2020.12.19 07:15:36 (1340178952304771072) from Daniel J. Bernstein, replying to "Peter Todd (@peterktodd)" (1340140109149204480):
From the outset, compared to the successful countries, Canada has not been doing as much to fight COVID. It did enough to eventually get R below 1, but then relaxed in the summer (e.g. starting in July to drop quarantine requirements for travelers) instead of finishing the job.
2020.12.19 07:31:26 (1340182939401822209) from Daniel J. Bernstein:
The U.S. reaction has been even less competent but is pervasively marketed in the U.S. as being the best it could possibly have been. Typical excuses for not reporting what successful countries did: "we can't afford that"; "that wouldn't have helped"; "those countries are lying".
2020.12.17 06:07:36 (1339437063603511298) from Daniel J. Bernstein:
For typical American (and Canadian and so on) readers it's educational to study this document, which spells out tons of sensible things that were already in Thailand's testing strategy early in 2020, and it's embarrassing to see that the U.S. couldn't manage most of these things.
2020.12.18 02:49:07 (1339749503071608832) from "Peter Todd (@peterktodd)":
Huh? Canada (and many other countries) were doing those things. That's just basic "test and trace". It's just not effective enough to catch close enough to 100% of cases to eliminate COVID-19. Canada's tracing infrastructure became overwhelmed and they gave up.
2020.12.18 17:03:13 (1339964445523492864) from Daniel J. Bernstein, replying to "Peter Todd (@peterktodd)" (1339749503071608832):
The Canadian government was already claiming to be doing "very rigorous contact tracing" in late March, and it simply wasn't true: https://nationalpost.com/health/covid-19-it-worked-in-asia-the-who-says-its-crucial-but-is-canada-still-using-contact-tracing Meanwhile they were screwing up most of the toolbox: e.g., actively discouraging mask use. Must be the weather's fault, eh?
2020.12.19 04:41:15 (1340140109149204480) from "Peter Todd (@peterktodd)":
So to claim that Canada is failing *now*, you're using a source from late *March*, a time when and lockdown had been in effect for about two weeks. Indeed, what is your explanation for why deaths/day dropped in Canada, given you think the measures we took were ineffective?