How to defeat COVID-19: Lessons from Asia and Europe

How to defeat COVID-19
Elton B. Sherwin
Environmentalist and Author
Elton@EltonSherwin.com
tiny.cc/COVIDLessons
Lessons from Asia and Europe
November 2020Rev. 32

America Has Had 50 Times More Deaths
Per Capita than the Pacific Democracies
2
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-01-
31..latest&country=AUS~JPN~NZL~KOR~TWN~USA&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc
Pacific Rim Democracies

17&country=AUS~CHN~JPN~NZL~KOR~TWN~USA~SWE~FRA~GBR~ITA~ESP&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&hideControl
s=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc State data:
www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ State data is per 100,000. Country data is per million.
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Spain
United Kingdom
Italy
United States
France
Sweden
California
Australia
Japan
South Korea
New Zealand
Taiwan
Democracies’ Effectiveness
Responding to the
COVID-19 Pandemic
Deaths per Million as of November 17
Cumulative United States Fatalities per million

17&country=AUS~CHN~JPN~NZL~KOR~TWN~USA~SWE~FRA~GBR~ITA~ESP&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&hideControl
s=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc State data:
www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ State data is per 100,000. Country data is per million.
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Spain
United Kingdom
Italy
United States
France
Sweden
California
Australia
Japan
South Korea
New Zealand
Taiwan
Cumulative United States Fatalities per million
What Can We Learn from These
Governments?

The Winning Formula
I read 100s of reports from South Korea,
Taiwan and Japan and concluded…
The Pacific rim democracies that have
contained major outbreaks of COVID-19 have
taken 12 actions that together have proven
amazingly effective.
6

7
31..latest&country=JPN~USA~CAN~Europe&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc
Total COVID-19 Deaths per million inhabitants cumulative
Canada
USA
Europe
Every Large Democracy
that Is NOT Using Asia’s
12-step Plan Is Now
Experiencing a Surge

The West’s Response
8
9. Stay-at-home orders
10. Curfews and
restrictions on large
gatherings
11. “Social distancing”
12. Hygiene and hand
washing
America — and most of Western Europe — initially
focused only on these four:
Now Having Problems with
Large Gatherings Becoming
Super-spreader Events

1. Masks
2. Cellular location data
and apps
3. Clear communication,
free of foreign
disinformation
4. Border restrictions
5. Temperature checks
6. Contact tracing 9
7. Individual quarantines
8. Targeted testing
10. Curfews and
gatherings
washed
The Successful Formula
America’s Grade
on #4 thru #8
D-

1. Masks
2. Cellular location data
and apps
3. Clear communication,
free of foreign
disinformation
4. Border restrictions
5. Temperature checks
6. Contact tracing 10
7. Individual quarantines
8. Targeted testing
10. Curfews and
gatherings
washed
Today: Focus on These Three

Masks
13
And
Most
Importantly
#1

The U.S. vs. Mask-wearing Democracies
The Magnitude and Importance of Masks Usage Can Be
Difficult to Fully Comprehend
14
.
Here I compare fatalities in
the U.S. to fatalities in the
countries with mandatory
mask orders or near
universal mask usage.
31..latest&country=JPN~KOR~TWN~USA~AUT~CZE&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc
Mask-wearing Democracies

The Magic of 80%
What America and Most of Europe Missed
17
Hong Kong Subway
Felix Wong
“…universal masking at
80% adoption flattens
the curve significantly
more than maintaining
a strict lockdown.”*
* https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.13553.pdf

Countries Chose: Masks or Lockdowns
Asia Chose Masks
 Had 1/50 as many deaths
 Very little unemployment
 Strong economies
The West Chose Lockdowns
 50x as many deaths
 Millions unemployed
 Thousands of businesses
permanently closed
18

If You Wear a Mask
You Are Less Likely to Get Sick
And If You Do Get Sick You Are Less Likely to Die
19
www.medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-masks-wearer-coronavirus-sick.html
“…in two recent outbreaks in U.S. food-
processing plants where workers were told
to wear masks, 95% of cases of coronavirus
infections were asymptomatic, and the
remaining 5% experienced only mild-to-
moderate symptoms…”
In America
Percent of those
testing positive with
symptoms
Average 60%
Areas where masks
are prevalent
20%
www.medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-mask-kind-vaccine-covid-.amp

