Tracking the Coronavirus: How Crowded Asian Cities Tackled an Epidemic (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan)

New York Times ^ | March 17 2020 | Hanna Beech

[rintintin]

Two hours. That’s all the time medical teams in Singapore are given to uncover the first details of how patients contracted the coronavirus and which people they might infect.

Did they travel abroad? Do they have a link to one of the five clusters of contagion identified across the city-state? Did they cough on someone in the street? Who are their friends and family, their drinking buddies and partners in prayer?

As Western nations struggle with the wildfire spread of the coronavirus, Singapore’s strategy, of moving rapidly to track down and test suspected cases, provides a model for keeping the epidemic at bay, even if it can’t completely stamp out infections.

With detailed detective work, the government’s contact tracers found, among others, a group of avid singers who warbled and expelled respiratory droplets together, spreading the virus to their families and then to a gym and a church — forming the largest concentration of cases in Singapore.

“We want to stay one or two steps ahead of the virus,” said Vernon Lee, the director of the communicable diseases division at Singapore’s Ministry of Health. “If you chase the virus, you will always be behind the curve.”

[laplata]

I won’t read this from the NYT but I’d bet it says Trump is not doing as well to address this as they are.

[funfan]

How many more stories. UGH

[TheCipher]

The United States disbanded its pandemic response unit in 2018.

The media keeps repeating this lie. It was never disbanded. It was merged with other units to make it run more efficiently.

Media,democrats ran with false claim Trump disbanded pandemic office

[rfp1234]

Looks like they don’t have HIPPA or other privacy safeguards there.

[chris37]

Their methods are excellent, but my question is will they stand up over time?

Once this things gets out of hand around the world, it doesn’t seem to me that any method will protect against it. There’s just too many ways.

[Bommer]

I don't know if there is a "Trump sucks" angle, but my sister in law lives in Singapore. This is for real. They have people assigned at entrances with hand held infra-red heat guns. She said she was scanned 5 times just today. Anyo e who get hot they are inquisition to find out who they have been with? How long they felt like this? If they ever coughed in public do. Wwho? Their shelves in stores are full and there is no pani, from what she says. This is a very effective and organized way to handle the crisis. This is Priminister Lee speech to Singapore population on what they learned from the Sars outbreak to deal with this. Trump (and I love him) could learn a lot from Singapore.

[familyop]

No president can do it all by himself. President Trump is limited to trying to have many lazy people do the work through an inefficient system designed by other lazy people. It’s also difficult and complicated to fire federal employees without legal consequences.

[familyop]

Many East Asian people are taught more to move in unison and work together.

[Black Agnes]

In this regard, Singapore rules from orbit.

They have random testing for this as well to make sure they don’t have any circulating clusters of the virus that might ignite a brush fire.

[pangaea6]

I still think its harder for Trump here than there. He has to deal with 50 different states, different political parties that no matter what he does them and media will blame him for something. I can see if he had instituted Singapore type measures earlier the virus would be under control but the economy would have tanked and media and dems would say he over reacted and destroyed the economy. I think he has had to walk a tight rope and make sure he had buy in from dems that this was bad. Nobody really knows how bad it can get until it gets bad. Just my thought

[goodnesswins]

Bump for later...THAT is interesting!

[Bommer]

You are probably right. Nothing says votes like people dying. On the other hand, Trump could declare Marshall law in a state, arrest and hold local government officials until the crisis passes. I think something like this actually could be agreed upon by the mentally rational....but then again these are democraps!

[Fungi]

Include this graphic from Powerline with its attendant description and write up. John Hinderacker is the second best poster and agree with him completely here.

.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/per-capita-death-rates-in-one-chart.php

[P.O.E.]

Plus Singapore has a culture of compliance.

[Jane Long]

Trump could declare Marshall law in a state, arrest and hold local government officials until the crisis passes.

Did you say Marshall Law???

[Jane Long]

Now add, to that graphic, available beds/ICU beds, per capita and per confirmed cases.

Just curious what that graph would look like.

[Fungi]

True, but that was not the intent of the graph to visualize.

[tinamina]

My brother is living and working in Singapore. Has to get scanned several times a day.
I was telling people that they could scan a crowd and see who is hot and cull that person. I’m not sure why NYC etc is not using this technology

[Crucial]

This is only the beginning. We all need to concentrate on this virus. Our lives must revolve around avoiding getting infected. The smartest of us needs to find answers. This virus is abnormal. We need to treat it like its extremely dangerous and give up on our lives getting back to normal anytime soon.