How Did Vietnam Become the Largest Nation Without Coronavirus Deaths? (voanews.com) 179
Vietnam has reported no coronavirus deaths — and, for more than two months, no local infections (with a total for this year of just 349) — despite having a population of 97 million and a border shared with China. VOA News takes a closer look:
It is hard for outsiders to verify official data, though health experts say Vietnam headed off a full-blown calamity because of its drastic and early action. The government was hyper-aware of the threat to hospital and quarantine capacity... Vietnam saw the disease as a threat early on, treating its first patient in January and proceeding to contact trace and restrict movement. Timing was critical because of the virus' ability to spread exponentially. The Ho Chi Minh City government said, for instance, that for every 300 people infected, 84,000 people had to quarantine. It is likely that Vietnam did not have to cover up mass infections and deaths because it acted before the virus could reach that point...
In addition to national coordination, targeted testing and isolation, Vietnam can decree measures regardless of public debate, like tapping a national security network to monitor the physical and virtual space... On one hand, Vietnam used fines and takedown orders to curb the spread of false information about the virus, as have other nations. On the other hand, the controls continue a history of censorship of information that the Southeast Asian government considers unfavorable.
Social media allowed some false information to spread in Vietnam, but also greatly heightened people's awareness of the virus and what they should do, concluded a study by 11 authors published in April in Sustainability, a science journal. Vietnam's success, they said, came from "mobilizing citizens' awareness of disease prevention without spreading panic, via fostering genuine cooperation between government, civil society and private individuals."
Some examples from the article:
In addition to national coordination, targeted testing and isolation, Vietnam can decree measures regardless of public debate, like tapping a national security network to monitor the physical and virtual space... On one hand, Vietnam used fines and takedown orders to curb the spread of false information about the virus, as have other nations. On the other hand, the controls continue a history of censorship of information that the Southeast Asian government considers unfavorable.
Social media allowed some false information to spread in Vietnam, but also greatly heightened people's awareness of the virus and what they should do, concluded a study by 11 authors published in April in Sustainability, a science journal. Vietnam's success, they said, came from "mobilizing citizens' awareness of disease prevention without spreading panic, via fostering genuine cooperation between government, civil society and private individuals."
Some examples from the article:
- Standing vice chairman of the People's Committee, Le Thanh Liem, urged local authorities and other relevant agencies to visit every house to find out if anyone had come from other countries since March 8 and test and quarantine anyone at risk at home or quarantine areas.
- Those entering a cafe have a good chance of meeting a security guard who sprays their hands with disinfectant.
- If getting on a bus, they will be told to put on a mask and sit one row apart from others.
hmmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop living in denial and soaking up propaganda like a sponge. Come to Asia. You will see. Vietnam won the war despite USA firepower because they're used to uniting against adversity. They care for each other.
Quality of life is not just about material prosperity or freedom to be a total idiot and eschew masks. It is the Asian century. Get used to it.
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It is the Asian century. Get used to it.
Based on demographic trends, it will be the Indian century.
Re:hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
I think you will find India in Asia.
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TLDR: Apples are apples, but oranges aren't, and it's a bloody outrage!
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Vietnam won the war despite USA firepower because they're used to uniting against adversity.
Philosophically, I'm not sure "Vietnam won the war" is a true statement. While I haven't been to the country, my department has dealt with various groups in Vietnam frequently. Vietnam seems to be largely embracing free markets, even though it refers to itself as "socialist".
I would argue that, 45 years after it ended, America has eventually won... after needlessly throwing away 50000+ young American lives, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese lives, and billions of dollars; while also needlessly creating il
Re:hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason that Vietnam is communist is because when Ho Chi Mihn requested assistance from the US to get the French to leave Washington turned him down so he went to Moscow. If we had negotiated a French withdrawal Vietnam would have been capitalist from the get-go.
Re:hmmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
It makes no difference if Vietnam won the war because they killed or incapacitated each and every American fighter, or because the American fighters all stopped fighting on their own or if the American government pulled them out. No matter how you turn it, North Vietnam won. Their ideology, their tribe, their self-determination prevailed and the other society and the tribe they called in for help failed.
That is no endorsement of what happened there. It is a description. Vietnam is owned and governed by the Vietnamese. Their own language, tradtions, religion and customs are dominant all across their own country, which is also the homeland of this group and has been for a long time.
Problem is, we in the West have long forgotten how it looks and feels like to live among one's own, so we regard intact nations with scepticism.