20
If You Wear a Mask
You Are
Less Likely to Get Sick
And If You Do Get Sick
You Are
Less Likely to Be Hospitalized

Effective Use of
Cellular Location Data and Apps
22
Contact and location tracking and modeling
Symptom and temperature monitoring
Tectonix GEO
#2

The Indispensable Role
of Tracking Cell Phones
23
This map shows where cell
phones traveled from the inside
of one Tyson meat processing
plant in Indiana during the month
of March.
Over 900 workers were infected
at this plant.
It is not known how many
people they then infected
outside the plant as employees,
contractors and truckers
crisscrossed the state and then
the entire nation. Tectonix GEO

South Korea’s Automated Contact Tracing System Was
35 to 50 Times Faster than Traditional Manual Methods
24
Like Taiwan, South Korea’s
sophisticated use of information
technology enabled it to quickly
find those who had been
exposed, thus preventing further
transmission.
America has 1,000s of food
processing plants and distribution
centers (Amazon, Walmart, UPS,
Safeway, USPS, KRAFT, etc.)
Most are conveniently located
next to an Interstate highway.Tectonix GEO

What Needs to Be Done?
Make cellular network data available to
public health officials
 Americans get 10 days to opt out
 People who don’t want their phones tracked
 And who don’t want to be notified if they have
been exposed, or exposed someone else
25
Tectonix GEO

And: Develop an App
For symptom monitoring and
contact location tracking
26Oracle app, Zdnet
Modified to include temperature
What is your temperature? 100.1

What if…
 50% of Americans opt out
 And only 10% download
the App?
27
Tectonix GEO

…Thousands of American Lives
Will Still Be Saved
28
Parkland Hospital in Dallas

Copy South Korea and Taiwan
“South Korea and Hong Kong successfully relaxed
pandemic restrictions without having another rise
in cases by [cellular] data sharing, using targeted
testing and contact tracing.” 29
“South Korea successfully flattened
the curve on COVID-19 in 20 days
without enforcing extreme draconian
measures that restrict freedom and
movement of people…”
Hong Kong Subway
Felix Wong
www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-lessons-learned-in-asia-show-us-is-at-risk-of-a-resurge-in-cases-as-states-reopen-businesses.html

South Korea Has Produced a Detailed
“How to Guide” for other Governments
30
The South Korean guide
contains detailed screen shots,
flow diagrams and several
examples of using AI to defeat
COVID-19.
www.moef.go.kr/com/cmm/fms/FileDown.do?atchFileId=ATCH_000000000013739&fileSn=2

I Cannot Find a Single Piece of Advice the
U.S. Federal Government Has Followed
31
240,000+
American
Lives
South Korea flattened
the Curve in 20 days
www.moef.go.kr/com/cmm/fms/FileDown.do?atchFileId=ATCH_000000000013739&fileSn=2
United States
vs
South Korea

Clearly Communicated Information
Free of Foreign Influence
An EU monitoring team
collected 100s of examples of
COVID-19 disinformation from
Russian sources
33
#3
Wikipedia-Weroarnau
* https://euvsdisinfo.eu and https://euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-can-kill/

Messages Originated or Amplified
by Russia
How many have you heard?
 COVID-19 is not dangerous.
 It’s a biological weapon.
 Masks actually make you sick.
 Governments exaggerate the death toll.
 Coronavirus was created in a Wuhan lab.
 The Pentagon developed it.
34
www.euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-can-kill/
and www.euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-cases/?disinfo_keywords%5B0%5D=106935
Kremlin/Wikipedia

If Russia Can Just…
…Convince or confuse an additional 15% of
Americans
 Not to wear masks and
 Not to be vaccinated…
America’s pandemic may go on for an
additional 2+ years 35

Disinformation, Government Missteps, and Pandemic
Fatigue Can Quickly Erase Early Success
36
31..latest&country=JPN~KOR~TWN~USA~AUT~CZE&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc
Mask-wearing
Democracies
It’s a 12-step
Program
Not a 1 Step
Program

