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Predicting the future is notoriously difficult and reviewing the past can only show what happened from a single course of action. There's literally no way to kn

by Osiris 6y ago

Predicting the future is notoriously difficult and reviewing the past can only show what happened from a single course of action. There's literally no way to know what would have happened if no lock down happened. There aren't even good examples of other countries that didn't lock down since basically everyone did. So, since I'm no an epidemiologist, I'll defer the expertise to those that are.

icelancer 6y ago
>> There aren't even good examples of other countries that didn't lock down since basically everyone did. If you mean via government mandate, Sweden is a good ongoing example of this.
- maybenot2231 6y ago
  Sweden has 2x the projected per capita death rate of the US from the virus. I think saving 135k lives are a substantial consideration for action.
  - icelancer 6y ago
    It's not over yet. Sweden's idea is the deaths under the curve are likely to be the same everywhere for the next 12-18 months, so they are frontloading them without crashing the domestic industries while trying to keep hospitals from being overloaded. The strategy can't be judged for quite some time.
    - haakonhr 6y ago
      So far it seems like that hasn't panned out as Sweden is suffering from the same economic downturn as its neighbors. See for example: https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-has-avoided-a-coronavirus-lockdown-its-economy-is-hurting-anyway-11588870062 https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-has-avoided-a-coronaviru...
  - centimeter 6y ago
    “Lives” are not fungible. Covid almost exclusively kills people who were very close to death anyway - look at the age and comorbidity data. It’s very clear. If anything, the numbers are absurdly inflated because people are dying with covid rather than from covid. It’s abundantly clear that the US’s approach will cause more net long term suffering than Sweden’s approach. It looks like the increase in overdose and suicide deaths among younger people is already on track to destroy way more life-years than the most generous attributions to covid.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> There's literally no way to know what would have happened if no lock down happened. Actually, we do have data. The SF Bay Area has very close ties to China, and corona likely arrived here via air travel in mid-Dec. So anybody who actually wants to make the effort can compare before and after lockdown effects. Also, it's common in large organizations for one dept. to not communicate to another dept. in a meaningful way, so relying on epidemiologists alone for analysis is not wise. There has to be daily, open conversation with local govt. and economists.

by Osiris 6y ago

icelancer 6y ago

>> There aren't even good examples of other countries that didn't lock down since basically everyone did. If you mean via government mandate, Sweden is a good ongoing example of this.

maybenot2231 6y ago
Sweden has 2x the projected per capita death rate of the US from the virus. I think saving 135k lives are a substantial consideration for action.
- icelancer 6y ago
  It's not over yet. Sweden's idea is the deaths under the curve are likely to be the same everywhere for the next 12-18 months, so they are frontloading them without crashing the domestic industries while trying to keep hospitals from being overloaded. The strategy can't be judged for quite some time.
  - haakonhr 6y ago
    So far it seems like that hasn't panned out as Sweden is suffering from the same economic downturn as its neighbors. See for example: https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-has-avoided-a-coronavirus-lockdown-its-economy-is-hurting-anyway-11588870062 https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-has-avoided-a-coronaviru...
- centimeter 6y ago
  “Lives” are not fungible. Covid almost exclusively kills people who were very close to death anyway - look at the age and comorbidity data. It’s very clear. If anything, the numbers are absurdly inflated because people are dying with covid rather than from covid. It’s abundantly clear that the US’s approach will cause more net long term suffering than Sweden’s approach. It looks like the increase in overdose and suicide deaths among younger people is already on track to destroy way more life-years than the most generous attributions to covid.

redis_mlc 6y ago

> There's literally no way to know what would have happened if no lock down happened. Actually, we do have data. The SF Bay Area has very close ties to China, and corona likely arrived here via air travel in mid-Dec. So anybody who actually wants to make the effort can compare before and after lockdown effects. Also, it's common in large organizations for one dept. to not communicate to another dept. in a meaningful way, so relying on epidemiologists alone for analysis is not wise. There has to be daily, open conversation with local govt. and economists.