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You could compare the excess deaths for New Zealand, South Korea, Australia and other countries that were able to prevent Sars-CoV-2 from spreading with strict

You could compare the excess deaths for New Zealand, South Korea, Australia and other countries that were able to prevent Sars-CoV-2 from spreading with strict lockdowns. Diagnostic delays are not caused by lockdowns. They are caused by an overwhelmed health care system or the fear of infection, both of which are caused by high incidence. You also need to consider the damage that long covid possibly do over the next 30 years. If only 1% of the working age population that got infected suffers permanent disability, then the cost-benefit analysis will show that a low incidence strategy is clearly the better strategy. Here are the statistics for Australia. They had a strict lockdown when cases where high. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provisional-mortality-statistics/latest-release https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provis...

aqme28 5y ago
Or even by state. Hawaii had a strict lockdown but low excess mortality. Arizona and Texas had weak lockdowns but high excess mortality.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  There's absolutely no correlation between lockdown policy and mortality. For example, click the link above and compare Florida to California. Florida has been wide open since last summer (over 9 months now) and has performed about the same as California. And you can cherry pick Hawaii, but New York and New Jersey have been among the most strict lockdowns and they find themselves in the top 3. It seems to help to be an island country or state though, or a geographically isolated region like South Korea or Alaska, as they can screen people coming into the country and there's not a lot of cross-pollination with tight border controls.
  - petertodd 5y ago
    > Florida has been wide open since last summer (over 9 months now) and has performed about the same as California. Remember that Florida has a significantly older population than California too. 2.1% of the population >85 years old vs 1.3%; 17.6% over 65 years old vs 10.6%. COVID deaths are very concentrated in the elderly. The CDC estimates that the 85+ age group has a 8700x higher chance an infection leading to death, and a 95x higher chance of infection leading to hospitalization, than the 5-17 age group. The article appears to be using non-age-adjusted excess deaths. So California and Florida being equal is a strong sign that California did significantly worse. https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/florida/demographic-statistics https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/florida/demographic-sta... https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/california/demographic-statistics https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/california/demographic-... https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-age.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investi...
    - melling 5y ago
      How much other causation have you looked into? For example population density? Miami is a small city of 500,000 people.
      - floxy 5y ago
        The Miami metropolitan area population is 6,000,000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistical_areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistic... ...with a density of 1004 people / sq. mi., compared to the NY metro area with a density of 5313 people / sq. mi.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area#combined_statistical_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area#com...
        melling 5y ago
        Yes, NY is clearly is densely populated. I guess I would look for the differences with California. LA has more people (13.2 million) but appears to be less densely populated with 550 people per sq mile. I didn’t follow California but I know Florida was offered as a place that not locking down worked. I can look into it a little more. Florida has a lot of cases, and most came after the first wave. The same with Texas.
  - melling 5y ago