Three Quick and Inexpensive Things
America Could Do to Beat this Pandemic
1. Masks
 Get to 80%+ compliance
2. Mobile data
 Location tracking and symptom monitoring
 Public health officials
 Parents and schools
 Employers
3. Messaging
 Consistent and free of foreign interference 39

What Else Can We Learn from Asia?
Every Country in Asia which has controlled COVID-19:
 Extensive use of temperature checks
 Mandatory monitoring of EVERYONE who
exits a hot spot or crosses a border
 Automated, national contact tracking system
 Uses location data from the cellular network
 Following up with everyone who tests positive
40

COVID-19 Spreads More Like
Cigarette Smoke than Windex
Elton’s guidelines
 Avoid indoor spaces
with non-mask wearers
 With non-mask wearers
 Stay 12 feet away
 Max of 2 min. indoors
 Max of 20 min. outdoors
 Always wear a mask
yourself 42
He coughed 15
minutes ago*
* https://quillette.com/2020/04/23/covid-19-superspreader-events-in-28-countries-critical-patterns-and-lessons/

Pre-school to College
Masks or Shields are a Must
44

American
Children
Can Do This
45

What Should America Do?
1. Masks until a vaccine
 You and 80% of your community
2. Ban most indoor activities of more than 10 to 25
people (depending on the activity & degree of community spread).
3. Close indoor bars, restaurants, cafes and gyms.
4. Freeze the opening of onsite programs at
colleges and possibly high schools.
5. Copy South Korea’s Program
 National contact tracing system
 Voluntary use to cellphone data and apps 47
For more indo see: http://tiny.cc/ProgressiveList

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Spain
United States
United Kingdom
Italy
Sweden
France
California
Australia
Japan
South Korea
New Zealand
Taiwan
Questions?
48
1. Masks
2. Mobile data
3. Messaging
Please forward this presentation to
policy makers, local government
officials, and friends and family:
tiny.cc/COVIDLessons

Schools
50
Estimated Risks of Becoming Infected from One
Contagious Asymptomatic Student in a
Classroom

51
Opening Schools,
Summer Camps and Preschools
Without face coverings
Without temperature checks and
Without contact tracing apps
Is like pouring gasoline on a school
And believing there will be no stray
sparks

We Probably Know How to Restart Schools
and Preschools Safely - Are We Willing?
52
It may take three or more years before most students
are vaccinated
1. Masks or face shields, but hopefully not both
2. Temperature checks at school and at home
3. A contact and symptom tracking phone app
4. Procedures and school personnel to deal with
children who have fevers or have been exposed
5. Technology to enable some students to participate
from home – simultaneously with classroom
instruction

How to Fix Social Media
I have several suggestions:
 Ban ads targeted by race or political beliefs: No “micro-
targeting.”
 Ban bots masquerading as people on Twitter and
Facebook.
 Develop tools to identify and take down or stall bots and
misinformation quickly (nationwide in under 10 minutes)
 Limit users to one account per active U.S. cell phone on
Facebook and Twitter.
Require all users on Twitter and FB appearing to be Americans to have U.S. phones
paid for in the U.S. A country-of-origin flag alongside all out-of-country users should
then be displayed. This makes it more difficult for foreign actors to claim to be
American and spread disinformation.
54

What If There Were a Pill…
…safer than a baby aspirin
…with no known side effects
…that protected others from getting COVID-19
Would you take it?
It's not a pill…
…and it only protects other people ~40% of the time
…but most homes have one
What is it? 55

Every Country in Asia Which Has Controlled
COVID-19 Uses Then
Temperature Screening Provides Multiple Benefits
56
 Discouraging individuals with mild
symptoms from going to work or school
 Identifying individuals with fevers for priority
testing
 Identifying offices, workplaces, classrooms
and neighborhoods with hidden outbreaks
 Providing daily monitoring for high risk
individuals and their families www.amazon.com/dp/B0795ZW85G
…It’s a thermometer and

RISING Average Temperature Is
A Harbinger of Bad Things
When the average
temperatures of people in a
prison, or school or preschool
classroom or the town
surrounding a food processing
plant creeps up…
Alarm bells should go off.
57
www.thermoworks.com/wand-blue

