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WHO has been consistent about being anti-lockdown during all of Covid. There's limited evidence they work more than a short-term delay tactic and cause tremend

WHO has been consistent about being anti-lockdown during all of Covid. There's limited evidence they work more than a short-term delay tactic and cause tremendous harm.

spaetzleesser 6y ago
I thought super hard, but localized and short term work the best? Seems most countries made only half hearted efforts.
vkou 6y ago
Explain China, Vietnam, New Zealand, Australia, and Korea. Not all of those countries are islands (The UK is one, and you may note that it's not on the list.) But all of those countries instituted short, hard lockdowns, and relaxed them after bringing local cases to zero. Around here, we institute half-assed lockdowns, that are lifted when enough people complain about them (only to come back, as cases surge). Maybe that's why they don't work for us - because we are politically and socially incapable of dealing with even a few weeks of hardship.
- zhaksbs 6y ago
  China literally welded people in their homes. They probably lied about their numbers. New Zeland, and Australia had few cases when they did lock down, and are islands. Korea has a very disciplined population compared to the West. Really you should be comparing the US to Europe. The EU didnt do much better, but was far more draconian. Or within the states. But anyway, i never know if people are serious when they propose the China or Australian model. Those were brutal and Im glad to be voting for a constitutional amendment next week to limit the governor's lockdown authority.
  - vkou 6y ago
    > But anyway, i never know if people are serious when they propose the China or Australian model. Those were brutal and Im glad to be voting for a constitutional amendment next week to limit the governor's lockdown authority. I never know if people are serious when they suggest that a few hundred thousand dead is a worthwhile footgun-sacrifice to escape the draconian rule to which Australians and New Zealanders were subjected to over the past year. I'm generally a bit leery of ideological arguments that necessitate sacrificing those numbers of people for some intangible, abstract good. But if we are going to go down that road, can I get a say in which people we will get to sacrifice to meet that ideological objective?
    - zhaksbs 5y ago
      Death is not the worst things in life, an unreasonably large fear of death is much worse. A death cowering in fear, or full of regret is pathetic. Who do you think you are picking who dies like a tyrant doling favors? Do you not think I have elderly loved ones I worry about? Do you think I would enjoy getting COVID myself, or potentially orphaning my daughters? No! I just refuse to blow my kids mind with endless lock downs. My obligation is to take COVID seriously, and do my utmost not to get sick myself. If I do, ill lock myself up in the basement for as long as it takes. But with my obligations I also have rights, and Ill be damned if someone too scared to have ever pondered their own mortality will ruin life for me without protest.
- rhino369 6y ago
  Korea didn't have national lockdowns and I don't think China did either. Vietnam's lock-downs were all harsh, but extremely short (2 weeks). The common denominator in all covid success cases seems to be an effective and strong contract tracing and quarantine protocol. That is the tried and true method used to defeat outbreaks. If you have a good contract tracing program, a short-hard lockdown can be used to delay the outbreak while your tracers find and isolate the infected. But without an effective contract tracing program (and I'm not talking about some bullshit smartphone app, but public health contract tracers with the power to actually do something), the lockdown is just a delay tactic. Even if we got down to 0 cases in April 2020 in the USA, the virus would work its way back in within weeks, if not days. Without a tracing program that works, we'd be back to ten thousand cases in a few months. All those countries have tight border controls. We get hundreds of thousands of illegal border crosses ever year. We'd have to deploy the military along the Mexican border and probably Canada too. I don't think a single state has really tried to ramp up contract tracing efforts to the required levels. And Australia had a several month long lockdown to get defeat a relatively small, isolated breakout. The bigger the outbreak the longer the lockdown is needed. And the longer the lockdown, the less severe it can realistically be. I accepted "don't have any social visits" for 6 weeks, but I wouldn't comply if they asked for 6 months. You can close factories for a couple weeks, but not for 6 months.
