<story><title>There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic</title><url>https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/05/15/there-have-been-7m-13m-excess-deaths-worldwide-during-the-pandemic</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>greenwich26</author><text>The average age in many African countries is in the mid teens, and we know that age is one of the strongest risk gradients. So Africa is not at all comparable with the aging West. Australia and NZ have the huge advantage of no land borders. Everything and everyone comes through a few ports and airports, which already had the infrastructure established to tightly control and monitor everything. Meanwhile most European or North American countries can&amp;#x27;t close their sprawling land borders without starving their populations. (And the U.S. couldn&amp;#x27;t close its land borders even if it wanted to.)</text></item><item><author>candu</author><text>IMHO if you want to understand what an effective response looks like - don&amp;#x27;t look at North America or Europe.  Think Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, and many parts of Africa, all of which had &lt;i&gt;vastly&lt;/i&gt; better outcomes.&lt;p&gt;Of course, I&amp;#x27;m not an epidemiologist or public health expert, so while I have some guesses I&amp;#x27;m not sure what exactly they did that was more effective - but there&amp;#x27;s no question that it was more effective.  If I was going to look for case studies to understand what to do next time, I&amp;#x27;d start there.  If I was going to look for case studies to understand what not to do next time, well...</text></item><item><author>khazhoux</author><text>This has me a bit confused: I look at the stats on cases and deaths per capita across various U.S. states, including California (which was very locked down, at least in theory) and Florida (which was flippant towards risks of contagion), and many states in between.  The per capita cases+deaths are nearly identical across many states with very different approaches. This left me really wondering which measures were and weren&amp;#x27;t necessary.  Anyone seen good studies or analysis on this?&lt;p&gt;Legitimate question, please no political commentary.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sellyme</author><text>&amp;gt; Australia and NZ have the huge advantage of no land borders.&lt;p&gt;Australia had a major outbreak in Victoria in July last year. Victoria has a 2,550km land border with other states, including with South Australia, which peaked at 10 active cases over the same time period.&lt;p&gt;The evidence shows that strict quarantining and early lockdowns prevent spread even when there&amp;#x27;s an outbreak on the other side of a land border, and it also shows that being an island doesn&amp;#x27;t help at all if you &lt;i&gt;don&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; do this (see also: the United Kingdom). I don&amp;#x27;t know why people constantly act like Australia and New Zealand only succeeded because they&amp;#x27;re islands when they were locking cities down at single digit case counts while the United States and India were packing stadiums full of people when they were getting tens of thousands of new infections a day.</text></comment>
<story><title>There have been 7M-13M excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic</title><url>https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/05/15/there-have-been-7m-13m-excess-deaths-worldwide-during-the-pandemic</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>greenwich26</author><text>The average age in many African countries is in the mid teens, and we know that age is one of the strongest risk gradients. So Africa is not at all comparable with the aging West. Australia and NZ have the huge advantage of no land borders. Everything and everyone comes through a few ports and airports, which already had the infrastructure established to tightly control and monitor everything. Meanwhile most European or North American countries can&amp;#x27;t close their sprawling land borders without starving their populations. (And the U.S. couldn&amp;#x27;t close its land borders even if it wanted to.)</text></item><item><author>candu</author><text>IMHO if you want to understand what an effective response looks like - don&amp;#x27;t look at North America or Europe.  Think Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, and many parts of Africa, all of which had &lt;i&gt;vastly&lt;/i&gt; better outcomes.&lt;p&gt;Of course, I&amp;#x27;m not an epidemiologist or public health expert, so while I have some guesses I&amp;#x27;m not sure what exactly they did that was more effective - but there&amp;#x27;s no question that it was more effective.  If I was going to look for case studies to understand what to do next time, I&amp;#x27;d start there.  If I was going to look for case studies to understand what not to do next time, well...</text></item><item><author>khazhoux</author><text>This has me a bit confused: I look at the stats on cases and deaths per capita across various U.S. states, including California (which was very locked down, at least in theory) and Florida (which was flippant towards risks of contagion), and many states in between.  The per capita cases+deaths are nearly identical across many states with very different approaches. This left me really wondering which measures were and weren&amp;#x27;t necessary.  Anyone seen good studies or analysis on this?&lt;p&gt;Legitimate question, please no political commentary.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stubish</author><text>Being an island might make it easier to close borders, but the point is that closing them was likely hugely significant. I&amp;#x27;d argue that borders remained open in many countries areas largely due to a lack of will. You could certainly close borders to most tourists and business travelers in any country that does immigration control, like Australia did. You can also close interstate land borders, like Australia did. You can even close borders to major cities, like Australia did. You don&amp;#x27;t need to close borders to food deliveries, just budget for the logistical headaches. You do have to pay the political and economic cost though. Australia was watching with both envy and horror when we started seeing stories of British people able to go on holidays to Europe again.</text></comment>