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Comment by 9nGQluzmnq3M | Hacker News Reader

The jury is still very much out for many Asian countries (India, Indonesia, etc), and there are a plethora of other factors that can explain the difference: demographics, genetics, comorbidities, sunlight (UV-B), heat/humidity, access to testing etc.

Also, the virus originated from one point (Wuhan) and was spread more or less simultaneously across the world. It would be quite odd if one strain hopped on all the west/east-bound planes, while another strain found its way only to the south-bound planes. Not to mention that the 'second wave' of infections in APAC originated largely from Europe.

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The hypothesis is the mutation occurred outside of Asia, and countries in Asia closed ports after the initial infections, but before the mutation.

> sunlight (UV-B), heat/humidity

Much of Asia is in the northern hemisphere (e.g. China and Japan); same season as Europe and USA.

Australia is in Asia too, close to China with much travel between.

I agree there are many factors and it's early. But the low cases and deaths over all countries in Asia has a peculiar uniformity - in contrast to elsewhere.

> Australia is in Asia too, close to China

Most geographers would disagree. It's a 12-hour flight from Beijing to Sydney, no closer than Beijing to San Francisco.

The continent of Australia is massive. It contains many distinct ecosystems.

Referring to Australia as being "close to China" is like saying Russia is close to England. It's its own continent.

To put it in more concrete terms, any (direct) flight you look up from Wuhan to any city in Australia is 12+ hours. That's a much longer flight than New York to London.

Wow, HN is strange sometimes. Have covid19 strains become political/tribal somehow?

I'm just pointing out something interesting in the data I was curious about. It's a pity HN picks out one detail and ignores the interesting thing... but upon reflection, pedantry is typical of today's HN, and partly why pg withdrew.

Regarding Australia, it's often said we are in the Asia region. And for the specific purposes here, of initial transmission, we have much contact with China, through tourism, education, primary produce and trade in general. It's expected we'd get initial infection direct from China (which trwcing shows we did), rather than via Europe.

I didn't downvote you (can't even if I wanted to since you replied to me!), but the difference in outcomes is unlikely to be explained solely by differing strains, and there's no evidence at this time that the mutations have any biologically meaningful difference:

https://www.virology.ws/2020/05/07/there-is-one-and-only-one...

Thanks. I did say it was only "suggestive".

A series of similar events in similar circumstances can be explained by a series of different causes, but it seems worth looking at a similar cause, no? This is at the stage of initial hypothesis.

Gosh, maybe people thought I was saying it was the absolute truth.

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