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Probably that patience has worn thin for the extremely overly cautious people who have been hiding in their homes for a year when they are realistically at zero

Probably that patience has worn thin for the extremely overly cautious people who have been hiding in their homes for a year when they are realistically at zero risk of severe illness. We have known since early summer of last year that being fat or being old are your two biggest risk factors. Beyond that, if you have some serious pre-existing condition that makes you susceptible to all illnesses. The messaging should have been "Stay home if you are a high risk group. Otherwise live your live." All current data shows areas that have taken that approach are significantly better off today than the places that hid in a hole the past year. We have let people treat this like it's an end of the world scenario and it's been good for no one.

jquery 6y ago
So you’d prefer we be like Brazil? Because the alternative for us was not Taiwan or Korea. They went far and beyond what Americans were willing to tolerate. Never mind the bad statistics behind your claim that covid is no worse than the flu. A athlete friend of mine in his 20s has permanent heart damage caused by the virus. Covid-19 is not a joke, no matter how much you wish it was. Americans could be out free, today, if we took this virus more seriously from the start. Now people like you want to make the disease endemic when the end is in sight.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  There aren't only americans on this site. FWIW as a european (Belgium resident), your statement doesn't apply. Belgium did a shitty job since the second wave: We didn't go far enough and only applied a weak lockdown which has been in effect since October. So life here has been just bad enough to test everybody's patience for about six months. And now we're in a new uptick and everyone's losing their shit. Korea meanwhile applied strict, severe, surgical lockdowns and then were able to fully reopen after containment. People haven't been able to go see their families out of the country. I've not been able to practice my sport (figure skating) since October (they even banned it outdoors during winter!!). And there is a pages-long, ever-changing document on social bubbles, checklists on who you can see which take things such as age and household size into account, etc. It's dumb, people don't follow it, and it has deeply eroded trust in institutions, and it has pushed people into antivax groups because those are the most vocal ones against measures like these (so they are the sole ones sounding like the voice of reason). The "alternative" to the above is not brazil, and I would personally much rather be in Korea. And these measures, while on paper sound like they're slowing the spread, are also pushing people to be against government measures as a whole and feed into much more dangerous sentiments. Would you apply a measure that reduces the spread by 0.1% if it also meant a 0.1% decrease in mask usage? Or a 0.25% decrease in vaccine uptake? What if you can't know any of those numbers, you just know they exist? ---- Edit: Just to really drive home my point: I've been advocating for this for months. Just as I posted this comment, the following article shows up on the Brussels Times: "Belgium needs a short ‘real’ lockdown, warns expert" https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/161157/belgium-needs-a-short-real-lockdown-warns-expert-dirk-devroey-vub-erika-vlieghe-geert-meyfroidt-gems-consultative-committee/ https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/161157/b...
  - hef19898 6y ago
    All EU countries screwed up, not just Belgium. Case in point, German states agreed on an "emergency brake" once cases increase over 100 per 100k, 7 day average. Now we are there, 3 days in a row. So, one would assume they would close schools again. No, because it has to be 3 days in a row, weekends don't count so. After that, two days to implement measures. Which means schools will be open next week despite a heavy case load. Only to fulfill the political goal of opening schools before Easter. Nevermind we will close down everything after Easter through April. There is no strategy, no planning, no logic involved.
    - yorwba 6y ago
