5 ms·

> and it's far from certain that a nominal and arbitrary lockdown (as US states have employed) in as complicated a system as a society actually does so The key

by ardy42 6y ago

> and it's far from certain that a nominal and arbitrary lockdown (as US states have employed) in as complicated a system as a society actually does so The key phrase there is as US states have employed. Lockdowns have been successfully deployed to eliminate national COVID-19 outbreaks in developed countries. Both theory and that experience confirm their effectiveness. However political polarization caused both government authorities and individual citizens to undermine and severely compromise the effectiveness of the strategy in the US. This is one of those things were compromise to a half way solution doesn't work. If you gave everyone time and resources to prepare for a total 3 week lockdown, then did it, the virus would be totally eliminated at the end of it. Afterwards, with strict traveler quarantine measures and contract tracing, the economy could open up completely. Unfortunately, we have too many people who refuse to distance at all or even wear a mask, so we get to live in an extended garbage fire.

dehrmann 6y ago
Whether or not you agree with his approach, Anders Tegnell described the lockdown model used in most of Europe as "not sustainable," and the UK, Spain, France, Poland, Czech Republic, Netherlands, and more are proving him right. > If you gave everyone time and resources to prepare for a total 3 week lockdown... This is a great idea in theory, but it ignores a lot of realities. You have to keep some level of basic infrastructure running; that will cause spread. There will always be some level of violations. Borders are more porous than people think. The mental cost of lockdown is also higher than people originally thought. "Listen to the experts" really meant "listen to epidemiologists," but this is their first time trying this at this scale, and it ignores psychologists and economists, even though those forces are going to be major drivers of behavior. There's also the elephant in the room: If Covid-19 were 10x more deadly or 10x less deadly, people would actually take it very seriously or brush it off. It falls in a very awkward place, and a lot of people are looking at the death rate for their age group, weighing the risk against 1-2 years of partial lockdown, and deciding if the risk is worth it.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Whether or not you agree with his approach, Anders Tegnell described the lockdown model used in most of Europe as "not sustainable," I don't think I trust the judgements of the epidemiologist responsible for Sweden's strategy. > There will always be some level of violations. Borders are more porous than people think Obviously, but those are things that can be managed. > The mental cost of lockdown is also higher than people originally thought. Maybe the mental cost of a shambolic pandemic response is also pretty high, too? > "Listen to the experts" really meant "listen to epidemiologists," but this is their first time trying this at this scale, and it ignores psychologists and economists, even though those forces are going to be major drivers of behavior. The non-outlier epidemiologists are the right experts to trust right now. If a town is about to be overtaken by the front lines of a war, you don't ask the economists about the economic cost of closing main street or the psychologists about the emotional costs of forcing people from their homes. You listen to the people who understand war and evacuate the civilian population. You don't tell people to stay put and keep their shops open while the shells fly because some economist's model predicted unemployment and reduced growth if they leave.
  - throwmeaway_pls 6y ago
    I think you are catastrophizing. We’re talking about a mild respiratory infection in 99+% of people. Censor me if you’d like. Every day fewer people care. There is nothing you can do to change that.
    - ardy42 6y ago
