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The war-sized effort includes a lot of other things besides vaccines: lockdowns, masks, drastic reduction of international travel, tankerfuls of hand desinfecta

The war-sized effort includes a lot of other things besides vaccines: lockdowns, masks, drastic reduction of international travel, tankerfuls of hand desinfectant, etc. Yes, then it starts to have an impact; without those, there would have been mayhem.

Izkata 6y ago
If all that - which was in place in late spring and summer last year - was the reason, then why did cases start increasing anyway in the fall? For the two additional things you've mentioned: Limiting travel works to prevent the virus from entering an area, but if it's already there and uncontrolled it wouldn't have an effect. Likewise excessive hand disinfectant doesn't seem to have had an effect, because the virus doesn't really spread through surfaces like that [0] - it was an early precaution that wasn't reexamined. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26000106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26000106
- ptaipale 6y ago
  "Virus in the area" is not binary, on or off. It's always about rates and doses. Everyone is not infected instantly. Germany provides a useful testbed for the impact of mask usage, because the mask mandates have been decided on local regional levels (federal state or city) at different times. From these different times of mask mandates and different progression of epidemic in the areas that are otherwise comparable, we can see that mask usage has a clear impact. As said, it doesn't stop the epidemic alone, but it helps to contain it. To beat it, we need immunity through vaccines. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/51/32293 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/51/32293
- marvin 6y ago
  Your reasoning does not make sense at all. I hope you're just missing GP's point. Maintaining a 1 meter distance has been shown to reduce the likelihood of contagion by 80%. Using a face mask has been shown to reduce the likelihood of contagion by 40%. With that in mind, and knowing that these were only two of the many measures made to reduce the infection rate, your parahprased statement "the measures were meaningless because they didn't stop the epidemic" is completely incorrect. An epidemic isn't on or off. It develops at different rates, exponential->logistic if R>1 and exponentially dampening if R<1 for each area. A very steep exponential phase will obviously cause the problems we have been trying to avoid, and it's similarly obvious that the defensive measures have prevented that outcome most places.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    > and it's similarly obvious that the defensive measures have prevented that outcome most places. I'm saying that looking at aggregate outcomes and comparing locations that took these precautions to ones that didn't, this isn't obvious at all. It looks to me more like these defensive measures didn't work, and I kinda want to know why, if they're as effective as the percentages you gave.
    - marvin 6y ago
      There's plenty of null hypothesis societies to compare with. You'll find a very clear correlation between the outcomes in similar societies that used differing degrees of preventive measures. It's hard to find a society that took no measures, as the measures so obviously work and no one wants an uncontrolled epidemic, but there's plenty of societies that had differing degrees of catastrophe up to the point where they realized this or started being serious about it. Czech Republic, Peru, Brazil, Bergamo (the latter just being unaware) +++. Covid initially had a reproductive number between 3 and 6 in the absence of measures - higher for the latest mutations. A cumulative reduction of R of 80% + 40% would make this an R of ~0.25-0.50, but that's assuming 100% compliance everywhere and always. Indeed, this is what you see in societies that were serious enough but didn't eradicate the virus altogether -- largely no significant epidemic, but wildfire-like eruptions of disease in local communities that don't strictly follow the measures. E.g. classrooms, public transport, homes, pubs/concerts and so on. Norway, as a case in point, currently has an R of 1.33, with measures that kept R cleanly below zero until the British mutation became dominant (through initial seeding through import and then a few almost-inevitable cases). Cities where measures can almost always be followed have almost no disease, the illness only spreads in areas where many people live close together and have children/teenagers in school. This alone is enough to threaten the capacity of intensive care. Personally I don't really think this merits much debate anymore, if the objective is to seek the truth rather than some ulterior motive (e.g. politicians who wouldn't mind if the pension liabilities fell). It's not subtle if you actually dig into the details.

Izkata 6y ago

If all that - which was in place in late spring and summer last year - was the reason, then why did cases start increasing anyway in the fall? For the two additional things you've mentioned: Limiting travel works to prevent the virus from entering an area, but if it's already there and uncontrolled it wouldn't have an effect. Likewise excessive hand disinfectant doesn't seem to have had an effect, because the virus doesn't really spread through surfaces like that [0] - it was an early precaution that wasn't reexamined. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26000106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26000106

ptaipale 6y ago
"Virus in the area" is not binary, on or off. It's always about rates and doses. Everyone is not infected instantly. Germany provides a useful testbed for the impact of mask usage, because the mask mandates have been decided on local regional levels (federal state or city) at different times. From these different times of mask mandates and different progression of epidemic in the areas that are otherwise comparable, we can see that mask usage has a clear impact. As said, it doesn't stop the epidemic alone, but it helps to contain it. To beat it, we need immunity through vaccines. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/51/32293 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/51/32293
marvin 6y ago
Your reasoning does not make sense at all. I hope you're just missing GP's point. Maintaining a 1 meter distance has been shown to reduce the likelihood of contagion by 80%. Using a face mask has been shown to reduce the likelihood of contagion by 40%. With that in mind, and knowing that these were only two of the many measures made to reduce the infection rate, your parahprased statement "the measures were meaningless because they didn't stop the epidemic" is completely incorrect. An epidemic isn't on or off. It develops at different rates, exponential->logistic if R>1 and exponentially dampening if R<1 for each area. A very steep exponential phase will obviously cause the problems we have been trying to avoid, and it's similarly obvious that the defensive measures have prevented that outcome most places.
- Izkata 6y ago
  > and it's similarly obvious that the defensive measures have prevented that outcome most places. I'm saying that looking at aggregate outcomes and comparing locations that took these precautions to ones that didn't, this isn't obvious at all. It looks to me more like these defensive measures didn't work, and I kinda want to know why, if they're as effective as the percentages you gave.
  - marvin 6y ago
    There's plenty of null hypothesis societies to compare with. You'll find a very clear correlation between the outcomes in similar societies that used differing degrees of preventive measures. It's hard to find a society that took no measures, as the measures so obviously work and no one wants an uncontrolled epidemic, but there's plenty of societies that had differing degrees of catastrophe up to the point where they realized this or started being serious about it. Czech Republic, Peru, Brazil, Bergamo (the latter just being unaware) +++. Covid initially had a reproductive number between 3 and 6 in the absence of measures - higher for the latest mutations. A cumulative reduction of R of 80% + 40% would make this an R of ~0.25-0.50, but that's assuming 100% compliance everywhere and always. Indeed, this is what you see in societies that were serious enough but didn't eradicate the virus altogether -- largely no significant epidemic, but wildfire-like eruptions of disease in local communities that don't strictly follow the measures. E.g. classrooms, public transport, homes, pubs/concerts and so on. Norway, as a case in point, currently has an R of 1.33, with measures that kept R cleanly below zero until the British mutation became dominant (through initial seeding through import and then a few almost-inevitable cases). Cities where measures can almost always be followed have almost no disease, the illness only spreads in areas where many people live close together and have children/teenagers in school. This alone is enough to threaten the capacity of intensive care. Personally I don't really think this merits much debate anymore, if the objective is to seek the truth rather than some ulterior motive (e.g. politicians who wouldn't mind if the pension liabilities fell). It's not subtle if you actually dig into the details.