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Yes, and when your town is run by local street gangs, your town is run by the locals, right?
Of course, your town's street gangs are some of the locals, but they're certainly not typical locals, and they don't serve the interests of the other locals except where those interests intersect with theirs.
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Perhaps you want to go to Vietnam once - or Laos.
Moron.
There are no local street gangs like in LA or SF or NYC.
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The point is that the Vietbnamese government is the equivalent of a local street gang. Being ruled "by Vietnamese" is not meaningful; since they don't have the interests of other Vietnamese in mind, for the same reason that local street gangs don't have the interests of locals in mind,
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Philosophically, I'm not sure "Vietnam won the war" is a true statement
It doesn't matter if the US military is 1000 times stronger. They withdrew, North VN overpowered South VN, imprisoned all South VN military and political personels. Ever since, North VN has been ruling the country. So yeah they won. There's no question about it.
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Note that the hot spot in Italy was the prosperous northern part, which was still chilly at the time of the outbreak. Usually the hot, sunny but poor and disorganized south gets the disease outbreaks.
Re: hmmmm (Score:3)
Equador?
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There is no link between Vitamin D and immune system.
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science disagrees with you
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
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Bullshit.
Vietnam won because USSR helped them.Helped militarily (John McCain's plane was shot down by a Soviet missile [telegraph.co.uk].)
More importantly, USSR spent even more money on "peace" movements within the US [medium.com] — talk about "Russian Collusion".
Objectively, Vietnam War was no different — in its logic and legality — from the Korean War right before it. But our collective treatment of the two differs greatly — because of the Russia-sponsored propaganda.
Korean war has never ended.
Re:hmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps you should read something about history?
Why was America "in Vietnam"? From whom "did they get it"?
"what did the population think about it? (being occupied and such ... - you do know Vietnam was occupied by France and then US?)
Perhaps you like to look at Cuba or Hawaii, too?
Bluntly: the US had Vietnam occupied, and worked against "free democratic votes" to get rid of them. As the voting was denied Vietnam revolted - with the "communists" winning in the end.
Better having a communist regime, that:
a) lets me live in peace
b) allows me to run my business
c) gives my kids schooling
d) gives us health care
e) etc. p.p.
Then being under the tyranny of the occupants that treat us like slaves and let us starve and keeps us poor, and steal al resources of our country.
What the funk is it why all asians hate the white? Are you really so stupid? The white "demons" vandalized Asia like the settlers in the US did the natives there. But the ppl in Asia revolted and thy where more so they won.
everything in Asia - China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand is the fault of greedy US and European countries/companies.
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More importantly, USSR spent even more money on "peace" movements within the US
USSR wasn't alone behind the anti-war movements in the US back then. Ho Chi Minh was in fact the main backer of all these protests.
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functionally incapable of continuing to fight in a serious way
I'm sure there were some morons in the Pentagram saying the same thing about the Taliban in 2003. Seventeen years later the most expensive military in the history of the world doesn't even control the suburbs of Kabul.
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They may not have been good guys, but they weren't as bad as what we left behind.
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Educate yourself and quite trying to convince others that all the peoples that have defeated the US are failures.
Pretty sure in that regard, they are in a category all their own. They beat China in a war just 5 years later, but you knew that already right?
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Many Vietnamese friends warned my family (Score:2)
Some had just come back from Vietnam and they were very worried and told very troubling stories about Corona virus deaths. This was before the great Toilet Paper and Hand Sanitizer panic.
Apparently the Northern part of Vietnam was getting ground traffic from China long after they had closed air travel. If their government is saying 0 deaths and someone else believes it, I'd say that's two problems.
"It is hard for outsiders to verify official data" (Score:2)
That alone makes this another "According to China" situation in Vietnam.
Re:"It is hard for outsiders to verify official da (Score:5, Interesting)
I have an uncle that lives there (Vietnam veteran who met a local girl, and managed to negotiate with the vietnamese govt to return there and marry her) and he's fairly adamant that the lockdown was super harsh, and that it was effective. He's not someone to hold his tounge when the govt there is pissing him off, but so far his take is that indeed the govt has been pretty transparent on this one, at least with the local citizenry.
This isn't vietnams first waltz with a pandemic, they appear to have learned their lessons from early screw-ups, that trying to cover it up just makes it worse, and the truth will always win out in the end.
