Comment by jariel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jariel | Hacker News Reader

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"Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam have much less restricted societies right now "

Those are inherently 'rules based' societies though where government also has an incredible amount of power to intervene.

If the 'general rules' both administrative and social were enforced in the West, we'd probably have a revolution.

It was never about 'lock-downs' over there - it was 'all of the other things' they did.

They were way more interventially concientous than us: when you land in Taiwan, they physically check you in your home to make sure you're in quarantine. They give you masks. They follow up. The Koreans do mass contact tracing, they search your Facebook + Social Media. Those are things that Americans in particular would balk at.

Paradoxically - Korea and Japan have particularily high suicide rates and my 'unscientific hunch' is that the high degree of social structure and expectations are the driving cause. While they may yield compliant, conscientious people - those who do 'fall of the bandwagon' really do fall off.

Taiwan response [1]

[1] https://www.asiapacific.ca/publication/secret-taiwans-succes...

> Those are inherently 'rules based' societies though where government also has an incredible amount of power to intervene.

Australia had a lockdown. The state I am in had a complete lockdown where our borders were even closed to other states in Australia. Melbourne had the longest, and toughest lockdown in the country. Since late August, the virus has been wiped clean from my state and there is no community transmission. This means that the lockdown was lifted, and businesses allowed to open as per normal except some slight contact tracing procedures in place. The story is fairly similar in rest of the country (except maybe Melbourne which had a second wave and needed another lockdown). While there is a small cluster in North Sydney, it is fairly small and hopefully contained. I go to work everyday, all businesses are open, and economy had one of the most minimal effects.

Australia isn't a very "rules-based" society either so a counter-example to consider.

In Australia we had a very tight 4 month long lockdown in our second biggest city: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54686812

It worked.

> If the 'general rules' both administrative and social were enforced in the West, we'd probably have a revolution.

We didn't.

?

A lengthy lockdown will obviously reduce the virus dramatically. Who is doubting that?

"If the 'general rules' both administrative and social were enforced in the West, we'd probably have a revolution."

Everywhere there was 'peak COVID' had lockdowns - but if the lockdown were as severe and controlled as Wuhan, or as consistentely interventional as Taiwan or Hong Kong, there would be revolts.

Much of that they did would be probably anti-constitutional and definitely challenged in courts by those who disagree.

If the police or medical authorities were going through facebook accounts for contract-tracing, there'd be a revolt, certainly in America, probably in Australia. The 'public health' issue is secondary, there are just enough people who'd consider that to be 'anti Constitutional' that it'd be a serious problem.

Politicians everywhere are testing the limits of what they can get away with, this is not a joke.

There are protests all over the Western world not being covered by the press because everyone is afraid the populism could get out of hand.

Case and point: Christmas. If this were any other time of year, the lockdown would have come sooner, but politicans were far too afraid, so in most places, they waited until just after. The UK had no choice to go before XMass.

In Australia:

- The lockdown in Melbourne was not dissimilar to China’s Wuhan lockdown.

- Police and Medical Authorities did go through facebook (publicly, not any kind of hacking) for contact tracing and policing of people breaking health orders.

- It was not anti-constitutional (because Australia has a different constitution) and Australia has specific laws that allow (in emergencies like pandemics) the Chief Health Officers to override existing laws.

- There were no revolts, in fact there is continued wide spread support for the state government in Victoria, and the federal government in Australia for their response.

There was one guy who revolted with some unrelated conspiracy stuff and got arrested in his house. A pregnant woman tried to start a party with friends that was flagrantly against the measures and was arrested.

Law and order problems still exist even in a lockdown and I think in Feb we'll see people push back against the oppressive atmosphere.

Did you read the link I posted?

The Melbourne lockdown was as tight as anything in China and yes they did compulsory contact tracing including social media investigations.

We also have a phone app for contact tracing. The biggest issue with that is that it doesn't work, not privacy concerns.

Protests against it were widely covered here in Australia. There was little popular support for them, and the Premier of the state (think US Governer) is seeing his highest polling support ever.

Sure, I agree in the US there are groups that have been much more effective in exploiting fears of government than elsewhere. But the US is a pretty unique situation.

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