Why is it so hard for US to form a testing strategy?

a large section of the population believes the virus is a hoax or not a big deal at all...we had some dude in the Hangout section of this board say Covid was just a bad flu season just the other day...many citizens are just straight up stupid

 

I kinda have a theory that the people that are good with catching and spreading Covid are also the type to catch herpes and/or HPV and continue to spread it after contracting it without remorse. These are just viruses after all that won't kill you. What's the big deal?

 

Part of the issue is the horrendous job by the President but that is only one factor. The bigger factor is that the CCP monitors and controls their population to a great extent. Privacy doesn’t exist in China like it does in USA or Europe.

 

There is a lot too this and one reason why it is very difficult for the US to address a pandemic even ignoring the current occupant of the White House.

Central planning and control while problematic for things like individual liberty is great for responding to a pandemic or other crisis where individual actions have a lot to do. While initially authorities in Wuhan and Hubei province did a terrible job once the PRC central government stepped in they were able to direct resources and implement a testing strategy not just there but in other parts of the PRC. For us even if the White House took this seriously we still have to count on the states to implement testing and containment strategies. The Federal government can suggest that the states do citywide or statewide testing and provide resources but they can't force them. Also it's an open debate whether the state or Federal government can force people to take tests if they don't want to.

In the PRC there are no such restraints. They can force people to take tests and they can force people to stay inside and if you don't take them into custody.

 

SK and Taiwan aren't authoritarian but they are much smaller than the US and also there is more of a sense of communal responsibility in those countries.

I was explaining to a non-Asian friend who grew up in MN and has never been to Asia the importance of group identity in Asian thought. We tend to uphold the individual in Western thought and while group identity is important it is balanced out by individual identity. In Asia group identity is much more important and while individual identity in many places isn't discouraged it's not valued and even looked down upon.

In practical terms for something like a pandemic where individual actions lead to communal outcomes it's easier for an Asian society to accept things like mass testing, mask wearing and contact tracing than American society.

 

Trump thinks that: more testing=more cases identified=bad for Trump.

The truth is that if Trump had been in favor of more testing from the beginning, it probably would have helped both America and Trump. Yes, Trump shoots him self in the foot once again.

 

I mean no offence but this is the way apart from culling to contain outbreaks in livestock.
9 cases leading to 9 million blanket mass tests is not reasonable.
Do any of the 9 millions chinese have the right to refuse testing?
Without any contact tracing why should they been put through it?

 

The POTUS is the # 1 driver of COVID disinformation. Leadership count especially this type of horrible leadership. You can argue that we have a culture that isn't receptive to all out testing and tracing, but I would argue that we have a culture that is receptive to it with the right leadership with clear concise explanation of why and the benefit of it. We did all pause and lock down for around a month because we were convinced it was a necessary step.

The return in investment of testing and tracing is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30x the cost (if we had invested just 5% of the 2T package in test and tracing, the return on that would be 3T!! someone checks my math lol). We don't need to do unnecessary testing - if we can achieve at least 5% or lower positive rate, we should be good (SK was around 3% during their peak while the US was in the 20%).

 

I don't know for sure but my guess is that they can't refuse to be tested. As noted in the PRC the right to things like privacy aren't there. If it is in the state's interest to do something they will do it. In Wuhan during the lockdown anyone caught outside without an approved reason to would be arrested and taken to isolation wards. They enforced that with drones.

 

This.

We're a rich nation but we want to trim the top into inefficient dividends and tax returns with deaths and suffering as down payment.

This half year old is pretty much a microcosm of climate change and environmental chaos around the world.

Something's gonna give and the young will post for it

 

and same in Taiwan?

 

They have a task force that actually works and a mobile command center that wouldn't get disbanded or refunded by penny pinching teabagging experts at breathing who bray about respecting the science at hand.

Don't get your hopes up

You can wonder if it works at scale while reading how Trump's super spreader event passed the total covid cases in Taiwan.

The No Plan Genius at work

 

Led by the stupid dip$hit clown...

 

Island countries are a little different. it is a bit easier to control borders for them but they do highlight several key failures by our government. But you're right in that Taiwan did a lot of things that the US could have done. To run down the list:

1. Taiwan banned flights from China in January. They didn't just ban Chinese citizens, they actually banned the flights themselves. Taiwanese citizens that needed to come back used special repatriation flights that had separate mandatory quarantine procedures.
2. Taiwan ramped up mask production immediately and people there had no issue with mandatory masks. Taiwan also ramped up santizer production as well. Also masks are distributed for free to all residents in Taiwan
3. Taiwan started barring its citizens from traveling to hotspot countries from Taiwan.

The big thing in Taiwan was a supportive government and a population with near universal mask usage. People flat out use masks everywhere there and there is no debate. If you step out of your house, you wear a mask at all times (including when you're outside). But the important point is that all of the above could have been implemented by the US. We could've shut down international travel temporarily (and just relied on repatriation flights which can then be paired with mandatory quarantines) and we could've really emphasized early mask use. The feds couldve even shut down or limited domestic aviation as a way to slow the spread (Australia did this at one point). Instead, we did nothing and instead had a president who called the whole thing a hoax.

 

Maybe China is a bad example because of the central government system, but Japan can do it, Vietnam can do it too. USA under leadership of Trump is joke for everything except making people more fat.

 

So, if China is in charge after Joe Biden gets elected, maybe we can finally get this pandemic under control.