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Many of you have seen this chart. It was a powerful chart for #masks4all. But it may be time to revise it. Thread begins.
It is simple. Singapore has not been a mask country during Coronavirus time. They have never been a universal masking country. In fact, it has been much less than 50%. This is a video from March 22.

youtube.com/watch?time_con…
Japan needs a closer look. Certainly more people in Japan wore masks than people in most other countries since the beginning of Coronavirus. But it was far short of universal. I see 70% or less until late March. See this video from March 5.

youtube.com/watch?time_con…
On the other hand, Hong Kong has been a consistent universal mask wearer from the end of January. This one is from January 30, and you see over 90% with masks on.

youtube.com/watch?v=z1oQJE…
Taiwan also had an early start. I see over 90% wearing masks in this video from January 30.

youtube.com/watch?time_con…
Korea was later than Hong Kong or Taiwan. But it was a universal masking country by the end of February. See this from February 27.

youtube.com/watch?time_con…
So how are they doing against the virus? Aren't they all doing great? They were, a month ago. Now they look different.

Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea are doing well. But Singapore and Japan are having some difficulties recently.
This is Taiwan's new cases. They had a crisis of increasing new cases from mid March. But they quickly, in about 10 days, started bending the curve. Image
This is Hong Kong. The pattern is rather similar to Taiwan. About 2 weeks of growth and then down. Image
Korea had the crisis much earlier, but the pattern looks similar. About 2 weeks of new case growth, and then down turn. Image
Singapore is having a problem more recently. We have to see longer, but so far the pattern seems different from those of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea. It seems growing longer than 2 weeks. Image
Japan is having a difficult time too. I don't know where to draw the start line, but the trend seems steadier and longer than in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Korea. Image
How about their quarantine practices? Looking at Google mobility data, we can see these five countries (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Singapore) are all much looser than Europe or the US.

This is retail & recreation. Think restaurant, shopping mall, theme park. Image
And this is transit stations. Image
How about test and trace, that have received the most attention among Asian anti-virus practices?

The number of tests per population does not seem different between these Asian countries and others. Taiwan is lower than US, UK and Spain. Image
But tests per infected case seem very related to the performance. The countries that we are looking at, except for Japan, are all highly ranked.

Yes, I know. Vietnam. How can we not notice? Image
Vietnam traced not just direct contacts of the infeced, but also 2nd, 3rd contacts. That's how they tested so many per case.

dw.com/en/how-vietnam…
Go back a few tweets in the thread, you will see Vietnam showed much larger drop in mobility. That seems to have resulted from stronger lockdown practices.
And it seems Vietnam was not so much of a mask wearer. This is from March 4, and you see few with a mask. Maybe they thought the virus was gone, as they did not see new cases for days after some in February.

youtube.com/watch?v=ipelrR…
Now some conclusions. It seems that test and trace is effective in the early stage when you are dealing with a small number of infected people.

But it is never perfect. The countries that testes and traced the most rigorously all eventually met with fast growing new cases.
You need a broader or mass solution, whether you can use the targeted solution of test and trace.

There are two mass preventive solutions. Lockdown and mask. Based on my observation, here are some countries on the matrix. Image
Both seem to work. All countries use a mix of both. In the worst case, we'll need to use both to the maximum. Otherwise we have choices. We can go for more lockdown, or more mask.

Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea have done very well. So we know high mask low lockdown can work.
And mask is much more friendly to the economy. Just look back again at the mobility charts. And the impact to the economy.

So, let's go for universal masking, and adjust the level of quarantine according to your situation. And save lives as well as the economy.

This is the end of the thread, which is a summary of my post here. See more videos and charts there. #masks4all

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