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The only reason you've had to endure this for over a year is because you never once tried to do it properly. 6 weeks of hard (proper) lockdown followed by sensi

by mdoms 6y ago

The only reason you've had to endure this for over a year is because you never once tried to do it properly. 6 weeks of hard (proper) lockdown followed by sensible plans to manage outbreaks and boom you'd have been done. But no, Americans absolutely refuse to work together, to pull in the same direction, to achieve something.

rorykoehler 6y ago
Europeans were no different. It’s changed my perspective on who we are and not in a good way.
- spookthesunset 6y ago
  If your plan requires 100% compliance to succeed, it failed before you even started. Good plans operate within the realities of human nature and respect people's inalienable human rights.
emptysongglass 6y ago
I'm not sure this is true. We did it right in Denmark and we're still in what is starting to feel like one long lockdown with no end in sight. Our vaccination numbers are terrible: at the rate we are vaccinating all Danes will have started their first vaccination round by July 21st, 2022. [1] We've had the Moderna vaccine since January 13th [2] of the previous year. This is not people failing, these are our leaders failing. I was so gung ho about us coming together to make the sacrifices and beat this thing but now a year and a half later I'm done with the colossal failures of our leadership and the promulgation of fear everywhere. [1] https://hvorlangtervi.dk/english https://hvorlangtervi.dk/english [2] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-design.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vac...
amscanne 6y ago
Are you saying that an Wuhan-style lockdown would have been a better or even feasible approach? I don't think humans anywhere are able to "pull in the same direction" to the extent that such a lockdown is possible without an authoritarian government. Italy imposed pretty draconian rules for at least six weeks, and has still had to deal with a second wave and additional lockdowns. Personally, I think that the principles of personal freedom (that such an authoritarian government is largely incompatible with) are much more valuable in the long run. Working through the disease has been messier in the last year, but the economic system largely based on these principles was also able to produce novel vaccines. While the last year has been rough, I'm much happier overall that I don't live in a place where an authoritarian lockdown is even possible.
- mdoms 6y ago
  We did it in New Zealand.
  - ahepp 6y ago
    What's up with people from NZ constantly spamming every post about covid with an "I DoNt uNdErStAnD wHy YoU dIdNt jUsT lOcK dOwN" Absolutely infuriating, look at a map dude inb4 vietnam Yeah, it's landlocked. Great job Vietnam, we should learn from how they did it. Doesn't change the fact that it's a major outlier.
    - castis 6y ago
      > we should learn from how they did it Lockdowns and people immediately willing be a part of the contract tracing part. https://www.businessinsider.com/vietnam-coronavirus-measures-among-best-in-world-contact-tracing-masks-2021-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/vietnam-coronavirus-measures...
    - trickstra 6y ago
      Hello from Vietnam. Lockdowns are not about islands. It helps, kinda, but not completely. Vietnam completely sacrificed the tourist industry, unlike US or Europe. Quarantine is at a designated facility, not at home, unchecked, like in US or Europe. And dissent is suppressed. The last part is a bit unfortunate, but the former ones are really just a matter of decision. And it works.
      - ahepp 6y ago
        Sincere congratulations, living in the US I think it's inspiring to see all the countries with incredible (and relatively equally distributed) health outcomes at costs that society can bear. That said, I want people from island countries to stop saying "being an island country has nothing to do with it", when all evidence and logic says being an island country has a lot to do with it. I'll happily take criticism from Vietnam, even if I think it's of questionable utility to say "you just did it wrong" when the overwhelming majority of countries seem to have "done it wrong"
skipwalker 6y ago
I'm sorry but I think this is hogwash. The idea that America could function for 6 weeks in a lockdown to the level described to actually stop the transmission, by the time transmission started, is not plausible to me, and I imagine many others. This would have entailed no one working at grocery stores, no deliveries, no travel, no global trade. I just don't buy that this was ever plausible for however long people suggest: 3 weeks, 6 weeks whatever. And to what end. When do we open up to the rest of the world. I think your sentiment is hindsight wishful thinking/blame assignment. Now, criticizing the fact that we did not try what I would term more effective measures to stop transmission are fair points. Wide-spread cheap testing, ramping up massive manufacturing of real N95 respirators for the entire country, I think these are more plausibly effective techniques we did not do that are worthy of criticism.