      > We’re talking about a mild respiratory infection in 99+% of people. It kills 1% to 3% of people that get it, and many of the others have a pretty bad time. The fact that many people can get it with only mild symptoms actually makes it worse, because it means the disease is less self-limiting, and overall more deadly. And even if you got the statistic right, it's not telling the story you seem to want it to. A car that will only start 99 days out of 100 is not a reliable car. A car that doesn't kill its passengers 99% of the time is not safe car, and may actually be one of the most dangerous cars ever made. > Censor me if you’d like. Every day fewer people care. There is nothing you can do to change that. Yep. Stupid and selfish people are a fact of life, unfortunately. That's why the law needs punishments.
tstewart161 6y ago
Lest we forget the second wave in the US due to mass nationwide protests? Masking up is great, and there are too many busybodies in convenience stores getting upset because an employee asked them to wear a mask, but the problem is obviously deeper than a couple of anti-maskers
- teachrdan 6y ago
  Cities with large protests did not suffer from increased rates of COVID--see New York City, for example. Cities with lower rates of mask usage did experience high rates of COVID infection--see Phoenix, Arizona. A percentage of HNers will say "Correlation is not causation." But the history of places like NYC and San Francisco that had huge demonstrations against police brutality without increased rates of transmission disproves "the second wave in the US due to mass nationwide protests."
natrik 6y ago
If some countries aren't successful at containing the spread of the virus despite lockdowns, its because they didn't lockdown hard/good enough. If a country locks down hard and still many deaths occur, claim that the virus would have killed many more if they didn't lockdown. Morton's Fork. If deaths are low it's because lockdown worked. If they're high we didn't lockdown hard or early enough. Two outcomes, same conclusion: More lockdowns. No consideration to the null hypothesis.
- plasticchris 6y ago
  It's the no true Scotsman fallacy.
clairity 6y ago
> "This is one of those things were compromise to a half way solution doesn't work." well, we seem to agree that the half-measures here are bad compromises and don't work. but while it's tantalizing to believe we could have eradicated the virus, there was no chance of that given its characteristics, people's natural and wide-ranging behaviors, and the sociopolitical underpinnings of our governments. the US would never accept hard lockdown, for very good and hard-won reasons, so we're left needing to convince, not force, the populace to take reasonable mitigative measures with the understanding that we're going to have to ride it out. the response from the beginning should have focused on instilling good intuition about infectious diseases, which has the nice by-product of raising trust and people independently implementing real mitigations, rather than manically choreographed safety theater. the explosion of politically-charged disinformation however, has left people mentally and emotionally exahusted, and struggling to tease apart the effective strategies (modest distancing and avoiding crowded indoor gatherings) from the ineffective (masks everywhere and incessant cleaning). people give up, tune out, and arbitrarily choose the simplest anxiety-quelling option (like wearing masks in public) rather than the harder, but more effective (avoiding large parties). this is where the failure of leadership manifests, not in failing to institute an unacceptable and likely ineffective authoritarian lockdown.
nradov 6y ago
A three week total lockdown would obviously not eliminate the virus. No matter what we need certain essential workers to keep working or society will collapse, which would be far worse than the virus. Plus there are presumably still animal reservoirs out there somewhere. Are you going to exterminate all the bats and pangolins?

