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"Having lockdowns can get you back to the point where businesses can safely operate with community spread control measures (see e.g. Australia or Taiwan)." How

by EricE 6y ago

"Having lockdowns can get you back to the point where businesses can safely operate with community spread control measures (see e.g. Australia or Taiwan)." How do you explain Florida, not locked down, vs. California with some of the strictest lock downs in the country having similar rates of death/infection? It's even more of a puzzler for those pushing lockdowns since Florida has a population tilted way more in the elderly direction and per capita CA has a population tilted way more in the younger direction. Even if both were locked down you would expect Florida to have more infections simply from the age of its population. Instead they aren't locked down so it should be the apocalypse, no? All as we pass the year anniversary of "six weeks to slow the spread" :p

anoonmoose 6y ago
If one football team got beat 8-0, and another football team got beat 9-1, should we really be spending time arguing about which team is better when they're both pretty obviously not very good?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  It's not about teams, it's about attempting to evaluate the counterfactual. If the difference between the US and Australia is primarily due to lockdowns, you would expect to see areas with more lockdown do better than areas with less. Much better, to a degree that drowns out any noise, since the overall difference is so vast. And that really doesn't seem to be what we observe.
  - anoonmoose 6y ago
    You're acting like there were parts of the US in 100% lockdown vs 0% lockdown, when the difference is a lot more like 20% (max) vs 10%, and it's a lot harder to suss out any difference in result when the difference in practice is that small.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      If lockdown explains most of the variance between Australia's 1k deaths and America's 500k deaths, then the difference between 10% and 20% lockdown should still be very visible.
      - mcguire 6y ago
        Few relationships in the real world are linear. That is just an assumption that makes the math easier.
        SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        Sure, but there's a point where the hypothesis just becomes unfalsifiable. Is there any evidence that would convince you lockdown policy isn't the primary factor here?
      - anoonmoose 6y ago
        That's a big "if" at the beginning of your sentence.
        SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean. That was the "if" that started this comment thread - an assertion that the US would be back to normal already if only it had done what Australia did.
      - zuminator 6y ago
        That doesn't follow. Imagine the effective spread ("Re") of a disease averages 1.5. Certain external factors, such as climate, population density, access to medicine, diet, etc. can cause a 0.2 plus or minus variance in Re. So, 1.3-1.7 range. Each 10% of lockdown will cause a 10% reduction in that amount. So if Florida does a 10% lockdown, its Re will be somewhere in the 1.3-1.7 range reduced by 10% or 1.17-1.53. If California does a 20% lockdown, its Re will be in the 1.04-1.36 range. California, if "unlucky" can still have a worse Re (1.36) than Florida if "lucky" (1.17). Meanwhile Australia at a say 70% lockdown would see numbers in the 0.39-0.51 range, well below sustained transmission levels even if "unlucky."
- mod 6y ago
  No, we shouldn't argue about which one is better. If we're coaching the team that lost 0-8, we shouldn't try to run the playbook of the team that lost 1-9 in the next game. Especially when that playbook cripples our players in other ways--perhaps academically (to expand your analogy).
JohnBooty 6y ago
What this seems to hint at is that doing the absolute laziest possible, mostly-voluntary "lockdown" (ala the "lockdowns" we've seen in America) does not accomplish very much. It's like claiming a brand of toothpaste isn't very effective because you brushed your teeth once a week and still experienced the same level of tooth decay as somebody who never brushed at all. Is it the toothpaste's fault, or your fault because you were too lazy to brush your teeth more than once per week? There's not enough data to say. Maybe it was a truly ineffective toothpaste and no amount of brushing would have helped. You don't know enough to say. Calling anything we've tried in America a "lockdown" is laughable, considering how voluntary and unenforced it was. Lockdown, my ass. More like a polite suggestion to stay at home that most of the country ignored whenever they felt like it.
- chasd00 6y ago
  laughable or not, the American lockdowns certainly destroyed plenty of livelihoods and devastated a thriving economy where wages were finally rising for the majority. what would a proper lockdown look like to you anyway? I uniformed officer at your front door forcing you to remain inside?
  - JohnBooty 6y ago
    I work in the restaurant industry. I definitely understand how disastrous this has been for particular sectors. Do you think that I was somehow denying that? When I called our "lockdowns" laughable, clearly I was referring to their effectiveness w.r.t. stopping the virus. Clearly I was not referring to business impact. That was a point I didn't mention. Is anybody even disputing this has been rough on certain businesses?!?!
- mod 6y ago
  Perhaps, but meanwhile we're forcibly closing certain businesses and hurting those. I would know, I own one that has been greatly affected (a bar). For reference, my customers starting hanging out at the strip club instead, which didn't have the restrictions imposed (it was based on liquor licenses, which they don't have in my state). So, the lockdown was ineffective at controlling the population or spread, but it still managed to smack my business around.
acdha 6y ago
The US hasn’t tried anything like a strict lockdown anywhere in the country – we came close for a few weeks last spring but relaxed several weeks too soon – so I think what we’re showing is that this works as well as cutting a course of antibiotics early. In particular, we didn’t have a good economic plan for people who couldn’t work from home. Absent some alternative, economic necessity will force people to leave their houses and that will ensure community spread goes up without more care than was in evidence in much of the country.
- jdminhbg 6y ago
  At this rate, the No True Scotsman fallacy is going to be renamed to No True Lockdown.
  - acdha 6y ago
    I’m sorry that you haven’t followed the topic carefully but it’s hardly a logical fallacy to say that not doing what epidemiologists recommended doesn’t mean following their advice wouldn’t have worked, especially when you can look at countries like Australia which did a harder lockdown and have seen the predicted benefits.
    - jdminhbg 6y ago
      So in that case, you're willing to say that under current conditions in the US, mask wearing and restrictions on things like dining are pointless, right? If "lockdown" can only be expected to produce results in its strongest form and we can't do that, that seems like the logical conclusion.
      - simonh 6y ago
        Any improvement over nothing is worth having. Just because the large number of lockdown deniers make the kinds of lockdowns seen elsewhere in the developed world impossible, doesn’t mean the level of compliance that is possible isn’t worthwhile. The experience from the Spanish Flu, which seems to have similar overall lethality, is instructive. Many developed countries managed to lock down to some extent and keep the death rate from around 0.5% to 1.5% of the population. India failed to manage any significant lockdown at all and the death rate was a staggering 5% of the population.
jfrunyon 6y ago
No. First, how do YOU explain Australia having 900 deaths for 25m people, and the US having OVER FIVE HUNDRED TIMES THAT (499k) for 328m?
- rayiner 6y ago
  It’s an island and regularly shut down air travel to control infections coming in? The “lockdowns could work if we just tried” view is falsified by the situation in Germany. If Germans lack the discipline to do it, then nobody can do it. Some countries like Australia got lucky because their geography made it easy, but it’s not practical elsewhere.
  - thebruce87m 6y ago
    Pick a country with a flat line from here: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ Northern Ireland vs Ireland is one of the interesting ones.
  - jfrunyon 6y ago
    I'm not sure why you think that it being an island has anything to do with anything. It doesn't. Yes, the fact that they LOCKED DOWN had a lot to do with why their infection rate is so low. That is exactly my point; thank you for acknowledging that it is correct.
phobosanomaly 6y ago
California does have twice the population as Florida and a much, much larger economy. It could just be that all the elderly Floridians sit at home in gated communities, while Californians are more likely to be going-in to work surrounded by a much larger, more dense population. Could also be an effect of prevalence of multi-generational housing. Perhaps the elderly Floridians are more concentrated in gated community-type housing, and not living with extended family in a smaller living space.

