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It's not a shame at all. Lockdowns have a price. Besides the economic price, I care mostly about the well being of people price. I live in Massachusetts in an a

It's not a shame at all. Lockdowns have a price. Besides the economic price, I care mostly about the well being of people price. I live in Massachusetts in an area where most people follow the guidelines about social distancing and masks. We had zero full lockdowns but we did have a stay at home advisory when it all started. During that time only essential businesses were open but people were free to go outside. Also, pretty much everyone besides essential workers moved to WFH and still are. Some schools had hybrid options and some were fully remote. This month almost all schools went back to fully in person after the governor of the state forced them to. Overall I feel we managed the pandemic fine so far without lockdowns. Sure, people died and I'm sure in much larger numbers than Australia. But if we ever need to experience something like this again, I would still prefer this over strict lockdowns after a few new cases like in AU. I'm not against strict lockdowns, there might be times when they are a good solution, but nothing longer than a couple of weeks.

doctor_eval 5y ago
When you talk about the cost of lockdown, I suspect you don’t understand the deal. My experience of Covid, which is the same for almost everyone in Australia, is nothing remotely like yours. For the vast majority of people living here, Covid is a minor inconvenience that doesn’t materially affect our day to day life. I meet friends at bars for drinks and dinner, my kids take public transport to school and go on school camps, I go to the office for work, and I’m even flying to Sydney this afternoon for a couple of days. Australia is basically operating normally with almost no restrictions. Situation normal. You seem to be saying that lockdown was too heavy a price to pay for the freedom I now enjoy, but I respectfully disagree. It was totally worth it. The only thing that I’m unhappy about was that Melbourne stuffed it up the first time and we paid heavily for that. But you know what? Still worth it.
- tinyhouse 5y ago
  Well, my life here is pretty much back to normal too. But primarily thanks to the vaccines. My question is how many lockdowns you had and the length of each lockdown to achieve the normal life you're having now. I'm really asking as I don't know the details.
  - austhrow743 5y ago
    I flew back in to the country in March 2020, did two weeks isolation, and life has been normal ever since. When I visited my mother in the hospital in October, I had to wear a mask. Which they were handing out at the entrance because no one has them. That's it. That is the extent corona virus restrictions impacted me here living in Australia. Now what they have done is kept me here living in Australia. Which has been a particularly big deal for my specific lifestyle in which I was living overseas in a dodgy visa abusing way, meaning I couldnt qualify for an exception to the international travel ban by showing I was legitimately living elsewhere. Day to day though its like it almost didnt exist except online.
  - doctor_eval 5y ago
    In Melbourne, we have been basically running at increasingly normal pace for about 5 or 6 months now, but most of the rest of the country has been "normal" for much longer. In Melbourne we have had three lockdowns, the first was a couple of weeks, the second was extremely long (several months; I think it was one of the longest hard lockdowns in the world), and the third was 5 days (2 of which were over a weekend). Importantly, the second lockdown was due to what seems to have been preventable problems, including a significant delay before enacting the lockdown itself; by the time we did it, the virus had taken a firm hold across the whole city (Melbourne's population is a bit over 5 million). If we had locked down a few weeks earlier, the duration of lockdown would have been much lower (easy to say in hindsight). That said, the rest of the county didn't suffer the same fate as Melbourne, and they only had to endure a few weeks of lockdowns at worst. I don't know the specifics from other states because I live in Melbourne. I think this parallels most of the rest of the world: had everyone agreed to one or two really good, solid, early lockdowns, much of the pandemic could have been avoided. The countries that did this - NZ, most of Australia and I think some of SE Asia - have not suffered nearly as much as the rest of the world. The second Melbourne lockdown was super hard on everyone, and of course we had government support in many (but not all) cases, but I still say it was totally worth it.
    - doctor_eval 5y ago
      I just thought it was probably worth adding that Victoria (2nd biggest state in Australia) has recorded a total of 820 deaths from Covid. That's the total. Not per day or per week. 820 people died from CV in Victoria, ever. And we were the worst state by far. People seem to be OK discussing hundreds of daily deaths from Covid as if that's something that can't be prevented, but it could have been. Our lockdowns have literally saved tens of thousands of lives here. https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/victorian-coronavirus-covid-19-data https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/victorian-coronavirus-covid-19-d...

doctor_eval 5y ago

When you talk about the cost of lockdown, I suspect you don’t understand the deal. My experience of Covid, which is the same for almost everyone in Australia, is nothing remotely like yours. For the vast majority of people living here, Covid is a minor inconvenience that doesn’t materially affect our day to day life. I meet friends at bars for drinks and dinner, my kids take public transport to school and go on school camps, I go to the office for work, and I’m even flying to Sydney this afternoon for a couple of days. Australia is basically operating normally with almost no restrictions. Situation normal. You seem to be saying that lockdown was too heavy a price to pay for the freedom I now enjoy, but I respectfully disagree. It was totally worth it. The only thing that I’m unhappy about was that Melbourne stuffed it up the first time and we paid heavily for that. But you know what? Still worth it.

tinyhouse 5y ago
Well, my life here is pretty much back to normal too. But primarily thanks to the vaccines. My question is how many lockdowns you had and the length of each lockdown to achieve the normal life you're having now. I'm really asking as I don't know the details.
- austhrow743 5y ago
  I flew back in to the country in March 2020, did two weeks isolation, and life has been normal ever since. When I visited my mother in the hospital in October, I had to wear a mask. Which they were handing out at the entrance because no one has them. That's it. That is the extent corona virus restrictions impacted me here living in Australia. Now what they have done is kept me here living in Australia. Which has been a particularly big deal for my specific lifestyle in which I was living overseas in a dodgy visa abusing way, meaning I couldnt qualify for an exception to the international travel ban by showing I was legitimately living elsewhere. Day to day though its like it almost didnt exist except online.
- doctor_eval 5y ago
  In Melbourne, we have been basically running at increasingly normal pace for about 5 or 6 months now, but most of the rest of the country has been "normal" for much longer. In Melbourne we have had three lockdowns, the first was a couple of weeks, the second was extremely long (several months; I think it was one of the longest hard lockdowns in the world), and the third was 5 days (2 of which were over a weekend). Importantly, the second lockdown was due to what seems to have been preventable problems, including a significant delay before enacting the lockdown itself; by the time we did it, the virus had taken a firm hold across the whole city (Melbourne's population is a bit over 5 million). If we had locked down a few weeks earlier, the duration of lockdown would have been much lower (easy to say in hindsight). That said, the rest of the county didn't suffer the same fate as Melbourne, and they only had to endure a few weeks of lockdowns at worst. I don't know the specifics from other states because I live in Melbourne. I think this parallels most of the rest of the world: had everyone agreed to one or two really good, solid, early lockdowns, much of the pandemic could have been avoided. The countries that did this - NZ, most of Australia and I think some of SE Asia - have not suffered nearly as much as the rest of the world. The second Melbourne lockdown was super hard on everyone, and of course we had government support in many (but not all) cases, but I still say it was totally worth it.
  - doctor_eval 5y ago
    I just thought it was probably worth adding that Victoria (2nd biggest state in Australia) has recorded a total of 820 deaths from Covid. That's the total. Not per day or per week. 820 people died from CV in Victoria, ever. And we were the worst state by far. People seem to be OK discussing hundreds of daily deaths from Covid as if that's something that can't be prevented, but it could have been. Our lockdowns have literally saved tens of thousands of lives here. https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/victorian-coronavirus-covid-19-data https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/victorian-coronavirus-covid-19-d...