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> Except that it didn't work. You did it once, Look, I know the comments section of hackernews is not going to contain a long, nuanced conversation about what

• timr 6y ago
  I never claimed that Australia didn't bring cases down. It did. Then cases shot back up. Like I said: it "worked" once, then it came back, and now you're doing it again. So it didn't actually work...it just postponed things for a while. We've eliminated one human virus in all of history, and it took two hundred years and a vaccine. The final push took a really effective vaccine, and decades of intensive effort to weed out the last cases. You're not going to eliminate this one by locking people in their homes for a few months.
  • titzer 6y ago
    > So it didn't actually work...it just postponed things for a while. Lockdowns are not a permanent solution, duh. Yeah, of course they postpone things for a while, if the virus is still spreading and the population is just as susceptible. I thought that part was clear to people from the outset, but apparently not. Lockdowns buy time, slow or hopefully even stop the spread, identify and isolate cases in order to focus efforts, and then quarantine those people so it does not get out of hand. If you don't isolate the virus during the lockdown then it was pointless as it will just escape again. Unfortunately the logistics of doing that are pretty involved and it takes a serious effort and little to no defection from people escaping quarantines. It helps a lot when political leaders understand and explain the basic strategy instead of being more concerned about their political fortunes and the fragility of the economy and calling it a hoax. Mixed messages confuse people. The US government completely fumbled that one. You want to protect people's jobs? Then do it. Provide unemployment benefits, provide wage subsidies, provide support to businesses so they don't go under. Impose a rent moratorium so people aren't evicted. Banks will not go under because of a rent moratorium. The financial system doesn't crash because of a rent moratorium. The financial system will crash if millions default, though. But instead America's political leaders chose poorly and did none of those things, or did them poorly. They bailed out absolutely the wrong people. Instead everyone's been in a rush to open everything back up, because fuck it, or something. And the defections, the arguing, the denial. Unfortunately along with "you can't lock us in here forever"--a semi-reasonable argument which I will generously spot you--there are lots of irresponsible people out there who can't even do the bare minimum to slow or stop the spread, or who just plain don't care, who rationalize away hundreds of thousands of people dying, because fuck it, or something. So we are in a situation where these people spread the virus everywhere. And every step of the way there were so many voices of dissent like this that sound subtly different on the surface but all pretty much amount to "fuck it, that sounds hard". And yeah, now it is exponentially harder to fix this problem. And yes it's still a global pandemic killing thousands and millions of people, despite how tired we are all of the whole mess, despite how our news cycle ADD attention span. And it will absolutely keep getting worse. > You're not going to eliminate this one by locking people in their homes for a few months. Like I said, that alone wouldn't have been sufficient. But anyway, not now. It's far too late for America. It would have worked in February to get this under control, get effective testing and tracing programs in place, and keep numbers from spiking. But now the massive number of tests being done just finds this blasted thing is everywhere; a total failure of containment.