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Arguing this at the level of "What should individuals do?" makes no sense, because we have little-to-no data on how effective masks or social distancing are at

Arguing this at the level of "What should individuals do?" makes no sense, because we have little-to-no data on how effective masks or social distancing are at that level. We're really at the infancy stages of understanding this virus--keep in mind up until a few weeks ago we thought spread from high traffic surfaces was a major transmission vector. At the level of "What should government recommend?"--that's a fundamentally different question from "What should individuals do?" because governments have secondary effects such as people throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Policy decisions have to take into account this effect, so saying that this effect is the real cause of a sudden spike in cases after lockdown ended, is irrelevant. At a policy level, lockdown is more effective than social distancing and masks, and that's because when you lift the lockdown, people don't social distance or wear masks. I live in a town where businesses that attract tourism have reopened. People are wearing masks as chin straps and congregating, and that wasn't happening during lockdown. And to be clear, there are other factors: a country which creates numerous hurdles to access for even the miniscule aid it provides to the poor cannot be surprised when the poor don't want to give up what little income they have to comply with a lockdown. But we have to admit, lockdowns work. That's a fact. The fact that our economy is so fragile that it can't handle the only effective countermeasure to this virus is a separate fact.

clairity 6y ago
no, the point is that lockdowns, being basically a superset of distancing, don't add enough protection/reduction on top of distancing for it's enormous cost.
- kerkeslager 6y ago
  I understood that as your point the first time. And I'm saying, if you don't lock down, distancing doesn't happen. It's more complex than just that, but that's the gist.
  - iateanapple 6y ago
    > And I'm saying, if you don't lock down, distancing doesn't happen. First - our lockdowns were mostly unenforced (except against businesses). Bars were closed but house parties raged. Second - Sweden didn’t do lockdowns and yet people did practice social distancing.
    - hurrdurr2 6y ago
      I guess Americans aren't as responsible as Swedes.
    - kerkeslager 6y ago
      First: I don't think there's much data to make an argument here, but I think we can agree that house parties alone don't create as much social contact as house parties AND restaurants, salons, gyms, nonessential retailers, hotels, etc. Second: If your goal is to demonstrate that lockdowns aren't appreciably better than social distancing, Sweden is a great example of why you're wrong. "As time has gone on the numbers don’t seem to have borne out this strategy, as Sweden is seeing more deaths from the virus than it might have otherwise."[1] "The death rate in Sweden has now risen significantly higher than many other countries in Europe, reaching more than 22 per 100,000 people, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University, controlled for population. By contrast, Denmark has recorded just over seven deaths per 100,000 people, and both Norway and Finland less than four."[2] Sweden is, in fact, an example where relying on social distancing and masks rather than lockdowns has resulted in more than three times the number of deaths per-capita that were experienced by countries with similar demographics. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2020/05/23/swedens-gamble-on-coronavirus-has-it-paid-off/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2020/05/23/swedens-... [2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-lockdown-strategy-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-loc...
      - iateanapple 6y ago
        > First: I think we can agree that house parties alone don't create as much social contact as house parties AND restaurants, salons, gyms, nonessential retailers, hotels, etc. In places with much lighter lockdowns (or no lockdowns at all) we still had significant social distancing. It turns out most people don’t want to catch a deadly disease. So we are comparing strict lockdowns compared with sensible social distancing - not with doing nothing. There are strong arguments to be made, and we will have to see how they play out over the next 12-18 months, that strict lockdowns actually resulted in more deaths because the fear they induced stopped people from doing regular health checkups etc. > The death rate in Sweden has now risen significantly higher than many other countries in Europe, reaching more than 22 per 100,000 people There is endless misinformation being put out over COVID. Comparing the other Nordic countries to Sweden is misleading because it was on a different trajectory before any lockdowns were implemented. Note if you compare Sweden to the US it’s around half of the US rate per 100,000 despite lack of lockdowns. Now the nice thing about Sweden is they have open data and accurate reporting of data - and so you can dive in and see that their total deaths haven’t changed significantly compared to prior years. They have had ~100 excess deaths/week - and if you remove the older population (>65) then it’s basically 0 excess deaths/week. It will be interesting next year to see if (as typically happens with the flu) we see significantly fewer total deaths - which would indicate for those 100/week excess deaths this year the total life lost per death was 1 year. But that’s just my speculation for now. Edit: A clear trend is emerging that a countries deaths come down to two factors: 1) Ability to properly protect the old See the failures in Italy and NYC as examples. 2) The overall health of your young population See for example Singapore where the majority of infections were in young healthy men - and their corresponding tiny 26 deaths for ~45000 positive cases.