by EricE 6y ago

anoonmoose 6y ago

If one football team got beat 8-0, and another football team got beat 9-1, should we really be spending time arguing about which team is better when they're both pretty obviously not very good?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
It's not about teams, it's about attempting to evaluate the counterfactual. If the difference between the US and Australia is primarily due to lockdowns, you would expect to see areas with more lockdown do better than areas with less. Much better, to a degree that drowns out any noise, since the overall difference is so vast. And that really doesn't seem to be what we observe.
- anoonmoose 6y ago
  You're acting like there were parts of the US in 100% lockdown vs 0% lockdown, when the difference is a lot more like 20% (max) vs 10%, and it's a lot harder to suss out any difference in result when the difference in practice is that small.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    If lockdown explains most of the variance between Australia's 1k deaths and America's 500k deaths, then the difference between 10% and 20% lockdown should still be very visible.
    - mcguire 6y ago
      Few relationships in the real world are linear. That is just an assumption that makes the math easier.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        Sure, but there's a point where the hypothesis just becomes unfalsifiable. Is there any evidence that would convince you lockdown policy isn't the primary factor here?
    - anoonmoose 6y ago
      That's a big "if" at the beginning of your sentence.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean. That was the "if" that started this comment thread - an assertion that the US would be back to normal already if only it had done what Australia did.
    - zuminator 6y ago
      That doesn't follow. Imagine the effective spread ("Re") of a disease averages 1.5. Certain external factors, such as climate, population density, access to medicine, diet, etc. can cause a 0.2 plus or minus variance in Re. So, 1.3-1.7 range. Each 10% of lockdown will cause a 10% reduction in that amount. So if Florida does a 10% lockdown, its Re will be somewhere in the 1.3-1.7 range reduced by 10% or 1.17-1.53. If California does a 20% lockdown, its Re will be in the 1.04-1.36 range. California, if "unlucky" can still have a worse Re (1.36) than Florida if "lucky" (1.17). Meanwhile Australia at a say 70% lockdown would see numbers in the 0.39-0.51 range, well below sustained transmission levels even if "unlucky."
mod 6y ago
No, we shouldn't argue about which one is better. If we're coaching the team that lost 0-8, we shouldn't try to run the playbook of the team that lost 1-9 in the next game. Especially when that playbook cripples our players in other ways--perhaps academically (to expand your analogy).

