Thread by @Ayjchan

"People have already endured the pain of lockdowns once. They’re tired of the pandemic, and leaders in some cities and states are even fighting back against federally imposed measures."

vox.com/21514530/europ…

What's happening in Europe?

UK: hospitals "will run out of capacity in weeks"

PM announced a second (4-week) lockdown to prevent a "medical and moral disaster" + "the furlough system paying 80% of employee wages will be extended through November."

bbc.com/news/uk-547639…

France: ">half of the country's intensive care beds are already filled with Covid-19 patients"

Germany: "(Merkel) had wanted to act sooner but had faced opposition from.., regional leaders. “If we wait until the ICUs are full, then it will be too late“"

nbcnews.com/news/world/fra…

Belgium: "tough restrictions were failing to work.. deaths were doubling every six days" + "the highest number of coronavirus infections per 100,000... in Europe"

Also, Greece, Spain, Italy implement strict curfews in response to record rise in cases.

theguardian.com/world/2020/oct…

What about Asia?

Japan: "managed to avoid “explosive” infections as in Europe and the U.S. without enforcing lockdowns.. likely thanks to the common use of face masks and disinfectant.. common preventive measures including social distancing."

apnews.com/article/intern…

South Korea: highest no. of new daily cases in a month = 155 new cases (pop 51.6 million)

Germany: highest no. of new daily cases in a month = 11,000 new cases (pop 83 million)

cnn.com/world/live-new…

Before people start telling me that Asian people are immune to SARS2 because of exposure to bats... I don't know what your imagination is, but people in most Asian (non-Chinese) cities don't get exposed to SARS bats, just like people in most Western cities.

I can't understand people who pin the low COVID case counts in some asian countries on miraculous immunity to SARS (there are asian countries that are suffering major outbreaks + even Wuhan had a massive outbreak initially) instead of their super strong public health measures.

Your hypothesis is that the low COVID count in Asia is not due to the strong public health measures, but instead due to an amazing situation where Asian people across multiple countries have been exposed to coronaviruses that have decided not to spread to Western countries.