  - vkou 6y ago
    They didn't have national lockdowns, and neither did the US. They had regional lockdowns early in the pandemic. The US... Had a patchwork of half-assed regional lockdowns, that came weeks late. > All those countries have tight border controls. We get hundreds of thousands of illegal border crosses ever year. We'd have to deploy the military along the Mexican border and probably Canada too. The overwhelming majority of border cases in the US did not come from illegal crossings in Mexico. They came from legal crossings through controlled borders, because the US did not implement any quarantine control on inbound travelers. It asked for travelers to self-quarantine as a courtesy, with no verification or enforcement, with predictable results. It's true that lockdowns without contact tracing just delay the problem. The US has failed at that too. If you caught COVID in April, chances are, you'd have no idea who you caught it from. It would have been difficult to engineer a more spectacular disaster, if we tried. You need two parts to this equation. Lockdown, and contact tracing. Both are required, and it's disingenuous to say that lockdowns don't work. It's fair to say that they don't work as we implemented them. Our implementation of them is not the only implementation of them.
- neither_color 6y ago
  I agree with the last point and I don't think it's a bad thing. I'm against lockdowns period. I'm not against vaccines, not against masks, but I don't want this administration, the last administration, or any other to have the power to put us on indefinite house arrest. This IS a hill I wont budge from. With China, we don't have enough information to make the claim that they under-reported deaths. If you CTRL-F China in the OP data on them is absent. I'm a bit surprised that the author could extrapolate a gap between reporting and actual deaths for every other country except that one. As for comparing EU and the UK to Australia and New Zealand, that's more easily explained by the much higher air traffic volume between these countries and covid hotspots early on. In short, the combination of being "islands" with limited ports of entry and smaller passenger volume meant that early border closures could be much more feasible and effective. Korea for all intents and purposes is an "island" in this comparison as well, in that on 3 sides it's surrounded by water and its northern border has no ports of entry. A short, early response with entry closures and contact tracing does seem to be key, but I don't agree with the notion that we need to emulate their lockdowns. I'd rather wear a mask forever than be like them. The UK got the worst of both worlds since they got stricter lockdowns than the US without getting it under control. The decision to go for zero and stop all social life in order to get down to zero deaths from all covid is commendable but not our obligation. Our duty was to stop from overwhelming our medical system only, not to go for zero by giving up all social life and the economy.
  - worik 5y ago
    Golly. If that is a hill you will not budge from it may be a hill you die on. All the cherry picking data in the world will not help you if you get sick. I am really sorry that some abstract principal becomes a hill to die on.
    - zhaksbs 5y ago
      Ya, i think thats what he meant. Hes willing to do all the reasonable things and all the unreasonable theatrics but he refuses to be at homw-arrest. I cant speak for the OP, but for those of us who have given life and death some thought, lockdowns are worse than death.