      The whole concept of restrictions that only apply for high infection rates shows lack of foresight. If you have a way to halve new infections in x weeks, you can wait for y weeks during which infections double, then apply your countermeasures and after x+y weeks you're back where you started. Or you could start implementing countermeasures immediately, ease up after x weeks, and after y weeks of growth you're also back where you started. The only difference between the scenarios is the ordering, but the first leads to a mountain of infections and the second to a valley, i.e. lower total case count and fewer deaths. (Also a chance of extinction if the expected number of infected falls below 1.) So anything you're willing to do when 100 of 100k are infected is just as good when it's 50 of 100k or really any number greater than zero.
      - hef19898 6y ago
        The funny thing is, the 50, or 100, is completely arbitrary. Initially it was 50 because authorities couldn't follow up cases above that. They couldn't below 50, as it turned out. Also, this threshold changes as seems fit. When 50 wasn't realistic anymore it became 100. Only for one state to choose 200. It is utter chaos. And still, a majority still supports these measures. Funny times indeed.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  Because the alternative for us was not Taiwan or Korea. They went far and beyond what Americans were willing to tolerate. I'm in Taiwan (and was for SARS in 2003). We had early travel restrictions and have to quarantine for 14-days after returning from abroad, and have to wear a mask on the subway. For the past few months there's been a mask rule at some indoor venues but it still allows for restaurants and bars to stay open and maskless. There was a marathon a few months ago with tens of thousands of people. There hasn't been a lockdown here. Businesses haven't been wrecked. The economy is great. What was so "far and beyond what Americans were willing to tolerate"? Edit: serious question here! I know there's quite a bit of ignorance about Taiwan internationally, but the rules truly have not been onerous at all. It's gone well because of travel restrictions and an, IMO, justified trust in civic institutions.
  - mafribe 6y ago
    I agree, Taiwan of all countries arguably handled Covid best. It seems irresponsible to discuss Covid policies without reference to, and good understanding of, Taiwan. I found that people in the West, often simply don't believe me when I tell them that Taiwan didn't lock down at all, and had hardly any Covid deaths. Reactions I have come across have been: "yeah but Taiwan is a dictatorship" and "They are lying about numbers ..." The amount of ignorance is astonishing. I think it's a psychological problem: most people are perfectly happy to believe that their home countries have somewhat flawed political systems, but find it near impossible to accept that they are orders of magnitude worse than some others.
  - tstrimple 6y ago
    > What was so "far and beyond what Americans were willing to tolerate"? All of these things: > We had early travel restrictions and have to quarantine for 14-days after returning from abroad, and have to wear a mask on the subway. There have been multiple people shot for the audacity of asking customers to weak masks.
  - rrdharan 6y ago
    Taiwan also has serious quarantine monitoring/enforcement that would never fly in America, which you didn’t mention: https://qz.com/1825997/taiwan-phone-tracking-system-monitors-55000-under-coronavirus-quarantine/ https://qz.com/1825997/taiwan-phone-tracking-system-monitors... ‘They both pointed out that while there’s broad public support for the digital surveillance, many people don’t fully understand how the technology works. “The main worry is not knowing what it is, not knowing that turning my phone off means the police will come knocking, not knowing how they’re triangulating my coordinates,” Hsieh said, adding that the onus should be on the government to explain the technology clearly. The government has said the tracking system would be discontinued after the pandemic passes.’
rconti 6y ago
