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On the other hand Covid-19 would have killed many more people directly if action hadn't been taken to mitigate it's spread. Probably exponentially more people,

On the other hand Covid-19 would have killed many more people directly if action hadn't been taken to mitigate it's spread. Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. In other words, the comparison isn't between how many people Covid-19 did kill and how many preventative measures did. It's between how many it would have killed and how many preventative measures did. While there's a lot of uncertainty in how many people Covid-19 would have killed, it's still certainly higher than the preventative measures.

hedora 5y ago
In the US, 33-50% of the population apparently had antibodies pre-vaccination, and we apparently did a terrible job keeping it out of nursing homes (so the percentage that caught it that died was higher than it would have been across the whole population). So, it would have killed 2-3x more people, max. There were strategies that were developed after the 1918 pandemic that probably would have saved more people than the lockdown at much lower cost, but they were ignored by the politicians. The basic idea was to focus all resources on protecting the vulnerable, and let the disease run its course quickly. Effectively protecting the vulnerable during extended lockdowns is extremely difficult, and the COVID lockdown was no exception.
- majormajor 5y ago
  > So, it would have killed 2-3x more people, max. You are very cavalier with somewhere around 1.1-1.6 million extra deaths, to date. That's your GOOD number? If that's your anti-intervention argument, I'm unconvinced. Saving a million lives is worth a lot to me.
- sgt101 5y ago
  >In the US, 33-50% of the population apparently had antibodies pre-vaccination Where did that number come from? I have read more like 8% (https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)32009-2/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)32009-2/full...) So - 2 to 3x... Nope. 8 - 10x. What I want to know is why you have constructed this belief and want to propagate it when it is refuted by a google search in 10 seconds flat?
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    I wonder if the theory that previously infected people are reacting more strongly to the first doses is true? I had no real reaction to the first one and a day of increased fatigue so far with the second. Anecdotally, many more people are having stronger reactions to the second.
  - wk_end 5y ago
    Your article is from last September, using data from last July. It only takes ten seconds to google, but I guess it takes a few more to check timestamps or think critically about the results. Using more current antibody data, the CDC released updated estimates yesterday [0] that there have been ~115 million actual COVID infections in the US. That makes the 2x-3x number pretty reasonable (especially since herd immunity is supposed to kick in around 70%). [0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
- runako 5y ago
  > 2-3x more people, max Rounding, that's possibly another 1-2 million people. Those are big numbers! Also one quibble in that most of the US did not have an extended lockdown. Here in GA ours lasted basically a month. As others have said, people voluntarily stayed home, in part because the exponents of letting the disease "run its course" tended to exhibit a level of comfort with millions of deaths that perhaps is not widely shared in the population.
spookthesunset 5y ago
> Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. It will be decades before we know the answer to this, if we ever do. Trying to justify these lockdowns while in the middle of the storm is fools errand. Heads are running way to hot and brains aren’t thinking clearly. What we’ve done over the last year represents one of the largest uncontrolled public health experiments ever performed. The best part is all the billions caught up in the experiment never consented and many don’t even know it was an experiment. Society has never, ever had a pandemic plan that includes what we’ve done over the 14 months. Only through the passage of time, when all the people who instituted these policies are no longer with us and all the costs of these lockdowns will be laid bare, will history truly be able to judge our actions. (Personally I think history will take an incredibly dim view of lockdowns and those who enacted them)
- allturtles 5y ago
  You are talking out of both sides of your mouth. How is it that people who think the lockdowns were net beneficial need to wait 'decades' to decide, but you're allowed to conclude now that they were a terrible idea? It seems to me we should all state our positions now with the information we have available now, and let the future take care of itself.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    Because he/she stated it as a personal opinion while the other person said it as a matter of fact that couldn't be questioned. I'll go a step further and actually suggest that authoritarian lockdown measure haven't done as much as they've been touted as doing. This is pretty easy to see by comparing states with less lockdown measures vs. ones that went full economy shutdown. Most of the "open" states aren't any worse off than the ones who went lockdown crazy and in some cases they're actually better off when you look at spread and death.
    - deeg 5y ago
      What states are you comparing? Massachusetts and NYC locked down pretty hard and their post-April numbers look pretty good compared to, say, Texas, Florida, and South Dakota.
sgt101 5y ago
I think, very sadly, that India is giving us an insight now. It must be remembered that the situation in India is into a society with some immunity from earlier infections and also some immunity from vaccination (I think ~10% combined) which muddies the water a bit. But, still the picture of an unmoderated c19 epidemic is horrifying.
- petertodd 5y ago
  Something I haven't found is detailed breakdowns of who is actually being infected this time around. India did have very strict lockdowns. Yet, very high rates of antibodies were also measured in some areas. Those strict lockdowns may have been successful in shielding some of the population from covid, and that part of the population is getting infected now. India is a very unequal society, with a very wide range of wealth present in the same areas. In the US in some lockdown states there have been dramatic differences between infection rates between different socioeconomic levels. While in other states that were more open, that has tended to be less true.
rimliu 5y ago
Not sure. Sweden had no strict lockdowns. No mask mandates (only recommendation to use one in public transport during rush hour). They also had a lot of deaths in nursing homes when the COVID first hit. Meanwhile my country (Lithuania) was in strict lockdown last spring and is still in lockdown from the beginning of November. It was made stricter mid-December and only recently some restrictions started to be dropped. So while in strict lockdown we managed to catch-up and surpass Sweden by the number of deaths per million.

