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Neverending lockdowns belong in the dustbin of history besides eugenics and nonconsensual human experimentation. The virus is endemic. The fact that people don’

Neverending lockdowns belong in the dustbin of history besides eugenics and nonconsensual human experimentation. The virus is endemic. The fact that people don’t really understand that is a leadership failure. Let’s all move on.

MG9991ep545a1l3 6y ago
But governments everywhere are rejoicing at the prospect of tightly controlling their citizens' movements and decisions on a daily basis. First everyone's trained to wear a mask "to save lives". Anyone dissenting from this party line is labeled "a horrible person", a "murderer", or - in a cruel twist of irony - perhaps even the cancel culture's catch-all slur: "oppressor". Second, movements are routinely restricted "to save lives". Third, citizens are suckered into voluntarily signing up for pervasive surveillance that tracks where each person goes and who he or she talks to. Finally, surveillance is no longer voluntary because an active surveillance (sorry, "contact tracing") subscription is required to access basic goods and services. Welcome to 1984!
- me_me_me 6y ago
  ugh go away please, stop polluting HN with your bs.
  - MG9991ep545a1l3 6y ago
    Reaching straight for ad hominem, are we? That's alright. Will see how you dance when the guvment comes for your medical marijuana and your freedom of speech. Will see how you sing when they come for your ability to choose your place of employment and residence. This is where you're going, but you're too blinded by your addiction to virtue signaling to see the most obvious of facts in front of you.
    - me_me_me 6y ago
      Ad nauseam No one has will to prove that garbage smells and its toxic over and over and over again. It has no effect thus no point. Here, i'll copy and paste part of my post on flat earth: > Its hard to believe sometimes bu a lot of people grow up never questioning or poking at the reality surrounding them. > You don't need that to grow up and get by in life, but then you end up not being able to distinguish reality from snake oil. > And all of those snake oil salesmen know exactly what buttons to push. > "Secret knowledge", "hidden truth", offer them glimpse into world that secret cabal never wants them to see. Convince them how much smarter and cleverer they are for "figuring out" the reality that other are blind to. > And then the 'blind fools' come to try to convince them that the earth is round...
  - NoOneNew 6y ago
    A little extreme yes, but they're not off base by much. The early warning signs of the dangers big silicon valley companies pose started popping up in the late 2000s. The folks mentioning it, like Facebook being a vector of high manipulation of presidential elections was considered fantasy even in the early 2010s. This comment falls in the same line. The early warning signs of Maoist China and Lenin's revolution weren't taken seriously until it was far too late as well. This post, while extreme, should be taken into thoughtful consideration. Books like 1984 and A Brave New World weren't meant as time wasters, but as cautionary tales.
    - ryanbrunner 6y ago
      Sure, but there's no link between large tech company surveillance and public health measures like mask wearing. Just because there are forces that are pushing us towards a surveillance state does not mean you can lump anything onto that pile.
      - me_me_me 6y ago
        And here we are, every sane person agrees and everyone wastes time nodding their heads :/ surveillance state - bad, carrying for well-being of others around you - good Lets drop the topic and go back to work or coffee
      - metiscus 6y ago
        Except for a possible convergence in agendas. Public health officials need contact tracing and that can be accomplished perhaps most effectively by mass tech surveillance.
      - NoOneNew 6y ago
        What? I was using that as a parallel. The original comment, which was taken down, in discussion was about governments using covid as a means to take away individual's rights. There are plenty of warning signs of that happening across the globe. The other person was dismissing it, like people use to dismiss big tech warning signs in the late 2000s. That's why I made that analogy.
- SuoDuanDao 6y ago
  I would just point out, widespread mask-usage is a thorn in the side of any surveillance state. If there were a way to verify it, I would be willing to bet that the anti-mask sentiment is the result of a successful astroturfing campaign by pro-surveillance state interests.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
According to he article, modelling shows that lockdowns are unnecessary if mask and hand washing compliance is > 70% and contact tracing effectiveness is > 80%.
- ryanbrunner 6y ago
  The problem is, contact tracing in the U.S. is impossible right now, there's just way too many infections to possibly have an effective contact tracing program.
  - cstejerean 6y ago
    Hence the need for lockdowns to drive infections down to the level where contact tracing becomes feasible.
    - jerf 6y ago
      Lockdowns are not a thing being proposed as a future policy. They are here, and have been for several incubation periods. For that purpose, they have failed. Past tense. I post this as a segue into the general observation that there's still way too many people speaking about hypotheticals as if we're not six months into this process, and have plenty of concrete data to consult rather than theory. If the purpose of X is Y, we are not in a place where we should start doing X to get Y; we are in a place to look to see if X got us Y. In this particular case, it apparently did not. (It's also not a great time to say "Well, X would have led to Y if we just X'd harder". In a good chunk of the world, we X'd as hard as we can. If we didn't get Y, it's not something you're going to get in the future, either. That is something we have to accept and deal with, not wish we could just X harder.)