I'm a healthy male who's been "hiding in [my] home for a year". I mean, other than shopping trips, and running, and cycling, and skiing, and.. However, I've done no social events, seen no friends, etc. But, sorry if you think trying to avoid illness, trying to avoid passing on illness to others who don't have the comfort of working from home, passing on the illness to elderly family members, etc, is a waste of time. It's a pretty minor inconvenience for me to be largely isolated for a year, compared to those who are less fortunate than me. How about a big 'ol [citation needed] on > All current data shows areas that have taken that approach are significantly better off today than the places that hid in a hole the past year. You know, a citation that doesn't involve correlation with countries that happened to have extreme lockdowns initially, acceptance of mass testing and screening and social restriction when necessary, etc. By the way, my wife works in rehab in a hospital, and sees your "low risk" young people whose lives have been, as far as we can tell, permanently altered by the virus that some of us are seeking to avoid.
- raducu 6y ago
  This whole situation is just so sad. My uncle is in the hospital in pretty bad shape, on oxygen so far. He was spewing conspiracy shit non-stop on facebook. My father urged him to take the vaccine, then to come to the hospital sooner, he did a CT scan on my uncle, told him, showed him how messed up his lungs were, my uncle refused to be administered in the hospital, made a big fuss that the doctors wanted to kill him in the ICU; two days later he was brought in in an ambulancr. If he was a stranger, maybe I would have laughed "serves you right", I just cannot understand how an above average intelligence person got himself brainwashed with anti-covid conspiracy theories.
- cassalian 6y ago
  It's nice that you have been able to deal well with the situation this last year, but try to remember that your experience is not necessarily representative of the whole: > The districts, large and small, rural and urban, serve more than 2.2 million students across the United States. Of the 74 districts that responded, 74% reported multiple indicators of increased mental health stresses among students. More than half reported rises in mental health referrals and counseling. Nearly 90% of responding districts cited higher rates of absenteeism or disengagement, metrics commonly used to gauge student emotional health https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-students/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-c... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26532588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26532588)
mynameisvlad 6y ago
> All current data shows areas that have taken that approach are significantly better off today than the places that hid in a hole the past year. Source? I'd argue current data shows that those that showed an overabundance of caution, like New Zealand, are the ones significantly better off than everyone else.
- war1025 6y ago
  > like New Zealand, You mean an island nation with strict control over their ports and borders?
  - Spivak 6y ago
    And had mandatory lockdowns
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      Mandatory lockdowns make a lot more sense when you’re an island nation that can plausibly eradicate the disease. You reasonably can expect a month of pain and then resume business as usual, but the America’s, Europe, and Asian enjoy no such hope.
      - Spivak 6y ago
        I know! Which is why it’s silly to use NZ as an example of anything.
    - war1025 6y ago
      Mandatory lockdowns are like cancer surgery. They can be very effective if everything is still localized, but if the cancer has already metastasized, it really doesn't solve the problem.
      - Spivak 6y ago
        I’m not saying it would actually solve anything in the US, only that you can’t just say “look NZ resumed business as usual — the US should too!” because the situations are not at all similar.
heterodoxxed 6y ago
| they are realistically at zero risk of severe illness. I didn't do it for me.
- war1025 6y ago
  Every single person who "didn't do it for me" relied on an enormous network of people putting themselves at risk daily to keep the supply chains functioning. It's virtuization of fear and little else.
  - jstanley 6y ago
    I'm confused. Is it a risk or is it not a risk?
  - heterodoxxed 6y ago
    | at risk daily to keep the supply chains functioning That sounds like crocodile tears to me. I don't see how going to bars and flying commercial would have made the people working in grocery delivery and amazon safer. And it would absolutely have put the people in my life who are at the highest risk at an even greater risk if I had done so.