WHO has been consistent about being anti-lockdown during all of Covid. There's limited evidence they work more than a short-term delay tactic and cause tremendous harm.

spaetzleesser 6y ago

I thought super hard, but localized and short term work the best? Seems most countries made only half hearted efforts.

vkou 6y ago

Explain China, Vietnam, New Zealand, Australia, and Korea. Not all of those countries are islands (The UK is one, and you may note that it's not on the list.) But all of those countries instituted short, hard lockdowns, and relaxed them after bringing local cases to zero. Around here, we institute half-assed lockdowns, that are lifted when enough people complain about them (only to come back, as cases surge). Maybe that's why they don't work for us - because we are politically and socially incapable of dealing with even a few weeks of hardship.

zhaksbs 6y ago
China literally welded people in their homes. They probably lied about their numbers. New Zeland, and Australia had few cases when they did lock down, and are islands. Korea has a very disciplined population compared to the West. Really you should be comparing the US to Europe. The EU didnt do much better, but was far more draconian. Or within the states. But anyway, i never know if people are serious when they propose the China or Australian model. Those were brutal and Im glad to be voting for a constitutional amendment next week to limit the governor's lockdown authority.
- vkou 6y ago
  > But anyway, i never know if people are serious when they propose the China or Australian model. Those were brutal and Im glad to be voting for a constitutional amendment next week to limit the governor's lockdown authority. I never know if people are serious when they suggest that a few hundred thousand dead is a worthwhile footgun-sacrifice to escape the draconian rule to which Australians and New Zealanders were subjected to over the past year. I'm generally a bit leery of ideological arguments that necessitate sacrificing those numbers of people for some intangible, abstract good. But if we are going to go down that road, can I get a say in which people we will get to sacrifice to meet that ideological objective?
  - zhaksbs 5y ago
    Death is not the worst things in life, an unreasonably large fear of death is much worse. A death cowering in fear, or full of regret is pathetic. Who do you think you are picking who dies like a tyrant doling favors? Do you not think I have elderly loved ones I worry about? Do you think I would enjoy getting COVID myself, or potentially orphaning my daughters? No! I just refuse to blow my kids mind with endless lock downs. My obligation is to take COVID seriously, and do my utmost not to get sick myself. If I do, ill lock myself up in the basement for as long as it takes. But with my obligations I also have rights, and Ill be damned if someone too scared to have ever pondered their own mortality will ruin life for me without protest.
rhino369 6y ago
Korea didn't have national lockdowns and I don't think China did either. Vietnam's lock-downs were all harsh, but extremely short (2 weeks). The common denominator in all covid success cases seems to be an effective and strong contract tracing and quarantine protocol. That is the tried and true method used to defeat outbreaks. If you have a good contract tracing program, a short-hard lockdown can be used to delay the outbreak while your tracers find and isolate the infected. But without an effective contract tracing program (and I'm not talking about some bullshit smartphone app, but public health contract tracers with the power to actually do something), the lockdown is just a delay tactic. Even if we got down to 0 cases in April 2020 in the USA, the virus would work its way back in within weeks, if not days. Without a tracing program that works, we'd be back to ten thousand cases in a few months. All those countries have tight border controls. We get hundreds of thousands of illegal border crosses ever year. We'd have to deploy the military along the Mexican border and probably Canada too. I don't think a single state has really tried to ramp up contract tracing efforts to the required levels. And Australia had a several month long lockdown to get defeat a relatively small, isolated breakout. The bigger the outbreak the longer the lockdown is needed. And the longer the lockdown, the less severe it can realistically be. I accepted "don't have any social visits" for 6 weeks, but I wouldn't comply if they asked for 6 months. You can close factories for a couple weeks, but not for 6 months.
- vkou 6y ago
  They didn't have national lockdowns, and neither did the US. They had regional lockdowns early in the pandemic. The US... Had a patchwork of half-assed regional lockdowns, that came weeks late. > All those countries have tight border controls. We get hundreds of thousands of illegal border crosses ever year. We'd have to deploy the military along the Mexican border and probably Canada too. The overwhelming majority of border cases in the US did not come from illegal crossings in Mexico. They came from legal crossings through controlled borders, because the US did not implement any quarantine control on inbound travelers. It asked for travelers to self-quarantine as a courtesy, with no verification or enforcement, with predictable results. It's true that lockdowns without contact tracing just delay the problem. The US has failed at that too. If you caught COVID in April, chances are, you'd have no idea who you caught it from. It would have been difficult to engineer a more spectacular disaster, if we tried. You need two parts to this equation. Lockdown, and contact tracing. Both are required, and it's disingenuous to say that lockdowns don't work. It's fair to say that they don't work as we implemented them. Our implementation of them is not the only implementation of them.
neither_color 6y ago
I agree with the last point and I don't think it's a bad thing. I'm against lockdowns period. I'm not against vaccines, not against masks, but I don't want this administration, the last administration, or any other to have the power to put us on indefinite house arrest. This IS a hill I wont budge from. With China, we don't have enough information to make the claim that they under-reported deaths. If you CTRL-F China in the OP data on them is absent. I'm a bit surprised that the author could extrapolate a gap between reporting and actual deaths for every other country except that one. As for comparing EU and the UK to Australia and New Zealand, that's more easily explained by the much higher air traffic volume between these countries and covid hotspots early on. In short, the combination of being "islands" with limited ports of entry and smaller passenger volume meant that early border closures could be much more feasible and effective. Korea for all intents and purposes is an "island" in this comparison as well, in that on 3 sides it's surrounded by water and its northern border has no ports of entry. A short, early response with entry closures and contact tracing does seem to be key, but I don't agree with the notion that we need to emulate their lockdowns. I'd rather wear a mask forever than be like them. The UK got the worst of both worlds since they got stricter lockdowns than the US without getting it under control. The decision to go for zero and stop all social life in order to get down to zero deaths from all covid is commendable but not our obligation. Our duty was to stop from overwhelming our medical system only, not to go for zero by giving up all social life and the economy.
- worik 5y ago
  Golly. If that is a hill you will not budge from it may be a hill you die on. All the cherry picking data in the world will not help you if you get sick. I am really sorry that some abstract principal becomes a hill to die on.
  - zhaksbs 5y ago
    Ya, i think thats what he meant. Hes willing to do all the reasonable things and all the unreasonable theatrics but he refuses to be at homw-arrest. I cant speak for the OP, but for those of us who have given life and death some thought, lockdowns are worse than death.