    This is a falsehood that people have been promoting since last summer From the WSJ on July 16th, 2020, someone trying to promote the idea that it was only a Blue state problem: =======••• “Here are some real numbers to put things into context, and it's obvious the problem is certain incompetent blue state governors. As of today: Florida (population 23M) COVID deaths: 4,782 Texas (population 30M) COVID deaths: 3,561 New York (population 19M) Covid deaths: 25,014 New Jersey (population 9M) COVID deaths: 15,665” ===== I recently compared these numbers in early March I believe Florida: 31,523 for 26,741 additional deaths New Jersey: 23,521 for 7856 additional deaths New York: 48,410 for 23,396 additional deaths Texas: 45,274 for 41,713 additional deaths ——————- NY: 48,410/25,014 = 1.9 times more death FL: 31,523/4,782 = 6.5 times more death Florida and Texas lead in deaths after the first wave March 6, 2021 Florida: 31,523 for 26,741 additional deaths New Jersey: 23,521 for 7856 additional deaths New York: 48,410 for 23,396 additional deaths Texas: 45,274 for 41,713 additional deaths
  - titzer 5y ago
    Explain Melbourne, Australia.
    - incrudible 5y ago
      It stands to reason that actually locking people up in their homes for several weeks would have a significant effect on viral spread, especially if done early, in a wealthy country where people have a lot of individual living space. Most lockdowns are not like that, for practical reasons. They are a random basket of restrictions that go into effect when the virus has already spread enough to cause great concern. At that point, it is hard to discern whether any of these restrictions cause a significant effect, much less a net benefit.
      - titzer 5y ago
        So you are saying ineffective lockdowns are ineffective. I gave a specific example of Melbourne and I was implying a specific timeframe when their lockdown went into effect. They went from having uncontrolled community spread, with tens of thousands of infections, to actually zero. They did it by having a very detailed plan, strict enforcement, high compliance, and an excellent testing regime. They also had clear goals and thresholds for lifting restrictions and communicated them to the public. I generally agree that ineffective lockdowns mostly just slow down the spread. The spread picks up again exactly in proportion to restrictions being lifted. However, effective lockdowns have actually been able to eradicate the virus completely from whole areas: from Melbourne, from Victoria, from all of Australia, New Zealand, and several Asian countries. You need to be able to quarantine international travel and have high compliance. The places where the virus have been eradicated have to remain on high alert and remain extremely vigilant until they can roll out mass vaccination. I spent 10 months in Australia during the pandemic, 99% of the time stuck in the ACT. The extreme vigilance was contact tracing, social distancing, and some restrictions. There wasn't a mask wearing mandate, ever, because they never allowed uncontrolled community spread. The US and European countries cannot meet those criteria, so they have the virus simmering until they can roll out massive vaccination. The US and Europe were too slow to take the pandemic seriously because their political leaders rolled in BS and denial for months and seeded their idiot followers with denialism. It's too late for them, and the only way out is vaccination. And yet, some idiots are still rolling out conspiracy theories about vaccination and want to f** that up, too. It's so disappointing.
orangecat 5y ago
You also need to consider the damage that long covid possibly do over the next 30 years. Yes, and also the long term damage of lockdowns. Some children will be permanently harmed by the loss of education, and many people will be dealing with the effects of social isolation for quite a while.
redis_mlc 5y ago
> Diagnostic delays are not caused by lockdowns. They are caused by an overwhelmed health care system or the fear of infection, both of which are caused by high incidence. That's simply false. It was reported that a lot of US hospitals layed off elective staff through most of 2020.
xupybd 5y ago
To add some stats. In Au and NZ we had a big drop in flu cases https://info.flutracking.net/reports-2/new-zealand-reports/ https://info.flutracking.net/reports-2/new-zealand-reports/ Not sure what that did to the death rate.

