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You don’t have to look at 1918. You can just look at nearly every other country in the world and how it’s been impacted. South Korea, Italy, China, and so on ar

You don’t have to look at 1918. You can just look at nearly every other country in the world and how it’s been impacted. South Korea, Italy, China, and so on are all reopening or have been reopened despite having been hit just as hard as the US in the beginning - they just acted much more swiftly in the beginning. The less action our government takes, the longer this is going to go on.

beaner 6y ago
Sure you don't have to, but then you potentially end up with a bias and you definitely end up with an incomplete perspective, when completeness is defined by considering the complete set of experienced circumstances. It may be the case that a hammer-like lockdown has largely stamped the virus out of many countries and that the US failed at that and is worse-off for it. It may also be the case that the US will build herd immunity faster and it the average infection rate and death rates will eventually converge to the same everywhere. We simply do not know yet, but people are judging as if we do. If we look to the past, we may be able to gain insight into how it played out until completion and how it was or was not affected by regulation, local & international laws, and the layperson perspective. In the current instance, no country has yet played it out to completion so that is something we could not learn from other countries right now.
CryptoPunk 6y ago
Just to give one counter-point: Take New Zealand. Its geographical isolation, low population density and strict national lockdown and contact tracing, led to it eliminating the virus. However, now it has a set of policies that increase its isolation, and is stuck with them until an effective vaccine or treatment is found: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-zealand-beat-back-the-coronavirus-but-families-were-left-divided-and-migrant-workers-stranded-in-the-process/ https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-zealand-beat-back-t... In the absence of a vaccine, herd immunity is the only durable solution to the virus, and New Zealand is foregoing that solution to avoid a spike in deaths in the short term. And indeed, the original plan, of 'flattening the curve' was tolerant of COVID19 deaths, and aiming for herd immunity. But somewhere along the way, death from COVID19 became politically intolerable in the US, and now any rise in deaths leads to a call to re-lockdown, even when COVID19 cases are well below ICU capacity.

beaner 6y ago

Sure you don't have to, but then you potentially end up with a bias and you definitely end up with an incomplete perspective, when completeness is defined by considering the complete set of experienced circumstances. It may be the case that a hammer-like lockdown has largely stamped the virus out of many countries and that the US failed at that and is worse-off for it. It may also be the case that the US will build herd immunity faster and it the average infection rate and death rates will eventually converge to the same everywhere. We simply do not know yet, but people are judging as if we do. If we look to the past, we may be able to gain insight into how it played out until completion and how it was or was not affected by regulation, local & international laws, and the layperson perspective. In the current instance, no country has yet played it out to completion so that is something we could not learn from other countries right now.

CryptoPunk 6y ago

Just to give one counter-point: Take New Zealand. Its geographical isolation, low population density and strict national lockdown and contact tracing, led to it eliminating the virus. However, now it has a set of policies that increase its isolation, and is stuck with them until an effective vaccine or treatment is found: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-zealand-beat-back-the-coronavirus-but-families-were-left-divided-and-migrant-workers-stranded-in-the-process/ https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-zealand-beat-back-t... In the absence of a vaccine, herd immunity is the only durable solution to the virus, and New Zealand is foregoing that solution to avoid a spike in deaths in the short term. And indeed, the original plan, of 'flattening the curve' was tolerant of COVID19 deaths, and aiming for herd immunity. But somewhere along the way, death from COVID19 became politically intolerable in the US, and now any rise in deaths leads to a call to re-lockdown, even when COVID19 cases are well below ICU capacity.