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The CDC have had a team on the ground there since day one and they said that despite really, really wanting to disbelieve the figures they haven't been able to find any evidence of them not being true.
Speaking of which, it also shows how well you can handle it when you follow the WHO and CDC advice, which is what Vietnam did. Specifically, they had the same advice from the same organisations at the same time the US did, but with only a miniscule fraction of the resources the US has. Result: Vietnam: Zero
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it also shows how well you can handle it when you follow the WHO and CDC advice, which is what Vietnam did.
Does that advice include not wearing a mask unless you work in health care?
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it also shows how well you can handle it when you follow the WHO and CDC advice, which is what Vietnam did.
Does that advice include not wearing a mask unless you work in health care?
Interestingly, Switzerland never had mandatory wearing of masks (and most people did not ear them voluntarily) and they still managed to get the infection rates down nicely. Masks do help, but they are not essential. They are just one component in the response.
Re:"It is hard for outsiders to verify official da (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking of which, it also shows how well you can handle it when you follow the WHO and CDC advice, which is what Vietnam did. Specifically, they had the same advice from the same organisations at the same time the US did, but with only a miniscule fraction of the resources the US has. Result: Vietnam: Zero dead. US: 120,000 dead and no end in sight.
Well, the problem the US has is not lack of money. It is lack of insight. No, this is not due to this being the first time it is hit (in living memory), there are plenty of other countries that had the same issue. The problem the US has is lack of even marginally competent leadership. Most other western countries now have very low infection rates and it looks like they will be able to keep them low until a vaccine or effective treatment is available and they will be doing so without killing the local economy. The one glaring exception is the US. It has basically stayed at infection rates a bit below the peak and now rates are going up again. The strategy to lock down as far as possible until rates of new infections are really low and then open things up again carefully has now been validated over and over.
Sure, Vietnam went close to the maximum that is possible and there can be some discussion whether that was really needed and whether somewhat more lenient measures would have been enough. But the results speak for themselves and they are not unexpected. Any competent expert knows that this is the way to go. The example of Sweden nicely demonstrates that a weak, advisory lockdown does not cut it. They are the only European country that still has not gotten infection rates under control. Even the UK with its initially unsound strategy is now slowly getting there.
Face masks are (almost) enough (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad thing is that the simple use of face masks was enough to kill Covid-19 in New York
https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
But for political reasons many thousands more need die in some western countries because people do not use them.
Vietnam should be given credit where due. They done good here. But not in other places.
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But not in other places.
And which places would that be?
Please enlighten us!
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They did say early on masks might be worse than no masks by:
1. Giving people an undue feeling of confidence, prompting them to get into more social situations.
2. Buildup on re-used masks, instead of tossing them, or touching the mask then your eye or nose or mouth.
As for the totalitarian aspect, it is large cheers of crowds leading to giving leaders emergency powers, and they never give them up, that is the historical downfall of many free places and democracies, not some slow, indisious behavior creep by a
Full stop (Score:2, Insightful)
>"Vietnam has reported no coronavirus deaths"
The key word being "reported."
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I'm not sure if that is insightful or funny :D
But a good point!
(Some even speak a second language!)
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No, the keyword is: they had none.
As soon as they suspected something is fishy in Wooghan, they closed the 900 miles border and put every traveler under surveillance and quarantine.
IDIOT VeRY MUCH?
Strict quarantine and contact tracing, testing and isolation, just like it should be done.
Your attempt to bomb an innocent nation into the stone age in the 1970th: failed
(Hint: bonus points if you grasp why the US wanted to bomb Vietnam into a stone age)
Vietnam took the risk of infection very seriously (Score:5, Informative)
Every passenger arriving by plane was given a swab test and taken to a government quarantine facility for 14 days. These facilities would be hospitals, or recommandeered university dorms, etc. Nobody was allowed to self-quarantine at home. These people would be fed and monitored for 14 days before they could leave. This partially explains why incoming flights were banned so soon and so quickly, because their quarantine facilities would have been overrun if they hadn't.
If a resident in Vietnam tested positive for the virus, the government imposed a quarantine zone that centered on the person's home and extended out to a three-block radius. Residents would be monitored, but nobody was allowed in or out during the quarantine period. Goods were allowed to pass though, I think. Police were deployed to these zones to enforce the quarantine 24/7.