      - EForEndeavour 6y ago
        > In a good chunk of the world, we X'd as hard as we can. A good chunk of the USA very explicitly did not "X" anywhere near as hard or smart as they could have.
ryanbrunner 6y ago
The fact that COVID is likely here to stay doesn't mean that there's no value in lockdowns or other countermeasures: - As time has gone on, we've learned more about the virus, how to prevent it and how to treat it, leading to a much lower fatality rate. If there were no lockdowns when New York City was facing the worst of the virus, the outcome would have been much, much worse. This trend is continuing, and there's no reason to assume that we won't continue to get better at treating it, so slowing the spread until it's less of a problem saves lives. - Even assuming that we know everything there is to know about COVID, we will get no better at treating it, and vaccines aren't going to work, the best way that we DO know to handle outbreaks of COVID-19 (extensive contact tracing and quarantines) are impossible solutions in places like the U.S. where the infection rate is high enough to make contact tracing a pointless exercise.
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  Except the lockdowns result in economic harm, causing folks to lose their jobs and sink them further into debt. And if it's only debt, then they're lucky. Suicide has been on the rise since the social isolation and lockdowns, then theres going to be more suicide due to ruined livelihoods as time goes on. People aren't poo-pooing the lockdowns because it's the chic thing to do. The impact is becoming worse than the virus itself. The WHO in January 2020 said with 80% compliance in social distancing and hygiene, the USA will have 2mil deaths by around july/august... yea, compliance was no where that high. This was all about flattening the curve so hospitals weren't overloaded at once, which was fair. We are past that. So much so, hospitals in the usa have been shutting down in summer because they haven't been able to fill beds. Something like this should have been able to keep them operating for longer if they were at constant capacity. I've said it before, 1 death is 1 too many. But at the same time, I dont see victory when the global society lives in perpetual fear and hardship either and decides to just kill themselves, literally. Right now global death numbers, covid doesn't make the top 10 causes of death in the world. You are statistically more likely to die of a diarrhea related illness than of covid. No one cries over the 2mil people, every year, dying of that. Which for the most part, is extremely preventable if the world community actually gave a shit.
  - 6y ago
wyldfire 6y ago
I disagree, I think that the lockdowns are a net good. Mitigating the virus' spread while researching vaccines and treatments makes sense and will save lives. You could make the case that lockdowns are not a net good but I think you will have a really hard time convincing anyone that the harm that comes is like the harm of experimenting on humans.
- thepangolino 6y ago
  How can you already define those lockdowns as being a net good without any idea of their long term effects, both health wise and in a sociological aspect. The way I see it, lockdowns have divided populations to a greater extent than any other current issue.
  - monadic2 6y ago
    Lockdowns seem to be the most effective tool we have at reversing infection rate. They also don't need to take forever if combined with contact tracing. What other tools is the US willing to consider? Apparently virtually nothing.
  - neverminder 6y ago
    So far from various sources I've read, prognosis of social and economic consequences range from bad to devastating. Right now many governments still maintain schemes like furlough, but that particular dam will break soon.
- francisofascii 6y ago
  I partially agree for the reasons you stated. But if you concede that, say a 5 year lock down would certainly be a net negative, at some point the net good turns into a net negative. I think we are getting close to that inflection point.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    To play devil's advocate, a 5 year lock down would only be a net negative if we failed to fix the systemic economic problems that make it negative, e.g. the lack of a safety net for people who cannot work. All the agonizing over the economic impacts of stay-at-home is ironic in light of the fact that we spent decades gutting safety nets and deliberately building a society that requires you to go to work or die.
DennisP 6y ago
The U.S. has certainly proven that repeated partial lockdowns just end up dragging on forever without helping much. Meanwhile, lots of other countries have locked down more seriously, held firm until the virus was under control, did good testing and tracing as they eased up, convinced people to make some small effort to protect each others' lives by wearing masks, and now are opening their economies without having to accept endemic disease and mass death.
- zxspectrum1982 6y ago
  Lots of other countries have locked down more seriously and causing a huge damage to their economies, only to find that hard lock down is completely useless. The moment you remove the lock down, coronavirus spreads again. This virus is here to stay and it's a lot less dangerous than it was thought at the beginning.