- abraae 6y ago
  I don't like the xenophobic tone of the parent, but you are incorrect. > This would have entailed no one working at grocery stores, no deliveries, no travel, no global trade. I just don't buy that this was ever plausible for however long people suggest: 3 weeks, 6 weeks whatever. The experiences of (at least) New Zealand and Australia are clear evidence it is absolutely possible, without the absurd extremes you are talking about.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    Both of which still have lockdowns. So no, they couldn't manage it either.
    - amluto 6y ago
      They periodically reimport it. If I had to guess, I would guess that COVID can be transmitted by fomites, especially if kept cold, but that it’s extremely rare. In a place like the US or Europe, this is insignificant: your chance of getting seriously sick due to touching something is negligible, and the rate of additional cases due to this effect is inconsequential for public health. But in AU or NZ, where the background rate is essentially zero, a single reintroduction is a big deal.
nickpp 6y ago
Hey, you know, if you ever get a bad disease, like an infection, here is your solution: just shut down your whole body for a while, completely stopping the blood supply carrying food and oxygen to your bacteria. Then when all the infecting bacteria are dead, just restart your body again. Easy, no?
s1artibartfast 6y ago
Try to get 350, million different people to pull in the direction of anything and you’ll have the same reaction.
goddess33 6y ago
nationalistic flamebait is not welcome on HN, dang will likely remove this.
at_a_remove 6y ago
Similarly, we could defund the police if everyone would just stop doing crime. And think of what we could do with the defense budget if we made some agreements about war! Any strategy which depends on complete cooperation of a large number of humans for success, well, I would short that stock.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
When people claim that a country should have "done it properly", they usually mean closed borders, that end up having to stay closed for the long haul to prevent COVID from re-entering the country. Personally, I find the long-term risks of closed borders in terms of rekindling nationalist sentiment and eroding international solidarity, to be far more of a threat than COVID. The pandemic will pass soon, but countries walling themselves off could have consequences that even our grandchildren might have to deal with.
spookthesunset 6y ago
That is patently false. The whole idea of lockdowns was to "flatten the curve" in order to prevent healthcare from collapsing. It was never, ever to stop outbreaks or stop covid. It was made quite explicit by "the experts" that everybody who was gonna get covid would do so and everybody who would die would do so. The area under the "death curve" was going to be exactly the same so long as healthcare didn't collapse. The goal was to literally slow the spread not stop it. Make it roll out slower to keep healthcare in check. This idea that if we locked down harder or people "behaved" we'd be done with covid is a complete lie. That was never the intent of these restrictions. Ever. I find it very curious how even after massive stockpiles of unused ventilators were donated and countless field hospitals were closed up after never seeing a single patient governors extended their stay-at-home orders. Despite it being shown that covid was never a true threat to healthcare, despite the sky-high IFR predictions being shown wrong (thankfully!), we let the goalpost shift to.... well... I still don't know what the goal is. We got very lucky having a vaccine delivered so quickly because without it, we'd have been drifting along aimlessly and things would have got very dark and ugly. > Americans absolutely refuse to work together Curious how many of the nations in Europe that "did it right" wound up getting major outbreaks regardless. Also curious how the curves of all regions basically mirror each other regardless of restrictions or "how serious they took it". Maybe, just maybe, humans aren't as in control of a widespread respiratory virus as they'd like to believe. I believe it is peak human arrogance to think we could somehow control a respiratory virus in this manner. In my opinion history will look upon all this the same way we look at our ancestors performing rain dances and goat sacrifices. They are all examples of meaningless rituals humans perform in order to fool themselves into believing they have more control over mother nature than they actually do.
dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar, regardless of which nation you have a problem with. It's emphatically not what this site is for. Moreover, we've had to warn you about it at least once in the past (as well as about guidelines breakage in general). That's not cool; please don't do it again. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673398. Edit: your account has been breaking the HN guidelines a ton lately. If you keep doing that we will have to ban you. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this.

