3 ms·

The purpose of the lockdown is not to prevent everyone from getting the disease, or to hide in our homes until it magically goes away. The stated purpose of th

The purpose of the lockdown is not to prevent everyone from getting the disease, or to hide in our homes until it magically goes away. The stated purpose of the lockdown was to 'flatten the curve'. Don't go moving goalposts on us all now that we've flattened the curve, especially when we're talking about people's constitutional rights.

exmadscientist 7y ago
Moving the goalposts was always the idea. That's what the governor here in WA did, and said as much. I, personally, am livid that the construction site right outside my bedroom window is now allowed to make ungodly amounts of noise for 15 hours a day and I have nowhere to go. This is insane. Lockdowns have a tremendous cost in mental health. There's a point at which the toll is simply too high. We're not there yet, but it's not far. And waiting until "the data shows it" through elevated suicide rate is... not how I want us to play this, as a society.
- koenigdavidmj 7y ago
  Moving the goalposts could probably be a confusing bit of terminology here. OP means that the original intention was “lock down so that we don’t run out of ICU beds”, and now it is “lock down until there’s a vaccine”. The end condition is being changed every time we get close to it.
jshevek 7y ago
I agree that there are a lot of problems with continuing the lockdown as it currently stands. However, the phrase "now that we've flattened the curve" could be interpreted to imply the curve can't quickly become unflattened, which would be wrong.
justin66 7y ago
The only thing that is going to keep the curve flat (this is kind of a mind-numbing terminology) is human behavior. Exponential growth is still a thing, and we aren't anywhere near achieving herd immunity. (a physician friend mentioned the other day that we're not truly certain yet that COVID 19 sufferers cannot be reinfected, although that's the popular assumption. So there's also that)
- maverick2007 7y ago
  Out of curiosity because I have little to no knowledge of immunology: what do you think that means if someone that already had the disease can be reinfected? Does that have any implication on the efficacy of a vaccine?
  - justin66 7y ago
    The physician I talked to was basically trying to rain on my parade when I said "hey, it will be great when there's a vaccine and we can all go back to normal." Maybe, maybe not. I don't know that much about it, but sometimes people infected with a coronavirus can get sick again, not as ill as they were previously, but contagious. [1] COVID 19 hasn't been analyzed well enough, long enough to say for certain. There were some scary stories early on, a month or two ago, about people becoming reinfected with full blown cases of COVID 19, but they really felt more like uncertain anecdotes. I strongly suspect the immunologists will know a lot more about this in just a few weeks. Researchers are already giving people test vaccines and sending them out into the world. In a nasty - hypothetical - reality where people regularly get reinfected: things do not go back to normal, and we have to figure a lot of difficult social stuff out. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-immunity-remains-big-question-mark-for-a-country-eager-to-reopen/2020/04/14/2c8ccbf4-7e49-11ea-a3ee-13e1ae0a3571_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-immunity-r...
  - exmadscientist 7y ago
    Unfortunately, yes. Consider the common cold: yes, it does mutate fast, but the other big barrier to producing a vaccine is that immunity to it doesn't last very long at all. So if COVID-19 immunity truly doesn't last long, that's a problem. I doubt this is likely to be the case, though. Antibodies to SARS seemed to have long lifetimes (several years), and COVID is likely to be similar. It is certainly possible that for some people, immunity fades much faster for reasons specific to that person, and that may be what is being picked up in these reports. It is also possible it's just shoddy lab work. There has been a ton of that going around lately, and it's not just caused by pressure from the situation. Not all scientists are equally competent.... (Disclaimer: my knowledge of immunology is likely little better than yours, but I did at least used to be a Real Scientist in a different field.)
flatline 7y ago
The situation is rapidly developing. Our knowledge is constantly growing and will continue to do so. Under these circumstances, I don't think moving the goalposts is avoidable. Nobody is hoping for magic: they are waiting till it's safe to go outside. Perhaps a vaccine will make that a reality in...a couple years? Regardless of what the government does, I say, prepare for a long haul. On the one hand there is a tremendous amount of real damage being done by everyone sheltering in place. On the other hand it's not the government's orders that are the direct cause, so much as the virus itself. We are in a global pandemic. It is unprecedented. Telling everyone to go outside again is not going to magically make it happen. Can you imagine re-opening schools right now? Summer camps? It would be sheer carnage, and those who do want to protect themselves will be less able to do so. It would just shift the pain points around, and cause a lot of deaths right away. Would that be worse than it is right now? Probably. Would it be worse than another six months of sheltering in place? Nobody knows!

