5 ms·

Serious question: the numbers are completely out of control as of right now (at least in the US). I'm not really seeing any benefits from any lockdowns so far (

by volkk 6y ago

Serious question: the numbers are completely out of control as of right now (at least in the US). I'm not really seeing any benefits from any lockdowns so far (albeit we did do well in the summer). Most of the outdoor seating is just security theater. The outside areas are just cacooned indoor tents. There are indoor basketball games being run (here in NYC) and the rules are: 'wear a mask while you walk around the gym but youre allowed to sweat all over each other without one.' It all seems like a complete joke at this point. I'm one hundred and ten percent on board with wearing masks and being cautious about what to do, but it's been a year of this already. It feels like renting a lakehouse for some much needed mental health recuperation is at the bottom of the barrel as far as risk factor goes. Considering California is seeing 30,000 a day Covid numbers, it feels like "stay home" when 50% of the country doesn't give a shit anymore is like throwing a cup of water on a house fire at this point. Curious to hear at what point does your mental well being become more of a concern? 1 year? 2 years? 5 years of lockdown? while you have people in Florida going to nightclubs then flying elsewhere? I'm starting to feel like one of those people tying themselves to a tree with a "save the planet" t-shirt while other people walk by and laugh and continue to ignore the damage and live their lives. I'm not trying to sound defeatist, but I am seriously at a loss here.

danpalmer 6y ago
Bad lockdowns are bad, yes. Good lockdowns have had amazing impacts in many places. Australia is a good example. Victoria had out of control community spread (~100 infections a day), so locked down for 3 months. This meant no visitors at home, no going to work unless one of a few specific reasons, no general retail, masks mandated at all times outside the house, no travelling more than 5k for any reason, no travelling for exercise. They got rid of it. This is what lockdown means. This is what the science shows us is effective. Wearing a mask and office jobs being done from home is not a lockdown. Saying badly implemented lockdowns don't work so why bother is the attitude that is killing thousands of people a day.
- volkk 6y ago
  I dont disagree with the theory of a lockdown when necessary, but now that I look back at our year in the US...it now seems so obvious that this was never going to work. This place is simply too big with too many selfish idiots that want to do their own thing for how virulent COVID is. Leadership is a huge failure that didn't help at all, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we'd be in the same exact position of an uncontrolled spread even if we had a different sitting president with different views. 330 million people spread out across 50 states, across various local governments, some of who might not care as much is just too many people to get on the same page regardless of the message from the top. Australia is 7% of the population of the US. Barely a comparison
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    We shouldn’t be saying “Lockdowns don’t work,” because thanks to the idiots we really aren’t doing any kind of real lockdown. We should instead be saying “Uncoordinated and unenforced public health policy and lack of federal leadership doesn’t work.”
    - d357r0y3r 6y ago
      If your policy depends on everyone doing the right thing, it's awful policy. Lockdowns have never been done in human history. They've never been possible, really; if there were no internet, it wouldn't even have been considered as a possibility. It takes a lot of hubris to claim that lockdowns were/are guaranteed to work. It is totally uncharted territory.
      - ryandrake 6y ago
        Unenforced policies depend on everyone doing the right thing, and we agree they are doomed to fail. If there was any enforcement at all they could have made a dent. There are plenty of other policies in the USA that are effective because we manage to enforce. Do you know anybody who got a ticket for violating stay-at-home? I don’t.
        6y ago
wutbrodo 6y ago
I've had an unusual amount of travel during covid, so I've had occasion to be in sf (2 mos), SD (1 mo), LA (3 mos), and NYC (3 mos). Leaving compliance aside, since my skewed samples wouldn't be very helpful, policy and enforcement in NYC seem to have been way more lax than all the parts of CA I was in.
- volkk 6y ago
  When were you in NYC? During the first 3-5 months of COVID, NYC was a complete ghost town with nothing open aside from essential stores. Once we got our numbers down to some of the lowest in the country (compared to other cities with similar populations), everything then became lax again, and now it's sort of this half-assed situation as I described above. Cases out of control, but you're still allowed to do various things that seemingly havent been very well thought out
  - wutbrodo 6y ago
    On the policy/enforcement side, NY had indoor dining open until wayy later than CA did in early winter, despite having worse numbers and a much worse trajectory. (CA overtook NY again and now SoCal is screwed, but this was before that). I do think that there's some non-trade-off potential here via the micro-targeting approach they started while I was there. I was living in Soho around the time that Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn were having outbreaks, and I really appreciated that neighborhoods super far from me with relatively little cross-travel (esp with the low subway ridership at the time) didn't unnecessarily fuck up my ability to go for dinner with a friend. By contrast, LA/CA tends to shut things down at a much higher level, so outbreaks in East LA affect policy in my parents' neighborhood on the Western border of LA County. At the state level: https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areas=bra&areas=gbr&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usca&cumulative=0&logScale=1&per100K=1&startDate=2020-09-01&values=deaths https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&are...
DennisP 6y ago
I might feel the same way if we weren't rolling out some very effective vaccines over the next several months. Just from a personal safety perspective, loosening up now risks being the soldier who dies in the last week of the war.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Depends. I know for me, under 50, not an essential worker or healthcare employee, in mismanaged California, I’m probably not eligible for the vaccine for another year, so I’m not really in the last week of the war.
elijaht 6y ago
Agreed with you 100%. The outdoor dining in tents drives me up a wall. Like, there is no way that's better than eating indoors.
wigl 6y ago
We never quite did enough in NYC. One gym in Williamsburg stayed open even during March and just kept paying the fine. There just hasn't been that much enforcement. We came to the conclusion that we experienced a real lockdown instead of a short stint of heightened delivery use. It's absurd that indoor/outdoor dining is still allowed (also that restaurants can't get support). In my experience as a 20-something, most of my friends have been hanging (even house-partying!) indoors maskless, and it too leaves me at a loss for words. The "well I already tested positive" mentality is pretty common. Meanwhile my partner and family in Asia participate in heightened levels of lockdown when getting a fraction of the cases we get on a good day.

