Interactive COVID performance site

Tanj

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An academic think tank has compiled a COVID performance index for quite alot of countries

Covid Performance - Lowy Institute

Which gives a normalized scoring over time. It's interesting that the only category that seems to show a real difference is which region of the world you are from.
 
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ThatRobGuy

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An academic think tank has compiled a COVID performance index for quite alot of countries

Covid Performance - Lowy Institute

Which gives a normalized scoring over time. It's interesting that the only category that seems to show a real difference is which region of the world you are from.

Actually, the regional aspect makes sense.

With regards to covid, there are a couple "built-in" advantages some regions have based on climate and geography that can make containment and slowing the spread much easier.

For instance one particular factoid
upload_2021-1-27_18-17-2.png

So if a region happens to have a climate more conducive to doing more things outdoors vs. indoors, that's a big help.

For instance, you can look at two nations (Canada and Mozambique), roughly similar population sizes, yet, despite Canada having much more modern healthcare systems in place, and more strict requirements, the numbers currently look like this:

upload_2021-1-27_18-23-32.png


upload_2021-1-27_18-23-51.png



In fact, even in comparison to Australia (another similar sized nation in terms of population), Mozambique's numbers are roughly comparable
upload_2021-1-27_18-27-46.png


The advantages of Mozambique are the temperatures are more conducive to being outside vs. inside, a lot of their stores are open-air markets (vs. going into an indoor store with recirculated air), etc... and less overall indoor restaurant dining.


Other geographical components (like distance between major city centers, and fewer large commuter cities) help with containment quite a bit as well.

For instance, if you're in a region that has a major city with a population of ~500,000, and within a 30 mile radius, you have 5 or 6 other big cities with 50,000-100,000 people (who are traveling back and forth for work everyday), you're going to have a lot more chances of transmission (IE: person living in Newark catches it, doesn't know it, and goes to NYC for work, gives it to an NYC resident, from there it spreads like wildfire), than a nation or region where, say, there's a large city, but the closest city with > 25,000 people is a 4 hour drive.


The cultural aspect can't be discounted either. When you have a region (like Southeast Asia) where mask wearing was already the norm (and in fact, there'd been "mask culture" where it was "cool" to wear a cool-looking mask...and it was almost like a fashion accessory that many young people were already wearing anyway), they're going to have an advantage over nations where the concept of masking up was completely foreign to them.

Similar to if there was a new pandemic, and one of the chief methods of preventing transmission was to avoid alcohol consumption, I'd expect several countries in the middle east (where alcohol was already forbidden) to do better than Germany, Italy, or France, where imbibements are heavily ingrained into dining culture.

Mitigation strategies are easier when you don't have to "teach the old dog new tricks" as they say.


Then there was the global economic impact factor...nations who are major players in the global supply chain can't swiftly shutdown their entire economy for weeks without there being some major externalities.


Then there's the "authoritarian" vs. "non-authoritarian" aspect. For instance, authoritarian regimes can do things (from an executive standpoint) that many other countries can't do in order to enforce compliance.

IE (sending out troops to threaten people into compliance, or having imposing people holding AK-47's whipping women for breaking protocol and walking to close together)
upload_2021-1-27_18-50-35.png

social

(neither strategy would be very welcomed in first world countries I assume)



So there's a bunch of different factors at play...some of which are "built-in" advantages that certain nations had, others were the result of plain old stubbornness (like the people who refused to wear masks because they thought it was some sort of secret ploy by Democrats to control people because of Trump rhetoric)
 
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