Which countries have the richest cultures?

Asked on Quora.

My answer

This is not an easy country to answer. Certainly India and China have offered much as an earlier answer already outlined but size isn’t always the key driver. Where for example would classical music be without the Austrians? or sculpture without the Italian Renaissance? The Flemish in Belgium contributed much to our understanding of Painting.

Judaism as a civilization added much to our theological understanding which in turn drives culture, while the Greeks defined our sense of beauty through their work in Art and Architecture.

In the Western realm (as in most other civilizations) culture is fusion of many streams, an ongoing evolving dynamic that has been built from several sources.

Having said that I agree that the Eastern Civilizations have a great heritage but I would also argue that in the last four hundred years the pendulum in cultural richness has swung more to the West where a greater openness to disparate ideas is most apparent.

My letter to John Campbell

John Campbell is a retired Professor of nursing who lives in the UK. I have been watching his youtube site religiouslys it is a wonderful source for COVID-19 information.

Here is the letter I just sent him. Curious if he will reply.

Hi John

I am a huge fan of your youtube videos. I watch them regularly here in Canada.

I was going through the data and I noticed that New York State (based on the Worldometer data) has 901 deaths/1 million people. It seems that the state number could unfortunately hit the 1000 deaths/1 million figure sometime this week which means that 1/1000 of the states's population would have died as a result of this illness. This of course corresponds to 0.1% of the State's population. Unless the entire state is infected (very doubtful especially with herd immunity at 70%) this implies that anything below 0.1% for lethality is way off (ballpark of the Stanford study). In fact if herd immunity is to be considered I would be skeptical of anything below 0.2% (twice the lethality of seasonal flu).

Now if the Dutch study you referenced yesterday is to be believed (and I realize that there is a danger with extrapolations) than that would imply that 100/6.7 = 15% of the population is infected. The Dutch lethality rate is 0.67% or so. At a 0.3% infection rate (somewhere in between the two studies) 33% of New York could be infected...almost halfway to herd immunity.

Here is another take.... Iceland has 9 deaths out of 1760 cases (see worldometer). The country has also tested over 12% of its population. Even in such a biased case sample the death rate for those infected is only 0.51%. Apply said figure to New York would translate to 20-25% of the population infected.

I realize that there are assumptions implicit here (accurate population accounts, regional transference of data, quality of healthcare, accuracy of testing, small number jitter) but there may be something worth thinking about here.

Anyway. Just some food for thought.

COVID NEWS #2

Dutch study seems to indicate that COVID lethality is probably lower than 1%. Positive sign.
Source: US News

The Curve flattens in Canada (mostly).
Source: Global News

US enters First Phase of Federal reopening. New York is unlikely to follows soon.
Source: CBC

China adds 1454 more to its death toll. Still seems far less than the real number.
Source: Globe and Mail

This delay from China didn't help either.
China didn't warn public of likely pandemic for 6 crucial days. Its economy though is in a severe downturn

Remdesivir experimental drug is looking more promising by the day.
Source: Remdesivir

COVID NEWS #1

Russian propaganda has consistently downplayed COVID's impact on their country. The gig looks to be up.
Source: The Guardian

WHO really needs to be taken to task over this. Their early errors and omissions greatly hurt the global fight against COVID, If they fumble so badly on issues of this nature what is their overriding function?

Source: Daily Caller

Great news on the Canadian front. The Rapid Test is a big necessity.
Source: Global News

Hell freezing over...Gavin Newsom follows Andrew Cuomo in praising Trump. To be fair he returned the compliments.
Source: Daily Wire

Thanks very much Alberta. Province will donate PPE, ventilators to the rest of Canada.
Source: Calgary Herald

Daily laugh

Uber Leftist Bill De Blasio (talking about COVID) : "In this case I'll call myself a conservative. We have to be smart about this!" 😀😁

Staggered Opening is obvious.

The COVID-19 infection is heavily weighted toward the Tri-State Area (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut). The trio are officially numbers 1, 2 and 3 with respect to deaths per million and account for close to 55% of all deaths in the US. Other hotspots nationwide are Michigan (Detroit area), Louisiana (around New Orleans), Boston and the District of Colombia. Washington state has high numbers but seems further ahead of the curve than the rest of the US (Seattle was ground zero for the American outbreak).

A targeted US strategy for opening up the economy will likely be implemented in stages with these hotspots slated for the final phase. In a country as large as the US( pop. 328.4 million) there may be no other way to relax the lockdown and social distancing constraints unless a regional specific timeline is followed.

Canada may have to adopt a similar approach. BC for one looks to be further ahead in the COVID-19 death curve than the rest of the country. Same is true with Alberta.

Retrospect on Sweden...Some good some bad

Sweden's death rate (118 per million million) stacks up poorly against the other Nordic countries - Denmark (53), Norway (28) and Finland (18) but compared to most other Western European countries not withstanding Germany (43) it is doing relatively well. Spain (397), Italy (358), France (263), UK (190), Netherlands (183), Belgium (383) and Switzerland (143) all have higher death rates than Sweden. If it does better with respect to a second wave (could be the case with its more lax approach) the Swedes may have the last laugh. Its economy economic could be spared the brunt of a U shaped recovery that many strong lockdown countries are sure to face.