Apparently people don't realize that all these SE Asian countries whose covid numbers they're busy insisting are wrong based on zero evidence are a big reason why bird flu didn't become a global pandemic. I guess it's easier to be racist than admit they might be good at this.

I mean, questioning whether Japanese numbers were artificially deflated because of the Olympics, *when epidemiologists in Japan were asking the same question* is one thing, but insisting all of SE Asia isn't giving real numbers because they're better counts than Europe is racist.

I mean, Thailand had their first case on January 13. Italy had their first case February 22. They're similar size countries in population and roughly similar shape, but Italy's medical system collapsed while Thailand's is functional and reported under 3,000 cases and 43 deaths.

Even if you were to accept that Thailand could be undercounting to a certain degree, since Iceland is the only country small enough to test everybody, they've clearly got it under control. If they didn't, we'd see their medical system getting swamped.

Same thing with Vietnam's count of under 300 cases. They've had it longer than anybody in Europe, have a bigger population than any country in Europe, and if they really weren't keeping it contained, it would be obvious by now.

And to circle back around to where I started this thread, epidemiologists were all afraid bird flu would mutate to person-to-person spread and become the next global pandemic, but SE Asia successfully kept it contained so it never got the chance to infect enough people to mutate.

The reason we didn't all end up locked in our houses like this a decade ago, and bird flu is a faint memory instead is because SE Asian countries stopped it before it became a thing. It shouldn't be any surprise that they've done a good job with containing Covid-19.