JohnBooty 6y ago

What this seems to hint at is that doing the absolute laziest possible, mostly-voluntary "lockdown" (ala the "lockdowns" we've seen in America) does not accomplish very much. It's like claiming a brand of toothpaste isn't very effective because you brushed your teeth once a week and still experienced the same level of tooth decay as somebody who never brushed at all. Is it the toothpaste's fault, or your fault because you were too lazy to brush your teeth more than once per week? There's not enough data to say. Maybe it was a truly ineffective toothpaste and no amount of brushing would have helped. You don't know enough to say. Calling anything we've tried in America a "lockdown" is laughable, considering how voluntary and unenforced it was. Lockdown, my ass. More like a polite suggestion to stay at home that most of the country ignored whenever they felt like it.

chasd00 6y ago
laughable or not, the American lockdowns certainly destroyed plenty of livelihoods and devastated a thriving economy where wages were finally rising for the majority. what would a proper lockdown look like to you anyway? I uniformed officer at your front door forcing you to remain inside?
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  I work in the restaurant industry. I definitely understand how disastrous this has been for particular sectors. Do you think that I was somehow denying that? When I called our "lockdowns" laughable, clearly I was referring to their effectiveness w.r.t. stopping the virus. Clearly I was not referring to business impact. That was a point I didn't mention. Is anybody even disputing this has been rough on certain businesses?!?!
mod 6y ago
Perhaps, but meanwhile we're forcibly closing certain businesses and hurting those. I would know, I own one that has been greatly affected (a bar). For reference, my customers starting hanging out at the strip club instead, which didn't have the restrictions imposed (it was based on liquor licenses, which they don't have in my state). So, the lockdown was ineffective at controlling the population or spread, but it still managed to smack my business around.

acdha 6y ago

The US hasn’t tried anything like a strict lockdown anywhere in the country – we came close for a few weeks last spring but relaxed several weeks too soon – so I think what we’re showing is that this works as well as cutting a course of antibiotics early. In particular, we didn’t have a good economic plan for people who couldn’t work from home. Absent some alternative, economic necessity will force people to leave their houses and that will ensure community spread goes up without more care than was in evidence in much of the country.

jdminhbg 6y ago
At this rate, the No True Scotsman fallacy is going to be renamed to No True Lockdown.
- acdha 6y ago
  I’m sorry that you haven’t followed the topic carefully but it’s hardly a logical fallacy to say that not doing what epidemiologists recommended doesn’t mean following their advice wouldn’t have worked, especially when you can look at countries like Australia which did a harder lockdown and have seen the predicted benefits.
  - jdminhbg 6y ago
    So in that case, you're willing to say that under current conditions in the US, mask wearing and restrictions on things like dining are pointless, right? If "lockdown" can only be expected to produce results in its strongest form and we can't do that, that seems like the logical conclusion.
    - simonh 6y ago
      Any improvement over nothing is worth having. Just because the large number of lockdown deniers make the kinds of lockdowns seen elsewhere in the developed world impossible, doesn’t mean the level of compliance that is possible isn’t worthwhile. The experience from the Spanish Flu, which seems to have similar overall lethality, is instructive. Many developed countries managed to lock down to some extent and keep the death rate from around 0.5% to 1.5% of the population. India failed to manage any significant lockdown at all and the death rate was a staggering 5% of the population.

jfrunyon 6y ago

No. First, how do YOU explain Australia having 900 deaths for 25m people, and the US having OVER FIVE HUNDRED TIMES THAT (499k) for 328m?

rayiner 6y ago
It’s an island and regularly shut down air travel to control infections coming in? The “lockdowns could work if we just tried” view is falsified by the situation in Germany. If Germans lack the discipline to do it, then nobody can do it. Some countries like Australia got lucky because their geography made it easy, but it’s not practical elsewhere.
- thebruce87m 6y ago
  Pick a country with a flat line from here: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ Northern Ireland vs Ireland is one of the interesting ones.
- jfrunyon 6y ago
  I'm not sure why you think that it being an island has anything to do with anything. It doesn't. Yes, the fact that they LOCKED DOWN had a lot to do with why their infection rate is so low. That is exactly my point; thank you for acknowledging that it is correct.

phobosanomaly 6y ago

California does have twice the population as Florida and a much, much larger economy. It could just be that all the elderly Floridians sit at home in gated communities, while Californians are more likely to be going-in to work surrounded by a much larger, more dense population. Could also be an effect of prevalence of multi-generational housing. Perhaps the elderly Floridians are more concentrated in gated community-type housing, and not living with extended family in a smaller living space.