of a person’s body and oxygenated in a machine.

The country’s business community also moved quickly. Soon after Singapore reported its first cases, banks divided their teams between offices, home working and emergency trading floors, many of which were in an outlying industrial area near the city’s Changi airport. But while government measures to contain the first wave of infections were effective, they also raised questions about the invasiveness of the state. Surveillance cameras, police officers and contact-tracing teams have helped the government find 7,957 close contacts of confirmed cases, who have all been quarantined.

The government on Friday launched TraceTogether, an app that uses bluetooth to record distance between users and the duration of their encounters. People consent to give the information, which is encrypted and deleted after 21 days, to the health ministry. The department can contact users in case of “probable contact” with an infected individual. Coronavirus: why the west will be hit harder “There’s a higher degree of acceptance of being monitored by the state,” said Chong Ja Ian, associate professor of political science at the NUS. “That makes some of the more invasive methods for contact tracing easier.” But, he added, once such mechanisms are in place, “it opens the door for someone five to 10 years down the road to make use of this space in ways that are perhaps less noble”.

The government has also used a tough new online falsehoods law to correct misinformation in posts about the coronavirus, which critics have argued gave authorities too much latitude to censor. And even though Singapore has been successful so far, the battle is far from over. To deal with a potential second wave of infections, the government on Sunday banned short-term visitors from entering or transiting through the country. Returning residents will have to undergo quarantine for 14 days at home or risk a fine of up to S$10,000 ($6,900) and/or six months in jail. “This is going to be a long duration battle. We are only seeing the beginning,” Prof Leo said.

Additional reporting by Edward White in Wellington
 
That's great 2hats thanks, an interesting article. There are things they are doing which the UK public might not support, like the surveillance of people, their movements and what have you :)
 
Religion. FFS.

Yes, religion FFS. It's going to be a big problem in many countries fight against this.

Claimed the church had installed a ventilation system that kills the virus and encouraged people to shake hands. Doubt anything will happen to him but at least it might send a message to others.
Florida Sheriff Arrests Trump-Loving Pastor Who Refused to Stop Holding Packed Services Amid Pandemic
 
This thing with the evangelists and hard core Xtians defying the pandemic is kinda weird. They’ve been promoting the notion of Revelation, End Times and all that with enormous enthusiasm for decades. Why are they trying to cast it out and banish it, or ignoring it, when it fits their narrative so well? This is what they’ve predicted and (in some quarters) desired. That idiot televangelist is a blasphemer! Isn't plague and pestilence supposed to be the advent of the second coming ?


We'll see. What's the weather like there at the moment? The Swedes normally pour outside as soon as the sun comes out. A nice sunny weekend will be the test.


But more importantly, apparently one of the reasons Sweden is doing relatively well is because a large proportion of their population lives alone, so social isolation is kinda built into their lifestyle.

 
But more importantly, apparently one of the reasons Sweden is doing relatively well is because a large proportion of their population lives alone, so social isolation is kinda built into their lifestyle.

Well we'll see if they continue to resist a full lockdown. It is certainly an interesting test case to run alongside all the shutdowns. If Sweden does stay under control without a lockdown due to general civil obedience, it will show I think that lockdowns don't need to be draconian to work. That's my suspicion - that the excessive rules now in Spain, for instance, are actually making little difference, that the important bit is the softer lockdown measures that the UK currently has, closing stuff, asking people to stay home and minimise contact. That's why the idiotic heavy-handed policing we're seeing and the petty dobbing in of neighbours having visitors is annoying me.
 
I saw something the other day where a woman was going to church. 'You cant catch covid in a church [......... ] I'm a doctor'

As for Sweden unless their work culture is very different from ours people will not take time off work as quickly and for as long as they ought.
 
I saw something the other day where a woman was going to church. 'You cant catch covid in a church [......... ] I'm a doctor'
..
Yes, I saw that, it was a couple of Italian women and when the one said - can't catch it in church and I am a doctor - she was grinning widely which made me wonder if she was pulling the reporter's leg! :)
 
But more importantly, apparently one of the reasons Sweden is doing relatively well is because a large proportion of their population lives alone, so social isolation is kinda built into their lifestyle.

Actual quote from a Swedish aunt in an email 2 days ago
"Bjorn says self isolation suits the Swedish people, we do it every day!"