I imagine these mandatory-quarantine-in-government-facilities would be next to impossible to impose on a first-world country where a government agency cannot restrict or confine a person's freedom of movement. Heck, doctors can't even force treatment upon a patient with mental health issues. I'm not sure what the legalities involving a neighbourhood quarantine would be in North America, but I'm not exactly sure they would be received well.
All in all, Vietnam's response is probably only possible in a country with a communist government.
A free nation would never be able to replicate the measures that Vietnam took.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah? That's why the ebola nurses returning home couldn't be forced to quarantine? You think the US government could prevent people from coming back to the states?
We have a long history of demanding rights, in the face even of death. Maybe it's stupid, maybe it's sane.
I don't think the government has the powers you think it has.
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I don't think the government has the powers you think it has.
To deal with the actual needs for these kinds of situations, it really usually does. At least when it comes to things like temporary quarantine protocols, even losing in court can takes months, and then the good has been done in a timely way while something else if figured out or new laws have been passed (that will take months to challenge in court). But it comes a gov't willing to be competent and take a little heat for doing the right thing.
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Canada was/is doing some forced quarantining, mostly for people who didn't have a plan in place, though the territories got quite serious about it. Problem was we started doing it too late, with only asking politely for travelers to self quarantine at first.
Some of the stuff like closing Provincial/Territorial borders is clearly unconstitutional, by the time the courts deal with it, the pandemic will likely be over.
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We'll see
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Re:Vietnam took the risk of infection very serious (Score:5, Informative)
All in all, Vietnam's response is probably only possible in a country with a communist government. A free nation would never be able to replicate the measures that Vietnam took.
Mongolia, New Zealand, and Taiwan would beg to differ.
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I wish to elaborate.
Yes, there are many free nations that have successfully imposed quarantine measures.
But what I said was, "A free nation would never be able to replicate the measures that Vietnam took.
ie. 1) Forcing everyone on inbound flights (regardless of nationality and citizenship) into government monitering facilities against their will for 14 days. 2) Confining all residents of an entire neighbourhood of an infected person against their will, and 3) enforcing said confinement with police, whose de
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In some countries you can actually accomplish something similar by simply asking the people nicely to do it. Yes, it's not as effective, but looking around in places that don't go "but muh freedumz" as soon as the government recommends something sane for the sake of survival, I'd say that it seems to work pretty well.
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would be next to impossible to impose on a first-world country
Vietnam is a first world country.
We have 2020 - not 1970.
Because their video went viral instead? (Score:2)
Maybe it wasn't the only reason, but you have to consider the effect of Vietnam's insanely catchy coronavirus video.
Re:Because their video went viral instead? (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe it wasn't the only reason, but you have to consider the effect of Vietnam's insanely catchy coronavirus video.
Whoops, I mangled the href link. Here it is again. [youtube.com]
19 (Score:3)
In Vietnam, the average was 19. Na na na na nineteen.
That may have had something to do with it. Of course I am no doctor.
Vietnam has got experience (Score:5, Insightful)
They had to deal with epidemics coming from China a few times before and they simply have learned to lock up their shops quick. They're used to wear facemasks, too, for this reason. And if I'm really honest, these are the people who defeated the USA. They are tenacious fuckers.
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It's arguable that the US civilian population is who defeated the US Military in Vietnam,
Re:Vietnam has got experience (Score:5, Informative)
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The Vietnamese defeated the French, the British, the Americans, and the Chinese. Four out of five members of the U.N. Security Council. Give them some credit.
That's an amazing stat that would be even more amazing had you not mentioned the French. Just ask the Germans.
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That's an amazing stat that would be even more amazing had you not mentioned the French. Just ask the Germans.
Not sure if you are an Idiot or an Asshole.
Go read a book about it.
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It was more the US politicians that defeated the US military in Vietnam.
You shouldn't allow politicians to run your military operations. The Germans already knew this since 1945.
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Peace traitors? Fuck off and die you stupid asshole.
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Nah. The traitors were those who continue to let American soldiers die in a pointless war with no viable exit strategy.
Allowing the US military be defeated by US citizens is a good thing. It's a part of democracy, where ordinary people have power over the government. I know, it's a crazy idea, but I prefer that over a military dictatorship.
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Wow, is that Medium link a pile of garbage. A Soviet defector tells his new hosts exactly what they want to hear and that's your "well-documented fact"? Lots of assertions there, but no actual documentation to be seen. You would think that a claimed BILLION DOLLARS would have left at least some trace, money laundering in the 1960s wasn't nearly as sophisticated as it is today.
