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It is difficult to measure something like this based on policies alone, when attitudes towards policies and therefore compliance varies significantly, as do thi

It is difficult to measure something like this based on policies alone, when attitudes towards policies and therefore compliance varies significantly, as do things like population density and more. If you want to see the impact that stay-at-home has had on COVID, a good place to start is looking at the prevalence of the Flu, for which was have years of baseline #s to compare to 2020, and Winter 2020 has seen the Flu practically disappear. This is of course not conclusive evidence, but it definitely shows that stay-at-home can be massively effective at preventing disease transmission.

yardie 6y ago
I was just talking to a stranger about this yesterday, COVID has suppressed flu cases in the US significantly. Since we live in a state with a soft lockdown COVID policy, Florida, our theory is it has a lot to do with masks, sanitizers, increased public/commercial cleaning, and people staying the fuck home if they have mild flu-like symptoms. And that last bit is important because I knew far too many people dragging themselves into work with a runny nose and fever and basically spreading illnesses to anyone they come in contact with. After the vaccine has reached herd immunity levels I hope there are real lessons learned about containing highly contagious diseases.
- ghaff 6y ago
  The sanitizers and cleaning part certainly didn't hurt. And people continue to go through the motions but it seems increasingly the view that it really didn't matter much, especially to the point where people were sanitizing all their grocery purchases or leaving their Amazon deliveries in the garage for 3 days. I was at an event just over a year ago where we weren't handshaking and surfaces were being wiped down but otherwise we were taking zero precautions which was pretty much the norm at the time. So, basically, we weren't taking any meaningful precautions.
mdoms 6y ago
I live in New Zealand, where our first lockdown was taken VERY seriously by nearly everyone. If the population actually does it, lockdown works. A lot of people credited our current administration for our successful Covid elimination, but I think it comes down to our culture. We work together in close communities.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  Maybe you're sick or hearing this argument, but I'm sure being the most isolated country on Earth helps in a pandemic. Not that I doubt the civic mindedness of the NZ people!
  - tempestn 6y ago
    I think both isolation and the strict initial lockdown were necessary conditions. Here in BC, Canada, we had a strict initial lockdown that also drove cases to essentially zero. However, even when community spread was wiped out in the summer of 2020, we would have a few cases imported each day, mostly from the US. The border was closed to non-essential traffic, but the economies of the US and Canada are so closely linked that even just essential traffic is many thousands of people each day. Therefore a policy of driving cases to zero and keeping them there just wasn't feasible here, because you'd have to maintain a strict lockdown indefinitely.
    - amscanne 6y ago
      > However, even when community spread was wiped out in the summer of 2020, we would have a few cases imported each day, mostly from the US Is this really the belief? Canada’s inferiority complex wrt to the US has made their perception of COVID out of touch with reality. There was always significant community transmission in BC, even in the summer. Cases never went to zero, the lowest point was ~10/day. And it’s likely underestimating by a factor of >5 since testing in Canada was not done well. (This is despite the popular perception. Anecdotally, in Washington my family was able to roll into drive thru testing sites and get next day results for free, and in Canada it was a >$100 appt at the retail pharmacy and 3-5 days for results. I don’t how it is now, but Washington has been doing ~3x as much testing per capita as BC since early summer last year.) So even if essential travelers crossing the border was importing a few cases a day (extremely unlikely IMO, and zero evidence supporting this), it would be accounting for a small single digit percentage of cases.
      - tempestn 6y ago
boldpandabear 6y ago
Flu counts are down because flu tests are not being administered. Everyone is testing for covid antibodies. If hackers new the five biological laws of nature as discovered by Dr Hamer the world would be a better place.

yardie 6y ago

I was just talking to a stranger about this yesterday, COVID has suppressed flu cases in the US significantly. Since we live in a state with a soft lockdown COVID policy, Florida, our theory is it has a lot to do with masks, sanitizers, increased public/commercial cleaning, and people staying the fuck home if they have mild flu-like symptoms. And that last bit is important because I knew far too many people dragging themselves into work with a runny nose and fever and basically spreading illnesses to anyone they come in contact with. After the vaccine has reached herd immunity levels I hope there are real lessons learned about containing highly contagious diseases.

ghaff 6y ago
The sanitizers and cleaning part certainly didn't hurt. And people continue to go through the motions but it seems increasingly the view that it really didn't matter much, especially to the point where people were sanitizing all their grocery purchases or leaving their Amazon deliveries in the garage for 3 days. I was at an event just over a year ago where we weren't handshaking and surfaces were being wiped down but otherwise we were taking zero precautions which was pretty much the norm at the time. So, basically, we weren't taking any meaningful precautions.

mdoms 6y ago

I live in New Zealand, where our first lockdown was taken VERY seriously by nearly everyone. If the population actually does it, lockdown works. A lot of people credited our current administration for our successful Covid elimination, but I think it comes down to our culture. We work together in close communities.

BurningFrog 6y ago
Maybe you're sick or hearing this argument, but I'm sure being the most isolated country on Earth helps in a pandemic. Not that I doubt the civic mindedness of the NZ people!
- tempestn 6y ago
  I think both isolation and the strict initial lockdown were necessary conditions. Here in BC, Canada, we had a strict initial lockdown that also drove cases to essentially zero. However, even when community spread was wiped out in the summer of 2020, we would have a few cases imported each day, mostly from the US. The border was closed to non-essential traffic, but the economies of the US and Canada are so closely linked that even just essential traffic is many thousands of people each day. Therefore a policy of driving cases to zero and keeping them there just wasn't feasible here, because you'd have to maintain a strict lockdown indefinitely.
  - amscanne 6y ago
    > However, even when community spread was wiped out in the summer of 2020, we would have a few cases imported each day, mostly from the US Is this really the belief? Canada’s inferiority complex wrt to the US has made their perception of COVID out of touch with reality. There was always significant community transmission in BC, even in the summer. Cases never went to zero, the lowest point was ~10/day. And it’s likely underestimating by a factor of >5 since testing in Canada was not done well. (This is despite the popular perception. Anecdotally, in Washington my family was able to roll into drive thru testing sites and get next day results for free, and in Canada it was a >$100 appt at the retail pharmacy and 3-5 days for results. I don’t how it is now, but Washington has been doing ~3x as much testing per capita as BC since early summer last year.) So even if essential travelers crossing the border was importing a few cases a day (extremely unlikely IMO, and zero evidence supporting this), it would be accounting for a small single digit percentage of cases.
    - tempestn 6y ago

boldpandabear 6y ago

Flu counts are down because flu tests are not being administered. Everyone is testing for covid antibodies. If hackers new the five biological laws of nature as discovered by Dr Hamer the world would be a better place.