(Bjorn grew up in England and now lives in Sweden, so has some insight into this!)
 
lots of noise now about dispute between the WHO and Taiwan - the latter accusing the former of repeating PRC lies on victim numbers, as well as repeating PRC stuff on community transmission (which turned out not to be true) from early January. Taiwan not a member of UN of course and treated badly by UN orgs who are seen as being in PRC's pocket. this video sort of says it all really:


More here:
 
Does anyone know if Sweden are doing extensive testing contact tracing and isolation? Perhaps they are trying the South Korea / Singapore route?
 
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Well we'll see if they continue to resist a full lockdown. It is certainly an interesting test case to run alongside all the shutdowns. If Sweden does stay under control without a lockdown due to general civil obedience, it will show I think that lockdowns don't need to be draconian to work. That's my suspicion - that the excessive rules now in Spain, for instance, are actually making little difference, that the important bit is the softer lockdown measures that the UK currently has, closing stuff, asking people to stay home and minimise contact. That's why the idiotic heavy-handed policing we're seeing and the petty dobbing in of neighbours having visitors is annoying me.
English police chiefs already having to rein overzealous officers in.

Personally, I've accepted lockdown as a cruel necessity, but have never promoted it for its own sake, nor do I disagree with the "nudge unit's" fears about its human and economic toll. It's a disgrace we ever had to impose it, born of disastrous policy choices, and all focus needs to be on implementing an exit plan ASAP, before the thing collapses under its own weight.

Sweden still appear to be going for a version of the dreaded "herd immunity" experiment, instead of mass testing and contact tracing like Iceland has undertaken. It's terrifying how deeply fatalism's become embedded in Western medical establishments.
 
Damning indictment of Swedish policy here.

This defeatist quote from Anders Tegnell, her chief epidemiologist, is striking: "Of course, we’re going into a phase in the epidemic where we’ll see a lot more cases in the next few weeks, more people in the ICU, but that’s just like any other country – nowhere has been able to slow down the spread considerably."

This is flatly untrue, as the well known examples from Asia testify. What is this pigheaded refusal to learn from the most successful countries?
 
Italy and Spain still seem to be the worst hit European nations, with France and the UK closely following. Germany still has low numbers of deaths but may eventually follow everyone else behind Italy. Sweden, as discussed, is so far following a slightly different route with no lockdown as yet and still gatherings of up to 500 people permitted. They could still change course though. The UK at the London Excel centre in constructing this hospital may kit it out with a total of 4,000 beds which would make it the largest hospital in Europe, perhaps the world. There is also progress on the emergency manufacture of ventilators.

Europe seems to have fixed its colours to the mast now and time will tell as to how many fatalities will eventually come through. There is also injury to consider, I understand severely afflicted patients can have permanent lung damage (scarring) so despite surviving the virus the quality of their ongoing lives may be severely affected.

After extensive measures China seems to be emerging from their crisis, they are now banning incoming travel as their own community transmission seems to be very low and they fear the arrival of infected incomers. Outside of Hubei factory output and exports are picking up toward pre crisis levels, despite that the virus can live on hard surfaces and cardboard packaging for some time. However the UK EU and US customers for these goods may be in a bad way to receive them as factory closures and furlaughs are taking place. Inside Hubei, and in Wuhan, restrictions are being slowly eased.

Hong Kong and Singapore are both reporting low levels of infection and less than 10 fatalities each. And South Korea persists with a testing and isolating regime without implementing any kind of lockdown.

India, the second most populated country announced a strict lockdown where people were not permitted to leave their homes for any reason. Despite the strictness of this edict, many thousands of migrant workers who lost their jobs began to leave cities like New Delhi to make their way home mostly on foot.

A part of news focus is now on the USA which has become the nation with the most confirmed cases with a major hot spot being New York which today received a Navy hospital ship to try and reduce pressures on medical facilities. Tented field hospitals are being established in Central Park. White house medical advisors have said that 100,000 deaths would be a good result and it has been pointed out by lbj that this is the same ratio to population that 20,000 is for the UK which UK advisers have also said would be a good result. There is a level of social distancing being requested in the US and a level of lockdown. At the behest of states like Florida President Trump claims to have been considering a quarantine of NY and surrounding states, he backed down and accepted instead a strongly worded travel advisory.