MG9991ep545a1l3 6y ago

But governments everywhere are rejoicing at the prospect of tightly controlling their citizens' movements and decisions on a daily basis. First everyone's trained to wear a mask "to save lives". Anyone dissenting from this party line is labeled "a horrible person", a "murderer", or - in a cruel twist of irony - perhaps even the cancel culture's catch-all slur: "oppressor". Second, movements are routinely restricted "to save lives". Third, citizens are suckered into voluntarily signing up for pervasive surveillance that tracks where each person goes and who he or she talks to. Finally, surveillance is no longer voluntary because an active surveillance (sorry, "contact tracing") subscription is required to access basic goods and services. Welcome to 1984!

me_me_me 6y ago
ugh go away please, stop polluting HN with your bs.
- MG9991ep545a1l3 6y ago
  Reaching straight for ad hominem, are we? That's alright. Will see how you dance when the guvment comes for your medical marijuana and your freedom of speech. Will see how you sing when they come for your ability to choose your place of employment and residence. This is where you're going, but you're too blinded by your addiction to virtue signaling to see the most obvious of facts in front of you.
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    Ad nauseam No one has will to prove that garbage smells and its toxic over and over and over again. It has no effect thus no point. Here, i'll copy and paste part of my post on flat earth: > Its hard to believe sometimes bu a lot of people grow up never questioning or poking at the reality surrounding them. > You don't need that to grow up and get by in life, but then you end up not being able to distinguish reality from snake oil. > And all of those snake oil salesmen know exactly what buttons to push. > "Secret knowledge", "hidden truth", offer them glimpse into world that secret cabal never wants them to see. Convince them how much smarter and cleverer they are for "figuring out" the reality that other are blind to. > And then the 'blind fools' come to try to convince them that the earth is round...
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  A little extreme yes, but they're not off base by much. The early warning signs of the dangers big silicon valley companies pose started popping up in the late 2000s. The folks mentioning it, like Facebook being a vector of high manipulation of presidential elections was considered fantasy even in the early 2010s. This comment falls in the same line. The early warning signs of Maoist China and Lenin's revolution weren't taken seriously until it was far too late as well. This post, while extreme, should be taken into thoughtful consideration. Books like 1984 and A Brave New World weren't meant as time wasters, but as cautionary tales.
  - ryanbrunner 6y ago
    Sure, but there's no link between large tech company surveillance and public health measures like mask wearing. Just because there are forces that are pushing us towards a surveillance state does not mean you can lump anything onto that pile.
    - me_me_me 6y ago
      And here we are, every sane person agrees and everyone wastes time nodding their heads :/ surveillance state - bad, carrying for well-being of others around you - good Lets drop the topic and go back to work or coffee
    - metiscus 6y ago
      Except for a possible convergence in agendas. Public health officials need contact tracing and that can be accomplished perhaps most effectively by mass tech surveillance.
    - NoOneNew 6y ago
      What? I was using that as a parallel. The original comment, which was taken down, in discussion was about governments using covid as a means to take away individual's rights. There are plenty of warning signs of that happening across the globe. The other person was dismissing it, like people use to dismiss big tech warning signs in the late 2000s. That's why I made that analogy.
SuoDuanDao 6y ago
I would just point out, widespread mask-usage is a thorn in the side of any surveillance state. If there were a way to verify it, I would be willing to bet that the anti-mask sentiment is the result of a successful astroturfing campaign by pro-surveillance state interests.

bryanlarsen 6y ago

According to he article, modelling shows that lockdowns are unnecessary if mask and hand washing compliance is > 70% and contact tracing effectiveness is > 80%.

ryanbrunner 6y ago
The problem is, contact tracing in the U.S. is impossible right now, there's just way too many infections to possibly have an effective contact tracing program.
- cstejerean 6y ago
  Hence the need for lockdowns to drive infections down to the level where contact tracing becomes feasible.
  - jerf 6y ago
    Lockdowns are not a thing being proposed as a future policy. They are here, and have been for several incubation periods. For that purpose, they have failed. Past tense. I post this as a segue into the general observation that there's still way too many people speaking about hypotheticals as if we're not six months into this process, and have plenty of concrete data to consult rather than theory. If the purpose of X is Y, we are not in a place where we should start doing X to get Y; we are in a place to look to see if X got us Y. In this particular case, it apparently did not. (It's also not a great time to say "Well, X would have led to Y if we just X'd harder". In a good chunk of the world, we X'd as hard as we can. If we didn't get Y, it's not something you're going to get in the future, either. That is something we have to accept and deal with, not wish we could just X harder.)
    - EForEndeavour 6y ago
      > In a good chunk of the world, we X'd as hard as we can. A good chunk of the USA very explicitly did not "X" anywhere near as hard or smart as they could have.

