Interesting How The Lock-Downs Are Being Administered Elsewhere
Seems like most of the posts of lately revolve around numbers and statistics and lot's of disagreements about what all of it means.
I saw two videos yesterday of how other Cities were managing things. In Wuhan in China apparently they have a scan code on your phone which has a green, yellow, and red color. Supposedly with the green code your cleared to go places where it's allowed, I wasn't clear on the yellow but I think it means you needed to be checked in some way before being allowed somewhere, and red meaning your were totally locked down. Maybe some other posters can explain it better.
Now let's go to Dubai in the UAE, they recently instigated a 24 hour curfew and you are only allowed out if you have obtained a permit. You apply on line and fill out a form with all kinds of questions like where your going like to a market or pharmacy, and so on, and how will you get there, by car or on foot. No exercising or walking the dog allowed. You enter the information with your ID and then are issued a permit with a time window when you can depart. The reporter said they got a response in five minutes so that part is good but lots of restrictions and a $ 1200 fine for violating the permit.
Now lets go to Southern California were I am, after seeing these two videos I become depressed thinking about how restricting this was being basically on the end of a leash, and what the future might be like. I live in a beach town and the entire beach, parking lot, pier and water are shutdown and the lifeguards are patrolling the sand to enforce it. I got in my car and drove down to the next beach town as I had heard it was open and wanted to see for myself. None of the public parking lots were open, but the beach was in full swing with surfers out in the water, along with beach chairs, umbrellas, and families playing in the sand like a completely normal summer day.
I am having a hard time reconciling all this, it's hard to fathom, scary, and defy's logic as to how things can be so different not only all over the World, but in the USA as well.
Some lockdown information
There are quite a few small countries that have not gone into lockdown, but the population is so small that I don't think it's beneficial to look at them. I found three countries that have not had any required lockdowns, and each have about 10 million people - Belarus, Hungary, and Sweden.
Belarus: The number of cases and deaths have been at a plateau since the beginning. The reported number of deaths is 21 per one million population.
Hungary: The number of cases and deaths reached a peak and have been going down. The reported number of deaths is 23 per one million population.
Sweden: The number of cases seem to be at a plateau, but the number of deaths still has some high peaks. The reported number of deaths is 192 per one million population.
As a comparison, the number of deaths in the US is 144 per one million population.
Italy and Spain have been in a national lockdown since mid March. Their numbers of deaths per one million population are 415 and 464, respectively.
Personally, I think the lockdown and social distancing in the US have had an influence on the rise in numbers of cases and deaths, but they may have extended the time of the virus.