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Go back and look at the largest financial crime of the 1970s, 'il Crack Sindona', where Sindona, Gelli, Calvi, and Bishop Marcinkus manipulated the Banco Ambrosio, P2 Masonic Lodge, and the Vatican Bank into one of the largest thefts in history. A decade later the action was still able to be recreated in exquisite detail, I recommend the book 'In God's Name' by David Yallup which covers it in the context of the murder of Pope John Paul I.
The song (Score:2)
It's clear more countries should've had a song to explain the situation.
https://youtu.be/BtulL3oArQw [youtu.be]
Clearly a lack of leadership (Score:2)
We are sorely lacking leadership at the national level. Looks like we have to address the pandemic at the state level.
So, some of our states are slow learners.
The prospect of waiting for the election sucks.
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Whose else responsibility would it be?
Do you prefer to live in a 3rd wold country?
In Asia they have public health care since 3000 (and mostly more) years - go back into your cave, Barbarian.
"Give me liberty or give me death" (Score:3)
Hey, I have an offer for you: You can actually have both.
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Re:Never in the West (Score:4, Interesting)
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Can a multi party free nation survive pandemic?
Yes, look at the numbers for Czechia, Finland and Hungary. Hungary has some wildly divisive politics, including actual Nazis (not just the poor uneducated pretenders like in the US). All of these countries have a relatively low death rate from COVID.
Norway has done well too, but Norway is a monarchy.
Re:Never in the West (Score:5, Informative)
Observing that western european countries are monarchies is a borderline meaningless observation.
These are fully democratic nations, albeit with figurehead heads of states that have no real powers of note, other than the ability to unblock supply if the parliment becomes unfunctional (and all pretty tightly regulated in constitutions to stop the monarch from trying to assume rulership).
Norway did well. Australia and new zealand, even better. UK has done attrociously poorly. The United states has done attrociously poorly. VIetnam has done really well.
Of these states , Vietnam hasn't really got a democracy to speak of. The United states is ultra democratic, although its democracy is somewhat disfunctional at this point in history. The UK is democratic, but has a strange aristocracy kind of wedged in there, although it has MOSTLY been neutered over the years. Australia, Norway* and NZ have no aristocracy however they do have monarchs .
Theres no real pattern here that coresponds to "is there a monarchy" in terms of success.
(Norway technically still has an Aristocracy, but it has no powers confered to it. Its just a meaningless title. New Zealand has Knighthoods, but they are just titles. Australia has abolished Knighthoods [briefly returned under Tony Abbot, but it was considered a laughing stock and abolished almost immediately after he left office])
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Norway technically still has an Aristocracy, but it has no powers confered to it. Its just a meaningless title
The Norwegian King actually has powers.
Re:Never in the West (Score:4, Informative)
Norway technically still has an Aristocracy, but it has no powers confered to it. Its just a meaningless title
The Norwegian King actually has powers.
The Norwegian King does not have powers [kongehuset.no]. When reading "The King in council", that means the government headed by the Prime Minister - which can be removed by the parliament in a vote of no confidence. The King also cannot suspend parliament or call new elections.
The King is a symbolic figurehead, and a link to what was, what is and what will be. And by having this, we have a non-divisive head of state - instead of e.g. a US president (we can see how bad that works at the moment...).
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The Norwegian King can pardon people, to begin with.
Whoopdefuckingdo. That qualifies him for a participation award at most among powers of monarchies. All that amazing power and the current monarch has never even exercised it. Hell Trump has issued over double the amount of pardons in a single day than the Norwegian monarchy has over its entire reign (3 in total in the past 200 years).
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I'm from Norway. We do not have an aristocracy. Almost all of them died in the Black Death in the 1500's, and those who were left had not enough peasants to live off, so they had to become farmers. The closest thing to an aristocracy we have today is farmers, who get the world's fattest agricultural subsidies to deliver sub-standard goods, so in a way they are "living off peasants"; but they are not a close social group and the
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(Norway technically still has an Aristocracy, but it has no powers confered to it. Its just a meaningless title. New Zealand has Knighthoods, but they are just titles. Australia has abolished Knighthoods [briefly returned under Tony Abbot, but it was considered a laughing stock and abolished almost immediately after he left office])
Norway does not have an aristocracy, it was abolished in 1821. [wikipedia.org]
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Of these states , Vietnam hasn't really got a democracy to speak of.