hedora 5y ago

In the US, 33-50% of the population apparently had antibodies pre-vaccination, and we apparently did a terrible job keeping it out of nursing homes (so the percentage that caught it that died was higher than it would have been across the whole population). So, it would have killed 2-3x more people, max. There were strategies that were developed after the 1918 pandemic that probably would have saved more people than the lockdown at much lower cost, but they were ignored by the politicians. The basic idea was to focus all resources on protecting the vulnerable, and let the disease run its course quickly. Effectively protecting the vulnerable during extended lockdowns is extremely difficult, and the COVID lockdown was no exception.

majormajor 5y ago
> So, it would have killed 2-3x more people, max. You are very cavalier with somewhere around 1.1-1.6 million extra deaths, to date. That's your GOOD number? If that's your anti-intervention argument, I'm unconvinced. Saving a million lives is worth a lot to me.
sgt101 5y ago
>In the US, 33-50% of the population apparently had antibodies pre-vaccination Where did that number come from? I have read more like 8% (https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)32009-2/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)32009-2/full...) So - 2 to 3x... Nope. 8 - 10x. What I want to know is why you have constructed this belief and want to propagate it when it is refuted by a google search in 10 seconds flat?
- maxerickson 5y ago
  I wonder if the theory that previously infected people are reacting more strongly to the first doses is true? I had no real reaction to the first one and a day of increased fatigue so far with the second. Anecdotally, many more people are having stronger reactions to the second.
- wk_end 5y ago
  Your article is from last September, using data from last July. It only takes ten seconds to google, but I guess it takes a few more to check timestamps or think critically about the results. Using more current antibody data, the CDC released updated estimates yesterday [0] that there have been ~115 million actual COVID infections in the US. That makes the 2x-3x number pretty reasonable (especially since herd immunity is supposed to kick in around 70%). [0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
runako 5y ago
> 2-3x more people, max Rounding, that's possibly another 1-2 million people. Those are big numbers! Also one quibble in that most of the US did not have an extended lockdown. Here in GA ours lasted basically a month. As others have said, people voluntarily stayed home, in part because the exponents of letting the disease "run its course" tended to exhibit a level of comfort with millions of deaths that perhaps is not widely shared in the population.

spookthesunset 5y ago

> Probably exponentially more people, based on how viruses typically spread. It will be decades before we know the answer to this, if we ever do. Trying to justify these lockdowns while in the middle of the storm is fools errand. Heads are running way to hot and brains aren’t thinking clearly. What we’ve done over the last year represents one of the largest uncontrolled public health experiments ever performed. The best part is all the billions caught up in the experiment never consented and many don’t even know it was an experiment. Society has never, ever had a pandemic plan that includes what we’ve done over the 14 months. Only through the passage of time, when all the people who instituted these policies are no longer with us and all the costs of these lockdowns will be laid bare, will history truly be able to judge our actions. (Personally I think history will take an incredibly dim view of lockdowns and those who enacted them)

allturtles 5y ago
You are talking out of both sides of your mouth. How is it that people who think the lockdowns were net beneficial need to wait 'decades' to decide, but you're allowed to conclude now that they were a terrible idea? It seems to me we should all state our positions now with the information we have available now, and let the future take care of itself.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  Because he/she stated it as a personal opinion while the other person said it as a matter of fact that couldn't be questioned. I'll go a step further and actually suggest that authoritarian lockdown measure haven't done as much as they've been touted as doing. This is pretty easy to see by comparing states with less lockdown measures vs. ones that went full economy shutdown. Most of the "open" states aren't any worse off than the ones who went lockdown crazy and in some cases they're actually better off when you look at spread and death.
  - deeg 5y ago
    What states are you comparing? Massachusetts and NYC locked down pretty hard and their post-April numbers look pretty good compared to, say, Texas, Florida, and South Dakota.

sgt101 5y ago

I think, very sadly, that India is giving us an insight now. It must be remembered that the situation in India is into a society with some immunity from earlier infections and also some immunity from vaccination (I think ~10% combined) which muddies the water a bit. But, still the picture of an unmoderated c19 epidemic is horrifying.

petertodd 5y ago
Something I haven't found is detailed breakdowns of who is actually being infected this time around. India did have very strict lockdowns. Yet, very high rates of antibodies were also measured in some areas. Those strict lockdowns may have been successful in shielding some of the population from covid, and that part of the population is getting infected now. India is a very unequal society, with a very wide range of wealth present in the same areas. In the US in some lockdown states there have been dramatic differences between infection rates between different socioeconomic levels. While in other states that were more open, that has tended to be less true.

rimliu 5y ago

Not sure. Sweden had no strict lockdowns. No mask mandates (only recommendation to use one in public transport during rush hour). They also had a lot of deaths in nursing homes when the COVID first hit. Meanwhile my country (Lithuania) was in strict lockdown last spring and is still in lockdown from the beginning of November. It was made stricter mid-December and only recently some restrictions started to be dropped. So while in strict lockdown we managed to catch-up and surpass Sweden by the number of deaths per million.