Some people ARE looking. Multiple articles and links have been posted here. For example:
http://theconversation.com/coronavirus-south-koreas-success-in-controlling-disease-is-due-to-its-acceptance-of-surveillance-134068
There are more - please just look - I'm tired of reposting these. But I will summarize, again:
Those countries you mention have much higher levels of civilian surveillance, more extensive / widespread and intrusive (here you'd need a warrant or consent) contact tracing capability, more compliant populations when it comes to this sort of thing, more knowledgeable and practicing populations when it comes to limiting person-to-person spread (mask use, in particular), they limited "incoming" carriers early and well*, and in SK's case at least, were better prepared and ramped up to a needed level of testing for their situation(s) very quickly.
*SK had one major slip, that church group: That was contained fairly effectively, IMO, but still did and likely is doing substantial damage, even with SK's extraordinary civilian surveillance.
Most Westerners, rightly, will not accept such pervasive surveillance of the general population. Gotta find another way to skin that cat (virus), even if it costs somewhat more lives. :-(
You are usually one of our more sensible FReepers: I believe the more you look into all factors, you'll see that Dr. Fauci's stated sense of it (fatalities over infected persons), which is lower than "just the math" and places a range right around the .66% figure given in the thread article, is as good an estimate as any. He's just smart enough to give a range.
The trouble is, even a baseline 0.3 CFR (fatalities over infections) is a horrific problem if the number of active infections grows too large: Then the health care system is overwhelmed by serious and critical cases and that rockets up the CFR...
One more link. This is perhaps the best comprehensive discussion I have seen - from an eminent S. Korean Doctor. It should be required viewing for everyone. Maybe our daily thread posters would add the link to the beginning of each daily thread!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAk7aX5hksU
Dude, they shut down the entire economy at a STARTING cost of $2 trillion. I think the public will accept some surveillance as an alternative to these measures. The government isn’t supposed to have the right to arrest people for leaving their homes either. So I think they might just be able to get away with reading your cell phone tracking data if you test positive. Sick people lose their rights in a quarantine as a general rule. That can include privacy rights as well as rights of movement. The key is nobody who has not tested positive should ever lose any rights.
Germany is doing well. Taiwan is doing well. IMO it has to do with culture, organization, and societal discipline. I have lived in Germany and Italy as well as four other European countries. It is predictable for me that Germany would perform significantly better.
You are usually one of our more sensible FReepers: I believe the more you look into all factors, you'll see that Dr. Fauci's stated sense of it (fatalities over infected persons), which is lower than "just the math" and places a range right around the .66% figure given in the thread article, is as good an estimate as any. He's just smart enough to give a range.
I want to see more data. CDC adds 39 million to the denominator to arrive at its mortality estimate for the seasonal flu. This covers those estimated unreported cases of the flu, hence the .1% mortality rate. The number of those actually tested used by the CDC is about 1.4 million reported by public and private platforms. I am not buying the .6% mortality rate.
The trouble is, even a baseline 0.3 CFR (fatalities over infections) is a horrific problem if the number of active infections grows too large: Then the health care system is overwhelmed by serious and critical cases and that rockets up the CFR...
The protection of our healthcare system has been the real objective of this exercise, not the saving of lives. The fear, as you note, is overwhelming the system crowding out other care due the virus. The H1NI infected 60 million and killed 12,000. The 2017/18 seasonal flu killed 61,000 and had 810,000 hospitalized.
I can understand our initial reaction to this "novel" virus. No history, no vaccine, and WHO estimates of 3% to 4% mortality rates. Various models were predicting deaths in the millions. But we have more data now. The virus is less deadly than thought. I am concerned that the medical technocrats are driving public policy. They should have an input, but this crisis has become much more than a medical one. Just as in war, there has to be an acceptance of a certain level of casualties. We do that every year with the seasonal flu.