6 ms·

Lockdowns were never going to work, and any strategy that relied on them was doomed to fail. A strategy that involves convincing every country, and every littl

by cwhiz 6y ago

Lockdowns were never going to work, and any strategy that relied on them was doomed to fail. A strategy that involves convincing every country, and every little province, to destroy their local economies, all at the same time. I can’t believe it didn’t work! Maybe if we just keep trying.

praestigiare 6y ago
Lockdowns do not destroy the economy. Anti-maskers destroy the economy, by decreasing the effectiveness of lockdowns, and making them a chronic rather than acute necessity.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  The relationship between COVID and the local economy is highly country-dependent. For example, several Balkan countries’ economies are very dependent on their diasporas (and the occasional tourists) driving/flying back and spending loads of money earned in the West. This is why even now they have remained open to travelers and avoided hard lockdowns, even if COVID deaths might result. And then there are countries where the economy is based on resource extraction. Only a relatively tiny amount of people is necessary to work the oil and gas industry, or whatever, and thinktanks have sometimes bluntly referred to all the remaining millions of people as "superfluous population". So, whether you let COVID spread or not has little overall effect on the economy.
  - armagon 6y ago
    I live in Alberta, Canada, which is heavily reliant on resource extraction -- namely, oil. With all the lockdowns (and people voluntarily staying at home), demand for oil has tanked. If there weren't lockdowns (and people were travelling again), our economy would be doing much better. [With all that said, and while I dearly missing socializing, it isn't obvious to me that removing the lockdowns would improve things; on the other hand, it isn't obvious to me that letting the disease run rampant would be worse than the mental and emotional toll the lockdowns are taking on people and the economy. So many poorly understood trade-offs.]
chimprich 6y ago
Lockdowns have been extremely successful in a great many countries. Some examples include: * China bringing their initial outbreak down to near-zero * Italy arresting their early surge that overwhelmed health systems * New Zealand bringing their infection rate low enough to essentially return to normal life (apart from international travel) * The UK stopping a dramatic winter uptick involving the B 1.7.1 variant from overwhelming the NHS In what way have they not worked?
- cwhiz 6y ago
  This whole comment chain is about global covid. Any course of action that relies upon global cooperation is pointless. We can't even get country wide cooperation in the United States. If we try to stop the global spread of covid with lockdowns, we'll all die of old age in lockdown.
- jonfw 6y ago
  So two islands, an authoritarian communist government, and Italy have seen success with lockdowns? Good for Italy!
pessimizer 6y ago
Nothing is going to work any better than lockdowns, though. The reason the strategy wasn't ever going to work is because the fear level wasn't high enough. Bump up the death rate so people who can't see past their own nose see some death, and it'll work. Sadly, coronaviruses definitely have the potential to deliver on that. Now that so many people have become infected because lockdowns weren't taken seriously, and because poor and working people weren't protected or provided for, we're going to have to deal with every possible mutation that could be imagined. Scary situation when MERS was a thing. The idea that the world can't wait at a fairly comfortable sustenance level for any period of time is one that might be written on our species' tombstone.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  >Nothing is going to work any better than lockdowns, though. They haven't worked, and they can't work. There are many third world countries that don't have internet access or the equivalent to the CDC. Global cooperation is just absolutely not going to happen. We can't even agree city to city in the US, much less state to state. The way out of a global pandemic is the same it always has been. Vaccination. Attempting to control individual behavior on a global scale is a fools errand.
- spookthesunset 6y ago
  > The reason the strategy wasn't ever going to work is because the fear level wasn't high enough The average American 35 year old thinks if they catch covid they have a >10% chance of dying. This is off by almost 1000x. If you drove that error down to 0 so people knew exactly what there risks were if they got covid (i.e. for most healthy adults and children, covid is a complete non-event)... I don't think the general public would tolerate any of these NPI's at all. The fact that people can overestimate their covid risks by almost 1000x has destroyed our ability to have rational discussions about kids in school, who should be prioritized for vaccination, and how we should return to actual normal life. Shoveling nonstop boatloads of absolute fear into peoples head has been one of the most morally bankrupt things the media and public health "experts" have done over the course of the pandemic. Society is going to spend years cleaning up the mental health train-wreck these people have caused. Source for the figures. Take a look. It blows me away how wrong peoples risk perceptions are of covid. https://covid19pulse.usc.edu/ https://covid19pulse.usc.edu/
jhayward 6y ago
They were always going to work, but only if they were used in their proper context: to knock down the size of the epidemic so that less intrusive, more efficient means of infection control can happen: universal, repeated testing; universal contact tracing; and rapid isolation of contacts. The people who complain about lockdowns are also the people who refuse to do the alternative, and then claim "nothing works". I am really tired of the "we tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" political party. Get out of the way and let people who are capable of handling things get to work.