by volkk 6y ago

danpalmer 6y ago

Bad lockdowns are bad, yes. Good lockdowns have had amazing impacts in many places. Australia is a good example. Victoria had out of control community spread (~100 infections a day), so locked down for 3 months. This meant no visitors at home, no going to work unless one of a few specific reasons, no general retail, masks mandated at all times outside the house, no travelling more than 5k for any reason, no travelling for exercise. They got rid of it. This is what lockdown means. This is what the science shows us is effective. Wearing a mask and office jobs being done from home is not a lockdown. Saying badly implemented lockdowns don't work so why bother is the attitude that is killing thousands of people a day.

volkk 6y ago
I dont disagree with the theory of a lockdown when necessary, but now that I look back at our year in the US...it now seems so obvious that this was never going to work. This place is simply too big with too many selfish idiots that want to do their own thing for how virulent COVID is. Leadership is a huge failure that didn't help at all, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we'd be in the same exact position of an uncontrolled spread even if we had a different sitting president with different views. 330 million people spread out across 50 states, across various local governments, some of who might not care as much is just too many people to get on the same page regardless of the message from the top. Australia is 7% of the population of the US. Barely a comparison
- ryandrake 6y ago
  We shouldn’t be saying “Lockdowns don’t work,” because thanks to the idiots we really aren’t doing any kind of real lockdown. We should instead be saying “Uncoordinated and unenforced public health policy and lack of federal leadership doesn’t work.”
  - d357r0y3r 6y ago
    If your policy depends on everyone doing the right thing, it's awful policy. Lockdowns have never been done in human history. They've never been possible, really; if there were no internet, it wouldn't even have been considered as a possibility. It takes a lot of hubris to claim that lockdowns were/are guaranteed to work. It is totally uncharted territory.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      Unenforced policies depend on everyone doing the right thing, and we agree they are doomed to fail. If there was any enforcement at all they could have made a dent. There are plenty of other policies in the USA that are effective because we manage to enforce. Do you know anybody who got a ticket for violating stay-at-home? I don’t.
      - 6y ago

wutbrodo 6y ago

I've had an unusual amount of travel during covid, so I've had occasion to be in sf (2 mos), SD (1 mo), LA (3 mos), and NYC (3 mos). Leaving compliance aside, since my skewed samples wouldn't be very helpful, policy and enforcement in NYC seem to have been way more lax than all the parts of CA I was in.

volkk 6y ago
When were you in NYC? During the first 3-5 months of COVID, NYC was a complete ghost town with nothing open aside from essential stores. Once we got our numbers down to some of the lowest in the country (compared to other cities with similar populations), everything then became lax again, and now it's sort of this half-assed situation as I described above. Cases out of control, but you're still allowed to do various things that seemingly havent been very well thought out
- wutbrodo 6y ago
  On the policy/enforcement side, NY had indoor dining open until wayy later than CA did in early winter, despite having worse numbers and a much worse trajectory. (CA overtook NY again and now SoCal is screwed, but this was before that). I do think that there's some non-trade-off potential here via the micro-targeting approach they started while I was there. I was living in Soho around the time that Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn were having outbreaks, and I really appreciated that neighborhoods super far from me with relatively little cross-travel (esp with the low subway ridership at the time) didn't unnecessarily fuck up my ability to go for dinner with a friend. By contrast, LA/CA tends to shut things down at a much higher level, so outbreaks in East LA affect policy in my parents' neighborhood on the Western border of LA County. At the state level: https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areas=bra&areas=gbr&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usca&cumulative=0&logScale=1&per100K=1&startDate=2020-09-01&values=deaths https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&are...

DennisP 6y ago

I might feel the same way if we weren't rolling out some very effective vaccines over the next several months. Just from a personal safety perspective, loosening up now risks being the soldier who dies in the last week of the war.

ryandrake 6y ago
Depends. I know for me, under 50, not an essential worker or healthcare employee, in mismanaged California, I’m probably not eligible for the vaccine for another year, so I’m not really in the last week of the war.

elijaht 6y ago

Agreed with you 100%. The outdoor dining in tents drives me up a wall. Like, there is no way that's better than eating indoors.

wigl 6y ago

We never quite did enough in NYC. One gym in Williamsburg stayed open even during March and just kept paying the fine. There just hasn't been that much enforcement. We came to the conclusion that we experienced a real lockdown instead of a short stint of heightened delivery use. It's absurd that indoor/outdoor dining is still allowed (also that restaurants can't get support). In my experience as a 20-something, most of my friends have been hanging (even house-partying!) indoors maskless, and it too leaves me at a loss for words. The "well I already tested positive" mentality is pretty common. Meanwhile my partner and family in Asia participate in heightened levels of lockdown when getting a fraction of the cases we get on a good day.