6 ms·

Indeed, the most economically destructive responses like the lockdowns were put into place weeks before less economically destructive responses like widespread

• bgorman 6y ago
  There is a clear goal of lockdown policies in the US: to advance the political ambitions of politicians. Many politicians see this as their time in the spotlight, their time to show off their "executive" skills, their time to blame the other political party/politicians.
• dehrmann 6y ago
  The first sign of leadership issues was entering lockdowns without even vague exit criteria. It's also become clear there was (or is?) no endgame in mind.
  • tly_alex 6y ago
    The exit cretiera is pretty clear to me, which is no new infections for 14 days.
    • mirekrusin 6y ago
      Switzerland is progressively opening up with 200 new daily cases; from this Monday, and larger opening is scheduled for 11th of May.
      • tsbinz 6y ago
        Note that this "opening up" on Monday includes very limited things - stores (that have been open all along since they sell food etc as well) may sell more products, hardware stores (that afaik did not close down in the US) reopen, garden centers, and some services like barbers and that's it ... not much a difference IMO, more like a test drive. The one on May 11 is more open and not entirely uncontroversial (the parts of Switzerland that have been hit harder are not exactly happy that schools are supposed to open - and I have to say "kids aren't likely to transmit covid-19 so opening schools is fine" at the same time as "grandparents shouldn't watch kids because they are at risk" doesn't seem logical to me).
        • mirekrusin 6y ago
          Nurseries are partially opening as well, they have limited capacity (something around 50% at the one our kids are going to). In reality it's not bad because a lot of parents don't want to send kids, so parents who want to, likely can (we can).
    • dehrmann 6y ago
      What if that doesn't happen for 6 months because there are a few cases every other week?
      • tly_alex 6y ago
        I really hope that's not the sitution the US is heading to. But I get your point. Opening up the public gathering business will be gradual process, and the governers of each state could make that decision based on the new cases count.
      • icedchai 6y ago
  • jarjoura 6y ago
    No country that went on lockdown has an exit plan either. Italy is still on lockdown for example.
  • addicted 6y ago
    The exit criteria have been defined by the WHO. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/15/834021103/who-sets-6-conditions-for-ending-a-coronavirus-lockdown https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/15/8340211... Individual governments such as the UK have established less restrictive conditions. The key point is building massive capabilities to test and contact trace so any further outbreak can be contained. Otherwise we will be lurching from lockdown to lockdown. Just because the US Federal government is unable to define criteria, because they don’t want to increase the manufacturing of test kits for political reasons doesn’t mean every other government has no clue.
    • jki275 6y ago
      >Just because the US Federal government is unable to define criteria, because they don’t want to increase the manufacturing of test kits for political reasons doesn’t mean every other government has no clue. Cite please?
    • wutbrodo 6y ago
      > because they don’t want to increase the manufacturing of test kits for political reasons This is the first time I've heard this. Could you expand on what you think these political reasons are?
  • joe_the_user 6y ago
    No, the first sign of "leadership issues" was the US and other states not having a plan and the US in particular not having a mechanism for coordinating action between various parts and levels of government. The lockdowns have come as desperate measures in response to the general confusion and the progression of a deadly epidemic. California is vaguely looking to testing as mechanism for lifting the lockdown. Hopefully, they'll come up with good ideas. The epidemic is still running hot so do have time to think. Having local authorities improvising isn't the best approach by any means. It's still a better approach than a mob of anti-vaxers, Proud Boys and other right wing types improvising or a president who doesn't know biology improvising, to illustrate the mess we're in. This mess, however, is one of those situations where it's incumbent on the critic to come up with something actually better that can be implemented rather than whining that a given solution is far from perfect.
• tsbinz 6y ago
  That "flattening the curve" isn't going to cut it was obvious to people that thought it through from pretty early on (if you look at the capacity of the healthcare system of your country, and look at how broad the curve needs to be, you end up with "years" for any country I looked at). So, the game plan is to hold out until a vaccine is found and tested. Putting the whole population under heavy measures for that long isn't going to work, so you impose very restrictive measures until containment (tracing infected cases and quarantining those that might have been exposed) is feasible again, all the while taking care that you don't allow big explosions of infections (like they had with one patient in South Korea).
  • mirekrusin 6y ago
    Your calculations likely don’t account for immunity gained.
    • toomuchtodo 6y ago
      https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/25/844939777/no-evidence-that-recovered-covid-19-patients-are-immune-who-says https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... ('No Evidence' Yet That Recovered COVID-19 Patients Are Immune, WHO Says)
      • neltnerb 6y ago
        And if that's true, it seems very likely that a vaccine have issues... if an active immune response isn't enough, I don't see how a vaccine would work. I suppose you'd have to administer it in spaced doses like with other vaccines, but that doesn't bode well for resilience against mutations.