jquery 6y ago

So you’d prefer we be like Brazil? Because the alternative for us was not Taiwan or Korea. They went far and beyond what Americans were willing to tolerate. Never mind the bad statistics behind your claim that covid is no worse than the flu. A athlete friend of mine in his 20s has permanent heart damage caused by the virus. Covid-19 is not a joke, no matter how much you wish it was. Americans could be out free, today, if we took this virus more seriously from the start. Now people like you want to make the disease endemic when the end is in sight.

scrollaway 6y ago
There aren't only americans on this site. FWIW as a european (Belgium resident), your statement doesn't apply. Belgium did a shitty job since the second wave: We didn't go far enough and only applied a weak lockdown which has been in effect since October. So life here has been just bad enough to test everybody's patience for about six months. And now we're in a new uptick and everyone's losing their shit. Korea meanwhile applied strict, severe, surgical lockdowns and then were able to fully reopen after containment. People haven't been able to go see their families out of the country. I've not been able to practice my sport (figure skating) since October (they even banned it outdoors during winter!!). And there is a pages-long, ever-changing document on social bubbles, checklists on who you can see which take things such as age and household size into account, etc. It's dumb, people don't follow it, and it has deeply eroded trust in institutions, and it has pushed people into antivax groups because those are the most vocal ones against measures like these (so they are the sole ones sounding like the voice of reason). The "alternative" to the above is not brazil, and I would personally much rather be in Korea. And these measures, while on paper sound like they're slowing the spread, are also pushing people to be against government measures as a whole and feed into much more dangerous sentiments. Would you apply a measure that reduces the spread by 0.1% if it also meant a 0.1% decrease in mask usage? Or a 0.25% decrease in vaccine uptake? What if you can't know any of those numbers, you just know they exist? ---- Edit: Just to really drive home my point: I've been advocating for this for months. Just as I posted this comment, the following article shows up on the Brussels Times: "Belgium needs a short ‘real’ lockdown, warns expert" https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/161157/belgium-needs-a-short-real-lockdown-warns-expert-dirk-devroey-vub-erika-vlieghe-geert-meyfroidt-gems-consultative-committee/ https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-all-news/161157/b...
- hef19898 6y ago
  All EU countries screwed up, not just Belgium. Case in point, German states agreed on an "emergency brake" once cases increase over 100 per 100k, 7 day average. Now we are there, 3 days in a row. So, one would assume they would close schools again. No, because it has to be 3 days in a row, weekends don't count so. After that, two days to implement measures. Which means schools will be open next week despite a heavy case load. Only to fulfill the political goal of opening schools before Easter. Nevermind we will close down everything after Easter through April. There is no strategy, no planning, no logic involved.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    The whole concept of restrictions that only apply for high infection rates shows lack of foresight. If you have a way to halve new infections in x weeks, you can wait for y weeks during which infections double, then apply your countermeasures and after x+y weeks you're back where you started. Or you could start implementing countermeasures immediately, ease up after x weeks, and after y weeks of growth you're also back where you started. The only difference between the scenarios is the ordering, but the first leads to a mountain of infections and the second to a valley, i.e. lower total case count and fewer deaths. (Also a chance of extinction if the expected number of infected falls below 1.) So anything you're willing to do when 100 of 100k are infected is just as good when it's 50 of 100k or really any number greater than zero.
    - hef19898 6y ago
      The funny thing is, the 50, or 100, is completely arbitrary. Initially it was 50 because authorities couldn't follow up cases above that. They couldn't below 50, as it turned out. Also, this threshold changes as seems fit. When 50 wasn't realistic anymore it became 100. Only for one state to choose 200. It is utter chaos. And still, a majority still supports these measures. Funny times indeed.
AlchemistCamp 6y ago
Because the alternative for us was not Taiwan or Korea. They went far and beyond what Americans were willing to tolerate. I'm in Taiwan (and was for SARS in 2003). We had early travel restrictions and have to quarantine for 14-days after returning from abroad, and have to wear a mask on the subway. For the past few months there's been a mask rule at some indoor venues but it still allows for restaurants and bars to stay open and maskless. There was a marathon a few months ago with tens of thousands of people. There hasn't been a lockdown here. Businesses haven't been wrecked. The economy is great. What was so "far and beyond what Americans were willing to tolerate"? Edit: serious question here! I know there's quite a bit of ignorance about Taiwan internationally, but the rules truly have not been onerous at all. It's gone well because of travel restrictions and an, IMO, justified trust in civic institutions.
- mafribe 6y ago
  I agree, Taiwan of all countries arguably handled Covid best. It seems irresponsible to discuss Covid policies without reference to, and good understanding of, Taiwan. I found that people in the West, often simply don't believe me when I tell them that Taiwan didn't lock down at all, and had hardly any Covid deaths. Reactions I have come across have been: "yeah but Taiwan is a dictatorship" and "They are lying about numbers ..." The amount of ignorance is astonishing. I think it's a psychological problem: most people are perfectly happy to believe that their home countries have somewhat flawed political systems, but find it near impossible to accept that they are orders of magnitude worse than some others.
- tstrimple 6y ago
  > What was so "far and beyond what Americans were willing to tolerate"? All of these things: > We had early travel restrictions and have to quarantine for 14-days after returning from abroad, and have to wear a mask on the subway. There have been multiple people shot for the audacity of asking customers to weak masks.
- rrdharan 6y ago
  Taiwan also has serious quarantine monitoring/enforcement that would never fly in America, which you didn’t mention: https://qz.com/1825997/taiwan-phone-tracking-system-monitors-55000-under-coronavirus-quarantine/ https://qz.com/1825997/taiwan-phone-tracking-system-monitors... ‘They both pointed out that while there’s broad public support for the digital surveillance, many people don’t fully understand how the technology works. “The main worry is not knowing what it is, not knowing that turning my phone off means the police will come knocking, not knowing how they’re triangulating my coordinates,” Hsieh said, adding that the onus should be on the government to explain the technology clearly. The government has said the tracking system would be discontinued after the pandemic passes.’