ryanbrunner 6y ago

The fact that COVID is likely here to stay doesn't mean that there's no value in lockdowns or other countermeasures: - As time has gone on, we've learned more about the virus, how to prevent it and how to treat it, leading to a much lower fatality rate. If there were no lockdowns when New York City was facing the worst of the virus, the outcome would have been much, much worse. This trend is continuing, and there's no reason to assume that we won't continue to get better at treating it, so slowing the spread until it's less of a problem saves lives. - Even assuming that we know everything there is to know about COVID, we will get no better at treating it, and vaccines aren't going to work, the best way that we DO know to handle outbreaks of COVID-19 (extensive contact tracing and quarantines) are impossible solutions in places like the U.S. where the infection rate is high enough to make contact tracing a pointless exercise.

NoOneNew 6y ago
Except the lockdowns result in economic harm, causing folks to lose their jobs and sink them further into debt. And if it's only debt, then they're lucky. Suicide has been on the rise since the social isolation and lockdowns, then theres going to be more suicide due to ruined livelihoods as time goes on. People aren't poo-pooing the lockdowns because it's the chic thing to do. The impact is becoming worse than the virus itself. The WHO in January 2020 said with 80% compliance in social distancing and hygiene, the USA will have 2mil deaths by around july/august... yea, compliance was no where that high. This was all about flattening the curve so hospitals weren't overloaded at once, which was fair. We are past that. So much so, hospitals in the usa have been shutting down in summer because they haven't been able to fill beds. Something like this should have been able to keep them operating for longer if they were at constant capacity. I've said it before, 1 death is 1 too many. But at the same time, I dont see victory when the global society lives in perpetual fear and hardship either and decides to just kill themselves, literally. Right now global death numbers, covid doesn't make the top 10 causes of death in the world. You are statistically more likely to die of a diarrhea related illness than of covid. No one cries over the 2mil people, every year, dying of that. Which for the most part, is extremely preventable if the world community actually gave a shit.
- 6y ago

wyldfire 6y ago

I disagree, I think that the lockdowns are a net good. Mitigating the virus' spread while researching vaccines and treatments makes sense and will save lives. You could make the case that lockdowns are not a net good but I think you will have a really hard time convincing anyone that the harm that comes is like the harm of experimenting on humans.

thepangolino 6y ago
How can you already define those lockdowns as being a net good without any idea of their long term effects, both health wise and in a sociological aspect. The way I see it, lockdowns have divided populations to a greater extent than any other current issue.
- monadic2 6y ago
  Lockdowns seem to be the most effective tool we have at reversing infection rate. They also don't need to take forever if combined with contact tracing. What other tools is the US willing to consider? Apparently virtually nothing.
- neverminder 6y ago
  So far from various sources I've read, prognosis of social and economic consequences range from bad to devastating. Right now many governments still maintain schemes like furlough, but that particular dam will break soon.
francisofascii 6y ago
I partially agree for the reasons you stated. But if you concede that, say a 5 year lock down would certainly be a net negative, at some point the net good turns into a net negative. I think we are getting close to that inflection point.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  To play devil's advocate, a 5 year lock down would only be a net negative if we failed to fix the systemic economic problems that make it negative, e.g. the lack of a safety net for people who cannot work. All the agonizing over the economic impacts of stay-at-home is ironic in light of the fact that we spent decades gutting safety nets and deliberately building a society that requires you to go to work or die.

DennisP 6y ago

The U.S. has certainly proven that repeated partial lockdowns just end up dragging on forever without helping much. Meanwhile, lots of other countries have locked down more seriously, held firm until the virus was under control, did good testing and tracing as they eased up, convinced people to make some small effort to protect each others' lives by wearing masks, and now are opening their economies without having to accept endemic disease and mass death.

zxspectrum1982 6y ago
Lots of other countries have locked down more seriously and causing a huge damage to their economies, only to find that hard lock down is completely useless. The moment you remove the lock down, coronavirus spreads again. This virus is here to stay and it's a lot less dangerous than it was thought at the beginning.