5 ms·

We didn't lock down for the Hong Kong flu or similar pandemics, because the damage caused by a lockdown is immense. Health damage caused by delayed cancer scree

by gizmo 6y ago

We didn't lock down for the Hong Kong flu or similar pandemics, because the damage caused by a lockdown is immense. Health damage caused by delayed cancer screenings and organ transplants. Psychological damage caused by lockdown and unemployment. Unbelievable economic damage. How to respond to a pandemic is a trade-off. People die in traffic accidents every day. Do we set a nation-wide speed limit of 5 MPH? No. Of course not. We accept that the benefit of travel are worth it, and we strive to make travel safer because every death is a tragedy. That's a balanced approach. For mild pandemics we should also seek such a balanced approach where we protect the old and the vulnerable and let everybody else live life as normal.

doliveira 6y ago
Yours remind me of a comment from an (in)famous Brazilian political commenter that claimed that "more people die by choking" at the beginning of the pandemic.
- gizmo 6y ago
  Many people have made statements that didn't age well. Hopefully you haven't forgotten about the ludicrous statements made by prominent epidemiologists, virologists and organizations like the WHO. Meanwhile we could trust the news to produce panic porn 24/7. Mass graves in Central Park! Sweden is doing an experiment in Human Sacrifice! Hopefully when the pandemic dies down we'll reflect on how the media and the scientific community completely failed to inform the people.
SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
Hong Kong flu was significantly less deadly than Covid in United states, perhaps 3 to 10 times. NYC death rate is at least .2% which would translate to 600 000 death across the US, and that is a very rough estimate. Even more importantly without lockdowns you'd get even worse clusterhell in the hospitals, which would have to do triage between neverneding stream of Covid patients and "normal" patients, who need an urgent surgery, and that would lead to enormous death rate rise so your argument is backwards actually.
- gizmo 6y ago
  At least a million people died of the Hong Kong flu. Much more as a percentage of the world population. And Covid19 doesn't seem to take hold anywhere in the pacific rim, regardless of policy. Lockdown or not, masks or not, good or bad hospitals, it doesn't matter. None of the countries in the rim got hit hard. This tells us it's all about herd immunity, and about getting there with as few casualties as possible. NYC locked down after peak infection; completely pointless. If you're going to lock down you have to do it way early, before the virus has spread everywhere. Sweden didn't lock down. Did we see uncontrolled spread there? Nope. The virus came and petered out after infecting a critical mass of people. The NYC death rate would never hold over the entire US because a large part of it was the result of disastrous policy of sending covid patients to care homes, and an aggressive venting policy that killed many. Bear in mind that covid19 is a hotspot disease and some parts of the world are always going to get hit much worse than other parts of the world. Extrapolating from outlier hotspots is bad science.
  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    I am not talking about whole world; I was talking in particular about US. It is still unclear about the final death tall of Covid, but it clearly is going to be close to a million, perhaps 2 or so. You operate with a very odd definition of Pacfifc Rim btw, USA, Canada, Mexico, Equador were all hit badly - all of them are countries of pacific rim. Sweden is actually an excellent example of a bad policy. Economically doing as bad as their neighbors, and had enormous death toll compared to Norway, Germany, Iceland, Denmark and Finland, countries (esp. Norway) with similar culture and attitudes. Also we are in summer now, and the virus may well come back and hit Sweden with a lot bigger force, just because so much more of it there. Not locking down during the Hong Kong flu was by the way a terrible decision. Had they introduced at least some measures, such masks and limited lockdowns the number of dead would have been much lower. I by the way divided NY rate by 3, I counted as if all of NYC had acquired the disease. So no, .2% is reasonable expectaion, and .1% of total population of will clearly be reached within several months, it is already halfway there.
    - gizmo 6y ago
mercer 6y ago
How does not knowing how bad Covid is or might be figure into your approach?

by gizmo 6y ago

doliveira 6y ago

Yours remind me of a comment from an (in)famous Brazilian political commenter that claimed that "more people die by choking" at the beginning of the pandemic.

gizmo 6y ago
Many people have made statements that didn't age well. Hopefully you haven't forgotten about the ludicrous statements made by prominent epidemiologists, virologists and organizations like the WHO. Meanwhile we could trust the news to produce panic porn 24/7. Mass graves in Central Park! Sweden is doing an experiment in Human Sacrifice! Hopefully when the pandemic dies down we'll reflect on how the media and the scientific community completely failed to inform the people.

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago

Hong Kong flu was significantly less deadly than Covid in United states, perhaps 3 to 10 times. NYC death rate is at least .2% which would translate to 600 000 death across the US, and that is a very rough estimate. Even more importantly without lockdowns you'd get even worse clusterhell in the hospitals, which would have to do triage between neverneding stream of Covid patients and "normal" patients, who need an urgent surgery, and that would lead to enormous death rate rise so your argument is backwards actually.

gizmo 6y ago
At least a million people died of the Hong Kong flu. Much more as a percentage of the world population. And Covid19 doesn't seem to take hold anywhere in the pacific rim, regardless of policy. Lockdown or not, masks or not, good or bad hospitals, it doesn't matter. None of the countries in the rim got hit hard. This tells us it's all about herd immunity, and about getting there with as few casualties as possible. NYC locked down after peak infection; completely pointless. If you're going to lock down you have to do it way early, before the virus has spread everywhere. Sweden didn't lock down. Did we see uncontrolled spread there? Nope. The virus came and petered out after infecting a critical mass of people. The NYC death rate would never hold over the entire US because a large part of it was the result of disastrous policy of sending covid patients to care homes, and an aggressive venting policy that killed many. Bear in mind that covid19 is a hotspot disease and some parts of the world are always going to get hit much worse than other parts of the world. Extrapolating from outlier hotspots is bad science.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  I am not talking about whole world; I was talking in particular about US. It is still unclear about the final death tall of Covid, but it clearly is going to be close to a million, perhaps 2 or so. You operate with a very odd definition of Pacfifc Rim btw, USA, Canada, Mexico, Equador were all hit badly - all of them are countries of pacific rim. Sweden is actually an excellent example of a bad policy. Economically doing as bad as their neighbors, and had enormous death toll compared to Norway, Germany, Iceland, Denmark and Finland, countries (esp. Norway) with similar culture and attitudes. Also we are in summer now, and the virus may well come back and hit Sweden with a lot bigger force, just because so much more of it there. Not locking down during the Hong Kong flu was by the way a terrible decision. Had they introduced at least some measures, such masks and limited lockdowns the number of dead would have been much lower. I by the way divided NY rate by 3, I counted as if all of NYC had acquired the disease. So no, .2% is reasonable expectaion, and .1% of total population of will clearly be reached within several months, it is already halfway there.
  - gizmo 6y ago

mercer 6y ago

How does not knowing how bad Covid is or might be figure into your approach?