rconti 6y ago

I'm a healthy male who's been "hiding in [my] home for a year". I mean, other than shopping trips, and running, and cycling, and skiing, and.. However, I've done no social events, seen no friends, etc. But, sorry if you think trying to avoid illness, trying to avoid passing on illness to others who don't have the comfort of working from home, passing on the illness to elderly family members, etc, is a waste of time. It's a pretty minor inconvenience for me to be largely isolated for a year, compared to those who are less fortunate than me. How about a big 'ol [citation needed] on > All current data shows areas that have taken that approach are significantly better off today than the places that hid in a hole the past year. You know, a citation that doesn't involve correlation with countries that happened to have extreme lockdowns initially, acceptance of mass testing and screening and social restriction when necessary, etc. By the way, my wife works in rehab in a hospital, and sees your "low risk" young people whose lives have been, as far as we can tell, permanently altered by the virus that some of us are seeking to avoid.

raducu 6y ago
This whole situation is just so sad. My uncle is in the hospital in pretty bad shape, on oxygen so far. He was spewing conspiracy shit non-stop on facebook. My father urged him to take the vaccine, then to come to the hospital sooner, he did a CT scan on my uncle, told him, showed him how messed up his lungs were, my uncle refused to be administered in the hospital, made a big fuss that the doctors wanted to kill him in the ICU; two days later he was brought in in an ambulancr. If he was a stranger, maybe I would have laughed "serves you right", I just cannot understand how an above average intelligence person got himself brainwashed with anti-covid conspiracy theories.
cassalian 6y ago
It's nice that you have been able to deal well with the situation this last year, but try to remember that your experience is not necessarily representative of the whole: > The districts, large and small, rural and urban, serve more than 2.2 million students across the United States. Of the 74 districts that responded, 74% reported multiple indicators of increased mental health stresses among students. More than half reported rises in mental health referrals and counseling. Nearly 90% of responding districts cited higher rates of absenteeism or disengagement, metrics commonly used to gauge student emotional health https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-students/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-c... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26532588 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26532588)

mynameisvlad 6y ago

> All current data shows areas that have taken that approach are significantly better off today than the places that hid in a hole the past year. Source? I'd argue current data shows that those that showed an overabundance of caution, like New Zealand, are the ones significantly better off than everyone else.

war1025 6y ago
> like New Zealand, You mean an island nation with strict control over their ports and borders?
- Spivak 6y ago
  And had mandatory lockdowns
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    Mandatory lockdowns make a lot more sense when you’re an island nation that can plausibly eradicate the disease. You reasonably can expect a month of pain and then resume business as usual, but the America’s, Europe, and Asian enjoy no such hope.
    - Spivak 6y ago
      I know! Which is why it’s silly to use NZ as an example of anything.
  - war1025 6y ago
    Mandatory lockdowns are like cancer surgery. They can be very effective if everything is still localized, but if the cancer has already metastasized, it really doesn't solve the problem.
    - Spivak 6y ago
      I’m not saying it would actually solve anything in the US, only that you can’t just say “look NZ resumed business as usual — the US should too!” because the situations are not at all similar.

heterodoxxed 6y ago

| they are realistically at zero risk of severe illness. I didn't do it for me.

war1025 6y ago
Every single person who "didn't do it for me" relied on an enormous network of people putting themselves at risk daily to keep the supply chains functioning. It's virtuization of fear and little else.
- jstanley 6y ago
  I'm confused. Is it a risk or is it not a risk?
- heterodoxxed 6y ago
  | at risk daily to keep the supply chains functioning That sounds like crocodile tears to me. I don't see how going to bars and flying commercial would have made the people working in grocery delivery and amazon safer. And it would absolutely have put the people in my life who are at the highest risk at an even greater risk if I had done so.