    • tsbinz 6y ago
      They do (otherwise your curve would never end without measures that reduce the reproduction number to below 1) and it's not (only) my calculations, these things (at least in Germany) have been published a short time after the lockdown was enacted (eg https://www.dgepi.de/assets/Stellungnahmen/Stellungnahme2020Corona_DGEpi-21032020-v2.pdf https://www.dgepi.de/assets/Stellungnahmen/Stellungnahme2020... - in German unfortunately, number of intensive care beds in Germany was around 30000 at that point so even in the "best case" scenario they look at - 2% of patients need intensive care for 10 days - a curve that does not bust this number extends well beyond the graph which is one year, and not every country has as many ICU beds per resident as Germany has). The "strict measures until we can get back to containment" was also stated recently as the goal by the Swiss authorities ...
• looping__lui 6y ago
  “Indeed, the most economically destructive responses like the lockdowns were put into place weeks before less economically destructive responses like widespread mask use. In fact, when the lockdowns started they were even telling people there was no use for most people to use masks. Responses across the board seem to be random and haphazard.“ I’m going to make this statement my fb profile picture.
• dwpdwpdwpdwpdwp 6y ago
  Not just winging it, but in some instances trying to do the most, consequences be damned. I am really hoping that in a months time the approaches of Sweden and the state of Georgia prove not to be disastrous. Here in California, our governor has declared that we will do this indefinitely (!) until six criteria are met. Well, I hope they have some really concrete plans to meet them, because I haven't seen any such plans presented to the public. The absolute devastation we are doing to the livelihoods of so many is staggering. What will happen when the tax revenues run dry and the tax base has been reduced by some huge percentage? Coronavirus will still be around when that happens. The virus is here, and will not be eradicated. Society cannot hibernate like this sustainably, certainly not until a vaccine arrives. I'm all about masks in public, social distancing rules, bans of large gatherings, and lots of resources directed to protecting vulnerable populations. But I'm afraid and convinced that the stay-at-home orders will do far far greater damage to society as a whole than the virus would/will under a more targeted mitigation scheme. Maybe my fears are overblown because of the recent hit to my mental and physical health. My gym was declared illegal, as was access to all parks in Los Angeles, as was my ability to work in an isolated office without a needy toddler in the room.
  • rbritton 6y ago
    You're going to get massively downvoted here because you dared question the hive mind. None of their approaches place any consideration on the damage caused by the mitigation efforts themselves. Suicides, domestic violence, overdoses, and other negative outcomes are all up and will cost lives. At what point does the conspiracy theory that much of it is a pure power grab become validated?
  • Hokusai 6y ago
    > the approaches of Sweden and the state of Georgia prove not to be disastrous. Sweden has a strong well being systems. People stays at home every winter during the flu seasons. In any given meeting there are a couple of employees working from home because they may have the flu. To compare the social protections of Sweden that allow citizens to stay home when sick ALWAYS, not just for the current pandemic, with the USA approach of come-to-work-or-you-are-fired is not reasonable. The USA should pay more to their employees, have better healthcare coverage, give paid leave, and forbid free lay offs. And then, it would be in a position to postpone, lets see for how long, the shutdowns in a pandemic. Sweden without lock down: Workplaces -32% New York with lock downs: Workplaces -48% I have the fear that the same Americans that want the "Swedish approach to CoVid19" are the ones against the social safety nets that has made it possible. - https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-04-17_SE_Mobility_Report_en.pdf https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-04-17_SE_Mobil... - https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-04-11_US_New_York_Mobility_Report_en.pdf https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-04-11_US_New_Y...
• Izkata 6y ago
  > But many (though not all) hospitals are seeing a decline of cases and even furloughing workers because of lack of activity. I'm thinking: Give it time/we need another solution, because even under lockdown, cases will kick back up. Illinois went into lockdown March 21, so given the incubation period no effect was expected to be seen until the beginning of April - which is exactly what happened, between the last few days of March and April 13, the growth rate plummeted - from 20-40% to 4-6%. The drop in new cases during that period made it look like we were past the peak, but since then it's been really stable at 4-6%, so we are coming up on a second peak in the future. That's when I expect the extra capacity will be needed. In absolute numbers, it's already at 3x new cases per day with the slower rate than it was back at the higher rate.
• neltnerb 6y ago
  Waiting to decide isn't necessarily the same as deciding nothing. For instance, now we know that COVID causes substantial blod clotting issues and that these are possibly the cause of fatality rather than SARS. This is super useful to know when deciding to treat you; I'm no doctor (that kind anyway) and this seems obvious. So the later any specific case happens, the better the likely outcome. Multiply that by the number of cases, and it absolutely starts to make a lot of sense to wait to decide until you know more. Certainly the number of patients who come down with it in the Fall will have a lower fatality rate than the very first patients who got it, barring mutation that makes it more lethal for some other reason. Gathering information takes time so delaying until that information exists isn't the same as winging it.