5 ms·

Individual Choices, Not Lockdowns

15 points by mrfusion 5y ago

jasonlaramburu 5y ago
>Florida and Texas registered lower deaths per 100,000 than states with stringent, long-term restrictions like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts This often-touted talking point makes little actual sense. The tri-state area (NY,NJ,CT) was the first outbreak in the US. We didn’t yet know how to treat Covid properly, and had zero therapeutics, so naturally deaths were higher than in states who experienced much later outbreaks.
- swiley 5y ago
  My impression was that Washington (the state) was the first outbreak and they immediately took action in early march. NY was heavy handed but they also played a ton of games with it, that's why the authoritarian approach to most things fails.
  - valbaca 5y ago
    That is accurate and that they chose to ignore how successful Washington state's mandates have been is very cherry-picking
- necovek 5y ago
  And Florida and Texas coincidentally have a much larger share of warm days in which people are more likely to socialise outdoors anyway (where it's proven that transmission is far less likely). Not sure it matters, but also not sure it doesn't, so my point is that looking at a single factor is very much dishonest.
- tzs 5y ago
  Here's a graph of cumulative COVID deaths per 100k for the top 10 states (with New York highlighted), Texas, Florida, and Washington [1] that illustrates that. New York is high today (#2) because they got a large number of deaths in the first 100 days. After 100 days of COVID it was (all numbers are per 100k): 164 New York 17 Washington 16 Florida 8 Texas Where it stands now is: 276 New York 186 Texas 185 Florida 81 Washington That's a growth over the last 400 days of: 112 New York 178 Texas 168 Florida 73 Washington New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts curves are similar to New York's. [1] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-normalized&highlight=New%20York&show=10&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right&extra=Florida%2CTexas%2CWashington#states-normalized http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-...
auslegung 5y ago
I don’t think anyone thinks American handled this pandemic well. We royally screwed it up no matter what your political opinion. IMO our biggest error was conflicting information and guidance. Had everyone, from Trump down, set out clear, consistent, and simple guidelines for people to follow, we could have avoided lockdowns and had fewer deaths, not to mention far less political and personal contention.
- swiley 5y ago
  I'd disagree. I think most of the states have handled it better than say Canada or Australia.
  - thefz 5y ago
    Let's take deaths as an indicator of "pandemic handling". Australia had sub-1K total confirmed deaths which is a very very low value for a nation that large. Canada had 26,635; USA had 615,326. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat... Even single state figures are quite high: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103688/coronavirus-covid19-deaths-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103688/coronavirus-covi...
  - dazsnow 5y ago
    Depends what your definition of "better" is. If better = "killed more people", then sure... The US state with the lowest death rate is Hawaii with 38 deaths / 100,000 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi...). Compare that with Australia - 3.7 (https://covidlive.com.au/report/deaths-per-population https://covidlive.com.au/report/deaths-per-population) - Canada - 0.27 (https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-s...) - and countries with even stricter and longer-lasting lockdowns like Singapore - 0.00042 (https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/singapore/ https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...).
alkonaut 5y ago
This is like vaccinations. The key to avoiding mandatory vaccination (or de facto mandatory as it would be when required in schools, workplaces, public transport) is that people do it voluntarily. The same applies to maintaining restrictions and distancing. It might seem like a contradiction to be forced to volunteer, but, as the saying goes, it is what it is. The choice isn’t between observing the precautions or not, or taking the vaccine or not. The choice is between doing something voluntarily or being forced to.

15 points by mrfusion 5y ago

>Florida and Texas registered lower deaths per 100,000 than states with stringent, long-term restrictions like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts This often-touted talking point makes little actual sense. The tri-state area (NY,NJ,CT) was the first outbreak in the US. We didn’t yet know how to treat Covid properly, and had zero therapeutics, so naturally deaths were higher than in states who experienced much later outbreaks.

swiley 5y ago
My impression was that Washington (the state) was the first outbreak and they immediately took action in early march. NY was heavy handed but they also played a ton of games with it, that's why the authoritarian approach to most things fails.
- valbaca 5y ago
  That is accurate and that they chose to ignore how successful Washington state's mandates have been is very cherry-picking
necovek 5y ago
And Florida and Texas coincidentally have a much larger share of warm days in which people are more likely to socialise outdoors anyway (where it's proven that transmission is far less likely). Not sure it matters, but also not sure it doesn't, so my point is that looking at a single factor is very much dishonest.
tzs 5y ago
Here's a graph of cumulative COVID deaths per 100k for the top 10 states (with New York highlighted), Texas, Florida, and Washington [1] that illustrates that. New York is high today (#2) because they got a large number of deaths in the first 100 days. After 100 days of COVID it was (all numbers are per 100k): 164 New York 17 Washington 16 Florida 8 Texas Where it stands now is: 276 New York 186 Texas 185 Florida 81 Washington That's a growth over the last 400 days of: 112 New York 178 Texas 168 Florida 73 Washington New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts curves are similar to New York's. [1] http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-normalized&highlight=New%20York&show=10&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right&extra=Florida%2CTexas%2CWashington#states-normalized http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-...

auslegung 5y ago

I don’t think anyone thinks American handled this pandemic well. We royally screwed it up no matter what your political opinion. IMO our biggest error was conflicting information and guidance. Had everyone, from Trump down, set out clear, consistent, and simple guidelines for people to follow, we could have avoided lockdowns and had fewer deaths, not to mention far less political and personal contention.

swiley 5y ago
I'd disagree. I think most of the states have handled it better than say Canada or Australia.
- thefz 5y ago
  Let's take deaths as an indicator of "pandemic handling". Australia had sub-1K total confirmed deaths which is a very very low value for a nation that large. Canada had 26,635; USA had 615,326. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat... Even single state figures are quite high: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103688/coronavirus-covid19-deaths-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103688/coronavirus-covi...
- dazsnow 5y ago
  Depends what your definition of "better" is. If better = "killed more people", then sure... The US state with the lowest death rate is Hawaii with 38 deaths / 100,000 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covi...). Compare that with Australia - 3.7 (https://covidlive.com.au/report/deaths-per-population https://covidlive.com.au/report/deaths-per-population) - Canada - 0.27 (https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-summary-covid-19-cases.html https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/epidemiological-s...) - and countries with even stricter and longer-lasting lockdowns like Singapore - 0.00042 (https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/singapore/ https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...).

alkonaut 5y ago

This is like vaccinations. The key to avoiding mandatory vaccination (or de facto mandatory as it would be when required in schools, workplaces, public transport) is that people do it voluntarily. The same applies to maintaining restrictions and distancing. It might seem like a contradiction to be forced to volunteer, but, as the saying goes, it is what it is. The choice isn’t between observing the precautions or not, or taking the vaccine or not. The choice is between doing something voluntarily or being forced to.