by ardy42 6y ago

dehrmann 6y ago

Whether or not you agree with his approach, Anders Tegnell described the lockdown model used in most of Europe as "not sustainable," and the UK, Spain, France, Poland, Czech Republic, Netherlands, and more are proving him right. > If you gave everyone time and resources to prepare for a total 3 week lockdown... This is a great idea in theory, but it ignores a lot of realities. You have to keep some level of basic infrastructure running; that will cause spread. There will always be some level of violations. Borders are more porous than people think. The mental cost of lockdown is also higher than people originally thought. "Listen to the experts" really meant "listen to epidemiologists," but this is their first time trying this at this scale, and it ignores psychologists and economists, even though those forces are going to be major drivers of behavior. There's also the elephant in the room: If Covid-19 were 10x more deadly or 10x less deadly, people would actually take it very seriously or brush it off. It falls in a very awkward place, and a lot of people are looking at the death rate for their age group, weighing the risk against 1-2 years of partial lockdown, and deciding if the risk is worth it.

ardy42 6y ago
> Whether or not you agree with his approach, Anders Tegnell described the lockdown model used in most of Europe as "not sustainable," I don't think I trust the judgements of the epidemiologist responsible for Sweden's strategy. > There will always be some level of violations. Borders are more porous than people think Obviously, but those are things that can be managed. > The mental cost of lockdown is also higher than people originally thought. Maybe the mental cost of a shambolic pandemic response is also pretty high, too? > "Listen to the experts" really meant "listen to epidemiologists," but this is their first time trying this at this scale, and it ignores psychologists and economists, even though those forces are going to be major drivers of behavior. The non-outlier epidemiologists are the right experts to trust right now. If a town is about to be overtaken by the front lines of a war, you don't ask the economists about the economic cost of closing main street or the psychologists about the emotional costs of forcing people from their homes. You listen to the people who understand war and evacuate the civilian population. You don't tell people to stay put and keep their shops open while the shells fly because some economist's model predicted unemployment and reduced growth if they leave.
- throwmeaway_pls 6y ago
  I think you are catastrophizing. We’re talking about a mild respiratory infection in 99+% of people. Censor me if you’d like. Every day fewer people care. There is nothing you can do to change that.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > We’re talking about a mild respiratory infection in 99+% of people. It kills 1% to 3% of people that get it, and many of the others have a pretty bad time. The fact that many people can get it with only mild symptoms actually makes it worse, because it means the disease is less self-limiting, and overall more deadly. And even if you got the statistic right, it's not telling the story you seem to want it to. A car that will only start 99 days out of 100 is not a reliable car. A car that doesn't kill its passengers 99% of the time is not safe car, and may actually be one of the most dangerous cars ever made. > Censor me if you’d like. Every day fewer people care. There is nothing you can do to change that. Yep. Stupid and selfish people are a fact of life, unfortunately. That's why the law needs punishments.

tstewart161 6y ago

Lest we forget the second wave in the US due to mass nationwide protests? Masking up is great, and there are too many busybodies in convenience stores getting upset because an employee asked them to wear a mask, but the problem is obviously deeper than a couple of anti-maskers

teachrdan 6y ago
Cities with large protests did not suffer from increased rates of COVID--see New York City, for example. Cities with lower rates of mask usage did experience high rates of COVID infection--see Phoenix, Arizona. A percentage of HNers will say "Correlation is not causation." But the history of places like NYC and San Francisco that had huge demonstrations against police brutality without increased rates of transmission disproves "the second wave in the US due to mass nationwide protests."

natrik 6y ago

If some countries aren't successful at containing the spread of the virus despite lockdowns, its because they didn't lockdown hard/good enough. If a country locks down hard and still many deaths occur, claim that the virus would have killed many more if they didn't lockdown. Morton's Fork. If deaths are low it's because lockdown worked. If they're high we didn't lockdown hard or early enough. Two outcomes, same conclusion: More lockdowns. No consideration to the null hypothesis.

plasticchris 6y ago
It's the no true Scotsman fallacy.

clairity 6y ago

> "This is one of those things were compromise to a half way solution doesn't work." well, we seem to agree that the half-measures here are bad compromises and don't work. but while it's tantalizing to believe we could have eradicated the virus, there was no chance of that given its characteristics, people's natural and wide-ranging behaviors, and the sociopolitical underpinnings of our governments. the US would never accept hard lockdown, for very good and hard-won reasons, so we're left needing to convince, not force, the populace to take reasonable mitigative measures with the understanding that we're going to have to ride it out. the response from the beginning should have focused on instilling good intuition about infectious diseases, which has the nice by-product of raising trust and people independently implementing real mitigations, rather than manically choreographed safety theater. the explosion of politically-charged disinformation however, has left people mentally and emotionally exahusted, and struggling to tease apart the effective strategies (modest distancing and avoiding crowded indoor gatherings) from the ineffective (masks everywhere and incessant cleaning). people give up, tune out, and arbitrarily choose the simplest anxiety-quelling option (like wearing masks in public) rather than the harder, but more effective (avoiding large parties). this is where the failure of leadership manifests, not in failing to institute an unacceptable and likely ineffective authoritarian lockdown.

nradov 6y ago

A three week total lockdown would obviously not eliminate the virus. No matter what we need certain essential workers to keep working or society will collapse, which would be far worse than the virus. Plus there are presumably still animal reservoirs out there somewhere. Are you going to exterminate all the bats and pangolins?