by mdoms 6y ago

rorykoehler 6y ago

Europeans were no different. It’s changed my perspective on who we are and not in a good way.

spookthesunset 6y ago
If your plan requires 100% compliance to succeed, it failed before you even started. Good plans operate within the realities of human nature and respect people's inalienable human rights.

emptysongglass 6y ago

I'm not sure this is true. We did it right in Denmark and we're still in what is starting to feel like one long lockdown with no end in sight. Our vaccination numbers are terrible: at the rate we are vaccinating all Danes will have started their first vaccination round by July 21st, 2022. [1] We've had the Moderna vaccine since January 13th [2] of the previous year. This is not people failing, these are our leaders failing. I was so gung ho about us coming together to make the sacrifices and beat this thing but now a year and a half later I'm done with the colossal failures of our leadership and the promulgation of fear everywhere. [1] https://hvorlangtervi.dk/english https://hvorlangtervi.dk/english [2] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-design.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vac...

amscanne 6y ago

Are you saying that an Wuhan-style lockdown would have been a better or even feasible approach? I don't think humans anywhere are able to "pull in the same direction" to the extent that such a lockdown is possible without an authoritarian government. Italy imposed pretty draconian rules for at least six weeks, and has still had to deal with a second wave and additional lockdowns. Personally, I think that the principles of personal freedom (that such an authoritarian government is largely incompatible with) are much more valuable in the long run. Working through the disease has been messier in the last year, but the economic system largely based on these principles was also able to produce novel vaccines. While the last year has been rough, I'm much happier overall that I don't live in a place where an authoritarian lockdown is even possible.

mdoms 6y ago
We did it in New Zealand.
- ahepp 6y ago
  What's up with people from NZ constantly spamming every post about covid with an "I DoNt uNdErStAnD wHy YoU dIdNt jUsT lOcK dOwN" Absolutely infuriating, look at a map dude inb4 vietnam Yeah, it's landlocked. Great job Vietnam, we should learn from how they did it. Doesn't change the fact that it's a major outlier.
  - castis 6y ago
    > we should learn from how they did it Lockdowns and people immediately willing be a part of the contract tracing part. https://www.businessinsider.com/vietnam-coronavirus-measures-among-best-in-world-contact-tracing-masks-2021-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/vietnam-coronavirus-measures...
  - trickstra 6y ago
    Hello from Vietnam. Lockdowns are not about islands. It helps, kinda, but not completely. Vietnam completely sacrificed the tourist industry, unlike US or Europe. Quarantine is at a designated facility, not at home, unchecked, like in US or Europe. And dissent is suppressed. The last part is a bit unfortunate, but the former ones are really just a matter of decision. And it works.
    - ahepp 6y ago
      Sincere congratulations, living in the US I think it's inspiring to see all the countries with incredible (and relatively equally distributed) health outcomes at costs that society can bear. That said, I want people from island countries to stop saying "being an island country has nothing to do with it", when all evidence and logic says being an island country has a lot to do with it. I'll happily take criticism from Vietnam, even if I think it's of questionable utility to say "you just did it wrong" when the overwhelming majority of countries seem to have "done it wrong"

skipwalker 6y ago

I'm sorry but I think this is hogwash. The idea that America could function for 6 weeks in a lockdown to the level described to actually stop the transmission, by the time transmission started, is not plausible to me, and I imagine many others. This would have entailed no one working at grocery stores, no deliveries, no travel, no global trade. I just don't buy that this was ever plausible for however long people suggest: 3 weeks, 6 weeks whatever. And to what end. When do we open up to the rest of the world. I think your sentiment is hindsight wishful thinking/blame assignment. Now, criticizing the fact that we did not try what I would term more effective measures to stop transmission are fair points. Wide-spread cheap testing, ramping up massive manufacturing of real N95 respirators for the entire country, I think these are more plausibly effective techniques we did not do that are worthy of criticism.

