Best and worst countries on COVID-19 response

[palandio]

[...]
Yes, the NZ elimination approach is the most sensible. The lack of certainty makes a cautious approach wise, while getting the health response right is also good economically. We have had far fewer social distancing restrictions than most countries, we had a long period of no domestic restrictions at all (and so the economy held up better than expected). There is a good chance we get back to that soon because we got the new outbreak under control early. That is better than herd immunity or a generally lax approach to public health, which is worse for the economy because people voluntarily social distance and there probably have to be some government restrictions, but also causes worse economic outcomes. And even where elimination is impossible, suppressing the virus ultimately reduces social distancing and is better for the economy while of course having the big benefit of avoiding tragically high amounts of excess deaths.

Being a devoloped country of 4 million people situated on two islands in the South Pacific is of course among the best preconditions that could be there. In other parts of the world where the preconditions are far less favorable similar approaches have failed miserably. And even in NZ the virus has returned after all, while a lockdown that aimed at complete elimination caused more economic damage than a slightly more moderate suppression strategy would have done.

There really is no "one size fits all".

In China the severe regional lockdown was probably right. First of all because at an early stage it was worth to try to kill the virus completely while now after it has spread all over the world this is much more difficult. And secondly because China as a totalitarian semi-developed country has the means that other countries don't have.

In Italy the lockdown was absolutely necessary given the health emergency, although some measures were probably over the top and caused a lot of collateral damage while having negligible effect on the spread of the virus. It seems that Italy is getting the second outbreak under control and hence the lockdown hasn't been in vain.

Spain is similar, but the time buyed by the lockdown hasn't been used sufficiently to create the environment that stops the second outbreak without a lockdown. The only positive is that for reasons that will have to be discussed the virus seems to have become less severe. Hence the people getting infected now is not as bad as them getting infected in March.

In places like India the lockdown hasn't even achieved its goals temporarily.

[palandio]

[...]
Spain seems pretty similar to America. They had a really bad first wave, one of the worst per capita in the world and worse than the US. And then they reopened too much too quickly, so now they are having a big second wave with similar case numbers per capita to the US. Their death reporting system seems screwed up so the situation is less clear than in the US. It's also possible that the rest of Europe will experience a second wave.

Quite to the contrary I think that Spain's lockdown was too late, too strict and too long while not building up enough capacities for contact tracing and isolating. At some point Spain had to reopen because the inflicted economic and societal damage had already become so severe. Numbers then remained about constant for some weeks and started to spike again when the first challenge came (holiday season). It is true that when the virus was new almost all countries (except ROC and to a lesser degree ROK and some others) lacked the appropriate means to fight it apart from lockdowns. But since then several months have passed and thinking only in terms of lockdowns and reopenings is a grave error.

Countries in general and European countries in particular cannot be viewed as isolated entities. If the virus is still in the world it will at some point try to come back. Then why engage in the futile attempt to eliminate it completely when the health effects of suppression are comparably good? And elimination in devoloping countries (outside maybe China and Vietnam) is completely illusionary for the time being and hence is worldwide elimination. This is not a sprint, it's a marathon and you don't even arrive at the finish line if you refuse to breathe.

[palandio]

[snip]

I imagine it's something like "more honest reporting than the rest of Latin America", as practically the whole continent seems to have been hit in a much more brutal way than the numbers suggest.

[snip]

On the Financial Times website there are some graphics on excess mortality.

Peru is at ca. 40k excess deaths in the time period until July 8, which is higher than the ca. 16.5k official COVID deaths until July 8 and even higher than the ca. 30k official COVID-19 deaths until now.

Brazil is at ca. 55k excess deaths in the time period until June 19, which is higher than the ca. 49k official COVID-19 deaths until June 19, but not much.

Ecuador is at ca. 24k excess deaths until July 1, which is higher than the ca. 7k offical COVID-19 deaths until July 1 and even higher than the ca. 10.6k official COVID-19 deaths until now.

Chile is at ca. 9.4k excess deaths until July 8, higher than the 7.5 official deaths until July 8.

Sadly no data for Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, etc.