It remains easier to know what is happening in English speaking areas of the world or parts of the world where English speaking journalists are engaged. The top 7 countries ranked by total reported fatalities so far are in order starting from the greatest: Italy, Spain, China, USA, France, Iran, UK.

Some figures may be disputed.
 
Damning indictment of Swedish policy here.

This defeatist quote from Anders Tegnell, her chief epidemiologist, is striking: "Of course, we’re going into a phase in the epidemic where we’ll see a lot more cases in the next few weeks, more people in the ICU, but that’s just like any other country – nowhere has been able to slow down the spread considerably."

This is flatly untrue, as the well known examples from Asia testify. What is this pigheaded refusal to learn from the most successful countries?
Looking at the developing patterns, what we appear to be seeing everywhere it's been tried is that lockdown works. The exponential growth in new cases has been arrested in the time frame predicted. If the shape of China's outbreak is anything to go by, new cases will start to drop sharply over the next week, and deaths around 10 days after that.

The quote above smacks of 'Swedish exceptionalism'. I hope he's right, but why would he be? My money would still be on a Swedish lockdown sooner rather than later.
 
Looking at the developing patterns, what we appear to be seeing everywhere it's been tried is that lockdown works. The exponential growth in new cases has been arrested in the time frame predicted. If the shape of China's outbreak is anything to go by, new cases will start to drop sharply over the next week, and deaths around 10 days after that.

The quote above smacks of 'Swedish exceptionalism'. I hope he's right, but why would he be? My money would still be on a Swedish lockdown sooner rather than later.
Likewise. Everywhere that's tried this has panicked and dumped it in a heartbeat when a wave of harsh reality swept it away. Several Dutch provinces even rebelled and introduced community testing when things got bad. Swedish exceptionalism's heading the way of American exceptionalism, British exceptionalism, Dutch exceptionalism ...
 
Italy and Spain still seem to be the worst hit European nations, with France and the UK closely following. Germany still has low numbers of deaths but may eventually follow everyone else behind Italy.
I don't think that characterisation is quite right tbh. I suspect that Italy and Spain will end up with maybe 2-3 times more deaths than the likes of France and the UK, with Germany much smaller than that. Signs are that lockdown is working in all those countries, and the signs in Germany are good, tbh. Daily deaths may even be close to peak there - the figures suggest that the extensive early testing plus general robust and well-prepared nature of its health service combine to give it a hugely better prognosis. China's peak of daily deaths was around 150, and it ended up with just over 3,000. Even if those figures are suspect, the general shape probably has some truth to it. On that, Germany may be headed for as little as around 3,000 total deaths by the time the sharp decline in numbers sets in.

That may prove to be over-optimistic, but it's looked likely for a few days now, and every day's figures bear it out. I think the eventual numbers are going to look very different by country. It's predicated on the assumption that lockdown works, but lockdown does appear to work.
 
As I understand it early infections in the German population were young people returning from Skiing holidays in Italy, being young and fit they didn't get very ill, if lockdown measures work to protect more elderly Germans you could be right that they will experience lower fatalities, and they do have a very developed health sector.
 
littlebabyjesus

It'll inevitably work for a time by breaking infection chains and slowing the spread, but as shown by the immense pressure it's coming under in Italy, will fail disastrously if treated as an end in itself. I know the West seems determined to ignore Asia's best practices while being panicked into adopting one of her nations' most draconian, but we must note that not even Beijing tried to keep a lockdown going indefinitely. From the start, they viewed it as a means to the end of alternative means of suppression, and rushed to end it. There's only so much that people can, and will, take.
 
littlebabyjesus

It'll inevitably work for a time by breaking infection chains and slowing the spread, but as shown by the immense pressure it's coming under in Italy, will fail disastrously if treated as an end in itself. I know the West seems determined to ignore Asia's best practices while being panicked into adopting one of her nations' most draconian, but we must note that not even Beijing tried to keep a lockdown going indefinitely. From the start, they viewed it as a means to the end of alternative means of suppression, and rushed to end it. There's only so much that people can, and will, take.
Yeah, there is that. I still don't quite see what the exit strategy is from this (and neither does the UK govt by the looks of it with the recent lockdown for six months comment). My hope is that mass-testing will become viable. God help me, I'm pinning my hopes on the same thing Trump is hoping for. :eek:
 
Latest modelling tries to estimate how many deaths without the measures compared to with them, in a whole bunch of countries in Europe, including UK.

