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> had a brutal lockdown early and thanks to that they are now largely back in business Wait, that doesn't make sense - are you saying that they locked down lon

> had a brutal lockdown early and thanks to that they are now largely back in business Wait, that doesn't make sense - are you saying that they locked down long enough that everybody who had the virus "lost it" (either by getting healthy or dying)? That doesn't sound very plausible given what we know about epidemiology. The lockdown was sold here as a way to "flatten the curve": everybody who would have gotten it will still get it, but not all at once, so the hospitals won't be overwhelmed. Is anybody claiming that China's lockdown actually eradicated the virus within its borders entirely?

Jtsummers 6y ago
> The lockdown was sold here as a way to "flatten the curve": everybody who would have gotten it will still get it, but not all at once, so the hospitals won't be overwhelmed. The lockdown was intended to do two things, not one: 1. What you say, reduce the rate of spread. The popular "flatten the curve" thing, which, when grossly simplified, suggests that if 1 million people were going to get it it was inevitable, but we could spread it out over months instead of weeks. 2. Reduce the total number of people exposed and thus reduce the total number who would eventually get it. The disease is not inevitable for anyone, it is not inevitable that 70% of the population (picking an arbitrary figure here) would get the disease. It is inevitable that it was going to spread, and with proper controls that spread could be changed both in rate and total number infected.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Entirely? No. Nobody (I think) is claiming that. But if you lock down so that each infected person, on average, infects less than one new person, and you do it long enough, then yes, you can completely eliminate the virus that way. And yes, that is perfectly consistent with what we know about epidemiology. The cure may literally be worse than the disease, but we could do that. But there comes a point where the number of cases is small enough that you use testing and contact tracing to do the rest.
fzeroracer 6y ago
The point of flattening the curve is keeping the curve flat. No one anywhere has eradicated the virus, but through the strict initial lockdown plus constant vigilance on part of both the government and the individuals they can keep the curve flat and stop it from going exponential. The problem is that once we flattened the curve, we decided to go hogwild, masks off, open up everything and now we get to pay the price for that. Texas is a great example of that where our state government behaved like absolute jackoffs and now we're seeing a massive amount of new cases and increased pressure on hospitals. But people assumed that 'we're far below capacity! the lockdown is pointless!' as if the lockdown wasn't the reason for that in the first place.

Jtsummers 6y ago

> The lockdown was sold here as a way to "flatten the curve": everybody who would have gotten it will still get it, but not all at once, so the hospitals won't be overwhelmed. The lockdown was intended to do two things, not one: 1. What you say, reduce the rate of spread. The popular "flatten the curve" thing, which, when grossly simplified, suggests that if 1 million people were going to get it it was inevitable, but we could spread it out over months instead of weeks. 2. Reduce the total number of people exposed and thus reduce the total number who would eventually get it. The disease is not inevitable for anyone, it is not inevitable that 70% of the population (picking an arbitrary figure here) would get the disease. It is inevitable that it was going to spread, and with proper controls that spread could be changed both in rate and total number infected.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

Entirely? No. Nobody (I think) is claiming that. But if you lock down so that each infected person, on average, infects less than one new person, and you do it long enough, then yes, you can completely eliminate the virus that way. And yes, that is perfectly consistent with what we know about epidemiology. The cure may literally be worse than the disease, but we could do that. But there comes a point where the number of cases is small enough that you use testing and contact tracing to do the rest.

fzeroracer 6y ago

The point of flattening the curve is keeping the curve flat. No one anywhere has eradicated the virus, but through the strict initial lockdown plus constant vigilance on part of both the government and the individuals they can keep the curve flat and stop it from going exponential. The problem is that once we flattened the curve, we decided to go hogwild, masks off, open up everything and now we get to pay the price for that. Texas is a great example of that where our state government behaved like absolute jackoffs and now we're seeing a massive amount of new cases and increased pressure on hospitals. But people assumed that 'we're far below capacity! the lockdown is pointless!' as if the lockdown wasn't the reason for that in the first place.