Lifesaving Apps Have…
1. Location data for all contacts and logging all
Bluetooth pings and beacons
2. Background operation: App does not need to
be open to function
3. Basic health profile: age, are they members of
vulnerable population?
4. A few simple health and behavior questions:
 Are you coughing ? Do you have a sore throat?
Difficulty breathing? etc.
 Were you wearing mask?
5. Daily temperature of the user recorded 58

Lifesaving Apps Have…
6. The defaults for all of the above should be ON
at installation.
7. Option to share the data with public health
officials (opt out vs. opt in).
8. A simple way for parents, schools, hospitals,
airlines and employers to check the app is
installed correctly and running.
9. Color coding to tell you, a parent, a school, a
restaurant or bus driver if you are likely to be
infected: green, lime green, yellow, red.
10.Interoperability with other states (for travelers and
truckers).
59

“But I don’t want the government
to know where I am…”
 Don’t install the app.
 And opt out.
 However, you might
first check who you are
already trusting with
your location.
 My phone gives my
location to 50 apps,
and 3 all the time… 60

The Winning Formula
The Pacific rim democracies that have contained
major outbreaks of COVID-19 have taken 12
actions that together have proved amazingly
effective.
1. Masks in all work and public environments
2. Cellular location data and apps for contact
tracing, symptom monitoring and forecasting
3. Clear communication, free of foreign
disinformation 61

4. Border restrictions: restricting and monitoring all
individuals entering from affected areas
5. Temperature checks and thermal imaging at home
and entrances to stores, offices and schools
6. Traditional contact tracing (manual)
7. Individual quarantines (separate from families)
8. Targeted testing with multiple follow-ups for all
who test positive
62

The Four America Originally Focused on
9. Stay-at-home orders and home quarantines
with family members
10. Curfews and restrictions on large gatherings
11. “Social distancing” and no handshaking
12. Hygiene and Hand washing
63

64
31..latest&country=JPN~USA~CAN~Europe&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc
Total COVID-19 Deaths per million inhabitants cumulative
Canada
USA
Europe
Every Large Democracy
that Is NOT Using Asia’s
12-step Program Is Now
Experiencing a Surge

The Nordic Counties vs. U.S. and S. Korea
67
We should study Finland
Norway and South Korea
Not Sweden
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-
explorer?zoomToSelection=true&country=KOR~USA~NOR~FIN~SWE&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location

68
References
Nearly 900 workers at a Tyson plant test positive:
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/495564-nearly-900-workers-at-tyson-meat-plant-in-indiana-test-positive-for-coronavirus
Tyson employees, contractors and truckers travel, spreading out across the country:
Video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1258109399073161216
Image: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/cellphone-heat-map-meat-industry/
Scientific papers on the importance of masks:
http://tiny.cc/MaskScience and http://tiny.cc/maskswork and next note
The Magic of 80% masking:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.13553.pdf and http://tiny.cc/KillTheVirus Also see note 4
The CDC: Most persons, 83%–99%, will experience a fever:
www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-guidance-management-patients.html
How Taiwan crushed COVID-19:
www.pbs.org/newshour/show/taiwans-aggressive-efforts-are-paying-off-in-fight-against-covid-19
How Asia contained COVID-19:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/coronavirus-lessons-learned-in-asia-show-us-is-at-risk-of-a-resurge-in-cases-as-states-
reopen-businesses.html

Russian Disinformation
www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-trump-us-disinformation-foreign-interference-2020-4
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/russian-media-spreading-covid-19-disinformation
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/disinformation-can-kill/
www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/us/politics/russia-facebook-twitter-election.html
www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/19/twitter-admits-far-more-russian-bots-posted-on-
election-than-it-had-disclosed
www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/russian-trolls-who-interfered-2016-u-s-election-also-
made-n1013811
www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-state-dept-russia-pushes-covid-19-misinformation-in-online-network-
1.5052855
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/30/facebook-russia-fake-accounts-126-million
www.vox.com/2017/10/31/16587174/fake-ads-news-propaganda-congress-facebook-twitter-google-
tech-hearing
www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/russian-internet-trolls-hired-u-s-journalists-push-their-news-
n1239000
www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/01/facebook-russia-internet-research-agency-fake-news
www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/technology/facebook-russia-disinformation-election.html
www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/technology/peacedata-writer-russian-misinformation.html
69

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