Yes, it has.
You join the party and vote inside of the party about issues and ppl.
Ppl coming from a 2 party system should simply stop talking about democracy, because your system clearly is not democratic.
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Norway has done well too, but Norway is a monarchy.
By that logic, the UK is a monarchy too.
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Well, Hungary isn't exactly the poster child for a free democratic country with their wannabe Berlusconi pretty much silencing everything that could be considered a free press if he can't just buy it, but yes, looking around in Europe, you can find countries that managed to have a very low body count, even with a rough start.
The key is whether people can keep a level head and not fall for bullshit peddlers trying to spread FUD to gain some political clout. The key to success is a combination of a sensible g
Re:Never in the West (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. I work for the Finnish (public) health care system and watching the US 'response' to this pandemic has been baffling: there is very little to none co-ordination or actual leadership from the federal level, and each state is basically left to figure their situation by themselves. But this is understandable when one realize's just how stupid/incompetent Trump is: he doesn't understand or trust science, he doesn't listen to experts, and has throughout the whole crisis seemed way more concerned about the way it makes him look and deflecting blame on whoever else rather than actually doing anything remotely resembling leading a nation during crisis.
The man is a joke, on so many levels (and has become a laughing stock ages ago elsewhere in the West), and at this point it's directly costing tens of thousands of american lives, there's no way around it. While many other nations have already started to see a return to normal in terms of infections and deaths (we have zero new deaths for a week or so now and the infection rate is dwindling). Meanwhile the US opened up way too soon, and not all states ever really even closed down properly and daily deaths remain high, and are probably going to keep going up.
When politics becomes so hyperpolarized that the president can with a serious face talk about injecting bleach as a cure and it doesn't seem to change his fanbase's view of him, this is the result. Now with the protests taking up more of his already nonexistent attention-span away from the virus, I find it highly unlikely that the US will be able to contain the spread during summer months and it will continue to spread, worsened in the autumn by the coinciding regular flu season. The best hope at this point is that Trump gets kicked out in November and they actually get competent people in the white house, but even in that scenario fixing the damage done by the Orange Blob is going to take a lot of time.
The american medical system is the most expensive per capita in the world, yet its performance with handling this crisis is at the very bottom of the western world, and it's not because they don't have the technology, or the medical professionals to tackle something like this, it's because they have no political leadership to aid them in doing so effectively, and because a huge chunk of the population is so uneducated and so soaked with propaganda that they'll believe the Spray-tan Sultan over anything actual professionals say.
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When politics becomes so hyperpolarized that the president can with a serious face talk about injecting bleach as a cure and it doesn't seem to change his fanbase's view of him, this is the result.
Now you mention bleach, can't Putin whisper in Trumps ear that Vietnam just proved Napalm is the cure?
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but Norway is a monarchy.
No, they are not. Bottom line it is an ordinary democracy.
In scientific terms it is "constitutional monarchy".
The king/queen is only the figure head of the state, the laws are made by an elected parliament. (Like in every "monarchy" in Europe - we have plenty)
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Multi-party yes doesn't have to be so partisan (Score:4, Interesting)
> Westerners tend to have an adversarial attitude toward the government, especially when its not their side in office. For example, in states run by one party, the people in that party did what the state leader said, but the people not on that side resisted.
First-past-the-post voting, as used in the United States, tends to elect candidates which appeal to only one side, to elect left wing and right wing candidates. The US process starts with primaries, a competition in each party for who can be the most liberal or the most conservative. The best way to a quick death in primary is to say the opposing party makes some good points. This system increases partisanship.
Various forms of ranked-choice voting tend to elect candidates who are more or less acceptable to most people. You can have free elections without the hyperpartisanship simply by letting people list which candidates are most acceptable, rather than "pick only one". Then the candidate who is acceptable to most everyone wins - probably the candidate who is actually qualified.
As you note, people are more likely to cooperate with leadership when they don't view the elected leadership as "the head of the bad guys", as the team they fight against.
> Can a multi party free nation survive pandemic?
Well the US is still here. In some ways, we aren't AS free as we'd like or expect. We expect more perfect freedom *because* this is a free country. North Koreans don't see invasions on their freedoms as flaws in the system, they have no freedoms and they are run by the system. So yeah a free nation is surviving, despite hyperpartisanship encouraged by a fundamentally flawed system of voting. (See also the cycle of ever-increasing partisan fighting triggered by the Bork hearings).