clairity 6y ago

no, the point is that lockdowns, being basically a superset of distancing, don't add enough protection/reduction on top of distancing for it's enormous cost.

kerkeslager 6y ago
I understood that as your point the first time. And I'm saying, if you don't lock down, distancing doesn't happen. It's more complex than just that, but that's the gist.
- iateanapple 6y ago
  > And I'm saying, if you don't lock down, distancing doesn't happen. First - our lockdowns were mostly unenforced (except against businesses). Bars were closed but house parties raged. Second - Sweden didn’t do lockdowns and yet people did practice social distancing.
  - hurrdurr2 6y ago
    I guess Americans aren't as responsible as Swedes.
  - kerkeslager 6y ago
    First: I don't think there's much data to make an argument here, but I think we can agree that house parties alone don't create as much social contact as house parties AND restaurants, salons, gyms, nonessential retailers, hotels, etc. Second: If your goal is to demonstrate that lockdowns aren't appreciably better than social distancing, Sweden is a great example of why you're wrong. "As time has gone on the numbers don’t seem to have borne out this strategy, as Sweden is seeing more deaths from the virus than it might have otherwise."[1] "The death rate in Sweden has now risen significantly higher than many other countries in Europe, reaching more than 22 per 100,000 people, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University, controlled for population. By contrast, Denmark has recorded just over seven deaths per 100,000 people, and both Norway and Finland less than four."[2] Sweden is, in fact, an example where relying on social distancing and masks rather than lockdowns has resulted in more than three times the number of deaths per-capita that were experienced by countries with similar demographics. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2020/05/23/swedens-gamble-on-coronavirus-has-it-paid-off/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2020/05/23/swedens-... [2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-lockdown-strategy-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-loc...
    - iateanapple 6y ago
      > First: I think we can agree that house parties alone don't create as much social contact as house parties AND restaurants, salons, gyms, nonessential retailers, hotels, etc. In places with much lighter lockdowns (or no lockdowns at all) we still had significant social distancing. It turns out most people don’t want to catch a deadly disease. So we are comparing strict lockdowns compared with sensible social distancing - not with doing nothing. There are strong arguments to be made, and we will have to see how they play out over the next 12-18 months, that strict lockdowns actually resulted in more deaths because the fear they induced stopped people from doing regular health checkups etc. > The death rate in Sweden has now risen significantly higher than many other countries in Europe, reaching more than 22 per 100,000 people There is endless misinformation being put out over COVID. Comparing the other Nordic countries to Sweden is misleading because it was on a different trajectory before any lockdowns were implemented. Note if you compare Sweden to the US it’s around half of the US rate per 100,000 despite lack of lockdowns. Now the nice thing about Sweden is they have open data and accurate reporting of data - and so you can dive in and see that their total deaths haven’t changed significantly compared to prior years. They have had ~100 excess deaths/week - and if you remove the older population (>65) then it’s basically 0 excess deaths/week. It will be interesting next year to see if (as typically happens with the flu) we see significantly fewer total deaths - which would indicate for those 100/week excess deaths this year the total life lost per death was 1 year. But that’s just my speculation for now. Edit: A clear trend is emerging that a countries deaths come down to two factors: 1) Ability to properly protect the old See the failures in Italy and NYC as examples. 2) The overall health of your young population See for example Singapore where the majority of infections were in young healthy men - and their corresponding tiny 26 deaths for ~45000 positive cases.