Not sure if anyone's mentioned this yet but there are not even 6 million people in Singapore. 8.6 million in NYC alone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people who claim other countries do this or that should really spend some time living abroad and seeing that what’s reported in the media is often not what us actually happening. Also, spend some time reading what the media from other countries is saying about the US. It’s rarely what we are seeing on the ground.

What are you talking about? Singapore is distributing masks, I’m the Op and got this from a friend who lives there who got a message on her app to pick one up. It’s not like here where we can’t even agree that masks are a good thing and health care professionals are dying because they don’t have the appropriate protective equipment. I don’t understand why some people are so defensive when other countries are doing better at something. It’s something to strive for, not to attack.

Singapore has about the same population as NYC. If that was all we had to worry about, I think we’d be doing better too.

+1
Singapore has been held up for decades as the shining example of many things - their education system, management of economy, and now this crisis. Many countries would love to be this successful but one cannot simply scale the Singapore experience to countries (like the USA)that are hundreds of times bigger in size. This is not an excuse for the incompetence on display by our government but even if they wanted to could not come close to Singapore’s success in the current crisis.

That being said it’s clear that many people posting on here have never been to Singapore and know even less about life there. People actually trust the government there (regardless of whether or not we consider it authoritarian or a dictatorship etc) so they can mobilise very quickly and respond to this crisis. Civil servants are also paid private sector wages there so you are dealing with very competent officials who are more technocrats than bureaucrats. I could go on but yes, their system is different than ours (and should not be demonized over some silly issue like chewing gum) but it serves its people extremely well and helps give them a very high quality of life.

Sincerely,
US citizen who used to live in Singapore and is now back in DC

Socialism

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Singapore has a population of 6 million. Big deal that they had 6 million masks on hand. Try distributing 300 million across the continental US.

Yeah, it's a single city, with high population density, and total land size about half the size of Montgomery County.

I applaud them, but it's also a lot easier for them to do this. It's like if Jacksonville, Florida decided to give out masks -- its 3x the land size of Singapore.

It’s also a country that’s geographically and economically very close to China which has had minimal deaths and kept from doing a shutdown until this week, despite having cases in January. Plenty of small countries are managing worse than Singapore and every time I see the efficient way they transact with their citizens, I’m envious.

Anonymous wrote:Singapore has a population of 6 million. Big deal that they had 6 million masks on hand. Try distributing 300 million across the continental US.

Yeah, it's a single city, with high population density, and total land size about half the size of Montgomery County.

I applaud them, but it's also a lot easier for them to do this. It's like if Jacksonville, Florida decided to give out masks -- its 3x the land size of Singapore.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They’ve been preparing for months. Here is the Singapore Army preparing masks months ago for the people.

Perhaps New York needs a standing army.

two years of mandatory service for all 18 year old male citizens or permanent residents like Singapore?

Anonymous wrote:They’ve been preparing for months. Here is the Singapore Army preparing masks months ago for the people.

They have mandatory military/national service.

Anonymous wrote:They’ve been preparing for months. Here is the Singapore Army preparing masks months ago for the people.

Perhaps New York needs a standing army.

They’ve been preparing for months. Here is the Singapore Army preparing masks months ago for the people.

Anonymous wrote:Singapore has a population of 6 million. Big deal that they had 6 million masks on hand. Try distributing 300 million across the continental US.

This. You people really need to understand the difference here.

Singapore has a population of 6 million. Big deal that they had 6 million masks on hand. Try distributing 300 million across the continental US.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Iceland tested every one. They found that 50% of Icelandic people have been infected. Majority of them are asymptomatic and healthy. This is a very sparsely populated country that is naturally quarantined and social distanced, where the virus load on an average person is very low and so the individual immune system can fight it off easily.

On this model, we should assume that right now conservatively, 70% of all people in the US have it and everyone is capable of infecting others. Quarantining, masks, washing hands - these are helping everyone to lower the virus load on their body, because some exposure is inevitable.

Next, we need more data to find out -
1) If we are immune once we get it - mild, severe, asymptomatic?
2) What is the impact of the viral load increasing in previously asymptomatic or symptomatic people? Do we relapse?

How can this possibly be assumed when we don’t even get 70% positives testing sick people?

I agree. Without mass testing and then targeted quarantining, we are in a bad shape. The next best thing is country wide lockdown. For states that are not doing this (red southern states) other states should close the borders against them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Iceland tested every one. They found that 50% of Icelandic people have been infected. Majority of them are asymptomatic and healthy. This is a very sparsely populated country that is naturally quarantined and social distanced, where the virus load on an average person is very low and so the individual immune system can fight it off easily.

On this model, we should assume that right now conservatively, 70% of all people in the US have it and everyone is capable Quarantining, masks, washing hands - these are helping everyone to lower the virus load on their body.

Next, we need more data to find out -
1) If we are immune once we get it - mild, severe, asymptomatic?
2) What is the impact of the viral load increasing in previously asymptomatic or symptomatic people? Do we relapse?

How can this possibly be assumed when we don’t even get 70% positives testing sick peope?

50% of diagnosed cases were asymptomatic. NOT 50% of Iceland.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/europe/iceland-testing-coronavirus-intl/index.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/01/europe/iceland-testing-coronavirus-intl/index.html

As of Tuesday, Iceland had tested more than 17,900 people for the virus -- nearly 5% of its population. And while its National University Hospital tests people who are high-risk or show symptoms...

Anonymous wrote:Iceland tested every one. They found that 50% of Icelandic people have been infected. Majority of them are asymptomatic and healthy. This is a very sparsely populated country that is naturally quarantined and social distanced, where the virus load on an average person is very low and so the individual immune system can fight it off easily.

On this model, we should assume that right now conservatively, 70% of all people in the US have it and everyone is capable Quarantining, masks, washing hands - these are helping everyone to lower the virus load on their body.

Next, we need more data to find out -
1) If we are immune once we get it - mild, severe, asymptomatic?
2) What is the impact of the viral load increasing in previously asymptomatic or symptomatic people? Do we relapse?

How can this possibly be assumed when we don’t even get 70% positives testing sick peope?