exmadscientist 7y ago

Moving the goalposts was always the idea. That's what the governor here in WA did, and said as much. I, personally, am livid that the construction site right outside my bedroom window is now allowed to make ungodly amounts of noise for 15 hours a day and I have nowhere to go. This is insane. Lockdowns have a tremendous cost in mental health. There's a point at which the toll is simply too high. We're not there yet, but it's not far. And waiting until "the data shows it" through elevated suicide rate is... not how I want us to play this, as a society.

koenigdavidmj 7y ago
Moving the goalposts could probably be a confusing bit of terminology here. OP means that the original intention was “lock down so that we don’t run out of ICU beds”, and now it is “lock down until there’s a vaccine”. The end condition is being changed every time we get close to it.

jshevek 7y ago

I agree that there are a lot of problems with continuing the lockdown as it currently stands. However, the phrase "now that we've flattened the curve" could be interpreted to imply the curve can't quickly become unflattened, which would be wrong.

justin66 7y ago

The only thing that is going to keep the curve flat (this is kind of a mind-numbing terminology) is human behavior. Exponential growth is still a thing, and we aren't anywhere near achieving herd immunity. (a physician friend mentioned the other day that we're not truly certain yet that COVID 19 sufferers cannot be reinfected, although that's the popular assumption. So there's also that)

maverick2007 7y ago
Out of curiosity because I have little to no knowledge of immunology: what do you think that means if someone that already had the disease can be reinfected? Does that have any implication on the efficacy of a vaccine?
- justin66 7y ago
  The physician I talked to was basically trying to rain on my parade when I said "hey, it will be great when there's a vaccine and we can all go back to normal." Maybe, maybe not. I don't know that much about it, but sometimes people infected with a coronavirus can get sick again, not as ill as they were previously, but contagious. [1] COVID 19 hasn't been analyzed well enough, long enough to say for certain. There were some scary stories early on, a month or two ago, about people becoming reinfected with full blown cases of COVID 19, but they really felt more like uncertain anecdotes. I strongly suspect the immunologists will know a lot more about this in just a few weeks. Researchers are already giving people test vaccines and sending them out into the world. In a nasty - hypothetical - reality where people regularly get reinfected: things do not go back to normal, and we have to figure a lot of difficult social stuff out. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-immunity-remains-big-question-mark-for-a-country-eager-to-reopen/2020/04/14/2c8ccbf4-7e49-11ea-a3ee-13e1ae0a3571_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-immunity-r...
- exmadscientist 7y ago
  Unfortunately, yes. Consider the common cold: yes, it does mutate fast, but the other big barrier to producing a vaccine is that immunity to it doesn't last very long at all. So if COVID-19 immunity truly doesn't last long, that's a problem. I doubt this is likely to be the case, though. Antibodies to SARS seemed to have long lifetimes (several years), and COVID is likely to be similar. It is certainly possible that for some people, immunity fades much faster for reasons specific to that person, and that may be what is being picked up in these reports. It is also possible it's just shoddy lab work. There has been a ton of that going around lately, and it's not just caused by pressure from the situation. Not all scientists are equally competent.... (Disclaimer: my knowledge of immunology is likely little better than yours, but I did at least used to be a Real Scientist in a different field.)

flatline 7y ago

The situation is rapidly developing. Our knowledge is constantly growing and will continue to do so. Under these circumstances, I don't think moving the goalposts is avoidable. Nobody is hoping for magic: they are waiting till it's safe to go outside. Perhaps a vaccine will make that a reality in...a couple years? Regardless of what the government does, I say, prepare for a long haul. On the one hand there is a tremendous amount of real damage being done by everyone sheltering in place. On the other hand it's not the government's orders that are the direct cause, so much as the virus itself. We are in a global pandemic. It is unprecedented. Telling everyone to go outside again is not going to magically make it happen. Can you imagine re-opening schools right now? Summer camps? It would be sheer carnage, and those who do want to protect themselves will be less able to do so. It would just shift the pain points around, and cause a lot of deaths right away. Would that be worse than it is right now? Probably. Would it be worse than another six months of sheltering in place? Nobody knows!