abraae 6y ago
I don't like the xenophobic tone of the parent, but you are incorrect. > This would have entailed no one working at grocery stores, no deliveries, no travel, no global trade. I just don't buy that this was ever plausible for however long people suggest: 3 weeks, 6 weeks whatever. The experiences of (at least) New Zealand and Australia are clear evidence it is absolutely possible, without the absurd extremes you are talking about.
- Izkata 6y ago
  Both of which still have lockdowns. So no, they couldn't manage it either.
  - amluto 6y ago
    They periodically reimport it. If I had to guess, I would guess that COVID can be transmitted by fomites, especially if kept cold, but that it’s extremely rare. In a place like the US or Europe, this is insignificant: your chance of getting seriously sick due to touching something is negligible, and the rate of additional cases due to this effect is inconsequential for public health. But in AU or NZ, where the background rate is essentially zero, a single reintroduction is a big deal.

nickpp 6y ago

Hey, you know, if you ever get a bad disease, like an infection, here is your solution: just shut down your whole body for a while, completely stopping the blood supply carrying food and oxygen to your bacteria. Then when all the infecting bacteria are dead, just restart your body again. Easy, no?

s1artibartfast 6y ago

Try to get 350, million different people to pull in the direction of anything and you’ll have the same reaction.

goddess33 6y ago

nationalistic flamebait is not welcome on HN, dang will likely remove this.

at_a_remove 6y ago

Similarly, we could defund the police if everyone would just stop doing crime. And think of what we could do with the defense budget if we made some agreements about war! Any strategy which depends on complete cooperation of a large number of humans for success, well, I would short that stock.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

When people claim that a country should have "done it properly", they usually mean closed borders, that end up having to stay closed for the long haul to prevent COVID from re-entering the country. Personally, I find the long-term risks of closed borders in terms of rekindling nationalist sentiment and eroding international solidarity, to be far more of a threat than COVID. The pandemic will pass soon, but countries walling themselves off could have consequences that even our grandchildren might have to deal with.

spookthesunset 6y ago

That is patently false. The whole idea of lockdowns was to "flatten the curve" in order to prevent healthcare from collapsing. It was never, ever to stop outbreaks or stop covid. It was made quite explicit by "the experts" that everybody who was gonna get covid would do so and everybody who would die would do so. The area under the "death curve" was going to be exactly the same so long as healthcare didn't collapse. The goal was to literally slow the spread not stop it. Make it roll out slower to keep healthcare in check. This idea that if we locked down harder or people "behaved" we'd be done with covid is a complete lie. That was never the intent of these restrictions. Ever. I find it very curious how even after massive stockpiles of unused ventilators were donated and countless field hospitals were closed up after never seeing a single patient governors extended their stay-at-home orders. Despite it being shown that covid was never a true threat to healthcare, despite the sky-high IFR predictions being shown wrong (thankfully!), we let the goalpost shift to.... well... I still don't know what the goal is. We got very lucky having a vaccine delivered so quickly because without it, we'd have been drifting along aimlessly and things would have got very dark and ugly. > Americans absolutely refuse to work together Curious how many of the nations in Europe that "did it right" wound up getting major outbreaks regardless. Also curious how the curves of all regions basically mirror each other regardless of restrictions or "how serious they took it". Maybe, just maybe, humans aren't as in control of a widespread respiratory virus as they'd like to believe. I believe it is peak human arrogance to think we could somehow control a respiratory virus in this manner. In my opinion history will look upon all this the same way we look at our ancestors performing rain dances and goat sacrifices. They are all examples of meaningless rituals humans perform in order to fool themselves into believing they have more control over mother nature than they actually do.

dang 6y ago

Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar, regardless of which nation you have a problem with. It's emphatically not what this site is for. Moreover, we've had to warn you about it at least once in the past (as well as about guidelines breakage in general). That's not cool; please don't do it again. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673398. Edit: your account has been breaking the HN guidelines a ton lately. If you keep doing that we will have to ban you. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this.