I dont have the time/energy to quote from it at the moment, if anyone else is up for that then you will certainly find a bunch of numbers of note in it. Plus its a handy reference as to what measures countries implemented, and when.

 
I wonder what views you all have about the trust or lack of that we can have in the published numbers. It is easy to look at sites like Worldometer and take the numbers at face value.

Some regimes may have their own reasons for tweaking their figures while others are just unable to give accurate numbers.

Even in the UK, deaths that occur at home have not been added as deaths according to covid-19 and were not until recently tested for the virus post mortem. Only deaths in hospital where the patient was tested positive were counted till recently.
 
I wonder what views you all have about the trust or lack of that we can have in the published numbers. It is easy to look at sites like Worldometer and take the numbers at face value.

Some regimes may have their own reasons for tweaking their figures while others are just unable to give accurate numbers.

Even in the UK, deaths that occur at home have not been added as deaths according to covid-19 and were not until recently tested for the virus post mortem. Only deaths in hospital where the patient was tested positive were counted till recently.
That means that the actual numbers are underestimates, but it doesn't mean we can't spot trends. So for instance, finally UK daily hospital admissions have stopped growing. That's why I'm optimistic that the assumptions behind the lockdown are correct - because that's exactly what would be predicted about a week after the start of lockdown. It means that lockdown does produce a point at which we step off the exponential escalator. Sadly that final sunny weekend when half the country appeared to be out and about probably did a huge amount of damage. The one time we needed to have some rain!

It also means that I don't see how the Oxford model's prediction that half the country was already infected can be right. I think events may be proving that model wrong even before we start testing.
 
Yeah, there is that. I still don't quite see what the exit strategy is from this (and neither does the UK govt by the looks of it with the recent lockdown for six months comment). My hope is that mass-testing will become viable. God help me, I'm pinning my hopes on the same thing Trump is hoping for. :eek:
Targeted quarantine achieved by a mix of mass testing (swabs and antibody) and contact tracing looks to be the only viable option to try and ease off the current mass quarantine. Combined with successful drug treatments to drastically reduce the pressure on hospitals.

On the latter, Asia moved fast, taking a kitchen cabinet approach and slinging every potential antiviral and other drug at the disease in the hope that something worked. After a sluggish start, other European countries have done likewise. Germany particularly has emphasized that keeping people from ever reaching the critical stage is at least as important as ICU capacity, perhaps moreso, and there's been a markedly low number of critical cases there. Whether her treatment regime's helped is too early to say, but she's at least pursuing that goal.

Am very worried about the physical and mental effect on British medics if therapeutic nihilism sees a surge of cases deteriorate and head into ICU where the prognosis is grim. Hoping a watertight trial abroad, if successful, could get drugs rushed through here.
 
Germany particularly has emphasized that keeping people from ever reaching the critical stage is at least as important as ICU capacity, perhaps moreso, and there's been a markedly low number of critical cases there.
Yes, the UK is recognising this now as well. Why on earth are they not working together much much more on this? That's got to be one lesson to take from this mess. Each country with its own chief medical officer, and the way they talk, are they even talking to one another? They don't sound like they are sometimes.
 
Targeted quarantine achieved by a mix of mass testing (swabs and antibody) and contact tracing looks to be the only viable option to try and ease off the current mass quarantine. Combined with successful drug treatments to drastically reduce the pressure on hospitals.
On this, yes that sounds dead right. So the future could be opening things up again but still with a significant number of people ordered to self-isolate, and that becoming the new reality until a vaccine or brilliant new treatment is developed. We're not going to be hugging strangers any time soon. :(
 
As I understand it early infections in the German population were young people returning from Skiing holidays in Italy, being young and fit they didn't get very ill
Yes and no. That may well just be an artefact of Germany's testing regime. On current figures, Germany has three times more cases and fewer than half the deaths of the UK. That is of course nonsense - the UK probably has a higher infection rate than Germany, including lots of younger people. They've just not been testing.

One effect of that testing regime, of course, is that those younger people who didn't get very ill but were diagnosed nonetheless could be prevented from passing it on to older people.
 
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