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Apparently people don& #39;t realize that all these SE Asian countries whose covid numbers they& #39;re busy insisting are wrong based on zero evidence are a big reason why bird flu didn& #39;t become a global pandemic. I guess it& #39;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& #39;t giving real numbers because they& #39;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& #39;re similar size countries in population and roughly similar shape, but Italy& #39;s medical system collapsed while Thailand& #39;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& #39;ve clearly got it under control. If they didn& #39;t, we& #39;d see their medical system getting swamped.
Same thing with Vietnam& #39;s count of under 300 cases. They& #39;ve had it longer than anybody in Europe, have a bigger population than any country in Europe, and if they really weren& #39;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.