Can a free nation do all the things Vietnam did? No, some of those things are fundamentally incompatible with freedom and individual rights. Freedom has a cost, and it's worth it.
Re:Multi-party yes doesn't have to be so partisan (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom always comes with responsibility. That's the part that is so conveniently overlooked by a lot of people. That means that you're also responsible for your own actions and of course your own failings. That's the part we allowed people to completely ignore in the past with a justice system that rewards stupidity, where people doing objectively stupid things being rewarded verdicts that cover their damages that are a net result of them not taking responsibility.
People got used to that. And it bites them in the ass big time now.
Re: (Score:2)
Besides all the other examples, politics hasn't screwed things up here in Canada during pandemic, with the politicians getting along surprisingly well and almost all governments getting a boost in the polls, some a surprising boost. This is changing as we open up as the right has different ideas from the left how to go about it.
One important thing is for the politicians to step back and let the medical experts handle the pandemic. Imagine Trump just introducing Dr Fauci (I think that's the name) and saying
Re: Never in the West (Score:3)
Dude STOP. The US has done worse than most of the countries in the EU. Spain & UK handled this as bad as us. Sweden didn't even have a lockdown. Italy was the canary. This isn't exactly the group we should be celebrating for beating!
And I don't think you understand just how far apart those two numbers you said are....
Re: (Score:3)
The US is currently at 7-day average of 1.92 deaths per million and Canada is 1.12. I really don't understand people.
1.92/1.12= 1.7142.
71.42% higher death rate.
Re: (Score:2)
There's no requirement that a major party in a modern country has to reject science when it comes to disease. Even in the US, the anti-science stance of the Republican party is somewhat of a fluke (they were a rational conservative party until relatively recently). Most European nations have more than two major political parties and have done much better than the US during this pandemic.
Re:Never in the West (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no requirement that a major party in a modern country has to reject science when it comes to disease. Even in the US, the anti-science stance of the Republican party is somewhat of a fluke (they were a rational conservative party until relatively recently). Most European nations have more than two major political parties and have done much better than the US during this pandemic.
The Republicans have traditionally been a wide coalition. The downward trend started with more power to the evangelical Christians and their anti-evolution stance. Then it got crazy with the tea party and their climate science denials [nytimes.com], and the last four years the entire party just got completely batshit crazy with Trump taking over - and the general rejection of truth, facts and science he stands for.
As someone who generally finds himself in the liberal conservative [wikipedia.org] part of the political spectrum, this downward trend is frightening.
Re: (Score:3)
> the last four years the entire party just got completely batshit crazy with Trump taking over - and the general rejection of truth, facts and science he stands for.
The crux of the issue is because scientific facts are more and more used for justifying restrictions on the ability of a few to profit because of the consequences on others---and deservedly so.
Modern US conservatism's only really unifying principle is laundering extreme selfishness into a virtue. Listening to the professionals who know some
Re: (Score:2)
Vietnam:
- Contact tracing and selective testing and quarantine.
- Inform the public on the importance of hygiene and provide some enforcement at busy places.
- Wear face masks to further reduce the infection rate.
the Netherlands (and much of Europe):
- Do nothing. It's in China, it won't come here. It's spreadin
Re: (Score:2)
In a proper multi-party democracy the population is used to a government lead by a coalition of parties, not one.
As a result in these countries we see very little opposition to lock down and other measures, they are accepted as being for a common good.
Re: (Score:3)
That's true, compared to cool BC, as you go south there is less and less cases until you get to places like Mexico and Brazil with no cases. The American sun belt, places like Texas, Arizona and Florida have also had close to zero cases due to the heat.
Then there are places like S. Korea which being on the cold side were decimated.
Re: (Score:2)
It could also be the climate. SARS really didn't like higher temperatures, and CoVID-19 is SARS-CoV-2. That might explain why most tropical places have seen very few cases and have had relative ease in controlling any outbreaks.
Latin-America is currently the CoVID-19 hotspot [cnn.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Looking at the world map and Covid19 distribution, it looks like a large swath of the world already had this virus some years before and nobody took notice - people thought it was a bad cold or something. This time, the rest of the world got it and the newspapers went ballistic. The simple reason I say this, is because the countries where the death rates are very low, is a contiguous region.
Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. The medical characteristics of a bad case were not observed before in any number that would have gotten attention. That makes it completely impossible that this virus went around before.