aqme28 5y ago

Or even by state. Hawaii had a strict lockdown but low excess mortality. Arizona and Texas had weak lockdowns but high excess mortality.

chrisco255 5y ago
There's absolutely no correlation between lockdown policy and mortality. For example, click the link above and compare Florida to California. Florida has been wide open since last summer (over 9 months now) and has performed about the same as California. And you can cherry pick Hawaii, but New York and New Jersey have been among the most strict lockdowns and they find themselves in the top 3. It seems to help to be an island country or state though, or a geographically isolated region like South Korea or Alaska, as they can screen people coming into the country and there's not a lot of cross-pollination with tight border controls.
- petertodd 5y ago
  > Florida has been wide open since last summer (over 9 months now) and has performed about the same as California. Remember that Florida has a significantly older population than California too. 2.1% of the population >85 years old vs 1.3%; 17.6% over 65 years old vs 10.6%. COVID deaths are very concentrated in the elderly. The CDC estimates that the 85+ age group has a 8700x higher chance an infection leading to death, and a 95x higher chance of infection leading to hospitalization, than the 5-17 age group. The article appears to be using non-age-adjusted excess deaths. So California and Florida being equal is a strong sign that California did significantly worse. https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/florida/demographic-statistics https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/florida/demographic-sta... https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/california/demographic-statistics https://www.infoplease.com/us/census/california/demographic-... https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-age.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investi...
  - melling 5y ago
    How much other causation have you looked into? For example population density? Miami is a small city of 500,000 people.
    - floxy 5y ago
      The Miami metropolitan area population is 6,000,000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistical_areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistic... ...with a density of 1004 people / sq. mi., compared to the NY metro area with a density of 5313 people / sq. mi.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area#combined_statistical_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area#com...
      - melling 5y ago
        Yes, NY is clearly is densely populated. I guess I would look for the differences with California. LA has more people (13.2 million) but appears to be less densely populated with 550 people per sq mile. I didn’t follow California but I know Florida was offered as a place that not locking down worked. I can look into it a little more. Florida has a lot of cases, and most came after the first wave. The same with Texas.
- melling 5y ago
  This is a falsehood that people have been promoting since last summer From the WSJ on July 16th, 2020, someone trying to promote the idea that it was only a Blue state problem: =======••• “Here are some real numbers to put things into context, and it's obvious the problem is certain incompetent blue state governors. As of today: Florida (population 23M) COVID deaths: 4,782 Texas (population 30M) COVID deaths: 3,561 New York (population 19M) Covid deaths: 25,014 New Jersey (population 9M) COVID deaths: 15,665” ===== I recently compared these numbers in early March I believe Florida: 31,523 for 26,741 additional deaths New Jersey: 23,521 for 7856 additional deaths New York: 48,410 for 23,396 additional deaths Texas: 45,274 for 41,713 additional deaths ——————- NY: 48,410/25,014 = 1.9 times more death FL: 31,523/4,782 = 6.5 times more death Florida and Texas lead in deaths after the first wave March 6, 2021 Florida: 31,523 for 26,741 additional deaths New Jersey: 23,521 for 7856 additional deaths New York: 48,410 for 23,396 additional deaths Texas: 45,274 for 41,713 additional deaths
- titzer 5y ago
  Explain Melbourne, Australia.
  - incrudible 5y ago
    It stands to reason that actually locking people up in their homes for several weeks would have a significant effect on viral spread, especially if done early, in a wealthy country where people have a lot of individual living space. Most lockdowns are not like that, for practical reasons. They are a random basket of restrictions that go into effect when the virus has already spread enough to cause great concern. At that point, it is hard to discern whether any of these restrictions cause a significant effect, much less a net benefit.
    - titzer 5y ago
      So you are saying ineffective lockdowns are ineffective. I gave a specific example of Melbourne and I was implying a specific timeframe when their lockdown went into effect. They went from having uncontrolled community spread, with tens of thousands of infections, to actually zero. They did it by having a very detailed plan, strict enforcement, high compliance, and an excellent testing regime. They also had clear goals and thresholds for lifting restrictions and communicated them to the public. I generally agree that ineffective lockdowns mostly just slow down the spread. The spread picks up again exactly in proportion to restrictions being lifted. However, effective lockdowns have actually been able to eradicate the virus completely from whole areas: from Melbourne, from Victoria, from all of Australia, New Zealand, and several Asian countries. You need to be able to quarantine international travel and have high compliance. The places where the virus have been eradicated have to remain on high alert and remain extremely vigilant until they can roll out mass vaccination. I spent 10 months in Australia during the pandemic, 99% of the time stuck in the ACT. The extreme vigilance was contact tracing, social distancing, and some restrictions. There wasn't a mask wearing mandate, ever, because they never allowed uncontrolled community spread. The US and European countries cannot meet those criteria, so they have the virus simmering until they can roll out massive vaccination. The US and Europe were too slow to take the pandemic seriously because their political leaders rolled in BS and denial for months and seeded their idiot followers with denialism. It's too late for them, and the only way out is vaccination. And yet, some idiots are still rolling out conspiracy theories about vaccination and want to f** that up, too. It's so disappointing.

orangecat 5y ago

You also need to consider the damage that long covid possibly do over the next 30 years. Yes, and also the long term damage of lockdowns. Some children will be permanently harmed by the loss of education, and many people will be dealing with the effects of social isolation for quite a while.

redis_mlc 5y ago

> Diagnostic delays are not caused by lockdowns. They are caused by an overwhelmed health care system or the fear of infection, both of which are caused by high incidence. That's simply false. It was reported that a lot of US hospitals layed off elective staff through most of 2020.

xupybd 5y ago

To add some stats. In Au and NZ we had a big drop in flu cases https://info.flutracking.net/reports-2/new-zealand-reports/ https://info.flutracking.net/reports-2/new-zealand-reports/ Not sure what that did to the death rate.