by cwhiz 6y ago

praestigiare 6y ago

Lockdowns do not destroy the economy. Anti-maskers destroy the economy, by decreasing the effectiveness of lockdowns, and making them a chronic rather than acute necessity.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
The relationship between COVID and the local economy is highly country-dependent. For example, several Balkan countries’ economies are very dependent on their diasporas (and the occasional tourists) driving/flying back and spending loads of money earned in the West. This is why even now they have remained open to travelers and avoided hard lockdowns, even if COVID deaths might result. And then there are countries where the economy is based on resource extraction. Only a relatively tiny amount of people is necessary to work the oil and gas industry, or whatever, and thinktanks have sometimes bluntly referred to all the remaining millions of people as "superfluous population". So, whether you let COVID spread or not has little overall effect on the economy.
- armagon 6y ago
  I live in Alberta, Canada, which is heavily reliant on resource extraction -- namely, oil. With all the lockdowns (and people voluntarily staying at home), demand for oil has tanked. If there weren't lockdowns (and people were travelling again), our economy would be doing much better. [With all that said, and while I dearly missing socializing, it isn't obvious to me that removing the lockdowns would improve things; on the other hand, it isn't obvious to me that letting the disease run rampant would be worse than the mental and emotional toll the lockdowns are taking on people and the economy. So many poorly understood trade-offs.]

chimprich 6y ago

Lockdowns have been extremely successful in a great many countries. Some examples include: * China bringing their initial outbreak down to near-zero * Italy arresting their early surge that overwhelmed health systems * New Zealand bringing their infection rate low enough to essentially return to normal life (apart from international travel) * The UK stopping a dramatic winter uptick involving the B 1.7.1 variant from overwhelming the NHS In what way have they not worked?

cwhiz 6y ago
This whole comment chain is about global covid. Any course of action that relies upon global cooperation is pointless. We can't even get country wide cooperation in the United States. If we try to stop the global spread of covid with lockdowns, we'll all die of old age in lockdown.
jonfw 6y ago
So two islands, an authoritarian communist government, and Italy have seen success with lockdowns? Good for Italy!

pessimizer 6y ago

Nothing is going to work any better than lockdowns, though. The reason the strategy wasn't ever going to work is because the fear level wasn't high enough. Bump up the death rate so people who can't see past their own nose see some death, and it'll work. Sadly, coronaviruses definitely have the potential to deliver on that. Now that so many people have become infected because lockdowns weren't taken seriously, and because poor and working people weren't protected or provided for, we're going to have to deal with every possible mutation that could be imagined. Scary situation when MERS was a thing. The idea that the world can't wait at a fairly comfortable sustenance level for any period of time is one that might be written on our species' tombstone.

cwhiz 6y ago
>Nothing is going to work any better than lockdowns, though. They haven't worked, and they can't work. There are many third world countries that don't have internet access or the equivalent to the CDC. Global cooperation is just absolutely not going to happen. We can't even agree city to city in the US, much less state to state. The way out of a global pandemic is the same it always has been. Vaccination. Attempting to control individual behavior on a global scale is a fools errand.
spookthesunset 6y ago
> The reason the strategy wasn't ever going to work is because the fear level wasn't high enough The average American 35 year old thinks if they catch covid they have a >10% chance of dying. This is off by almost 1000x. If you drove that error down to 0 so people knew exactly what there risks were if they got covid (i.e. for most healthy adults and children, covid is a complete non-event)... I don't think the general public would tolerate any of these NPI's at all. The fact that people can overestimate their covid risks by almost 1000x has destroyed our ability to have rational discussions about kids in school, who should be prioritized for vaccination, and how we should return to actual normal life. Shoveling nonstop boatloads of absolute fear into peoples head has been one of the most morally bankrupt things the media and public health "experts" have done over the course of the pandemic. Society is going to spend years cleaning up the mental health train-wreck these people have caused. Source for the figures. Take a look. It blows me away how wrong peoples risk perceptions are of covid. https://covid19pulse.usc.edu/ https://covid19pulse.usc.edu/

jhayward 6y ago

They were always going to work, but only if they were used in their proper context: to knock down the size of the epidemic so that less intrusive, more efficient means of infection control can happen: universal, repeated testing; universal contact tracing; and rapid isolation of contacts. The people who complain about lockdowns are also the people who refuse to do the alternative, and then claim "nothing works". I am really tired of the "we tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" political party. Get out of the way and let people who are capable of handling things get to work.