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> More accurately the government non-reaction to the pandemic. This is precisely the opposite of true. Countries with strict and widely observed lockdowns don'

> More accurately the government non-reaction to the pandemic. This is precisely the opposite of true. Countries with strict and widely observed lockdowns don't seem to be generally better off health-wise than those with no lockdowns whatsoever, but their economies are certainly worse off. > next to no assistance for those truly in need If you think "assistance" such as it could have been rendered would have been good for the economy, your economic model is badly broken. The only viable approach is to not impoverish those people in the first place, which was an option.

triceratops 6y ago
> Countries with strict and widely observed lockdowns don't seem to be generally better off health-wise No? So we're not counting China or Australia? I also didn't say anything about lockdowns specifically. Those are the last resort after travel restrictions, mandatory testing and quarantine for travelers, contact tracing, universal mask-wearing have failed to slow the spread. We didn't even try any of that, did some weakly-observed lockdowns and then said "See? Nothing works! Not our fault!" > good for the economy I said it would have prevented the widespread misery. The economy exists to provide for human wants and needs. It's not an end in itself. If we were going to print money (yes I know that's a simplistic view of what happened) give it to people to buy food and pay rent. > The only viable approach is to not impoverish those people in the first place, which was an option. Definitely. By doing everything I said above - testing, quarantine, contact-tracing, not denying the existence of the disease in February etc. Instead we did none of the preventive measures, then half-heartedly locked down in a haphazard fashion. If we'd done nothing, the virus would have run amok and impoverished those people anyway by destroying their industries and we'd have way more deaths.
- centimeter 6y ago
  China is lying, Austrialia isn't substantively better off than e.g. Sweden, which took the opposite approach. > I said it would have prevented the widespread misery. Why? That seems facially insane to me. > testing, quarantine, contact-tracing, Clearly none of those things actually help. You can't eliminate a disease with this level of transmissibility - maybe slow it down a bit. > the virus would have run amok and impoverished those people anyway by destroying their industries You have a completely distorted view of how dangerous this virus is.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    > China is lying Prove it. Even if they're lying, they'd have to under report deaths by a factor of 40 to approach the US per-capita death toll. How easy do you think it is to hide 40x the bodies that were reported? > Austrialia isn't substantively better off than e.g. Sweden In what way? They have 50x (1k/1M vs 50k/1M) fewer cases per capita than Sweden. They have the same unemployment rate (~7%). I'd call that "substantively better". In your worldview everyone who does better than the US at containing Covid is either lying or doesn't exist. Think about that. > That seems facially insane to me Preventing misery sounds "insane" to you? Or do you think the idea that giving assistance would prevent misery is "insane"? They're both pretty normal ideas - maybe you're the one with the distorted view of the world. > Clearly none of those things actually help South Korea (1k cases/1M) and Taiwan (36 cases/1M) would like to have a word with you. > You have a completely distorted view of how dangerous this virus is. In October 2020, Covid was already the 3rd leading cause of death for 45+[1]. In the past week, it was the single-largest cause of death. The next 2 (usually heart disease and cancer) take decades to kill you and aren't transmissible. Maybe you should consider the possibility that you're the one who's been deeply misinformed. You're saying completely untrue stuff with 100% confidence. I think you're in denial. 1. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774465 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774465
    - centimeter 6y ago
      Basically everything you’re saying is low-grade bullshit, but I’ll just focus on > In October 2020, Covid was already the 3rd leading cause of death for 45+ If you don’t understand how the US’s covid mortality reporting policies grossly inflate this number, you’re deriving premises from fundamentally broken data. In fact, this is the fundamental source of confusion when doing comparisons across countries. If you normalize for reporting standards, things look very different from the picture you’ve painted. Edit: this dogshit website won’t let me respond further, but I’ll just paste it here: Arguing the numbers is a losing tactic - at least, it’s a waste of time - when you’re speaking with someone who doesn’t understand that it’s absurd to compare countries where anyone who dies with covid is reported to have died of covid (like most metrics in the US) against countries that have a more sane reporting standard, like Taiwan.

triceratops 6y ago

> Countries with strict and widely observed lockdowns don't seem to be generally better off health-wise No? So we're not counting China or Australia? I also didn't say anything about lockdowns specifically. Those are the last resort after travel restrictions, mandatory testing and quarantine for travelers, contact tracing, universal mask-wearing have failed to slow the spread. We didn't even try any of that, did some weakly-observed lockdowns and then said "See? Nothing works! Not our fault!" > good for the economy I said it would have prevented the widespread misery. The economy exists to provide for human wants and needs. It's not an end in itself. If we were going to print money (yes I know that's a simplistic view of what happened) give it to people to buy food and pay rent. > The only viable approach is to not impoverish those people in the first place, which was an option. Definitely. By doing everything I said above - testing, quarantine, contact-tracing, not denying the existence of the disease in February etc. Instead we did none of the preventive measures, then half-heartedly locked down in a haphazard fashion. If we'd done nothing, the virus would have run amok and impoverished those people anyway by destroying their industries and we'd have way more deaths.

centimeter 6y ago
China is lying, Austrialia isn't substantively better off than e.g. Sweden, which took the opposite approach. > I said it would have prevented the widespread misery. Why? That seems facially insane to me. > testing, quarantine, contact-tracing, Clearly none of those things actually help. You can't eliminate a disease with this level of transmissibility - maybe slow it down a bit. > the virus would have run amok and impoverished those people anyway by destroying their industries You have a completely distorted view of how dangerous this virus is.
- triceratops 6y ago
  > China is lying Prove it. Even if they're lying, they'd have to under report deaths by a factor of 40 to approach the US per-capita death toll. How easy do you think it is to hide 40x the bodies that were reported? > Austrialia isn't substantively better off than e.g. Sweden In what way? They have 50x (1k/1M vs 50k/1M) fewer cases per capita than Sweden. They have the same unemployment rate (~7%). I'd call that "substantively better". In your worldview everyone who does better than the US at containing Covid is either lying or doesn't exist. Think about that. > That seems facially insane to me Preventing misery sounds "insane" to you? Or do you think the idea that giving assistance would prevent misery is "insane"? They're both pretty normal ideas - maybe you're the one with the distorted view of the world. > Clearly none of those things actually help South Korea (1k cases/1M) and Taiwan (36 cases/1M) would like to have a word with you. > You have a completely distorted view of how dangerous this virus is. In October 2020, Covid was already the 3rd leading cause of death for 45+[1]. In the past week, it was the single-largest cause of death. The next 2 (usually heart disease and cancer) take decades to kill you and aren't transmissible. Maybe you should consider the possibility that you're the one who's been deeply misinformed. You're saying completely untrue stuff with 100% confidence. I think you're in denial. 1. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774465 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774465
  - centimeter 6y ago
    Basically everything you’re saying is low-grade bullshit, but I’ll just focus on > In October 2020, Covid was already the 3rd leading cause of death for 45+ If you don’t understand how the US’s covid mortality reporting policies grossly inflate this number, you’re deriving premises from fundamentally broken data. In fact, this is the fundamental source of confusion when doing comparisons across countries. If you normalize for reporting standards, things look very different from the picture you’ve painted. Edit: this dogshit website won’t let me respond further, but I’ll just paste it here: Arguing the numbers is a losing tactic - at least, it’s a waste of time - when you’re speaking with someone who doesn’t understand that it’s absurd to compare countries where anyone who dies with covid is reported to have died of covid (like most metrics in the US) against countries that have a more sane reporting standard, like Taiwan.